Vietnamese syntax
Encyclopedia
Vietnamese
, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (or isolating) language. Also like other languages in the region, Vietnamese syntax conforms to subject–verb–object word order
, is head-initial (displaying modified-modifier
ordering), and has a noun classifier
system. Additionally, it is pro-drop, wh-in-situ, copula-drop, and allows verb serialization.
The syntax of each lexical category and its associated phrase
(i.e., the syntactic constituents
below the sentence
level) is detailed below. Attention is paid to both form and function
.
s belonging to the noun
(or substantive) lexical category can be distinguished from verbs syntactically in that the copula là "to be" is required to precede nouns in predications
whereas the copula is not required before adjectives.
In the sentence above, the noun sinh viên "student" must co-occur with the copula. Omitting the copula, as in *Mai sinh viên results in an ungrammatical
sentence. In contrast, adjectives do not co-occur with the copula.
The adjective cao (as in the sentence above) does not require a preceding copula, and thus the sentence *Mai là cao is ill-formed.
The noun category can be further subdivided into different noun classes according to semantic and syntactic criteria. Some of the subclasses identified in Nguyễn (1997) include:
Nouns can be modified
with other words resulting in complex noun phrase
s. These modifiers include demonstratives, quantifiers, classifiers, prepositional phrases, and other attributive lexical words, such as other nouns and verbs. These modifiers co-occur with the modified noun (known as the head noun or noun phrase head), but there are restrictions on what kind of modifiers are allowed depending upon the subclass of noun. The noun phrase has the following structure:
Example:
Vietnamese
, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (or isolating) language. Also like other languages in the region, Vietnamese syntax conforms to subject–verb–object word order
, is head-initial (displaying modified-modifier
ordering), and has a noun classifier
system. Additionally, it is pro-drop, wh-in-situ, copula-drop, and allows verb serialization.
The syntax of each lexical category and its associated phrase
(i.e., the syntactic constituents
below the sentence
level) is detailed below. Attention is paid to both form and function
.
s belonging to the noun
(or substantive) lexical category can be distinguished from verbs syntactically in that the copula là "to be" is required to precede nouns in predications
whereas the copula is not required before adjectives.
In the sentence above, the noun sinh viên "student" must co-occur with the copula. Omitting the copula, as in *Mai sinh viên results in an ungrammatical
sentence. In contrast, adjectives do not co-occur with the copula.
The adjective cao (as in the sentence above) does not require a preceding copula, and thus the sentence *Mai là cao is ill-formed.
The noun category can be further subdivided into different noun classes according to semantic and syntactic criteria. Some of the subclasses identified in Nguyễn (1997) include:
Nouns can be modified
with other words resulting in complex noun phrase
s. These modifiers include demonstratives, quantifiers, classifiers, prepositional phrases, and other attributive lexical words, such as other nouns and verbs. These modifiers co-occur with the modified noun (known as the head noun or noun phrase head), but there are restrictions on what kind of modifiers are allowed depending upon the subclass of noun. The noun phrase has the following structure:
Example:
Vietnamese
, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (or isolating) language. Also like other languages in the region, Vietnamese syntax conforms to subject–verb–object word order
, is head-initial (displaying modified-modifier
ordering), and has a noun classifier
system. Additionally, it is pro-drop, wh-in-situ, copula-drop, and allows verb serialization.
The syntax of each lexical category and its associated phrase
(i.e., the syntactic constituents
below the sentence
level) is detailed below. Attention is paid to both form and function
.
s belonging to the noun
(or substantive) lexical category can be distinguished from verbs syntactically in that the copula là "to be" is required to precede nouns in predications
whereas the copula is not required before adjectives.
In the sentence above, the noun sinh viên "student" must co-occur with the copula. Omitting the copula, as in *Mai sinh viên results in an ungrammatical
sentence. In contrast, adjectives do not co-occur with the copula.
The adjective cao (as in the sentence above) does not require a preceding copula, and thus the sentence *Mai là cao is ill-formed.
The noun category can be further subdivided into different noun classes according to semantic and syntactic criteria. Some of the subclasses identified in Nguyễn (1997) include:
Nouns can be modified
with other words resulting in complex noun phrase
s. These modifiers include demonstratives, quantifiers, classifiers, prepositional phrases, and other attributive lexical words, such as other nouns and verbs. These modifiers co-occur with the modified noun (known as the head noun or noun phrase head), but there are restrictions on what kind of modifiers are allowed depending upon the subclass of noun. The noun phrase has the following structure:
Example:
Quantifiers directly precede the head noun that they modify when that head noun is of a noun type that does not require an obligatory classifier:
When a classifier co-occurs with a following head noun, the quantifier word precedes the classifier:
Mass
(such as, thịt "meat", đất "earth, soil") and collective nouns (such as, trâu bò "cattle", ruộng nương "(rice) fields") cannot be modified with a quantifier. For example, the following are ungrammatical noun phrases:
However, mass nouns can be preceded by a unit noun (such as cân "kilogram", lạng "tael
", nắm "handful", chén "cupful") that indicates a measurement of the mass noun, which can, then, be modified with a quantifier. For example, the ungrammatical *ba thịt "three meats" and *một con thịt "one meat" (above) can be rendered as grammatical phrases with unit nouns present:
cái is identified as a focus marker by Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng (2004). It has been called by several other names, including general classifier, general categorical, 'extra" cái, "extra" general classifier, definite article, superarticle, definite word, demonstrative word, and chỉ xuất "indexical". Focus cái occurs directly before classifiers or unit nouns and may be preceded by other pre-noun modifiers such as quantifiers, numerals, and articles. It must always co-occur with a classifier.
As can be seen by descriptions of focus cái as "general classifier", etc., this particle has often been analyzed as a classifier. However, it can be distinguished by its different behavior. Focus cái always precedes a following classifier and may not directly precede the head noun. The noun phrase
is grammatical, but the phrase
is not grammatical. More than one classifier is not allowed within the same noun phrase, whereas focus cái does occur along with a following classifier (as can be seen above). Examples of other modifiers preceding the focus marker are below:
Again, cái must follow the other pre-noun modifiers, so phrases where cái precedes a numeral or article (such as *cái hai chó đen này or *cái các con mèo này) are ungrammatical.
The focus marker cái is distinct from the classifier cái that classifies inanimate nouns (although it is historically related to the classifier cái). Thus, classifier cái cannot modify the noun chó "dog" (in cái chó) since chó is animate (the non-human animate classifier con must be used: con chó), whereas focus cái can modify nouns of any animacy (with their appropriate classifier):
Functionally, cái indicates grammatically that an element within a noun phrase is in contrastive focus. It has been noted by Nguyễn Đ. H. (1997) (and others) that cái adds a pejorative connotation
, as in:
However, Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng (2004) claims that the connotation is not always negative and gives the following positive example:
Phonologically, the focus cái receives an intonational
stress
, and, in addition, the element receiving the focus also receives an intonational stress. In the following examples, the stressed words are indicated with capital letters (also in red font):
In the above sentence, the item in focus is đen "black", which receives the stress (as does cái). Here, it is the feature of the horse's blackness that is being focused on (or singled out) in contrast to other horses that do not have the feature of blackness. In the sentence below, ngựa "horse" receives the focus and stress.
