English and Vietnamese Compounding 1
Running head: Compounding in English and Vietnamese
Compounding in English and Vietnamese: A Contrastive Analysis
Nguyen Ngoc Thao
HCMC University of Education
English and Vietnamese Compounding 2
Introduction
According to Wikipedia, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word) that
consists of more than one stem. Compounding is the word formation that creates
compound lexemes (the other word-formation process being derivation). It refers
to the faculty and device of language to form new words by combining or putting
together old words. In other words, compounding occurs when a person attaches
two or more words together to make them one word. The meanings of the words
interrelate in such a way that a new meaning comes out which is very different
from the meanings of the words in isolation. In linguistics studies, this is one of the
most interesting features of language, especially in Vietnamese. The phonology
of compounding may be seen to form a bridge between the
lexical phonology of the word and the post-lexical phonology of the phrase.
(Nguyen & Ingram, 2006). This paper aims at exploring compounding in English
and Vietnamese in a contrastive view. Then, some suggested implications for
future language teaching are discussed. I hope that the information included in
this paper will help to have a deeper look in the two language systems in
compounding.
English and Vietnamese Compounding 3
Compounding in English
In English, compounds are classified in terms of semantics and word class.
Firstly, in semantics, a common classification of compounds yields four types:
endocentric, exocentric, copulative and appositional compounds. Endocentric
compounds (or headed compounds) consist of a head, i.e. the categorical part
that contains the basic meaning of the whole compound, and modifiers, which
restrict this meaning. For example, in the English compound doghouse (a house
intended for a dog), house is the head and dog is the modifier. Exocentric
compounds, on the contrary, do not have a head and their meaning often cannot
be transparently guessed from its constituent parts. For example, the English
compound white-collar is neither a kind of collar nor a white thing. A white-collar
person is neither white nor a collar (the collar's color is a metaphor for
socioeconomic status). Copulative compounds are compounds which have two
semantic heads while appositional compounds refer to lexemes that have two
attributes which classify the compound.
Type
Description
Endocentric A+B denotes a special kind of B
Examples
darkroom, smalltalk
A+B denotes a special kind of an
skinhead, paleface
Exocentric
unexpressed semantic head
A+B denotes 'the sum' of what A and B
bittersweet, sleepwalk
Copulative
denote
Appositional A and B provide different descriptions for
actor-director,
English and Vietnamese Compounding 4
maidservant
the same referent
Secondly, in word class, there are three types of compounds: compound nouns,
compound verbs and compound adjectives. 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 (Leo network). For example,
compound nouns toothpaste or blackboard are formed by joining noun tooth and
adjective black with noun paste and noun board. In both these examples, the first
word modifies or describes the second word, telling us what kind of object it is or
what its purpose is while the second part identifies the object (learnenglish.de).
Compound nouns can also be formed by using the following combinations of
words:
Patterns
Examples
Noun + Noun
toothpaste
Adjective +Noun
monthly ticket
Verb +Noun
swimming pool
Preposition + Noun
underground
Noun + Verb
haircut
Noun + Preposition
hanger on
Adjective + Verb
dry-cleaning
Preposition + Verb
output
English and Vietnamese Compounding 5
A compound verb is usually composed of a preposition and a verb. But there are
also many other combinations as the following
Modifier
Head
Examples
Preposition
Verb
overrate, underline, outrun
Adverb
Verb
downsize, upgrade
Adjective
Verb
whitewash, blacklist, foulmouth
Noun
Verb
browbeat, sidestep, manhandle
Preposition
Noun
out-Herod, out-fox
English compound adjectives are constructed in a very similar way to the
compound noun. Blackboard jungle, leftover ingredients, gunmetal sheen, and
green monkey disease are only a few examples. A compound adjective is a
modifier of a noun. It consists of two or more morphemes of which the left-hand
component limits or changes the modification of the right-hand one, as in "the
dark-green dress": dark limits the green that modifies dress. (wordiQ.com). As a
general rule, the words in a compound adjective are often hyphenated when they
come before a noun but not when they come after (About.com). For examples,
"Four-leaf clovers are not mutant freaks." (Bart Simpson, The Simpsons), "A welldeveloped sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk
the tightrope of life." (William Arthur Ward), "The cutting edge is quite straight and
well polished, and as keen as when it was finished." (Robert Smyth, The
Aborigines of Victoria, 1878), "In the 19th century, before the science of
English and Vietnamese Compounding 6
archaeology became well developed, the Ottomans laid out the brick and concrete
city that stands today." (Scott Macleod, "Alexandria Rising" Time magazine, June
15, 1998).
