Noun Phrase
Running head: Noun Phrase
English and Vietnamese noun phrase with
articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers and classifiers
A Contrastive Analysis
Pham Nguyen Tra My
University of Education
Contrastive Analysis
Mr Nguyen Ngoc Vu
December 31, 2010
1
Noun Phrase
2
Vietnamese and English noun phrase:
A Contrastive Analysis
This paper aim to investigate the main differences in two languages: Vietnamese
and English. This is the difference between L1 and L2 structure and use in noun phrase
beyond five categories: articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers and
classifiers. In contrast, this paper of CA just gets sample collection, describing error,
explaining in reality. It is just a research and may not be correct totally. Thus, I want to
investigate the differences between two languages and consider the Vietnamese
interference as a possible cause in the production of erroneous English structure among
ESL learners.
Language is a complicated category for linguists to find out. Each language has
its own value and structure. Grammar is one of the most difficult parts of analysis
because just a small category in grammar may have variation, universals and different
uses in different countries. And as we know, there are interferences in language
transfer. In Vietnam, ESL students encounter many grammatical problems when they
learn English. “One grammatical area that is universally acknowledged to be the great
difficulty for nonnative speaker of English is the determiners.” (Peter Master, p1). This
saying make me more concerned about the determiners. However, determiner in
English and Vietnamese may have a big difference in the content. Each language has
its own feature and value. And I think that when I analyze the category noun phrase
beyond the concept determiners I can both understand two problems. The other reason
Noun Phrase
3
that I want to investigate the form of noun phrase with just five categories: articles,
demonstrative, possessives, quantifiers and classifiers is that the formation of
Vietnamese noun phrase is so complicated with many categories. So I want to focus on
the determiners and classifiers. My paper will investigate the English and Vietnamese
noun phrase relied on the five concepts: article, demonstrative, possessive, quantifier a
classifiers. I want to make it clear and find out the sample collection, identifying,
describing error, explaining and evaluation and I also think that after doing a contrastive
analysis about noun phrase. With five categories, I hope that my paper will give the
readers a full overview about noun phrase in these fields. Moreover, I can help myself
understand and use it correctly because that is a linguistic problem that I-myself am a
students of English department must have deeply understand and wisely apply it into
my teaching in the future. I will help my students study well, they will realize the errors
they have made and avoid making mistakes.
1.
The structure of noun phrase:
With the description of the book Noun Phrase of Jan Rijkhoff (2002) : “ Jan
Rijkhoff investigates noun phrases--linguistic constructions with the noun as central
element.” With another concept “a noun phrase is a word or sequence of words
consisting of a noun or a noun plus one or more modifiers” (Lars Berghaus, 2001, p7). A
noun phrase is a group of words that is responsible for being the key element of a noun.
A noun phrase is either a pronoun or any group of words that can be replaced by a
pronoun. In English, a noun phrase has three components: pre-modification, head, postmodification. In English Today 2, Douglas Henry Howe and Terry Burton define noun
Noun Phrase
4
phrase : “A noun phrase, frequently a noun accompanied by modifiers, is a group of
related words acting as a noun: drug abuse, enlarged nose; disappearance of money;
the girl next door.” And they also clarify that pre-modifiers are adjectives or noun
appearing before a noun, post-modifiers are adjectives or noun appearing after a noun.
With the definition of many writers, a noun phrase is either a pronoun or a group of
words that are responsible for the work of a central element and it has three
components: pre-modification, head, post-modification. The form of noun phrase is:
Pre-modification + Head + Post-modification
1.1.
Head
The word which takes the work of the central element is the head. In a noun
phrase we can find it clear to see that the head word in a noun phrase is a noun. Beside
that, a pronoun may also appear as the central part of a noun phrase. According to the
website www.grammarforteachers.co.uk In English there are seven main kinds of
pronouns:
TYPE
EXAMPLES
PERSONAL
I / me
he / him
POSSESSIVE
mine
hers
REFLEXIVE
myself
themselves
DEMONSTRATIVE this
those
Noun Phrase
INDEFINITE
someone
no one
INTERROGATIVE
who
what
RELATIVE
which
that
Usually, when a pronoun takes the role of head in a noun phrase, it is not
preceded by pre-modification; however, it can be followed by post-modification, e.g.
he who hesitates.
1.2.
Pre-modifiers will include all the categories appearing before the head noun.
