A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in english and vietnamese = phân tích đối chiếu bổ ngữ trước của cụm danh từ trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt

A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese

vinh university
foreign language department
=== ===

trÞnh thÞ minh

A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun
phrases in English and vietnamese
(phân tích đối chiếu bổ ngữ trớc của cụm
danh từ trong tiếng anh và tiÕng viƯt )

Graduation thesis
Field: linguistics

Vinh, may 2009
= ?@ =
TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my hearty gratitude to Mrs. Ngun
ThÞ Kim Anh, MA who supervised me to finish this graduation thesis. During
the time when I was doing my graduation paper, she has helped me with

enthusiastic

guidance,

adequate

help,

and

especially

invaluable

encouragement. The paper would not have been completed without her
direction, instruction, and especially the generous consultation.
I would also like to say my thankfulness to my lecturers, especially Mrs.
Cao Thị Phơng at the Foreign language Department, Vinh University for her
books, reference books, and graduation papers. From those materials, I could
approach to different sources of knowledge.
My thanks also go to 32 students from the course 47 of Foreign Language
Department and pupils from Thanh Hoa Intern Ethenic High School for their
enthusiasm and participation in this study.
I am also grateful to my family, my relatives, and my friends who
comforted me and helped me a lot. My parents advised me to concentrate on
my study and supported me whenever I met some obstacles. My friends lent
me lost of useful materials.
In my opinion, learning is a long process in which the teachers play an
important role in helping students reach to the final study target. I am indebted
to the teachers of my university, especially my teachers of Foreign language

Department for their comprehensive lessons as well as their encouragement.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge to all.
Vinh, May 2009
TrÞnh ThÞ Minh

TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese

Abstract
This study aims to discuss the premodification of noun phrases in English
and in Vietnamese and their impact upon teaching and learning English in the
Vietnamese situation. Attempts have been to state the similarities and
differences in premodification of noun phrases – in the two languages and
raise and solve some difficulties and problems arising particularly from
differences between English and Vietnamese.
Finally, some suggestions are made for those who may be responsible for
teaching English as a Foreign Language to younger pupils as well as adults, or
to students at universities or colleges.

TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English

and Vietnamese

Abbreviations
E.g.

: For example

Premo

: premodification

Postmo

: postmodification

etc.

: et cetera

i.e

: it means that

*

: impossible

=>

: entail

Table of contents
Page

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
Acknowledgements.........................................................................i
Abstract...................................................................................................ii
Abbreviations.......................................................................................iii
Table of contents.............................................................................iv
Part A: Introduction.......................................................................1
1. Rationale of the study..................................................................................1
2. Aims of the study........................................................................................2
3. Scope of the study........................................................................................2
4. Methods of the study...................................................................................3
5. Design of the study......................................................................................3
Part B: Development........................................................................4
Chaper 1: Theoretical Background..........................................4

1.1. An overview on Contrastive analysis.......................................................4
1.2. Noun phrases in English...........................................................................5
1.2.1. Definition...............................................................................................5
1.2.2. Parts of the noun phrases.......................................................................6
1.3. Noun phrases in Vietnamese...................................................................9
1.3.1. Definition...............................................................................................9

1.3.2. Part of the noun phrases........................................................................9
Chapter

2:

Premodification of noun phrases in

English
and
Vietnamese
.........................................................................................................................
12
2.1. Premodification of noun phrases in English............................................12
2.1.1. Types of premodification items.............................................................12
2.1.2. Premodification by Adjectives..............................................................14
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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
2.1.3. Premodification by Participles..............................................................14
2.1.4. Premodification by Genitive..................................................................15
2.1.5. Premodification by Genitives without Head.........................................16
2.1.6. Premodification by Nouns.....................................................................16
2.1.7. Multiple premodification.......................................................................17
2.2. Premodification of noun phrases in Vietnamese......................................18
2.2.1. The classifier c¸i....................................................................................19
2.2.2. Quantity words......................................................................................21