The focus marker is always stressed and must co-occur with another stressed item; thus, cái cannot occur without another stressed element within the noun phrase. Focus cái may focus a variety of noun phrase elements including prepositional phrases, relative clauses, constituents inside of relative clause modifiers, the head noun (by itself), the head noun plus preceding classifier, and adjectival verbs.
to indicate word classes of nouns. This may be superficially compared to English partitive constructions like one head of cattle ("head", always singular regardless of number, indicates large livestock), two sticks of dynamite ("stick" indicates something relatively rigid, long and comparatively thin), three strands of hair ("strand" indicates something flexible, long and quite thin), or four bars of gold (a "bar" being similar to a "stick", but comparatively less "thin"). Vietnamese's system and usage of classifiers are similar to Chinese
and are more variable than English. Among the most common classifiers are:
The classifier cái has a special role in that it can extend all other classifiers, e.g. cái con, cái chiếc.
s.
Thus, the third person singular (arrogant) pronoun nó can substitute for a simple noun phrase Hoan (a personal name) consisting of a single noun or a complex noun phrase con chó này consisting of a noun plus modifiers (which, here, are a classifier and a demonstrative).
Note that the pronominal system as a whole also includes kinship terms (see kinship term section below) and certain demonstratives (see demonstrative section below), which can also have a pronominal function.
The pronouns are categoried into two classes depending on whether they can be preceded by the plural marker chúng. Like other Asian pronominal systems, Vietnamese pronouns indicate the social status between speakers and other persons in the discourse in addition to grammatical person
and number
. The table below shows the first class of pronouns that can be preceded by pluralizer.
The first person tôi is the only pronoun that can be used in polite speech. The second person ta is often used when talking to oneself as in a soliloquy, but also indicates a higher status of the speaker (such as that of a high official, etc.). The other superior-to-inferior forms in the first and second persons (tao, mày, mi, bay) are commonly used in familiar social contexts, such as among family members (e.g. older sister to younger sister, etc.); these forms are otherwise considered impolite. The third person form nó (used to refer to inanimates, animals, children, and scorned adults, such as criminals) is considerably less arrogant than the second person forms tao, mày, mi, bay. The pronoun mình is used only in intimate relationships, such as between husband and wife.
The pronominal forms in the table above can be modified with plural chúng as in chúng mày "you (guys)", chúng nó "them". There is an exclusive/inclusive plural distinction in the first person: chúng tôi and chúng tao are exclusive (i.e., me and them but not you), chúng ta and chúng mình are inclusive (i.e., you and me). Some of the forms (ta, mình, bay) can be used to refer to a plural referent, resulting in pairs with overlapping reference (e.g., both ta and chúng ta can mean "inclusive we", both bay and chúng bay can mean "you guys").
The other class of pronouns are known as "absolute" pronouns (Thompson 1965). These cannot be modified with the pluralizer chúng. Many of these forms are literary and archaic, particularly in the first and second person.
Unlike third person pronouns of the first type, these absolute third person forms (y, hắn, va) refer only to animate referents (typically people). The form y can be preceded by the pluralizer in southern dialects in which case it is more respectful than nó. The absolute pronoun người ta has a wider range of reference as "they, people in general, (generic) one, we, someone".
As a result of language contact
, some linguists have noted that some Vietnamese speech communities (especially among young college students and bilingual speakers) have borrowed French and English pronouns moi, toi, I, and you in order to avoid the deference and status implications present in the Vietnamese pronominal system (which lacks any truly neutral terms).
s or pejoratives. Kinship terms may also, of course, be used with a lexical meaning like other nouns.
For example, to say I love you in Vietnamese, one can use one of many translations:...
The most common terms of reference are kinship terms, which might differ slightly in different regions.
When addressing an audience, the speaker must carefully assess the social relationship between him/her and the audience, difference in age, and sex of the audience to choose an appropriate form of address. The following are some kinship terms of address that can be used in the second-person sense (you). They all can also be used in the first-person sense (I), but if they're not marked by (S) the usage is limited to the literal meaning:
Using a person's name to refer to oneself or to address another is considered more personal and informal than using pronouns. It can be found among close friends or children.
s (markers of deixis
) all have the function of identifying a referent with respect to another contextual point or position. For example, the demonstrative này "this" as in the noun phrase người này "this person" indicates that the person referred to is relatively close to the speaker (in a context where this noun phrase is uttered by a speaker to an addressee) while the demonstrative đó "that" as in the noun phrase người đó "that person" indicates that the person referred to is further from the speaker.
The demonstratives have a basic three-term deictic system — proximal (close - "this, here"), medial (far - "that, there"), distal (very far - "yonder, over there") — plus an indefinite (or interrogative) term ("which, where"). In addition to their deictic function, different Vietnamese demonstratives can function variously as noun modifiers, as noun phrases (i.e., a (pro-) nominal function), or as adverbial
s.
The form này tends to be used in Northern Vietnamese while nầy is the Southern form and ni is the North-central and Central form. In North-central and Central Vietnamese, the form nớ is used instead of nọ, mô instead of nào and đâu, rủa instead of vậy, and rang instead of sao.
In Hanoi, the form thế or như thế "(like) so, (like) this way" is used instead of vầy. Other forms mentioned in Thompson (1965) are nay "this", nây "this (temporal)", nãy or nẫy "that (just past)", and nao "which".
The basic formal pattern of the demonstratives is that the initial consonant and ending vowel nucleus indicate their function and position in the deictic system. Some linguists have analyzed demonstratives as consisting of two (sub-syllabic) morphemes. Following this, the initial đ- indicates a nominal, n- a noun modifier, b- proportion, v-~s- manner, and the vowels -ây~-ay proximal/medial, -âu~-ao indefinite, and -o medial/distal. However, the form kia is analyzed as consisting of only one morpheme. Overlaid on these elements are tones, which indicate contrastive distances increasingly further from the contextual position: ngang tone (closest), huyền tone (further), sắc or nặng tone (even further). Thus, đấy is more remote than đây, kìa more remote than kia, vậy more remote than vầy. There is an idiomatic expression where demonstratives with an even increasing distance modify the noun ngày "day(time)":
Syntactically, the demonstratives đó and kia may function as either nouns or as noun modifiers:
The nominals đây, đấy, and đâu are only used as nouns typically denoting a space or time and cannot function as noun modifiers. Although they usually refer to position situated in time/space, the nominal deictics can be used to metaphorically refer to people, as in:
In the sentence above (which would translated more literally as "This is going to the market, is that going or not?"), proximal đây is used to refer (metaphorically) to the speaker (as "I") while medial đấy is used to refer to the addressee (as "you"). The demonstrative noun modifiers này, (n)ấy, nọ, and nào can only modify nouns and cannot stand alone as nouns.
