Running head: NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Le Thi Hong Phuong
University of Education
English – Vietnamese Comparative Linguistics 2011
Instructor: Nguyen Ngoc Vu
Class: 4A08
December 30, 2011
NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Abstract:
Language is a complicated category. Only human beings can use language to express their
ideas, concepts and feelings. The use of this tool is for the communication between the
addresser and the addressee. There are more than two hundred languages and each language
has its own feature all over the world. Language itself is a complex system and it is dependent
to us culturally, socially and personally. Learning a language involves many things such as
pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar… The aim of this study is to discuss the noun phrases in
English and Vietnamese and their influence in teaching and learning English in Vietnamese
situation. I hope that this paper will provide as much information as possible on English and
Vietnamese noun phrases. It also attempts to state the similarities and differences in noun
phrases of the two languages. I pay attention to the analysis of the heads, the pre and post
modifications, their positions and functions of English and Vietnamese noun phrases. Finally,
there are some teaching implications made for those who are going to be English teachers.
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Definition of Noun phrases:
What is a noun phrase? According to Wikipedia, “In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase,
or nominal group (abbreviated NP) is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like
word (nominal) optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives.”
Like all phrases, we can analyze the English noun phrase’s components into both functional
ones and formal ones. From a functional point of view, the noun phrase has four major
components, occurring in a fixed order:

Pre modification, which comprises all the modifying or describing constituents
before the head, other than the determiners;