Some common pre-modifiers are: determiners. Adjectives and nouns. From Wikipedia
I have the following examples:
Example
Determiner
That sophisticated city
That
woman
Many honest downand-out small-town
Many
businessmen
Adjective
Adjective
phrase
sophisticated
honest
Noun
city
Head
woman
down-and- smallbusinessmen
out
town
1.3.
Post modifiers are the categories that follow the head noun. These categories
are prepositional phrases, nonfinite clauses, and relative clauses. These examples I
also get from Wikipedia:
Example
Postmodification
The talkative man in the center in the center of the room
Category
prepositional
5
Noun Phrase
of the room
All the women walking on the
bike path
The house that I purchased for
my third husband
The house, which my partner
and I bought a month after we
met
phrase
walking on the bike path
non-finite clause
that I purchased for my third
husband
restrictive relative
clause
which my partner and I bought
a month after we met
non-restrictive
relative clause
1.4.
Vietnamese noun phrase
I want to consider the term noun phrase in Vietnam. Vietnamese grammar have
challenge many foreigners who wants to study Vietnamese. That is true because the
grammar is too complicated with many difficult grammar categories. Noun phrase is
also a category that many linguists have been debated for a long time. This one has a
big difference from one in English. According to Tuong Hung Nguyen(2004), noun
phrase in Vietnam include pre-nominal modifiers (quantifiers, articles, numerals, the
particle CÁI, classifiers, measure phrases) and post-nominal modifiers (noun adjuncts,
adjective phrases, prepositional phrases, relative clauses, demonstratives, and
possessives).
There are too many categories appear as modifications of noun phrase. So I
want to focus on the form of noun phrase with determiners and classifiers. More
specific, I will work on the fields: demonstratives, articles, possessives, quantifiers and
classifiers.
2.
Determiners
6
Noun Phrase
7
“The term determiner is currently used by linguists to label a class of words which
includes the definite and indefinite articles, the demonstrative adjectives and a variety of
other words that have much the same distribution as a definite article in sentences of
English…” (John Lyon, 2001, p 452) and Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman (1991, p 19)
describes determiner as a special class of words that limits (or determines) the nouns
that follow them. Easier to understand, determiners are used in front of nouns to
indicate whether you are referring to something specific or something of a particular
type. There are many functional types of determiners. They can be the articles (the, a,
an), demonstratives (this, that, these, those), possessive determiners (my, your, his,
her, its, our, their ) and quantifiers (many, one, some, much…). When there are
adjectives in sentences determiners will stand before the adjectives and then the nouns.
In cases where there is no adjective, they are put directly in front of a noun. Where the
sentence “I put my hat in the front table, and now I can’t find it anywhere.” Is concerned,
two determiners can be detected. The first is my, a possessive determiner that
precedes the noun hat while the second is the, a definite article that precedes the
adjective front. In both cases, both my hat and the front table are noun phrases. Below
are types of determiners
Determiner
Articles
[a, the ]
Demonstrative
[this, that, these, those]
Possessives
Quantifiers
[my, your, his, her, our, their, its] [many, one, some, much]
In English structure, determiners are modifiers of nouns, and they are often
restricted according to number and / or countability of the nouns with which they can co-
Noun Phrase
8
occur. In other words, there are some determiners that occur only with singular count
nouns like a, one, another and there are also determiners that occur only with plural
count nouns: these, those, many, both, two, three, and so on.
Moreover, there are a few determiners that occur only with uncountable nouns
like much, (a) little… and some with countable nouns many, (a)few… they are the
quantifiers restricted by countability while there are determiners can co-occur with either
of two kinds: uncountable and singular noun, countable and plural noun. For example,
‘this’, ‘that’ can go with uncountable or singular nouns. Determiners like ‘some’, ‘all’,
‘no’, and ‘other’ occur with either plural nouns or uncountable nouns. But possessive
determiners such as ‘my’, ‘his’, ‘her’, ‘their’, ‘its’…can occur with any kind of noun and
thus they don’t have to follow the restriction of number and countability of the nouns.
These agreement features can make English unique to the others about determiners.
And those useful features can help us distinct English determiners with determiners
function in other language.