When referring to time, the distal demonstratives kia and nọ differ in directionality. Kia specifies a point remote either in the past or the future while nọ specifies only a remote point in the past:
The proportion demonstratives (bây, bấy, bao) refer to the extent of measurement of time or space. They precede the words they modify, such as giờ "time", nhiêu "(to have) much/many", lâu "(to be) long, (take a) long time":
system. "Zero" lacks a dedicated numeral with số không "empty number" (< số "number", không "empty") being used.
Numbers 1-99
Numerals are generally analytic, with multiples of ten following a regular pattern.
Additive compounds are formed by with mười- "10" initially and another numeral following: mười tám ("10" + "8" = "18"). Multiplicative compounds are formed with an order that is the reverse of the additive compounds, i.e. -mươi is preceded by another numeral: tám mươi ("8" x "10" = "80").
Consonantal and tonal alternations occur in some compound numerals. The numeral mười "10" in multiplicative compounds has a tonal change (huyền tone > ngang tone) to -mươi "times 10", as in:
The numeral một "1" undergoes a tonal alternation (nặng tone > sắc tone) to mốt when it occurs after mươi (with ngang tone) in multiples of 10, as in:
The numeral năm "5" undergoes an initial consonant alternation (n > l) to lăm as the final element in additive compounds, as in:
Numbers 100-999
The Vietnamese word for 100 is trăm. Number formation generally follows the same logic as before, with the same consonantal and tonal shifts. However, with the numbers 101-109, 201-209 and so on, a placeholder lẻ ("odd") or linh is inserted to represent "zero tens."
Numbers 1,000-999,999
The Vietnamese word for 1,000 is ngàn or nghìn. With the numbers 1,001-1,099, 2,001-2,099 and so on, the empty hundreds place must be specified with không trăm ("zero hundreds").
Numbers 1,000,000 and Above
The word for 106 ("million") is triệu. The word for 109 (short-scale
"billion" or long-scale "milliard") is tỉ. Above this, combinations of ngàn, triệu and tỉ must be used.
(Thompson 1991). As an example the sentence "Tôi đọc sách này rồi." ("I've already read this book.") can be transformed into the following topic prominent equivalent.
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (or isolating) language. Also like other languages in the region, Vietnamese syntax conforms to subject–verb–object word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
, is head-initial (displaying modified-modifier
Grammatical modifier
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the sentence....
ordering), and has a noun classifier
Classifier (linguistics)
A classifier, in linguistics, sometimes called a measure word, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify the referent of a countable noun according to its meaning. In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted or specified...
system. Additionally, it is pro-drop, wh-in-situ, copula-drop, and allows verb serialization.
Lexical categories
Vietnamese lexical categories (or "parts of speech") consist of nouns, demonstrative noun modifiers, articles, classifiers, numerals, quantifiers, the focus marker particle, verbs, adverbial particles, prepositions.The syntax of each lexical category and its associated phrase
Phrase
In everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....
(i.e., the syntactic constituents
Constituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down...
below the sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
level) is detailed below. Attention is paid to both form and function
Grammatical function
In linguistics, grammatical functions refer to functional relationships between participants in a proposition...
.
Nouns and noun phrases
WordWord
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
s belonging to the noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
(or substantive) lexical category can be distinguished from verbs syntactically in that the copula là "to be" is required to precede nouns in predications
Predicate (grammar)
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar. Traditional grammar tends to view a predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies. The other understanding of predicates is inspired from work in predicate calculus...
whereas the copula is not required before adjectives.
- Mai là sinh viên.
- "Mai is (a) student."
In the sentence above, the noun sinh viên "student" must co-occur with the copula. Omitting the copula, as in *Mai sinh viên results in an ungrammatical
Grammaticality
In theoretical linguistics, grammaticality is the quality of a linguistic utterance of being grammatically well-formed. An * before a form is a mark that the cited form is ungrammatical....
sentence. In contrast, adjectives do not co-occur with the copula.
- Mai cao.
- "Mai is tall."
The adjective cao (as in the sentence above) does not require a preceding copula, and thus the sentence *Mai là cao is ill-formed.
The noun category can be further subdivided into different noun classes according to semantic and syntactic criteria. Some of the subclasses identified in Nguyễn (1997) include:
- proper noun
- common noun
- item noun
- collective noun
- unit (or measure) noun
- mass noun
- time noun
- abstract noun
- classifier
- locative
Nouns can be modified
Grammatical modifier
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the sentence....
with other words resulting in complex noun phrase
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s. These modifiers include demonstratives, quantifiers, classifiers, prepositional phrases, and other attributive lexical words, such as other nouns and verbs. These modifiers co-occur with the modified noun (known as the head noun or noun phrase head), but there are restrictions on what kind of modifiers are allowed depending upon the subclass of noun. The noun phrase has the following structure:
| TOTALITY | + | ARTICLE | + | QUANTIFIER | + | CLASSIFIER | + | HEAD NOUN | + | ATTRIBUTIVE MODIFIER(S) | + | DEMONSTRATIVE | + | PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (possessive) |
|---|
Example:
| cả hai cuốn từ điển Việt Anh này của nó | ||||||
| cả | hai | cuốn | từ điển | Việt Anh | này | của [nó] |
| all | two | clfbook | dictionary | Vietnamese-English | prox.dem | of [3rd.pron] |
| totality | quantifier | classifier | head noun | attributive noun phrase | demonstrative | prep phrase |
| "both of these Vietnamese-English dictionaries of his" | ||||||
Article position
Following Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng (2004) and Nguyễn T. C. (1975), Vietnamese has an article lexical category slot that occurs before a quantifier.Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (or isolating) language. Also like other languages in the region, Vietnamese syntax conforms to subject–verb–object word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
, is head-initial (displaying modified-modifier
Grammatical modifier
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the sentence....
ordering), and has a noun classifier
Classifier (linguistics)
A classifier, in linguistics, sometimes called a measure word, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify the referent of a countable noun according to its meaning. In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted or specified...
system. Additionally, it is pro-drop, wh-in-situ, copula-drop, and allows verb serialization.
Lexical categories
Vietnamese lexical categories (or "parts of speech") consist of nouns, demonstrative noun modifiers, articles, classifiers, numerals, quantifiers, the focus marker particle, verbs, adverbial particles, prepositions.The syntax of each lexical category and its associated phrase
Phrase
In everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....
(i.e., the syntactic constituents
Constituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down...
below the sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
level) is detailed below. Attention is paid to both form and function
Grammatical function
In linguistics, grammatical functions refer to functional relationships between participants in a proposition...
.