There are some patterns of compound adjectives:
Patterns
Examples
Adjective + Noun_ed
warm-blooded, kind-hearted
Adjective + Past participle
low-paid, high-bred.
Adjective + Present participle
good-looking, free-standing
Adverb + Present participle
never-ending, far-reaching
Noun + Present participle
record-breaking, breath-taking
Noun + Adjective
trouble-free, lead-free
Adverb + Past participle
well-behaved, ill-equipped
Number + Noun
two-door, twenty-page
Compounding in Vietnamese
English and Vietnamese Compounding 7
The monosyllable is considered as an important entity in Vietnamese language.
Each syllable tends to have its own meaning, so it has a strong identity. However,
it does not mean that Vietnamese monosyllable is a word. It is often that two
syllables go together to form a single word. For instance:
Mấy giờ máy bay sẽ hạ cánh ở sân bay Tokyo?
(What time does the plane arrive at Tokyo airport?)
We can see clearly that máy bay does not mean “machine fly”; it means
“aeroplane” and functions as the subject of the sentence. Hạ cánh does not mean
“come-down wing”; it is a single word that means “to land” and functions as the
verb of the sentence. Here, máy bay and hạ cánh are compound words made up
of two elements.
Vietnamese compounds are words formed by two or more than two morphemes
meaning of which is the meaning of the whole group of morphemes. For example,
compound du kích (guerilla) is formed by combining morpheme du (chơi) and
morpheme kích (đánh) but it doesn’t mean “đánh chơi”, it means “lực lượng bán
vũ trang”. Another example is compound rau cỏ in the sentence “Chợ hôm nay
rau cỏ rẻ lắm”, which does not mean “rau” and “cỏ” but means all kinds of
vegetable.
There are two types of compounds in Vietnamese: coordinate compounding (từ
ghép đẳng lập) and subordinate compounding (từ ghép chính phụ).
According to Ngô Như Bình, coordinate compounds are formed by two
morphemes in the same semantic category, neither of which modifies the other
English and Vietnamese Compounding 8
one such as quần áo (cloths), mua bán (purchase and sell), phải trái (right and
wrong). Coordinate compounds show things, action, characteristic,
nature,…whose meaning is more general than that of each morpheme (Ân,
Kha,2009). For example, the meaning of compound vui buồn is broader and more
general than that of morpheme vui and buồn, similarly ăn uống > ăn, uống; ao hồ
> ao, hồ.
Another type is subordinate compounds. Subordinate compounds are formed by
two morphemes, one of which modifies the other one (Ngô,2003). Examples are
xe đạp (bicycle), xe máy (motorbike); khó chịu (unbearable), khó nghe (be difficult
to hear); trắng tinh (immaculate), trắng muốt (pure white); nhà báo (journalist),
nhà văn (writer), nhà thơ (poet), nhà doanh nghiệp (businessman). Unlike
coordinate compounds, subordinate compounds’ meaning is more concrete and
narrow than that of each morpheme (Ân, Kha, 2009). So, morpheme hấu makes
compound dưa hấu more specific, similarly mát tay < mát, làm bộ < làm.
Like English, in word class, compounds in Vietnamese are also divided into three
sections: compound nouns, compound verbs, and compound adjectives. Here are
their structures:
Thuốc đỏ (mercurochrome), cà chua
Noun + Adj
(tomato), hoa hồng (rose)
Gấu ngựa (Tibetan bear), bút bi(ball-point
NOUN
Noun + Noun
pen), bạn đời (life partner)
Bánh chưng (rice cake), áo choàng
Noun + Verb
(overcoat), dao cạo (razor)
English and Vietnamese Compounding 9
Cướp cò (discharge accidentally), chuyển
Verb + Noun
dạ (begin labour), bỏ phiếu (vote)
VERB
Đánh hỏng (fail), đẻ non (to have a
Verb + Adj
premature birth), vạch trần (disclose)
Láu cá (cunning), yên lòng (be-assured),
Adj + Noun
mù chữ (illiterate)
Xanh lơ (blue), dốt đặc (be completely
ADJECTIVE
Adj + Adj
ignorant), đau điếng (stabbing pain)
Đáng yêu (lovely), khó coi (improper),
Adj + Verb
háu ăn (be voracious)
Discussion
Within this paper, I would like to discuss the contrast between English and
English and Vietnamese Compounding 10
Vietnamese compounds in three aspects: the order, form and stress.
Firstly, one of the basic principles of compounding in English is that English
compounds are right-headed. For example, head of the compound godchild is the
right-hand element child, not the left-hand element god. However, in Vietnamese,
the head of a subordinate compound is the reverse of that of English compound.