2.2.3. Fixed order Words.................................................................................23
Chapter 3. A contrastive analysis of premodification

of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese
.........................................................................................................................
25
3.1. Adjectives.................................................................................................26
3.2. Participles.................................................................................................29
3.3. Genitives...................................................................................................32
3.4. Nouns........................................................................................................33
3.5. Quantity....................................................................................................34
Chapter 4. Some suggestions for teaching english noun

phrases
to
Vietnamese
learners
.........................................................................................................................
36
4.1. Mistakes in using noun phrases................................................................36
4.2. Suggestions to the problem.......................................................................37
Part C: Conclusion..........................................................................................41

1. Concluding remarks.....................................................................................41
2. Suggestions for further studies....................................................................42

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
References.......................................................................................................43

Appendix........................................................................................................

Part A: introduction
1. Rationale of the study
English is the most popular language in the world. It plays an important
role in our social-economic life of human beings. Indeed, in the minds of
many people, there is no longer an issue. They argue that English has already
become a world knowledge by virtue of the political and economic progress
made by English speaking nations in the past 200 years. It is now the main
language of books, newspapers, airports, international business and academic
conferences, science technology, medicine, diplomacy, sports, international
competition, pop music and advertising.
In order to speed up the country’s economy, and to improve living
standards as soon as possible, it is very necessary for scientists, technicians
and engineers to learn and acquire English so as to keep up date with the latest
developments in technology taking place in the world. Learning and teaching
English, reading with comprehension or translating material from English into
Vietnamese or vice versa, always create difficulties for learners particularly
because of the differences between English and Vietnamese.
There are differences in phonology, vocabulary and grammar. In order to
help learners acquire a better knowledge of English, it is of great importance to
predict difficulties arising from the differences between the two languages and
solve them.
In English grammar, word combination in phrase is considered to be one
of the most difficult phenomena.

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
For instance, they can not tell which of the following phrases is true or
false.
E.g. “The boy selling car”
“The boy who sells car”
Noun phrase is one of the most important word groups carrying much
semantic weight. We ourselves sometimes make confusion in using English
noun phrases. To Vietnamese, noun phrase is different. In order to distinguish
this issue, in this graduation thesis, we have decided to choose the topic “A
contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and
Vietnamese”. Through contrastive analysis, we can enrich our knowledge
about premodificaton of noun phrases in both languages in order to help
students learn English well.
We hope that this study will contribute a small part in teaching and
learning noun phrases.
2. Aims of the study
The thesis targets to:
- Giving a systematical presentation of premodification of noun phrases in
English and Vietnamese.
- Making a contrast between English and Vietnamese premodification of
noun phrases and a part from that, find their similarities and differences.
- Giving out some suggestions for teaching noun phrases to Vietnamese
learners.

3. Scope of the study
Noun phrase is an important and complicated part of English Grammar in
English. Besides, due to constraints as well as the framework of a graduation
thesis, it is impossible to touch all the differences and similarities in syntactic
structures. In this study, we only mention some common features of
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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
premodification of English and Vietnamese then a contrastive analysis of
English and Vietnamese language.
4. Methods of the study
With the aims above, in the course of writing paper, we have followed the
procedure below:
- Describing theoretical premises of premodification of noun phrases.
- Collecting and classifying materials, analyzing and synthesizing all
information about premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese.
- Contrasting English premodification of noun phrases with those in
Vietnamese to find out the differences and similarities between them.
5. Design of the study
Except for the acknowledgement, the abstract, the table of contents as
well as the references, appendix, this study consists of three parts.
Part A entitled “Introduction” outlines the background of the
Graduation Thesis. In this part, we present some information about the reasons
for choosing the subject, the aims, the scope, the methods and the design of the
study.
Part B entitled “Development” includes four chapters. Chapter 1 deals

with the theoretical background. Chapter 2 is about Premodification of noun
phrases in English and Vietnamese. Chapter 3 gives out A contrastive analysis
of Premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese. Chapter 4
provides Some suggestions for Teaching noun phrases to Vietnamese learners.
Part C entitled “Conclusion” expresses a brief overview on the
achievements of the thesis and gives some suggestions for further studies.
References
Appendix

