TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I: INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………..3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………………..4
1.What is compound?................................................................................................ 4
2. Compounds in English ........................................................... ..............................4
2.1 Compound nouns ............................................................. .....................................5
2.2 Compound adjectives ............................................................. ...............................6
2.3 Compound verbs ............................................................. ......................................8
3. Compounds in Vietnamese ........................................................... ......................10
3.1 Compound nouns .............................................................. ...................................11
3.2 Compound adjectives ............................................................... ............................12
3.3 Compound verbs ............................................................... ...................................13
PART III: CONCLUSION.............................................................. .........................15
DEFERENCES………………………………………………………….…………..15
PART I: INTRODUCTION
What is language? It is understood in many different ways including:
language as a property of human beings, language as an institutional
abstraction, language as a collection of sentences, language as social
behavior and knowledge of the mind or a form of action. Whatever it is, it’s
typical and specific for human beings. However, as we’re living in a global
village with no boundary, we need to communicate with people not only
inside our society but also peoples on all over the world. This makes second
language learning appear and seem to attract more and more attention. As
we have all known, English is an international language and also a
compulsory second language in Vietnam. So, how to learn English well? Or
how to grab as much knowledge of English as possible? Or how to just learn
English for a specific purpose like listening to English songs or reading
newspaper in English? For each purpose, we have an appropriate way of
studying. It is said that learning English is like building a house. Grammar
is the frame of the house and vocabulary is the bricks. Without one of these
two elements, you can’t have a “full house” or in other words, you don’t have
perfect English. Vocabulary is a very important aspect of English. It helps
you not only in listening but also speaking, reading and writing and so on.
How to learn vocabulary? It’s a big question and it’s difficult to answer.
Learning vocabulary by heart, learning by reading texts or books in English,
learning by listening to music, and learning by comparing the similarities
and differences between English and our mother tongue are all the possible
ways of obtaining a good English. Learning English through comparing
English and Vietnamese compounds is also a way to become good English
learners. In this paper, I’ll help you to have an overview of English and
Vietnamese compounds in comparison with each other to make it easier for
you to remember them and increase your vocabulary sources.
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
1.What is compound?
A Compound word is a union of two or more words which conveys a unit or
special meaning which is not clearly or quickly conveyed by separate words.
In English as well as in Vietnamese, there are many types of compounds
whose formation doesn’t have any common rules and whose meanings are
quite different from the original meaning of individual words.
2.Compounds in English
According to Ingo Flag in Morphological Productivity, a compound is a word that
consists of two elements, the first of which is either a root, a word or a phrase, the other
is either a root or a word. English compounds may be classified in many ways such as
the word classes or semantic relationship between their components.
There are no specific rules on forming compounds because English is a mostly analytic
language. It creates compounds by concatenating words without any case makers.
However, there are three forms in which a compound in English is written, they are
solid form, hyphenated form and open form.
 Solid form is a case in which two usually moderately short words appear together
as one such as housewife, notebook, keyboard…Solid compounds most likely
consist of short units that often have been established in the language for a long
time…
 The hyphenated form is a case in which two or more words are connected by a
hyphen. Some types of compound which are often hyphenated are compounds
that contain affixes such as house-builder, single-minded; adjective-adjective
compounds such as blue-green and verb-verb compounds like freeze-dry…
 The open or spaced form include newer combinations of usually longer words
such as distance learning, lawn tennis…
In term of formal classification, we have compound nouns, compounds
adjectives and compound verbs.
2.1 Compound nouns
A compound noun is a noun that is made up of two or more words. Most compound
nouns in English are formed by nouns modified by other nouns or adjectives.
For example, the words tooth and paste are nouns but if we join them together, we
have the new word toothpaste.
Another example is the word black which is an adjective, board is a noun, but if we
join them together, we have blackboard.
In the above examples, we can see that the first word describes or modifies the second
word, telling us what kind of object or person it is or what its purpose is. The second
word identifies that person or object. Like in the word toothpaste, we can make it
clear like this. What is the object? It is paste, a thick soft sticky substance made by
mixing a liquid with a powder especially to make a type of glue. What’s its purpose?
It’s used for tooth or in other words, it’s used to brush teeth. In the word blackboard,
we can see the object is the board and the first part black describes what the board is
like.
There are many other ways of constructing a compound noun:
Modifier
Head
Compound
Noun
Noun
Noun
Adjective
Adjective
Verb
Prepositon
Preposition
Adverb
Noun
Verb
Preposition
Noun
Verb
Noun
Noun
Verb
Noun
Football,boyfriend,headache
Manhunt,rainfall,haircut
Passer-by,looker-on,time-out
Bluebird,greenhouse,software
Whitewash,public speaking,dry-cleaning
Pickpocket,breakfast,step-mother
Underworld,underwear,underground
Uptalk,uptake,intake
Outsider,upstairs,downtown
In a compound noun, stress is very important because it helps to distinguish between
compound noun and noun phrase in speaking or listening. Compound nouns usually
have stress falling in the first syllable.
For example:
We have the compound noun: girlfriend with stress on the first syllable which means
the person who is a female partner.
The word girl friend (noun phrase) which has stress on the second syllable means a
friend who is a female.
In general, the meaning of a compound noun is a specialization of the meaning of its
head. The modifier limits the meaning of the head.
2.2 Compound adjectives
English compound adjectives are constructed in a very similar way to the compound
nouns but are more complex and challenging. A compound adjective is a modifier of a
noun. It consists of two or more morphemes of which the component on the left limits
or changes the modification of the component on the right and its meaning is usually
clear from its combines. For example:”dark-blue dress” It means a dress that is darkblue. The adjective phrase is usually written with a hyphen.
There are many ways to build a compound adjective:
Modifier
Adjective
Adjective
Adjective
Adverb
Noun
Noun
Noun
Number
Head
Past participle
Present participle
Noun
Past participle
Present participle
Past participle
Adjective
Noun
Compound
Cold-blooded,old-fashioned,short-lived.
Good-looking,easy-going,long-lasting.
Last-minute,full-lenghth,short-term.
Well-known,highly-respected,densely-populated.
Mouth-watering,record-breaking,time-saving.
Wind-powered,sun-dried,water-cooled.
World-famous,ice-cold,smoke-free.
One-way,ten-page,five-minute.
There are many types of compound adjectives, the two most common type are solid
compound adjectives and hyphenated compound adjectives. Usually a compound
adjective is hyphened if the hyphen helps readers to differentiate a compound
adjective from two adjacent adjectives that each independently modifies the noun. For
example:
 "small appliance industry": a small industry producing appliances
 "small-appliance industry": an industry producing small appliances
The hyphen is unneeded when capitalization or italicization makes grouping clear. For
example:


“old English scholar”: an old person who is a scholar and has English
nationality or an old scholar who studies English.
“Old English scholar”: a scholar of Old English.
Hyphenated compound adjectives may have been formed originally by an adjective
preceding a noun:
 “Round table” :“round - table discussion”
 “Blue sky” : “Blue – sky law”
 “Red light” : “Red – light district”
Others are created with a verb preceding an adjective or adverb:
 “Feel good” :“feel good factor”
 “Buy now, pay later” :“buy – now,pay – later purchase”
Others are created with an original verb preceding a preposition:



“Stick on” :“stick – on label”
“Walk on” :“walk – on part”
“Stand by” : “stand – by fare”
The following compound adjectives are always hyphenated when they are not written
as one word:






An adjective preceding noun added by –d or –ed as past – participle: Loudmouthed hooligan, middle-aged lady…
A noun, adjective, adverb preceding a present participle: an awe – inspiring
personality, a long – lasting affair…
Numbers spelled out or as numeric: seven – year itch, five - sided polygon, 20 –
century poem…
A numeric with the affix –fold has a hyphen, but when spelled out takes a solid
construction like fifteen fold.
Numbers, spelled out or numeric, with added –odd: sixteen-odd, 70-odd,….
Compound adjectives with high- or low- like: high-level discussion, low-price
markup,..