We consider determiners situation in English, there can be as many as 3
determiners come in front of the nouns. For example: All the other, my other two, the
first four. The determiner slot itself consists of three subcategories: the first one is predeterminer like ‘all’ and ‘both’, second is core-determiner as the articles ‘a’ and ‘the’,
demonstratives like ‘this’ and ‘that’, and possessives like ‘my’ and ‘his’, and the third
category is post-determiner like quantifiers ‘three’ and comparative reference terms like
‘other’, ‘both’ of which may occur in either order. (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman
1999,p 83).
Noun Phrase
In Vietnamese, the use of determiners is different from one of English language.
“As one might expect of a strictly head-initial language, most of the phrasal modifiers of
a head noun appear post-nominally in Vietnamese. These modifiers include attributive
adjectives, possessor phrases, relative clauses of various kinds, complement clauses,
and demonstratives.”1. Determiners’ function in Vietnamese may be a variation to the
one of English.
2.1.
Position
2.1.1. Article and quantifier
The nominal word order facts can be varied from English to Vietnamese. There
are many differences between these two languages. First I want to analyze the two
categories: articles and quantifiers. The article and quantifiers in English and
Vietnamese have the same position: before the nouns. For example,
Anh ấy đang đi với một cô gái
He is going with a girl
Một tòa nhà sẽ được xây dựng ở đây
A building will be built here
Cái cô gái mặc áo đầm hồng là bạn của tôi
The girl in pink dress is my friend
Nhiều người đang tụ tập ở đằng kia
Many people are gathering over there
Chúng ta có một ít sữa
We have a little milk
9
Noun Phrase
10
According to Tuong Hung Nguyen (2004), Vietnamese articles can be: ‘một’
(singular, indefinite), ‘những’ (plural, indefinite) and ‘các’ (plural, definite). ‘Một’ and
‘Những’ will precede the indefinite noun or group of nouns while ‘các’ just can precede
the definite noun or group of nouns. The article cannot precede the head noun without
classifier. I will explain more in classifier part.
Một bông hoa
Một CL flower
‘a flower’
Những bông hoa
Những CL flower
‘some flowers’
2.1.2. Demonstrative
In English and French, demonstratives often come before the nouns as a rule
appearing as pre-nominal functional categories. However, in Vietnamese they occur
after the nouns and play the role post-nominal demonstratives. This has reversed the
rule in English and French. In Vietnamese language, demonstratives and possessives
come after the nouns. We can see it clearly with those examples:
Cô gái đó thật là cao
That girl is very tall
Noun Phrase
11
Cái áo này rất đẹp
This shirt is very beautiful
Những bông hoa này có màu tím
These flowers are violet
Những cô gái đó học rất giỏi
Those girls study very well
2.1.3. Possessive
Possessive construction in Vietnamese is called Possessor Phrase. In typical
cases, the Possessor Phrase follows the head noun (Possessum) and is introduced by
linking morpheme của (of), which is considered as a regular preposition. (Vietnamese
grammar)
Đây là con chó của cô ta
This is the dog of she
‘This is her dog’
Những chiếc xe hơi này của họ
These cars are of they
‘These cars are theirs’
mẹ của tôi
Noun Phrase
12
mother of I
‘my mother’
mẹ của cháu
mother of nephew/niece/grandchild
‘my/ your mother’ (depending on who is speaking to whom)
c mẹ của Nam
mother of Nam
‘Nam’s mother’
From those examples, we can see that the linking “của” cannot be separated
from the Possessor Phrase in a context.
Đây là cô ta con chó của
This is she dog of
Mẹ của (Mother of)
One more specific thing of possessive in Vietnamese that I want to clarify is that
there can be no linking in Possessor Phrase. “của” is considered as a normal
preposition and it may be omitted in spoken language when the sentence has a clear
meaning.
Mẹ Nam
Mother Nam
Noun Phrase
13
Nam’s mother
Mẹ tôi
Mother I
My mother
2.2.
Agreement to the noun
Subject-verb-agreement is not a property of the Vietnamese language and so,
the determiners that precede a noun need not agree with the nouns. In Vietnamese, just
one category has the agreement between subject and determiner. That is article
category. “Những, các” (the) go with plural nouns while in English “the” can go with
singular or plural nouns.
Các cô gái trong lớp tôi đều xinh đẹp
The girls in my class are beautiful
Những cái ghế trong nhà tôi đều sạch sẽ
The chairs in my house are clean
With singular nouns, article a (an) in English have the same use with “một” in
Vietnamese.