Nouns and noun phrases
WordWord
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
s belonging to the noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
(or substantive) lexical category can be distinguished from verbs syntactically in that the copula là "to be" is required to precede nouns in predications
Predicate (grammar)
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar. Traditional grammar tends to view a predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies. The other understanding of predicates is inspired from work in predicate calculus...
whereas the copula is not required before adjectives.
- Mai là sinh viên.
- "Mai is (a) student."
In the sentence above, the noun sinh viên "student" must co-occur with the copula. Omitting the copula, as in *Mai sinh viên results in an ungrammatical
Grammaticality
In theoretical linguistics, grammaticality is the quality of a linguistic utterance of being grammatically well-formed. An * before a form is a mark that the cited form is ungrammatical....
sentence. In contrast, adjectives do not co-occur with the copula.
- Mai cao.
- "Mai is tall."
The adjective cao (as in the sentence above) does not require a preceding copula, and thus the sentence *Mai là cao is ill-formed.
The noun category can be further subdivided into different noun classes according to semantic and syntactic criteria. Some of the subclasses identified in Nguyễn (1997) include:
- proper noun
- common noun
- item noun
- collective noun
- unit (or measure) noun
- mass noun
- time noun
- abstract noun
- classifier
- locative
Nouns can be modified
Grammatical modifier
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the sentence....
with other words resulting in complex noun phrase
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s. These modifiers include demonstratives, quantifiers, classifiers, prepositional phrases, and other attributive lexical words, such as other nouns and verbs. These modifiers co-occur with the modified noun (known as the head noun or noun phrase head), but there are restrictions on what kind of modifiers are allowed depending upon the subclass of noun. The noun phrase has the following structure:
| TOTALITY | + | ARTICLE | + | QUANTIFIER | + | CLASSIFIER | + | HEAD NOUN | + | ATTRIBUTIVE MODIFIER(S) | + | DEMONSTRATIVE | + | PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (possessive) |
|---|
Example:
| cả hai cuốn từ điển Việt Anh này của nó | ||||||
| cả | hai | cuốn | từ điển | Việt Anh | này | của [nó] |
| all | two | clfbook | dictionary | Vietnamese-English | prox.dem | of [3rd.pron] |
| totality | quantifier | classifier | head noun | attributive noun phrase | demonstrative | prep phrase |
| "both of these Vietnamese-English dictionaries of his" | ||||||
Article position
Following Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng (2004) and Nguyễn T. C. (1975), Vietnamese has an article lexical category slot that occurs before a quantifier.Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (or isolating) language. Also like other languages in the region, Vietnamese syntax conforms to subject–verb–object word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
, is head-initial (displaying modified-modifier
Grammatical modifier
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the sentence....
ordering), and has a noun classifier
Classifier (linguistics)
A classifier, in linguistics, sometimes called a measure word, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify the referent of a countable noun according to its meaning. In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted or specified...
system. Additionally, it is pro-drop, wh-in-situ, copula-drop, and allows verb serialization.
Lexical categories
Vietnamese lexical categories (or "parts of speech") consist of nouns, demonstrative noun modifiers, articles, classifiers, numerals, quantifiers, the focus marker particle, verbs, adverbial particles, prepositions.The syntax of each lexical category and its associated phrase
Phrase
In everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....
(i.e., the syntactic constituents
Constituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down...
below the sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
level) is detailed below. Attention is paid to both form and function
Grammatical function
In linguistics, grammatical functions refer to functional relationships between participants in a proposition...
.
Nouns and noun phrases
WordWord
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
s belonging to the noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
(or substantive) lexical category can be distinguished from verbs syntactically in that the copula là "to be" is required to precede nouns in predications
Predicate (grammar)
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar. Traditional grammar tends to view a predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies. The other understanding of predicates is inspired from work in predicate calculus...
whereas the copula is not required before adjectives.
- Mai là sinh viên.
- "Mai is (a) student."
In the sentence above, the noun sinh viên "student" must co-occur with the copula. Omitting the copula, as in *Mai sinh viên results in an ungrammatical
Grammaticality
In theoretical linguistics, grammaticality is the quality of a linguistic utterance of being grammatically well-formed. An * before a form is a mark that the cited form is ungrammatical....
sentence. In contrast, adjectives do not co-occur with the copula.
- Mai cao.
- "Mai is tall."
The adjective cao (as in the sentence above) does not require a preceding copula, and thus the sentence *Mai là cao is ill-formed.
The noun category can be further subdivided into different noun classes according to semantic and syntactic criteria. Some of the subclasses identified in Nguyễn (1997) include:
- proper noun
- common noun
- item noun
- collective noun
- unit (or measure) noun
- mass noun
- time noun
- abstract noun
- classifier
- locative
Nouns can be modified
Grammatical modifier
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the sentence....
with other words resulting in complex noun phrase
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s. These modifiers include demonstratives, quantifiers, classifiers, prepositional phrases, and other attributive lexical words, such as other nouns and verbs. These modifiers co-occur with the modified noun (known as the head noun or noun phrase head), but there are restrictions on what kind of modifiers are allowed depending upon the subclass of noun. The noun phrase has the following structure:
| TOTALITY | + | ARTICLE | + | QUANTIFIER | + | CLASSIFIER | + | HEAD NOUN | + | ATTRIBUTIVE MODIFIER(S) | + | DEMONSTRATIVE | + | PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (possessive) |
|---|
Example:
| cả hai cuốn từ điển Việt Anh này của nó | ||||||
| cả | hai | cuốn | từ điển | Việt Anh | này | của [nó] |
| all | two | clfbook | dictionary | Vietnamese-English | prox.dem | of [3rd.pron] |
| totality | quantifier | classifier | head noun | attributive noun phrase | demonstrative | prep phrase |
| "both of these Vietnamese-English dictionaries of his" | ||||||
Article position
Following Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng (2004) and Nguyễn T. C. (1975), Vietnamese has an article lexical category slot that occurs before a quantifier.| những | ý nghĩ |
| pl | idea |
| "(the) ideas" | |
| các | quả | cam |
| pl | clf | orange |
| "(the) oranges" | ||
Quantifier position
Quantifiers (also known as numerators) are words that can occur within a noun phrase before a head noun (with or without a classifier). Quantifiers include cardinal numerals, and other words which indicate some quantity. (Cardinal numerals are described in the numeral section.) Examples of quantifiers:| Quantifier | English gloss |
|---|---|
| một "one", hai "two", etc. | cardinal numerals |
| 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" |
Quantifiers directly precede the head noun that they modify when that head noun is of a noun type that does not require an obligatory classifier:
| hai | quan điểm |
| two | viewpoint |
| "(the) two viewpoints" | |
| ba | đêm |
| three | night |
| "three nights" | |
| dăm | bữa |
| few | day |
| "(a) few days" | |
| mấy | người |
| how many | people |
| "how many people?" | |
When a classifier co-occurs with a following head noun, the quantifier word precedes the classifier:
| hai | cuốn | từ điển |
| two | clf | dictionary |
| "(the) two dictionaries" | ||
| sáu | bông | hoa hồng | kia |
| six | clf | rose | dist.dem |
| "those six roses over there" | |||
| mấy | con | cá |
| few | clf | fish |
| "(a) few fish" | ||
Mass
Mass noun
In linguistics, a mass noun is a noun that refers to some entity as an undifferentiated unit rather than as something with discrete subsets. Non-count nouns are best identified by their syntactic properties, and especially in contrast with count nouns. The semantics of mass nouns are highly...