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
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Part B: development
Chapter 1
Theoretical Background
1.1. An overview on Contrastive analysis
Nowadays, the distances among countries are day by day shortened by
the development of technology and information and exchanges are greatly
increasing, which lead to the demand for learning and teaching of foreign
languages and interpretation.
Contrastive Analysis (CA) is to compare two or more languages
regardless of whether they are related to each other and of course, to find out
the differences and similarities between them. Thus, it plays an important role
in translating, teaching and learning a foreign language.
There are two kinds of CA: the contrast of languages and the contrast of

signs. The contrast of languages is comparing one language to another, of
which is the base and the other is the means of contrast. This kind aims at
finding out their specific features. The contrast of signs is the study on the
inside relationships of languages such as categories, structural systems and so
on.
In practice, CA has its usages as follows:
- The ability of discovering a great number of structural features of
contrasted languages.
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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
- The ability of discovering the new interesting language phenomena
which can not be recognized if not compared.
Especially, by comparing the languages, CA can point out some solutions
to pedagogical problems as follows:
- Solving difficulties in all aspects of languages that the learners often
encounter when they learn a foreign language.
- Collecting and selecting materials for language teaching.
- Establishing an appropriate order of materials for learning foreign
languages.
- Forming a system of effective methods for teaching and explaining the
materials.
- Editing a system of suitable exercises and textbooks on foreign
languages.
1.2. Noun phrases in English
1.2.1. Definition

There are different definitions of noun phrases.
As far as the noun phrase in English is concerned, it is defined by
Quirk,R and other grammarians (1972:127) as follow:
“The noun phrase is the element in the sentence which typically
functions as subject, object and complement”.
What’s more, there are more definitions about noun phrases from other
grammarians such as: According to Jacobs (1995), noun phrases are word
phrases which are used to refer to things people want to talk about.
Referring is important, speakers need to refer to people, objects, concepts,
processes, and all kinds of entities, and noun phrases serve this function.
And Schmidt (1999) said that: A noun phrase is one or more words which we

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
use in a sentence as subject, direct, indirect object, complement or as
prepositional complement. In addition to, In Quirk and Greenbaum’ viewpoint
(1973), the complex noun phrases consist of three components: the head, the
premodification, and the postmodification.
We see that there are many different attitudes about noun phrases because
this is studied from different aspects like: the function of noun phrases, role of
noun phrases, or components of noun phrases. However, all definitions include
some common features such as components and their relationships of noun
phrases.
E.g. (a-c) are noun phrases.
a. The pretty girl.

b. The pretty girl in the corner.
c. The pretty girl who is standing in the corner.
1.2.2. Parts of the noun phrases
A noun phrase is thus composed of three potential parts. One of these
parts, the head, is generally obligatory; its presence is the minimal requirement
of the occurrence of a noun phrase. The other two parts occur optionally. The
head may be preceded by some pre-modification, and it may be followed by
some postmodification.
E.g.
- That old

bus

in the drive.

Premo

Head

Postmo

- The
Premo

headmaster

of the school.

Head

Postmo

- Each of the heavy glass doors of the building.
Premo

Head

Postmo

- The new secretary in this office.
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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
Premo

Head

Postmo

- The very tall education consultant with the roving eye.
Premo
- The pretty

girl

Head

Postmo

in the corner who become angry because you

waved
Premo

Head

Postmo

to her when you entered.
To describe noun phrases like those cited above, such as the subject of
“is”, first of all we need to distinguish three component parts:
a. The head
Like “girl”, “bus” in the above examples, around which dictates concord
and other kinds of congruence with the rest of the sentence outside the noun
phrases.
Thus - The new dictionary on the table …is
But - The new dictionaries on the table… are
Similarly:
- He frightened the boy in the corner.
But not - He frightened the table in the corner.
b. The premodification: comprises all the items placed before the headnotably adjectives and nouns, determiners.
E.g. - The pretty girl
- Some pretty university girls
c. The postmodification consists of all the items placed after the headnotably prepositional phrases, non-finite clauses and relative clauses;
E.g. - The girl in the corner. (prepositional phrase)
- The girl standing in the corner. (non-finite clause)