Colors in compound: a dark-blue sweater, a reddish-orange dress…
Fractions as modifier: five-eighths inches…
Comparatives and superlatives in compound adjectives: the highest-placed
competitor, a shorter-term loan…
Compounds including two geographical modifiers: Afro-Cuban, AfricanAmerican…
The other compound adjectives are not usually hyphenated. Compound adjectives are
considered productive features of English. That means it is not so restricted as it is in
many other categories like grammar. It’s not always the case because there are many
exceptions when it comes to usage of compounds, the thing we need the most is to
check a dictionary to be sure.
2.3 Compound verbs
A compound verb is a multi-word compound which acts as a single verb. There are
two components. One of them is a light verb which carries any inflections indicating
tense, mood, or aspect but only provides fine shades of meaning. The other – called
the primary component – is a verb or noun which carries most of the semantics of the
compound and determine s its arguments.
There are some ways to form compound verbs:
Modifier
Prepositon
Prepositon
Adverb
Adjective
Noun
Verb
Verb
Head
Verb
Noun
Verb
Verb
Verb
Verb
Adverb
Compound
Underline,outrun,uptake.
Underworld,underwear,underground.
Downside,upgrade,outbreak.
Whitewash,blacklist, dry-cleaning.
Sidestep,manhandle,haircut.
Make do,…
Make sure,….
Sometimes, it’s very difficult to distinguish between compound verbs and phrasal
verbs because they are alike in some way. Here is the rules to make a distinction: If
we can add an object between two words, it is phrasal verb. For example: we can say
“He takes his hat off” while the phrasal verb is take off. However, it’s impossible to
say “He ill his dog treat”. Another way to distinguish them is that the second
component of phrasal verb is always a preposition, whereas it can be a noun or a verb
for compound verb. Nevertheless, it still makes us confuse with phrasal verb and
prepositional verb (or preposition + verb compound).
English syntax distinguished between phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs like this:
Example:




I held up my hand.
I held up a bank.
I held my hand up.
I held a bank up.
The first three sentences are possible is English. We hold up means
we raise something, it’s a prepositional verb. The preposition up can be detached from
the verb and has its own individual meaning “from lower to a higher position”. As a
prepositional verb, it has a literal meaning. However, when to hold up means to rob, it
is a phrasal verb. A phrasal verb is used in an idiomatic, figurative or even
metaphorical context. The preposition is inextricably linked to the verb and the
meaning of each word can’t be determined independently but is in fact part of the
idiom.
In term of semantic classification of compounds in English, there are endocentric
compound, exocentric compound, copulative compound and appositional compound.

An endocentric compound consists of a head and modifiers. The head – the
categorical part that contains the basic meaning of the whole compound while
the modifiers restrict its meaning.
For example: The English compound doghouse: the head is house and the dog is the
modifier. This word is understood as the house intended for dog.

Exocentric compounds are compounds whose semantic head is not explicitly
expressed, and their meaning often can’t be transparently guessed from its
constituent parts.
For example, in English, we have the compound white-collar which is neither a kind
of collar nor a white thing. White-collar refers to person who works in offices. The
collar’s color is a metaphor for socioeconomic status. Similarly, redhead is not a kind
of head but is a person with red hair.

Copulative compounds are compounds which have two semantic head and their
meanings may be a generalization instead of a specialization.
For example: the compound fighter-bomber is an aircraft that is both a fighter and a
bomber.

Appositional compounds refer to lexemes that have two contrary attributes
which classify the compound.
For example, in English compound we have the word player-coach means someone
who is a player as well as a coach.
3. Compound inVietnamese
Compounding is a highly productive word formation in Vietnamese. Like English,
Vietnamese compounds are words that consist of two or more words which have
relationship of meaning and has different meaning from that of individual words.
There are three types of compounds in Vietnamese: coordinate compounds (từ ghép
đẳng lập) and subordinate compounds (từ ghép chính phụ)

Coordinate compounds are formed by two morphemes, none of them modifies
each other or independent of each other such as quần áo (cloths), mua bán (buy
and sell), phải trái (right and wrong)… Coordinate compounds express general,
synthetic meaning or we can say both words in the coordinate compound have
their own meaning when they stand alone. For example, the compound “mua
bán” has two components, that is mua (buy) and bán (sell);
both mua and bán have their meanings and they have the same level of
meaning when they stand by each other to create a compound.