the head, around which the other constituents cluster; and

post modification, those which comprise all the modifying constituents placed
after the head.
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Noun phrases in English
In English grammar, a noun phrase has three components:
 Pre modification
 The head
 Post modification
 Pre modification: consists of all the words placed before the head. These words are
usually determiners, adjectives and nouns.
 Predeterminers:
The predeterminers occur before other determiners (as you can probably guess from their
name). They includes multipliers (double, twice, four/five times . . . .); fractional expressions
(one-third, three-quarters, etc.); the words both, half, and all; and intensifiers such as quite,
rather, and such.
The multipliers precede plural count and mass nouns and occur with singular count nouns
denoting number or amount:
 This van holds three times the passengers as that sports car.
 My wife is making double my / twice my salary.
 This time we added five times the amount of water.
In fractional expressions, we have a similar construction, but here it can be replaced with "of"
construction.
 Charlie finished in one-fourth of the time his brother took.
 Two-fifths of the respondents reported that half the medication was sufficient.
The intensifiers occur in this construction primarily in casual speech and writing and are more
common in British English than they are in American English. The intensifier "what" is often
found in stylistic fragments: "We visited my brother in his dorm room. What a mess!"
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
 This room is rather a mess, isn't it?
 The ticket-holders made quite a fuss when they couldn't get in.
 What an idiot he turned out to be.
 Our vacation was such a grand experience.
Adjective
Example
Determiner
Adjective
Noun
Head
phrase
That sophisticated city woman That
sophisticated
city
woman
Many honest down-and-out
Many
honest
down-and-out small-town businessmen
small-town businessmen
 Determiners are said to "mark" nouns. That is to say that a noun will follow a determiner.
Some categories of determiners are limited (there are only three articles, a handful of
possessive pronouns, etc.), but the possessive nouns are as limitless as nouns themselves. This
limited nature of most determiner categories, however, explains why determiners are grouped
apart from adjectives even though both serve a modifying function. We can imagine that the
language will never tire of inventing new adjectives; the determiners (except for those
possessive nouns), on the other hand, are well established, and this class of words is not going
to grow in number. These categories of determiners are as follows: the articles (an, a, the —
see below; possessive nouns (Joe's, the priest's, my mother's); possessive pronouns, (his, your,
their, whose, etc.); numbers (one, two, etc.); indefinite pronouns (few, more, each, every,
either, all, both, some, any, etc.); and demonstrative pronouns. The demonstratives (this, that,
these, those, such) are discussed in the section on Demonstrative Pronouns. Notice that the
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
possessive nouns differ from the other determiners in that they, themselves, are often
accompanied by other determiners: "my mother's rug," "the priests' collar," "a dog's life."
Determiners are used in front of nouns to indicate whether you are referring to something
specific or something of a particular type.
Determiners are different to pronouns in that a determiner is always followed by a noun.
Therefore personal pronouns (I, you, he, etc.) and possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his, etc.)
cannot be determiners.
The definite and indefinite articles a/an/the are all determiners.
We use a specific determiner when people know exactly which thing(s) or person/people you
are talking about.
The specific determiners are:
the definite article : the
demonstratives : this, that, these, those
possessives : my, your, his, her, its, our, their
For example:
"The dog barked at the boy."
"These apples are rotten."
"Their bus was late."
You use general determiners to talk about people or things without saying exactly who or
what they are.
The general determiners are:
the indefinite articles : a, an
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
few
fewer
a few
both
a little
each
all
either
another
enough
any
every
less
neither
little
no
many
other
more
several
most
some
much
For example:
"A man sat under an umbrella."
"Have you got any English books that I could have?"
"There is enough food to feed everyone."
 Post determiners:
Post-determiners, as their name suggests, come after regular determiners in a Noun Phrase .
They come before nouns but follow regular determiners in a Noun Phrase .
Cardinal numbers like one, two, three, four, etc… and ordinal numbers like first, second,
third, etc… are post-determiners . Examples:
The first three apples
The first six boys
Please note ordinals always come before cardinals general ordinals like last, next other,
another etc are also post-determiners .
The important thing for an English learner to note is the order of various determiners in a premodification structure .
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
The first three boys
The next four days
Another interesting case
If there is an adjective in the Noun Phrase it immediately precedes the noun, but follows postdeterminers .
The first three famous novels
The last six happiest days
Quantifiers like “many, few, several, much, little etc” are post-determiners and they precede
nouns in a Noun Phrase.
 The head:
The word “noun phrase” means that a noun is the central element of a noun phrase. That word