- The girl who stood in the corner. (relative clause)
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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
Another point we should mention before we deal with premodification in
English and Vietnamese in more details is that modification can be restrictive
or non-restrictive. This means that the head of a noun phrase can be viewed as
a member of a class which can be linguistically identified only through the
modification that has been supplied (restrictive). Or the head can be viewed as
unique or as a member of a class that has been independently identified. This
type of modification which just gives additional information about such as a
head and which is not essential for identifying is called non-restrictive.
E.g. - Come and meet my beautiful girl friend.
The modification “beautiful” must be non-restrictive unless we imagine
that he is distinguishing her from another of his girl friends who is not
beautiful.
Or - Mary Smith, who is upstairs, wants to see you.
“Who is upstairs” is a non-restrictive clause because Mary Smith’s
identity is independent of whether or not she is upstairs, though the
information on her location is useful enough. In these two examples the
modification is non-restrictive because the heads in the sentences are unique.
Quirk, R and other grammarians (1973:377) have pointed out the value of the
distinction of non-restrictive and restrictive modification as follow:
“First, modification at its most restrictive tends to come after the head: that is, our
decision to use an item as a premodifier (such as silly in “The silly boy got lost”) often
reflects our wish that it be taken for granted and not be interpreted as a specific

identifier. Secondly, restrictive modification tends to be given more prosodic emphasis
than the head; non-restrictive modification, on the other hand, tends to be unstressed in
pre-head position, while in post-head position, its ‘parenthetic’ relation is endorsed by
being given a separate tone unit, or in writing, by being enclosed by commas”.

1.3. Noun phrases in Vietnamese
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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
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1.3.1. Definition
In Vietnamese, when a noun is used to perform some functions in a
sentence, some modification is often added to form a phrase. Such phrases in
which there is a noun acting as a head are called noun phrases.
To make more clearly, we give more defenitions from Vietnamese
grammarians: According to Đỗ Thị Kim Liên: A noun phrase is combination
of words in which the noun is a central element and it has one or more
subordinate elements around to supplement grammatical meanings to itself.
And in Lª Dịng’s viewpoint (2002), A noun phrase is a group of words in
which the beginning is a noun and its function is appositive.
1.3.2. Part of the noun phrases
In general, a noun phrase in Vietnamese may have two parts:
a. The head, in the middle of a phrase
b. Modification is divided into two parts:
-Premodification
-Postmodification
The order of modification is never free in Vietnamese noun phrases,

occurring either as premodification or postmodification.
The order of a noun phrase may be exemplified as follow:
Phần đầu

Phần trung tâm

Phần cuối

Premodification

Head

Postmodification

E.g 1. Ba
Three

ngời

này

people

this

(These three people)

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
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C¶ hai

tØnh

Both

E.g 2.

province

nhá Êy
small that

(Both those small provinces)
E.g 3. TÊt cả những cái
All classifier

chủ trơng

chính xác

policy

exact that

(All exact policies)

These noun phrases consist of three parts. In some cases, such phrases can
be seen to have only two parts:
a. Those with premodification and the head
Phần đầu

Phần trung tâm

Premodification

Head

E.g.

Ba

bát

Three

bowl

(Three bowls)
b. Those with the head and postmodification
Phần trung tâm

Phần cuối

Head
Bát

E.g.

Postmodification
này

Bowl

this
(This bowl)

c. Those with premodification and postmodification but no head
Phần đầu

Phần cuối

Premodification

Postmodification

E.g. Ba
Three

Trịnh Thị Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University

t¸i
underdone

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
(Three bowls of underdone soup)
d. Those with premodification only
Phần đầu
Premodification
E.g. Ba
Three
Of the four forms, forms (a) and (b) are common; forms (c) and (d) are
used in the spoken language only.