Subordinate compounds are formed by two morphemes, one of them modifies
the other like xe đạp (bicycle), xe máy (motorcycle), xe hơi (car), xe
lửa (train)... Subordinate compounds have two components, that is accessory
component and the other is the principal component. The accessory component
acts as the modifier for the principal component. For example, the
compound xe đạp has the accessory component đạp which modifies the
principal component xe and which tells us how to operate xe. Lets take another
example, in the word “cà chua”, “chua” is the accessory element that modifies
“cà”. So “cà chua” is a kind of “cà” and its feature is “chua”.
Like English compounds, Vietnamese compounds are also divided into compound
nouns, compound verbs, compound adjectives.
3.1 Compound nouns
Vietnamese compound nouns are in some ways the same as English compound nouns.
They are made up of two components. However, it’s quite difficult to distinguish
between noun phrases and compound nouns in Vietnamese because Vietnamese has
no stressed – syllables so each component of a compound is spoken out equally.
For example:
Compound: Hoa hồng thì đẹp( A rose is beautiful)
Phrase: Hoa hồng thì đẹp.( A pink flower is beautiful).
Vietnamese vocabulary includes a large range of borrowed words from other
languages, especially Chinese. Compound nouns in Vietnamese are mostly created
base on Chinese words. Compound nouns can be two Han Viet words in which their
meaning is independent of each other such as sơn hà, giang sơn…or two or more Han
Viet words in which one word has the main meaning, the other modifies principal
meaning like thiên thư, thạch mã, ái quốc, Nam quốc sơn hà…
Besides, Nôm words can be used in this situation. We have compounds consisting two
Nôm words with general meaning like bát đĩa, nhà cửa, ruộng vườn…Another way of
forming compound nouns is to combine one word and one idiomatic phrase like “kẻ
rày đây mai đó”, “bọn mãi quốc cầu vinh”…(Văn Phạm Việt Nam 1992).
Vietnamese belongs to the group of isolating languages where there are no inflectional
endings (- s/es; - ed, - ing …) and all the words are invariable. Grammatical
relationships are expressed not by changing the internal structure of the words but by
the use of auxiliary words (những, các, nhiều, một, hai, ít; đã, đang, sẽ…) and word
order.
In English, when you want to change a compound noun into plural, the main noun will
take the “s”. For example, when you want to change “mother-in-law” into plural, the
main noun mother will take the plural “s”, so we have mothers-in-law. Another
example is passer-by, we make it plural by add “s” to passer, we have plural passersby. However, in Vietnamese, when you want to change a compound noun into plural
form, what you need to do is just to add the words like những, các, nhiều in front of
that compound such as bạn and các bạn.
In addition, while Vietnamese is a syllable-timed language in which the rhythm
appears to be fairly even, with each syllable has the same duration and force as others,
English is stress-timed language in which stressed syllables recur at intervals.
Consequently, compound nouns in English usually tend to have more stress on the
first part of the compound like “ ‘Greenhouse ” or “ ‘mother-in-law “ while
Vietnamese compounds have equal stress for individual words in a compound.
Besides, the way we divide the sentence in Vietnamese also makes the meaning of
that sentence different while that’s not the case with English.
For example:


Thức đêm / nhiều người gầy đi thấy rõ. ( Staying up at night makes many
people become thin).
Thức đêm nhiều / người gầy đi thấy rõ. (Staying up at night a lot make our
body become thin).
3.2 Compound adjectives
Another type of compounds in Vietnamese is compound adjectives. To form a
compound adjective, there are many ways and it’s quite similar to the formation of
English compound adjectives:




Adj + adj: xinh đẹp, cao lớn, to béo, đắng cay, ngay thẳng, mau chóng, khôn
ngoan, ngu đần
Adj + noun: méo miệng, to gan, cứng đầu, cứng cổ, ngắn ngày, vàng chanh
Adj + verb: khó hiểu, dễ hiểu, chậm hiểu, dễ coi, khó nói
Partial reduplication: sạch sẽ, may mắn, chậm chạp, nhanh nhẹn, đắt đỏ
Especially, in Vietnamese, there are a pattern of adjective compounds to describe the
colors. For example, with only one color đen, we have đen bóng, đen giòn, đen kịt,
đen nhánh, đen sì, đen ngòm, đen thui… In comparison with the word black, the other
types of black have a more specific meaning.This is evident in literary works.
For examples:
“Cốm không phải là thức quà của người vội; ăn cốm phải ăn từng chút ít, thong thả và
ngẫm nghĩ. Lúc bấy giờ ta mới thấy thu lại cả trong hương vị ấy, cái mùi thơm
phức của lúa mới, của hoa cỏ dại ven bờ…”
( Thạch Lam )
Góc sân nho nhỏ mới xây
Chiều chiều em đứng nơi này em trông
Thấy trời xanh biếc mênh mông
Cánh cò chớp trắng trên sông Kinh Thầy.
(Trần Đăng Khoa)
Although this kind of compound has more limited meaning than the original meaning
of the original color, it’s extremely difficult to translate it into English because in
English, we have color adjective compounds like in Vietnamese, but it’s different. In
English, we can combine dark – blue and reddish – orange to create compounds with
different layer of meanings. In Vietnamese, although biếc is not a kind of color, it
creates effects when we combine it with the color blue, it creates physical image
meaning of the compound. This is a very special and unique feature of Vietnamese.
Here are some of the patterns concerning borrowed words:
Parterns
Examples
Hán Việt+Hán Việt
anh hùng, vĩ nhân,thiên tử
Hán Việt(chính)+Hán Việt(phụ)
ái quốc,thiên thư,quốc gia
Hán Việt(phụ)+Hán Việt(chính)
Nôm+Nôm
Thành ngữ Hán-Việt
Thành ngữ Nôm
Vô lễ,bất hiếu,bất tử
Tươi tốt,êm dịu,khỏe mạnh
“An cư lạc nghiệp”,”Bách chiến bách thắng”
“Ác giả ác báo“,”An thân thủ phận”
3.3 Compound verbs
Another type of compounds in Vietnamese is compound verbs. Like English, there are
many ways to construct a compound verb:
Parterns
Hán Việt+Hán Việt
Nôm(động từ)+Nôm(động từ)
Động từ +Danh từ
Động từ +Phó từ
Động từ+Tính từ
Examples
Khích lệ,quan sát,di cư.
Đánh lừa,nói thách,ăn xin.
Làm việc,hát ca,ăn cơm.
Đi vào,đi ra,vào trong.
Làm giàu,làm nhanh,làm chậm.
Cụm động từ
Thành ngữ
Nói đi nói lại,dặn đi dặn lại,..
Giương đông kích tây,nhập gia tùy tục,..
In English, compound verbs is very similar to phrasal verbs which makes it difficult
for us to distinguish them. In Vietnamese, we face the same problem with compounds
(từ ghép) and “cụm từ cố định” (collocations in English). “Cụm từ cố định” is an
expression consisting of two or more words that correspond to some conventional way
of saying things. “Cụm từ cố định” is fixed and has connotative meaning.
Some example of “Cụm từ cố định are: sinh viên, học tập, đỏ rực, ngon lành, hoa
hồng…ăn ốc nói mò, mặt trái xoan, vênh váo như bố vợ phải đấm…
How to distinguish “từ ghép” and “cụm từ cố định”?
Firstly, compounds are formed by combining morphemes together like: áo +
rách= áo rách, collocations are formed by combining words together like: chó + cắn
+ áo
+rách= chó cắn áo rách.
Secondly, about meaning, “cụm từ cố định” has meanings which reveal the physical
image in reader’s mind ( từ mang tính hình tượng). That way, readers can’t fully
understand the meaning of “cụm từ cố định” through the meanings of each word. For
example, we have many words like: “chó cắn áo rách, đồng không mông quạnh,ba
cọc ba đồng”… Readers can understand compounds’ meaning through its components
because they just have denotative meanings.
In English, in the words of Firth (1957: 181): “Collocations of a given word are
statements of the habitual or customary places of that word.” Collocations include
noun phrases like strong tea and weapons of mass destruction, phrasal verbs like
to make up, and other stock phrases like the rich and powerful.
PART III: CONCLUSION
Although there are some similarities between English and Vietnamese compounds, the
differences are much more. Hope that this essay will help you to remember and learn
more about compounds. Finally, learning English requires time and patience. I believe
if you try your best, you can use English fluently. One thing you need to remember as
a teacher-to-be is “When you plan a journey from your mind into mine, remember to
allow for the time difference” (Ashleigh Brilliant).
REFERENCES
Plag, Ingo. Morphological Productivity . United Kingdom: Cambridge University
Press, 2003
Tu trong tieng Viet. Retrieve December, 20, 2009, from:
https://ngonngu.net/tuvacautaotu_tutiengviet2/207
Ho, Le.(2003)Vấn đề cấu tạo từ của tiếng Việt hiện đại. Khoa học xã hôi Press,
Nguyen Hoa Lac. An outline of morphology. University of Education Press
Nguyen, Thien Giap.(1978) Từ vựng học tiếng Việt. DHTH Ha Noi Press
Vietnamese compounds retrieved from:
https://ngonngu.net/tuvacautaotu_tutiengviet2/207
English compounds retrieved from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_compound
Trần, Đ. K. (2007). Góc Sân Và Khoảng Trời-Thơ Của Trần Đăng Khoa.
Lam, T. (2012). Hà Nội ba mươi sáu phố phường.