is called “the head”. It may be mass or count noun. Beside that, the head of the noun phrase
can be a pronoun. Without a noun or a pronoun, it can not be called “noun phrase”. There are
some kinds of pronouns functioning as heads: personal pronoun, indefinite pronoun,
possessive pronoun, and demonstrative pronoun.
Type
Examples
Personal
I/ me, he/ him
Possessive
Mine, hers
Reflexive
Myself, themselves
Demonstrative
This, those
Indefinite
Someone, no one
Interrogative
Who, that
Relative
Which, that
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
a. she in she is my teacher.
b. someone in someone at the meeting.
c. his in his is expensive.
d. that in that will affect his life.
 Post modification: contains words in the noun phrase that follow the head. These words
usually consist of prepositional phrases, nonfinite clauses, and relative clauses. Thus:
Example
Post modification
Category
The talkative man in the center
in the center of the room
prepositional phrase
walking on the bike path
non-finite clause
of the room
All the women walking on the
bike path
The house that I purchased for
that I purchased for my third
restrictive relative clause
my third husband
husband
The house, which my partner
which my partner and I bought a non-restrictive relative
and I bought a month after we
month after we met
clause
met
The third important component of a complex noun phrase is post-modification, called postmodifiers, comprising all the items placed after the head. These post-modifiers are mainly
realized by prepositional phrases, finite clauses (or relative clauses), nonfinite clauses,
adjective phrases, noun phrases or adverbial phrases:
determiner
head
post modification
category
1
a
book
with yellow covers
prepositional phrase
2
the
man
who told you the secret
finite clause
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
3
the
girl
speaking English fluently
nonfinite clause
4
a
shelf
full of books
adjective phrase
5
the
opera
“Carmen”
noun phrase
6
the
road
back
adverbial phrase
Here are some more examples:
Some examples of the Noun phrase in English
function
determiner
premodification
(a)
head
postmodification
lions
E
(b)
the
X
(c)
the
A
(d)
M
(e)
some
P
(f)
L
young
information
age
each
of the children
time
with the family
this
conclusion
to the story
(g)
all my
children
E
(h)
several
new mystery
books
which we recently enjoyed
S
(i)
such as
marvelous
data bank
filled with information
(j)
a
better
person
than I
Pronoun
Participle
Noun
Prepositional phrase
Article
Noun
Adjective
Relative clause
Quantifiers
Adjective phrase
pronoun
Nonfinite clause
FORMS
badly needed
Complementation
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Noun phrases in Vietnamese
In Vietnamese, noun phrases also have 3 components which are:
 Pre modification
 The head
 Post modification
However, the elements in each component have a little difference from the components of
English noun phrases.
And the noun phrase has the following structure:
Pre modification
Head
Post modification
Totality Article quantifier Classifier Noun Attributive Demonstrative Prepositional
modifiers
phrase/
Possessive
Example:
cả
hai
cuốn
totality quantifier classifier
từ điển
noun
Anh Việt
này
attributive demonstrative
của anh ta
prepositional phrase
 Pre modification
 Article: Many researchers claim that Vietnamese doesn’t have lexical articles. But
according to T. H. Nguyen (2004) and Nguyen T. C. (1975), Vietnamese has an article lexical
category slot that occurs before a quantifier. Those lexical articles are “những, các, …”. When
they are used, they come before the classifiers and the noun. For example:
những
ý nghĩ
article
noun
các
căn nhà
article
noun
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
 Quantifier:
Quantifiers (also known as numerals) are words that can occur before a head noun (with or
without a classifier). Cardinal numerals are concluded in quantifiers and there are other words
which indicate some quantity. Here are the table of Vietnamese quantifiers and their
equivalence in English:
Quantifier
English gloss
Một, hai …
Cardinal numeral
Vài, vài ba
“few”
Dăm, dăm bảy
“several, few”
Mọi
“every”
Mỗi
“each”
Từng
“each in turn”
Mấy
“few, how much/ many”
Bao nhiêu
“how much/ many”
Bây nhiêu/ bấy nhiêu
“this much/ many”
Here are some points about quantifiers (or numerals) that we should take in to consideration:
The first thing is that the quantifiers don’t come before the focus marker “cái”. For example:
vài cái con trâu, bao nhiêu cái căn nhà…
The second thing is a quantifier (a numeral) doesn’t go before collective nouns. For example,
we can not say “hai gia súc, ba quần áo…”. We can use quantifiers (numerals) before
collective nouns when the collective nouns refer to the members of a family. For example, it
can be said that “hai vợ chồng, ba anh chị em…”.
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
The last thing is that when a classifier co-occurs with a following head noun, the quantifier
word must come before the classifier. For example: we must say “hai cuốn từ điển, mấy con
cá…”
 The head:
There is one thing that we have to agree the head of the noun phrases must be nouns.
However, in Vietnamese noun phrases, the head can be a single noun or a classifier + a noun.
Classifiers are some words such as “cái, con, người…”. There is a little difference between
the uses of these classifiers. “Cái” is used before the inanimate objects, for example “cái bàn,
cái ghế…”. And “con” is used to combine with the nouns which refer to animate objects such
as “con gà, con ngựa…” when “người” is used for human being, for example “người lính,
người dự thi…”.
There are some more common classifiers:

cái : used for most inanimate objects

chiếc: almost similar to cái, usually more connotative (e.g. when referring to a cute
object, chiếc might be more suitable than cái)

con: usually for animals and children, but can be used to describe some inanimate
objects (con dao = knife, con đường = street, con vít = screw)

bài: used for compositions like songs, drawings, poems, essays, etc.

câu: sentential constructs (verses, lyrics, statements, quotes, etc.)

cây: used for stick-like objects (plants, guns, canes, etc.)

tòa: buildings of authority: courts, halls, "ivory towers".

quả/trái: used for globular objects (the Earth, fruits)

quyển/cuốn: used for book-like objects (books, journals, etc.)

tờ: sheets and other thin objects made of paper (newspapers, papers, calendars, etc.)
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

lá: smaller sheets of paper (letters, playing cards)

việc: an event or an ongoing process

chuyện: a general topic, matter, or business
The classifier cái has a special role in that it can extend all other classifiers, e.g. cái con, cái
chiếc.
There are some special noun phrases that the classifier can be absent such as in the noun
phrases “1 cà phê, 1 sinh tố…”. In these examples, the classifier “ly” is omitted.
 Post modification:
Unlike the pre modification which all the positions are in order, the post modification is more
complicated.
 The attributive modifiers:
The attributive modifiers are used for describing thr head noun. They are can be a noun
phrase, a verb phrase, an ajective phrase, a prepositional phrase, or a pronoun. For example:
a. căn nhà xây năm trước (verb phrase)
b. phòng tạp vụ (noun phrase)
c. cây khế ở sau vườn (prepositional phrase)
d. khu vườn xanh tốt (adjective phrase)
e. phòng của họ (pronoun)
 Demonstratives:
Another post modification in Vietnamese noun phrases is demonstrative. It is considered the
rightmost post modification. They are “ấy, nọ, này, kia…” and follow the head noun as in
“con ngựa đó, cái cặp kia…”.
When there are other modifiers co-occurring with demonstratives, the demonstratives often
occur after those mofifiers. For example, in the phrase:
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Căn nhà
mới
kia
Attributive modifier
demonstrative
 Possessives:
In Vietnamese grammar, we usually use “của + a possessor” to express the possession. The
possessor can be a personal pronoun, a proper name, or a full noun phrase… For example:
Nó là bạn học của tôi.
To avoid confusion and the grammatical mistakes, we can leave out or keep the first
preposition “của” when there are mpre than two possessive phrases in the same noun phrase.
For example:
Nó là cháu của mẹ của tôi.
The second word “của” can be left out. So that sentence becomes “Nó là cháu của mẹ tôi.”
This way is often used in spoken Vietnamese because it makes a smooth speech.
Here are an example of Vietnamese noun phrase with almost elements.
Pre-modification
Totality
Article
Head
Attributive
Demonstrative
modifier
(thành tố phụ chỉ
phụ chỉ tổng
(thành tố phụ nêu
định)
lượng)
đặc trưng miêu tả)
(thành tố
Tất cả
Classifier
Post-modification
Noun
(loại từ)
những
con
mèo
đen
ấy
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Contrast between English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun
phrases
 Similarities:
English and Vietnamese noun phrases have some similar elements such as article,
demonstrative, possessive, … They may be in different word order but they have the same
functions which help the head noun have the clear meaning.
 Differences:
Word order in noun phrases:
Word order
English
Vietnamese
Classifier
Determiner – adjective - noun
Classifier – noun - adjective

We see that the big gap between English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases is the
order of modifiers as we can see clearly in the essay.
Moreover in Vietnamese noun phrases, there is the focus marker “cái” which is used foe
emphasizing the noun mentioned in the head. In addition, the focus marker “cái” is often
accompanied by a demonstrative that appears after the head noun. For example, “cái con
người tệ bạc ấy”. It is advisable that we should distinguish the focus marker “cái” from the
classifier “cái”. The focus marker “cái” can go with any noun, whereas the classifier “cái” can
only go with noun that are inanimate objects.
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Implications in teaching and learning English
In short, according to the differences between English and Vietnamese language, the structure
of noun phrases also differentiates, which students have to pay attention when learning the
target language.
When students learn the second language, they usually understand the target language based
on the knowledge of his mother tongue. Because they use their first language to study the
second language, the analysis will base on the mother language. We know that English and
Vietnamese have their own value and feature and each is different from the other.
Vietnamese learners of English will have errors when they study English because of their
Vietnamese structure how they can overcome this problem. I think that Vietnamese people
have the habit of using clause or sentence when speaking or writing. Because noun phrases
contain many adjectives and they have to be in the correct order. Therefore, as English
teachers we should give students the clear explanation about the organization of both English
noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases. Teachers are the person who can affect the
wrongness of student because we can correct the error directly in class. We must be the
correct model of students. When the students are confused about noun phrase, teachers can
help them by giving some funny examples or real examples to show the similarities and
differences between English and Vietnamese noun phrases to help them remember easily.
When they can see and understand the situation they will do it correctly and make their brain
used to the correct form.
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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
References
Ban, D. Q. (2005). Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt-tập 2. Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục.
Can, N. T. (2004). Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt. Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản quốc gia Hà Nội.
Jackson, H. (1999). Analyzing English: An Introduction of Descriptive Linguistics .
Clark, M. (1978). Coverbs and case in Vietnamese: Pacific Linguistics. The Australian
University.
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