Một con chim đang bay trên bầu trời
A bird is flying in the sky
Một quyển sách
A book
Noun Phrase
14
As Vietnamese is concerned, the article, demonstratives, possessives,
quantifiers and classifiers don’t follow the agreement of noun and determiner
I take demonstrative category in consider first. Vietnamese demonstratives will
contribute to the head noun with the position ‘after the noun’. Demonstratives “này, nọ,
kia” can go with both plural and singular nouns.
Cô gái này (CL girl this)
Những cô gái này (‘Những’ CL girl this)
In English demonstratives have to follow the agreement of subject and
determiners
This girl
These girls
Continue with possessives, both in English and Vietnamese, possessives won’t
follow any kinds of nouns. They can co-occur with singular and plural nouns.
Vietnamese
Quyển sách của cô ta (book of she)
Các quyển sách của cô ta (books of she)
English
Her book
‘Her books’
These cases of possessives have showed us clearly that possessives in English
and Vietnamese all go with singular and plural nouns.
When I come to quantifiers, I see that quantifiers in Vietnamese don’t follow the
agreement of nouns and modifiers while in English, quantifiers are restricted according
Noun Phrase
15
to number and / or countability of the nouns. The quantifiers are từng ‘each’; ít
‘little/few’; nhiều ‘a lot’; mấy ‘some, several/how many’; vài ‘two or three, some’; một vài
‘one or two or three, some’(Nguyen,2004). In English, some quantifiers follow the
agreement of nouns and modifiers, some can go with singular and uncountable noun or
plural noun, and some determiners like ‘some’, ‘all’, ‘no’, and ‘other’ occur with either
plural nouns or uncountable nouns.
Vietnamese don’t follow the agreement of noun and modifier
Từng người băng qua đường
Each person cross the street
‘Each person crosses the street’
Một vài người băng qua đường
Some person cross the street
‘Some people cross the street’
Tất cả (học sinh) đều đã sẵn sàng. (Nguyen 2004)
All student all already ready
‘All (the students) are ready.’
Toàn bộ những cuốn sách này
All (những) book this
‘All these books’
With quantifiers nhiều (many, much, a lot) and ít (few, little), Vietnamese
sentences nhiều and ít don’t follow the agreement of subject and determiner, and they
are not restricted by countable or uncountable nouns.
()Nhiều học sinh đến trường
Noun Phrase
[Nhiều] student go school
‘Many students go to school’
() Anh ta uống nhiều sữa
He [ta] drink [nhiều] milk
He drinks too much milk
() Ít học sinh đến trường
[Ít] student go school
Few students go to school
() Anh ta uống ít sữa
He drink [ít] milk
He drinks little milk
2.3. Noun phrase with adjective and determiner
When a noun phrase appears with adjective and also with determiners like:
demonstrative, article, possessive, quantifiers, the adjective and the determiner will
precede the noun in English. In Vietnamese, adjective is a post-modifier so when it
appears in the noun phrase it will follow the noun with no regard to the determiner.
() Một câu chuyện thú vị
a/an CL story interesting
‘an interesting story’
() Cái váy đỏ của cô bé
16
Noun Phrase
17
CL dress red of CL girl
‘The dress is the girl’s’
2.4. Three determiners prior to the head noun
In English, appearing three determiners prior to the head usually happens. This
will help English language have a way to make the sentence become shorter and brief.
Those cases can be: all the other, my other two, the first four. However, those things
cannot happen in Vietnamese. This will change the meaning of sentences when three
determiners prior to the head noun as these following sentences.
Bốn người đầu tiên của lớp
Four person first of class
‘the first four people of the class’
Tất cả những cô gái khác
All [những] CL girl other
‘All the other girls’
3.
Classifier
When I investigate the determiner category in Vietnamese I usually meet the
classifiers. I think that classifiers play an important role in forming noun phrases and
also contribute to determine the meaning of noun phrases. However, I consider that
classifier in Vietnamese and English has a big difference. “The output of Chinese
classifier system is a well-defined portion, while the output of English classifier system is
Noun Phrase
18
an arbitrary division.” (Hagit Boder, 2005, p109). Vietnamese classifier is influenced of
Chinese so I can come to a conclusion that Vietnamese classifier is different from
English. Vietnamese classifiers may depend on the semantics.
Among the most common Vietnamese classifiers are: (Le Thi Ngoc Tuyen_5CQBT)

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)

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.)