That is left-headed, such as dưa hấu in which dưa is the head. In spite of the
different positions of the head, English and Vietnamese compounds are both
irreversible. It means that we can only say one way, but not another disregarding
the change of meaning. For example, in English it is said black-and-white, lifeand-death or back-and-forth, not vice versa. Similarly, in Vietnamese irreversible
binominals are ánh sáng (light), chim chóc (birds of all kinds), nặng nề (heavy),
êm ả (tranquil), ăn uống (eat and drink), phát triển (develop). However, there are
some cases of Vietnamese compounds that can be reversible without changing
the meaning. They comprise two words that have a mutual relationship: the first is
concrete, the second is abstract; or the first is cause and the second is effect. We
can say đau khổ or khổ đau “miserable”, vui mừng or mừng vui (delighted), mơ
ước or ước mơ (dream).
Secondly, there are up to three forms of compounds in English. They are the
closed form in which the words are melded together such as firefly, secondhand,
softball, childlike, redhead, keyboard, makeup, notebook; the hyphenated form
such as daughter-in-law, master-at-arms, six-pack, six-year-old, mass-produced;
and the open form such as post office, real estate, middle class, full moon, half
sister. On the other hand, because the noticeable feature of Vietnamese language
is its monosyllabic nature, every syllable is written as though it were a separate
English and Vietnamese Compounding 11
word, with a space before and after. Thus, there is no hyphen in Vietnamese
compounds such as trong trắng, nhà cửa, học sinh, chua lè,bay nhảy, đưa đón. In
addition, in form of English compound nouns there are singular, plural, or
countable, uncountable whereas Vietnamese compounds mostly are uncountable
words.
Last but not least, Vietnamese and English respectively represent two contrastive
prosodic types: tone language and stress language. English has a system of word
stress while Vietnamese, a tonal language has no system of word stress but it has
a system of lexically distinctive tones (Nguyen, 1970; Nguyen, 1980). In English
noun compounds, the first element of the compound is strongly stresed such as
BLACKbird, TAP dance, TEA-cup. Noun compounds and words that look like
noun compounds but are actually functioning as adjective + noun sequences can
be differentiated by stress.
Noun compound: The President lives in the WHITE house.
Adjective + noun sequence: John lives in the white HOUSE.
Adjective compounds and verb compounds follow the same stress patterns as
noun compounds. Examples are WELL-trained, GOOD looking, OVERworked and
TIPtoe, TYPEwrite, LIPread. On the other hand, some linguists claim that phrases
and compounds are usually pronounced identically in Vietnamese, even in careful
speech and that there is no distinctive compound stress pattern, as in English.
Implications for future teaching
Through a contrastive view into English and Vietnamese compounding in three
English and Vietnamese Compounding 12
aspects as mentioned above, I would like to discuss some implications for the
future teaching at high school in our country.
Firstly, it is common that most students have tendency to transfer equivalently
from Vietnamese into English and vise versa word by word. This can lead to
misunderstanding due to differences between two languages. The meaning of a
compound is not always the meaning of each word in compound. Take the
compound red-coat as an example. Many students often translate it into
Vietnamese : áo khoác màu đỏ but its true meaning is lính Anh. Thus, when
teaching compounds to the students, it is useful to spend time exploring what form
they are. This is because that compounds which have open forms are easy to
understand by basing on their head words and the modifiers going with them. In
turn, to hyphenated ones teachers should introduce them and show a few
examples. Besides, dictionary is also another good way to check the meaning of
compound words.
Secondly, two concepts that often make students feel confused and
misunderstand are a compound and a phrase. Thus, teachers should pay
attention to help students distinguish them, mostly a compound noun and a noun
phrase. To do this effectively, teachers should point out the differences between
them. For instance, a hyphen in a compound word is a feature different from a
phrase. Nevertheless, as Vietnamese compounds are rarely hyphenated, our
students tend to underestimate its function and miss it in English. That’s why
teachers have to remind them of this point. To help learners avoid
English and Vietnamese Compounding 13
misunderstanding these two concepts, teachers can also provide them with some
rules about stress in compound as I said above.
Last but not least, the awareness of English and Vietnamese compounding also
helps students to develop their vocabularies as well as their linguistic skills in both
languages, which is necessary in language learning.
Conclusion
English and Vietnamese Compounding 14
In conclusion, compounding is a common linguistic feature which draws much
attention of lots of linguists. A contrastive analysis in this area between English
and Vietnamese is necessary as it shows many differences in the order, form and
stress in the two languages. Moreover, in the study there are also some
suggested implications for future language teaching for high school students. I
hope that this paper, to some extent, will help much for further exploration in this
area and provide language teachers some idea for their teaching.
References
English and Vietnamese Compounding 15
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