Chapter 2
premodification of noun phrases in
English and Vietnamese
2.1. Premodification of noun phrases in English
2.1.1. Types of premodification items
In English we see that lexical and grammatical items of a wide range of
complexity can precede a noun head to form a noun phrase. The
premodification, which comprises all the items placed before the head. It can
be formed by:
a. Predeterminers
- All, both, half
These prederterminers can occur only before articles or demonstratices
but, since they are themselves quantifiers, they do not occur with the following
‘quantitatives’ determiners: every, (n)either, some, any, no, enough.
All, both, and half have of-constructions, which are optional with nouns
and obligatory with personal pronouns:
all (of) the meat

all of it

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
both (of) the students

both of (them)

half (of) the time

half of it

- Double, twice, three/ four…times
- One-third, two-fifths, etc
b. Determiners
- Article: the, a, an
- Possessive adjectives: my, our, their, etc
- Interrogative pronouns: which,who, that, etc
- Demonstrative pronouns: this, that, etc
c. Postdeterminers
- Cardinal numerals: Apart from one, which can co-occur only with
singular count nouns, all cardinal numerals (two, three, etc) co-occur only with
plural count nouns:
E.gs. He has one sister and three brothers
The two blue cars belong to me
- Ordinal numerals: except first, co-occur only with count nouns. All

ordinals usually precede any cardinal numbers in the noun phrase:
E.g. The first three planes were American
- Quantifiers
There are two small groups of closed-system quantifiers:
many, (a) few, and several co-occur only with plural count nouns:
The few words he spoke were well chosen
much and (a) little co-occur only with non-count nouns:
There hasn’t been much good weather recently

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
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Several is rarely (and much virtually never) preceded by a determiner,
and in the case of few and little there is a possitive/negative contrast according
as the indefinite article is or is not used:
a few biscuits (=several)
few biscuits (=not many)
He took
a little butter (=some)
little butter (=not much)
d. Adjective
E.g.

- I saw a handsome man.

e. Participle

E.g.

- The boiling water
- The boiled water

f. Genitive
E.g.

- She came to her mother’s office.

g. Noun
E.g.

- I visited her country inn.

h. Adverbial phrase
E.g.

- She visited his far-away restaurant.

i. A part of a sentence
E.g.

- I don’t know how many peolpe he asked.

Although there are a lot of above-mentioned premodification, we
concentrate on studying some following typical types:
2.1.2. Premodification by Adjectives

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
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A premodifying adjective, especially when it is the first item after the
determiner, can itself be premodified in the same way as it can in predicative
position.
E.g.

- Her really quite unbelievably delightful house.
- These two beautiful magazines.

There are cases where adjectives can be used as attribute only.
E.g.

- An utter fool.

But not: - The fool is utter.
2.1.3. Premodification by Participles
a. Present participle
This depends on the potentiality of the participle to indicate a permanent
or characteristic feature.
E.g.

- He has a very interesting mind.
- Anne used the boiling water to make tea.

b. Past participle

The past participle can be active or passive but the active is rarely used in
premodification. Contrast
E.g.

The immigrant who has arrived

With * The arrived immigrant
E.g. The vanished treasure (‘The treasure which has vanished’) and A
retired teacher are exceptional, but exceptions are somewhat more general
when an active participle is adverbially modified:
E.g.
- The newly-elected president
- The recently-made friend

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
Here belongs also “born” and some uses of “hidden”, “married”,
“troubled”, “darkend”, ect, but in premodification, participles must either
have “permanent” reference or be adverbially modified:
E.g.
- A born musician (= a natural musician)
- A married man
- The carefully-hidden spy
2.1.4. Premodification by S-Genitive
E.g. - The teacher’s house

The sentence can be interpreted as:
- The house of the teacher
However, we should distinguish:
(a) These nasty women’s clothing
And (b) These women’s nasty clothing
Sentence (a) must mean “The clothing of these nasty women” and sentence
(b) means “The nasty clothing of these women”
Or other ambiguous sentences such as
- An old woman’s hat
Contrast: - A woman’s old hat
2.1.5. Premodification by Genitives without Head
In English, there is a genitive premodification with the deletion of the
head especially when this denotes premises or establishment.
E.g. - I’ll see you at the dentist’s.
This refers to the dentist’s professional establishment and the same
applies to proper names where they refer to commercial firms, somebody’s
place or home.