lá: smaller sheets of paper (letters, playing cards)

việc: an event or an ongoing process

chuyện: a general topic, matter, or business
“In Vietnamese, if a classifier (CL) is used with a noun, it precedes the noun, as
shown in (). However, a noun phrase need not contain a classifier, as shown in (). As
Noun Phrase
19
illustrated in (), the numeral cannot immediately precede the noun without an
intervening classifier. Classifiers serve to individuate nouns, thereby making them
countable.” (Nguyen,2004,p 9)
As Nguyen said, Vietnamese classifiers help the noun become countable. And
the Vietnamese say:
Một cô gái
A CL girl
‘a girl’
Hai cô gái
Two CL girl
‘two girls’
Ba cuốn sách
Three CL book
‘three books’
With these examples we can see that in English, we may not have classifiers in a
noun phrase because the meaning is clear. However, if we don’t have classifiers in
Vietnamese we cannot make a noun phrase. This make Vietnamese learner become
confused when they meet those situations. According to Nguyen, we cannot use the
numeral immediately precede the noun without interference of classifier. We meet the
examples again to see that we must use classifiers in noun phrases.
Một gái
A girl
‘a girl’
Noun Phrase
20
Hai gái
Two girl
‘two girls’
Ba sách
Three book
‘three books’
More examples in the following will make my idea become clearer.
Tôi được sinh ra vào ngày 1 tháng 10
I [passive] bear on CL 1 CL October
‘I was born on October 1st’
Tôi thích học môn học tiếng Anh
I like study CL English
‘I like studying English’
In brief, due to the differences between English and Vietnamese language, the
form of noun phrase also varies, which requires our attention of ESL learners when they
are learning the target language.
When a learner learns a language, he takes and understands the target
language based on the knowledge of his first language. So when he uses his first
language to think and study the second language. The analysis will depend on the
structure of the first language. English and Vietnamese also have their own value and
feature. Each is different to the other. As I have analyzed the difference between
English and Vietnamese noun phrase which rely on the five category demonstratives,
Noun Phrase
21
articles, possessives, quantifiers and classifiers. Vietnamese learners of English will
have errors when they study English because of their Vietnamese structure and how
they can overcome this problem. The answer is that they must take the structure into
consider. The important thing is that they must have the awareness of the problem
when studying. They must know and understand the error through the study process. I
am sure that when studying English every student will encounter many errors and
mistakes. However, students must come to a conclusion after making an error. That is
the most important thing to improve the English himself.
When this problem comes to a teacher’s mind, what can she do for the student?
The answer is that she must equip herself with the information, the awareness of
difference between two languages. Teacher is the person who can affect the wrongness
of student because she can correct the error directly in class. She must be the correct
model of students. When the students are confused about noun phrase, teacher can
help them by giving many examples to illustrate the situation. When they can see and
understand the situation they will do it correctly and make their brain used to the correct
form.
Noun Phrase
22
References
Lars B. (2001). Movement of noun phrase in English syntax. The scholarly paper,
p7.
John L. (2001). Semantic and Grammar II. Cambridge University Press. p452.
Peter M. A contrastive study of determiners Usage in EST Research Article. p1
Jila G., Pleana P., Martina W (2009). Determiners: universals and variation. John
Benjamins Publishing Company
Nguyen T. H (2004). The structure of Vietnamese Noun Phrase. Graduate school
of Art & Science paper. Boston University.p7-56
Douglas H. H. & Terry B. (2006). English Today 2.
Huu Q. N (2001). Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt.
Celce-Murcia, M. & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999). The grammar book: An ESL/EFL
teacher's course. Rowley: Newbury House. p19-83
Hagit Boder ( 2005). In name only. Oxford University Press.p109.
Nội dung ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt (2010) Retrieved April 2010 from
<http://ngnnghc.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/ch%C6%B0%C6%A1ng-3-cu-phapti%E1%BA%BFng-vi%E1%BB%87t/>
Wikipedia. (2009). Noun phrase. Retrieved May 2009 from
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_noun_phrase>
Tuyen N. T. L. (2009) English and Vietnamese Noun Phrase. p15-16
Noun Phrase
23
Vietnamese online grammar (2005). Retrieved August 2005 from
<http://vietnamese-grammar.group.shef.ac.uk/grammar_en.php?ID=55>
John S. (2008)Types of pronoun. Retrieved 2008 from
<http://www.grammarforteachers.co.uk/Guide/Noun%20phrases/typesofpronoun.html>