(such as, thịt "meat", đất "earth, soil") and collective nouns (such as, trâu bò "cattle", ruộng nương "(rice) fields") cannot be modified with a quantifier. For example, the following are ungrammatical noun phrases:
| *ba | thịt |
| *three | meat |
| *"three meats" | |
| *một | con | thịt |
| *one | clf | meat |
| *"one meat" | ||
| *hai | trâu bò | |
| *two | cattle | |
| *"two cattles" | ||
However, mass nouns can be preceded by a unit noun (such as cân "kilogram", lạng "tael
Tael
Tael can refer to any one of several weight measures of the Far East. Most commonly, it refers to the Chinese tael, a part of the Chinese system of weights and currency....
", nắm "handful", chén "cupful") that indicates a measurement of the mass noun, which can, then, be modified with a quantifier. For example, the ungrammatical *ba thịt "three meats" and *một con thịt "one meat" (above) can be rendered as grammatical phrases with unit nouns present:
| ba | cân | thịt |
| three | kilogram | meat |
| "three kilograms of meat" | ||
| một | lạng | thịt |
| one | tael | meat |
| "one tael of meat" | ||
Focus marker position
The optional particleGrammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
cái is identified as a focus marker by Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng (2004). It has been called by several other names, including general classifier, general categorical, 'extra" cái, "extra" general classifier, definite article, superarticle, definite word, demonstrative word, and chỉ xuất "indexical". Focus cái occurs directly before classifiers or unit nouns and may be preceded by other pre-noun modifiers such as quantifiers, numerals, and articles. It must always co-occur with a classifier.
As can be seen by descriptions of focus cái as "general classifier", etc., this particle has often been analyzed as a classifier. However, it can be distinguished by its different behavior. Focus cái always precedes a following classifier and may not directly precede the head noun. The noun phrase
| cái | con | chó | này | ||
| foc | clf | dog | dem.prox | ||
| "this very dog" | |||||
is grammatical, but the phrase
| *con | cái | chó | này | ||
| *clf | foc | dog | dem.prox | ||
| *"this very dog" | |||||
is not grammatical. More than one classifier is not allowed within the same noun phrase, whereas focus cái does occur along with a following classifier (as can be seen above). Examples of other modifiers preceding the focus marker are below:
| hai | cái | con | chó | đen | này |
| two (numeral) | foc | clf | dog | black | dem.prox |
| "these very two black dogs" | |||||
| các | cái | con | mèo | này | |
| pl (article) | foc | clf | cat | dem.prox | |
| "these very cats" | |||||
Again, cái must follow the other pre-noun modifiers, so phrases where cái precedes a numeral or article (such as *cái hai chó đen này or *cái các con mèo này) are ungrammatical.
The focus marker cái is distinct from the classifier cái that classifies inanimate nouns (although it is historically related to the classifier cái). Thus, classifier cái cannot modify the noun chó "dog" (in cái chó) since chó is animate (the non-human animate classifier con must be used: con chó), whereas focus cái can modify nouns of any animacy (with their appropriate classifier):
| cái | cuốn | sách | này | sách = inanimate | ||
| foc | clf | book | dem.prox | |||
| "this very book" | ||||||
| cái | con | mèo | này | mèo = non-human | ||
| foc | clf | cat | dem.prox | |||
| "this very cat" | ||||||
| cái | người | lính | này | lính = human | ||
| foc | clf | soldier | dem.prox | |||
| "this very soldier" | ||||||
Functionally, cái indicates grammatically that an element within a noun phrase is in contrastive focus. It has been noted by Nguyễn Đ. H. (1997) (and others) that cái adds a pejorative connotation
Connotation
A connotation is a commonly understood subjective cultural or emotional association that some word or phrase carries, in addition to the word's or phrase's explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation....
, as in:
| cái | thằng | chồng | em | nó | chẳng | ra | gì |
| foc | clf | husband | kin.term | 3rd.sg.pron | neg | turn.out | intrg.inanimate.pron |
| topicalized noun phrase | subj noun phrase | predicate | |||||
| "that husband of mine, he is good for nothing" | |||||||
However, Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng (2004) claims that the connotation is not always negative and gives the following positive example:
| tôi | gặp | cái | con | nhỏ | tử tế |
| 1st.sg.pron | meet | foc | clf | little | kind |
| subj noun phrase | verb | obj noun phrase | |||
| "it is the kind-hearted girl that I met" | |||||
Phonologically, the focus cái receives an intonational
Intonation (linguistics)
In linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch while speaking which is not used to distinguish words. It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation does distinguish words. Intonation, rhythm, and stress are the three main elements of linguistic prosody...
stress
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
, and, in addition, the element receiving the focus also receives an intonational stress. In the following examples, the stressed words are indicated with capital letters (also in red font):
| tôi | thích | CÁI | con | ngựa | ĐEN |
| 1st.sg.pron | like | foc | clf | horse | black |
| subj noun phrase | verb | obj noun phrase | |||
| "I like the BLACK horse" (but not the horse that's a different color) | |||||
In the above sentence, the item in focus is đen "black", which receives the stress (as does cái). Here, it is the feature of the horse's blackness that is being focused on (or singled out) in contrast to other horses that do not have the feature of blackness. In the sentence below, ngựa "horse" receives the focus and stress.
| tôi | thích | CÁI | con | NGỰA | đen |
| 1st.sg.pron | like | foc | clf | horse | black |
| subj noun phrase | verb | obj noun phrase | |||
| "I like the black HORSE" (but not the other black animal) | |||||
The focus marker is always stressed and must co-occur with another stressed item; thus, cái cannot occur without another stressed element within the noun phrase. Focus cái may focus a variety of noun phrase elements including prepositional phrases, relative clauses, constituents inside of relative clause modifiers, the head noun (by itself), the head noun plus preceding classifier, and adjectival verbs.
Classifier position
Vietnamese uses an extensive system of classifiersClassifier (linguistics)
A classifier, in linguistics, sometimes called a measure word, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify the referent of a countable noun according to its meaning. In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted or specified...
to indicate word classes of nouns. This may be superficially compared to English partitive constructions like one head of cattle ("head", always singular regardless of number, indicates large livestock), two sticks of dynamite ("stick" indicates something relatively rigid, long and comparatively thin), three strands of hair ("strand" indicates something flexible, long and quite thin), or four bars of gold (a "bar" being similar to a "stick", but comparatively less "thin"). Vietnamese's system and usage of classifiers are similar to Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
and are more variable than English. Among the most common classifiers are:
The classifier cái has a special role in that it can extend all other classifiers, e.g. cái con, cái chiếc.