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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
E.g.
- She got these medicines at the chemist’s. (=chemist’s shop)
- I’ll see you at Lan’s. (= Lan’s house)
2.1.6. Premodification by Nouns
This type of premodification is so closely associated with the head as to

be regarded as a part of a compound noun.
E.g.
- The cupboard door
- His life story
- The war story
These phrases mean:
- The door of the cupboard
- The story of his life
- The story of war
But not all noun premodifiers have prepositional phrase analogues:
E.g. - Mary Brown was both actor and producer (the actor-producer).
- As my fellow-servant had gone to a neighbor’s (both fellow and
servant).
Some features should be paid attention to here. Plural nouns usually
become singular.
E.g.
- A chair with arms = An arm chair.
- The leg of the trousers = The trouser leg.
But singularization is by no means universal, especially with noun
premodification that is not hardening into a fixed phrase or compound.
E.g. The committee on promotions = The promotions committee
2.1.7. Multiple premodification
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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
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a. With single head

More than one modification may be related to adjective single head.
- Her brilliant novel.

E.g.

= Her last brilliant novel.

- Her last novel.

- His lucid, forceful remarks.
- His dirty but handsome face.
b. With multiple heads
One modification applies to more than one head.
- The new hat

E.g.

- The new dress

= The new hat and dress.

c. With modified modifier
E.g. - The nasty women’s employer’s clothing
- The small office furniture
- The food price rise warning system
In short, the premodification of noun phrases in English consists of
various types. These include adjective, participle, S-genetive, genetive without
head, nouns and multiple premodification.
2.2. Premodification of noun phrases in Vietnamese
In the premodification of noun phrases in Vietnamese, there are following

types of modification.
a. Unit word “ c¸i”
E.g. C¸i
1

cËu
2

Classifier uncle
1

2

häc sinh

Êy.

3

4

pupil

that

3

4

=> That pupil

b. Quantity word
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A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
E.g. MÊy

cËu

2

1

c¸i

häc sinh

3

4

Some classifier uncle
1

2

Êy.

5

pupil

3

that

4

5

=> Those pupils
c. Words denoting totality
E.g. Tất cả mấy
1

2

cái

cậu

3

học sinh

4

ấy.

5

6

All some classifier uncle

pupil

that

1

5

6

2

3

4

=>All those pupils
2.2.1. The classifier c¸i
It is used to express the individual, and it is in the position of head one.
That is why it can be replaced by different classifiers, but these can not be
placed before c¸i. This classifier is often placed before words denoting things
which belong to the same class. It can not be, in this case, replaced by any
other word.

E.g.
Head 1
Head 2
- một cái
bàn này
A table
- một chiếc
bàn này
- một dÃy
bàn này:
A row of tables
- cái chiếc
bàn này: This table
- cái dÃy
bàn này: This row of tables
The word cái can be placed before head 2 which denotes things only.
E.g.
Cái

bàn:
ghế:
chân:
tay :

A table
A chair
A leg
A hand

TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University

24


A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English
and Vietnamese
But the classifier c¸i can be placed before any head 2:
E.gs:
cËu häc sinh nµy : This pupil
con mÌo nµy

: This cat

cây cam này

: This orange tree

kilô thịt này

Cái

: This kilogramme of meat

When the word c¸i is used as premodification, it has some connection
with the word-order of the whole noun phrase. Whenever the classifier c¸i
(determiner) is used as premodification, postmodification is necessary.
E.g.

We can say:

Cái

cậu

1

2

học sinh này.
3

4

Classifier uncle pupil
1

2

this

3

4

=>This pupil
*But we can not say:
C¸i

cËu

1

2

häc sinh.
3

Classifier uncle pupil
Whenever the classifier c¸i is used as premodification, we must have
head 1:
E.g. We can say:
- C¸i

cËu
1

häc sinh nµy
2

Head 1 Head 2
=> This pupil
* But we can not say:

TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University

25