Attributive modifier position
includes noun phrase modifiers, verb phrase modifiersDemonstrative position
Nouns may be modified by certain demonstratives that follow the noun (see also demonstrative section below). These demonstratives include: này "this", nầy "this", nay "this", ni "this", đó "that", nấy "that", ấy "that", nãy "that", kia "that yonder", nọ "that yonder", kìa "that yonder (far)", nào "which". Examples:| bà | này |
| lady | prox.dem |
| "this lady" | |
| năm | nay |
| year | prox.dem |
| "this year" | |
| lúc | đó |
| moment | medial.dem |
| "that moment" | |
| ông | ấy |
| gentleman | medial.dem |
| "that gentleman" | |
| lúc | nãy |
| moment | medial.dem |
| "a moment ago" | |
| bữa | nọ |
| day | dist.dem |
| "one day" | |
| hôm | kia |
| day | dist.dem |
| "day before yesterday" | |
| người | nào |
| person | indef.dem |
| "which person" | |
Prepositional phrase position
Possession is shown in Vietnamese via prepositional phrases that modify the head noun. These phrases occur at the far right edge of the noun phrase — after the head noun and, if present, any attributive modifiers or demonstratives.Reference, specificity, definiteness
Vietnamese nouns that standalone are unmarked for number and definiteness. Thus, a noun, such as sách, may be glossed in English as "a book" (singular, indefinite), "the book" (singular, definite), "some books" (plural, indefinite), or "the books" (plural, definite). It is with the addition of classifiers, demonstratives, and other modifiers that the number and definiteness can be specified.- referenceReferenceReference is derived from Middle English referren, from Middle French rèférer, from Latin referre, "to carry back", formed from the prefix re- and ferre, "to bear"...
- specific vs. generic reference generic mood & generic antecedents)
- definitenessDefinitenessIn grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
(identifiability of referent)
- count nounCount nounIn linguistics, a count noun is a common noun that can be modified by a numeral and that occurs in both singular and plural form, as well as co-occurring with quantificational determiners like every, each, several, etc. A mass noun has none of these properties...
vs. mass nounMass nounIn linguistics, a mass noun is a noun that refers to some entity as an undifferentiated unit rather than as something with discrete subsets. Non-count nouns are best identified by their syntactic properties, and especially in contrast with count nouns. The semantics of mass nouns are highly... - interaction with classifiers (presence and absence thereof)
- see Behrens (2003)
Pronouns
Vietnamese pronouns act as substitutions for noun phraseNoun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s.
| Hoan | chỉ | ăn | cơm | Việt Nam | thôi |
| Hoan | only | eat | food | Vietnam | only |
| subj noun phrase | predicate | ||||
| "Hoan only eats Vietnamese food" | |||||
| nó | chỉ | ăn | cơm | Việt Nam | thôi |
| 3rd.sg.pron | only | eat | food | Vietnam | only |
| subj noun phrase | predicate | ||||
| "he only eats Vietnamese food" | |||||
| con | chó | này | chẳng | bao giờ | sủa | cả |
| clf | dog | prox.dem | neg | ever | bark | all |
| subj noun phrase | predicate | |||||
| "this dog never barks at all" | ||||||
| nó | chẳng | bao giờ | sủa | cả |
| 3rd.sg.pron | neg | ever | bark | all |
| subj noun phrase | predicate | |||
| "it never barks at all" | ||||
Thus, the third person singular (arrogant) pronoun nó can substitute for a simple noun phrase Hoan (a personal name) consisting of a single noun or a complex noun phrase con chó này consisting of a noun plus modifiers (which, here, are a classifier and a demonstrative).
Note that the pronominal system as a whole also includes kinship terms (see kinship term section below) and certain demonstratives (see demonstrative section below), which can also have a pronominal function.
The pronouns are categoried into two classes depending on whether they can be preceded by the plural marker chúng. Like other Asian pronominal systems, Vietnamese pronouns indicate the social status between speakers and other persons in the discourse in addition to grammatical person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
and number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
. The table below shows the first class of pronouns that can be preceded by pluralizer.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First person | tôi (inferior to superior) | – |
| ta (emphatic, superior to inferior) | ta (emphatic, superior to inferior) | |
| tao (superior to inferior, familiar) | – | |
| mình (intimate) | mình (intimate) | |
| Second Person | mày or mi or bay (superior to inferior, familiar) | bay (superior to inferior, familiar) |
| Third Person | nó (superior to inferior, familiar) y (southern dialect only, see below) |
– |
The first person tôi is the only pronoun that can be used in polite speech. The second person ta is often used when talking to oneself as in a soliloquy, but also indicates a higher status of the speaker (such as that of a high official, etc.). The other superior-to-inferior forms in the first and second persons (tao, mày, mi, bay) are commonly used in familiar social contexts, such as among family members (e.g. older sister to younger sister, etc.); these forms are otherwise considered impolite. The third person form nó (used to refer to inanimates, animals, children, and scorned adults, such as criminals) is considerably less arrogant than the second person forms tao, mày, mi, bay. The pronoun mình is used only in intimate relationships, such as between husband and wife.
The pronominal forms in the table above can be modified with plural chúng as in chúng mày "you (guys)", chúng nó "them". There is an exclusive/inclusive plural distinction in the first person: chúng tôi and chúng tao are exclusive (i.e., me and them but not you), chúng ta and chúng mình are inclusive (i.e., you and me). Some of the forms (ta, mình, bay) can be used to refer to a plural referent, resulting in pairs with overlapping reference (e.g., both ta and chúng ta can mean "inclusive we", both bay and chúng bay can mean "you guys").
The other class of pronouns are known as "absolute" pronouns (Thompson 1965). These cannot be modified with the pluralizer chúng. Many of these forms are literary and archaic, particularly in the first and second person.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First person | min (familiar, literary) | choa (literary) |
| qua (male to female, literary) | ||
| thiếp (female to male, literary) | ||
| Trẫm (king to subject, archaic) | ||
| thần (subject to king, archaic) | ||
| Second Person | bậu (female to male, literary) | – |
| chàng (female to male, literary) | ||
| ngài (subject to king, archaic) | ||
| Third Person | y (familiar) | người ta (generic) |
| hắn (familiar) | ||
| va (familiar) | ||
| người ta (generic) |
Unlike third person pronouns of the first type, these absolute third person forms (y, hắn, va) refer only to animate referents (typically people). The form y can be preceded by the pluralizer in southern dialects in which case it is more respectful than nó. The absolute pronoun người ta has a wider range of reference as "they, people in general, (generic) one, we, someone".
As a result of language contact
Language contact
Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...
, some linguists have noted that some Vietnamese speech communities (especially among young college students and bilingual speakers) have borrowed French and English pronouns moi, toi, I, and you in order to avoid the deference and status implications present in the Vietnamese pronominal system (which lacks any truly neutral terms).
Kinship terms
Kinship terms in Vietnamese have become grammaticalized to a large extent and thus have developed grammatical functions similar to pronouns and other classifiers. In these cases, they are used as honorificHonorific
An honorific is a word or expression with connotations conveying esteem or respect when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term is used not quite correctly to refer to an honorary title...
s or pejoratives. Kinship terms may also, of course, be used with a lexical meaning like other nouns.
Pronominal function
When used with a pronominal function, kinship terms primarily indicate the social status between referents in a discourse, such as between the speaker and the hearer, between speaker and another referent, etc. Included within the notion of social status are classifications of age, sex, relative social position, and the speaker's attitude.For example, to say I love you in Vietnamese, one can use one of many translations:
The most common terms of reference are kinship terms, which might differ slightly in different regions.
When addressing an audience, the speaker must carefully assess the social relationship between him/her and the audience, difference in age, and sex of the audience to choose an appropriate form of address. The following are some kinship terms of address that can be used in the second-person sense (you). They all can also be used in the first-person sense (I), but if they're not marked by (S) the usage is limited to the literal meaning:
Using a person's name to refer to oneself or to address another is considered more personal and informal than using pronouns. It can be found among close friends or children.
Demonstratives
Vietnamese demonstrativeDemonstrative
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
s (markers of deixis
Deixis
In linguistics, deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place...
) all have the function of identifying a referent with respect to another contextual point or position. For example, the demonstrative này "this" as in the noun phrase người này "this person" indicates that the person referred to is relatively close to the speaker (in a context where this noun phrase is uttered by a speaker to an addressee) while the demonstrative đó "that" as in the noun phrase người đó "that person" indicates that the person referred to is further from the speaker.
The demonstratives have a basic three-term deictic system — proximal (close - "this, here"), medial (far - "that, there"), distal (very far - "yonder, over there") — plus an indefinite (or interrogative) term ("which, where"). In addition to their deictic function, different Vietnamese demonstratives can function variously as noun modifiers, as noun phrases (i.e., a (pro-) nominal function), or as adverbial
Adverbial
In grammar an adverbial is a word or a group of words that modifies or tells us something about the sentence or the verb. The word adverbial is also used as an adjective, meaning 'having the same function as an adverb'...
s.
| Function | Proximal | Medial | Distal | Indefinite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominal | đây "here" | đấy "there" | – | đâu "where, wherever" |
| Nominal/Noun modifier | – | đó "there, that" | kia/kìa "over there, yonder" (bidirectional) | – |
| Noun modifier | này/nầy/nay/ni "this" | nấy/ấy "that" | nọ "yonder" (unidirectional - past) | nào "which(ever)" |
| Proportion | bây "to this extent" | bấy "to that extent, to such an extent" | bao "to what(ever) extent" | |
| Manner | vầy "this way, thus" | vậy "that way, so" | sao "how(ever)" | |
The form này tends to be used in Northern Vietnamese while nầy is the Southern form and ni is the North-central and Central form. In North-central and Central Vietnamese, the form nớ is used instead of nọ, mô instead of nào and đâu, rủa instead of vậy, and rang instead of sao.
In Hanoi, the form thế or như thế "(like) so, (like) this way" is used instead of vầy. Other forms mentioned in Thompson (1965) are nay "this", nây "this (temporal)", nãy or nẫy "that (just past)", and nao "which".
The basic formal pattern of the demonstratives is that the initial consonant and ending vowel nucleus indicate their function and position in the deictic system. Some linguists have analyzed demonstratives as consisting of two (sub-syllabic) morphemes. Following this, the initial đ- indicates a nominal, n- a noun modifier, b- proportion, v-~s- manner, and the vowels -ây~-ay proximal/medial, -âu~-ao indefinite, and -o medial/distal. However, the form kia is analyzed as consisting of only one morpheme. Overlaid on these elements are tones, which indicate contrastive distances increasingly further from the contextual position: ngang tone (closest), huyền tone (further), sắc or nặng tone (even further). Thus, đấy is more remote than đây, kìa more remote than kia, vậy more remote than vầy. There is an idiomatic expression where demonstratives with an even increasing distance modify the noun ngày "day(time)":
Syntactically, the demonstratives đó and kia may function as either nouns or as noun modifiers:
| người | đó | là | anh | nó |
| person | that | be | brother | 3rd.sing.pronoun |
| subj noun phrase | verb | obj noun phrase | ||
| "That person is his brother." | ||||
| đó | là | anh | nó |
| that | be | brother | 3rd.sing.pronoun |
| subj noun phrase | verb | obj noun phrase | |
| "That is his brother." | |||
The nominals đây, đấy, and đâu are only used as nouns typically denoting a space or time and cannot function as noun modifiers. Although they usually refer to position situated in time/space, the nominal deictics can be used to metaphorically refer to people, as in:
| đây | đi | chợ, | đấy | có | đi | không? |
| this | go | market, | that | affirmative | go | negative |
| "I'm going to the market, what about you?" | ||||||
In the sentence above (which would translated more literally as "This is going to the market, is that going or not?"), proximal đây is used to refer (metaphorically) to the speaker (as "I") while medial đấy is used to refer to the addressee (as "you"). The demonstrative noun modifiers này, (n)ấy, nọ, and nào can only modify nouns and cannot stand alone as nouns.
When referring to time, the distal demonstratives kia and nọ differ in directionality. Kia specifies a point remote either in the past or the future while nọ specifies only a remote point in the past:
- ngày kia "some day to come, the other day"
- ngày nọ "the other day"
The proportion demonstratives (bây, bấy, bao) refer to the extent of measurement of time or space. They precede the words they modify, such as giờ "time", nhiêu "(to have) much/many", lâu "(to be) long, (take a) long time":
- bây giờ "now, this time"
- bấy giờ "then, that time"
- bao giờ "when, what time"
- bây nhiêu "this much/many"
- bấy nhiêu "that much/many"
- bao nhiêu "how much/many"
- bấy lâu "all that long period, for that length of time"
- bao lâu "how long"
- bao ngày "how many days"
- bao lớn "how big"
- bấy xa "that far"
Numerals
Numerals (or numbers) consist of two types: cardinal numerals and ordinal numerals. When occurring in noun phrases, cardinal and ordinal numerals occur in different syntactic positions with respect to the head noun.Cardinal
Vietnamese numerals are a decimalDecimal
The decimal numeral system has ten as its base. It is the numerical base most widely used by modern civilizations....
system. "Zero" lacks a dedicated numeral with số không "empty number" (< số "number", không "empty") being used.
Numbers 1-99
Numerals are generally analytic, with multiples of ten following a regular pattern.
| base numeral | + 10 | × 10 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | một ~ mốt | mười một (11) | – |
| 2 | hai | mười hai (12) | hai mươi (20) |
| 3 | ba | mười ba (13) | ba mươi (30) |
| 4 | bốn, tư | mười bốn (14) | bốn mươi (40) |
| 5 | năm | mười lăm (15) | năm mươi (50) |
| 6 | sáu | mười sáu (16) | sáu mươi (60) |
| 7 | bảy or bẩy | mười bảy (17) | bảy mươi (70) |
| 8 | tám | mười tám (18) | tám mươi (80) |
| 9 | chín | mười chín (19) | chín mươi (90) |
| 10 | mười | – | (mười mươi) (100) |
Additive compounds are formed by with mười- "10" initially and another numeral following: mười tám ("10" + "8" = "18"). Multiplicative compounds are formed with an order that is the reverse of the additive compounds, i.e. -mươi is preceded by another numeral: tám mươi ("8" x "10" = "80").
Consonantal and tonal alternations occur in some compound numerals. The numeral mười "10" in multiplicative compounds has a tonal change (huyền tone > ngang tone) to -mươi "times 10", as in:
- bốn mươi "40" (instead of *bốn mười)
The numeral một "1" undergoes a tonal alternation (nặng tone > sắc tone) to mốt when it occurs after mươi (with ngang tone) in multiples of 10, as in:
- bốn mươi mốt "41" (instead of *bốn mươi một)
The numeral năm "5" undergoes an initial consonant alternation (n > l) to lăm as the final element in additive compounds, as in:
- mười lăm "15" (instead of *mười năm)
- bốn mươi lăm "45" (instead of *bốn mươi năm)
Numbers 100-999
The Vietnamese word for 100 is trăm. Number formation generally follows the same logic as before, with the same consonantal and tonal shifts. However, with the numbers 101-109, 201-209 and so on, a placeholder lẻ ("odd") or linh is inserted to represent "zero tens."
| 100 | một trăm | 200 | hai trăm | 900 | chín trăm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | một trăm lẻ một | 201 | hai trăm lẻ một | 901 | chín trăm lẻ một |
| 102 | một trăm lẻ hai | 202 | hai trăm lẻ hai | 902 | chín trăm lẻ hai |
| 105 | một trăm lẻ năm | 205 | hai trăm lẻ năm | 905 | chín trăm lẻ năm |
| 110 | một trăm mười | 210 | hai trăm mười | 910 | chín trăm mười |
| 111 | một trăm mười một | 211 | hai trăm mười một | 911 | chín trăm mười một |
| 112 | một trăm mười hai | 212 | hai trăm mười hai | 912 | chín trăm mười hai |
| 115 | một trăm mười lăm | 215 | hai trăm mười lăm | 915 | chín trăm mười lăm |
| 120 | một trăm hai mươi | 220 | hai trăm hai mươi | 920 | chín trăm hai mươi |
| 121 | một trăm hai mươi mốt | 221 | hai trăm hai mươi mốt | 921 | chín trăm hai mươi mốt |
| 122 | một trăm hai mươi hai | 222 | hai trăm hai mươi hai | 922 | chín trăm hai mươi hai |
| 125 | một trăm hai mươi lăm | 225 | hai trăm hai mươi lăm | 925 | chín trăm hai mươi lăm |
| 155 | một trăm năm mươi lăm | 255 | hai trăm năm mươi lăm | 955 | chín trăm năm mươi lăm |
Numbers 1,000-999,999
The Vietnamese word for 1,000 is ngàn or nghìn. With the numbers 1,001-1,099, 2,001-2,099 and so on, the empty hundreds place must be specified with không trăm ("zero hundreds").
| 1,000 | một ngàn | 10,000 | mười ngàn | 21,000 | hai mươi mốt ngàn | 155,000 | một trăm năm mươi lăm ngàn |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,001 | một ngàn không trăm lẻ một | 10,001 | mười ngàn không trăm lẻ một | 21,001 | hai mươi mốt ngàn không trăm lẻ một | 155,001 | một trăm năm mươi lăm ngàn không trăm lẻ một |
| 1,021 | một ngàn không trăm hai mươi mốt | 10,021 | mười ngàn không trăm hai mươi mốt | 21,021 | hai mươi mốt ngàn không trăm hai mươi mốt | 155,021 | một trăm năm mươi lăm ngàn không trăm hai mươi mốt |
| 1,055 | một ngàn không trăm năm mươi lăm | 10,055 | mười ngàn không trăm năm mươi lăm | 21,055 | hai mươi mốt ngàn không trăm năm mươi lăm | 155,055 | một trăm năm mươi lăm ngàn không trăm năm mươi lăm |
| 1,100 | một ngàn một trăm | 10,100 | mười ngàn một trăm | 21,100 | hai mươi mốt ngàn một trăm | 155,100 | một trăm năm mươi lăm ngàn một trăm |
| 1,101 | một ngàn một trăm lẻ một | 10,101 | mười ngàn một trăm lẻ một | 21,101 | hai mươi mốt ngàn một trăm lẻ một | 155,101 | một trăm năm mươi lăm ngàn một trăm lẻ một |
| 1,121 | một ngàn một trăm hai mươi mốt | 10,121 | mười ngàn một trăm hai mươi mốt | 21,121 | hai mươi mốt ngàn một trăm hai mươi mốt | 155,121 | một trăm năm mươi lăm ngàn một trăm hai mươi mốt |
Numbers 1,000,000 and Above
The word for 106 ("million") is triệu. The word for 109 (short-scale
Long and short scales
The long and short scales are two of several different large-number naming systems used throughout the world for integer powers of ten. Many countries, including most in continental Europe, use the long scale whereas most English-speaking countries use the short scale...
"billion" or long-scale "milliard") is tỉ. Above this, combinations of ngàn, triệu and tỉ must be used.
| 1 × 106 | một triệu | 1 × 1018 | một tỉ tỉ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 × 109 | một tỉ | 1 × 1021 | một ngàn tỉ tỉ |
| 1 × 1012 | một ngàn tỉ | 1 × 1024 | một triệu tỉ tỉ |
| 1 × 1015 | một triệu tỉ | 1 × 1027 | một tỉ tỉ tỉ |
Ordinal
Ordinal numerals are formed by adding the thứ- ordinal prefix to cardinal numerals: thứ- + mười "ten" = thứ mười "tenth". Other examples include: thứ nhất "first", thứ hai (or thứ nhì) "second", thứ ba "third", and thứ bốn (or thứ tư) "fourth".Verbs and verb phrases
As mentioned in the noun section above, verbs can be distinguished from nouns by their ability to function as predicators by themselves without a preceding copula là. Additionally, verbs may be categorized into two main subtypes, stative and functive, according to syntactic criteria.Stative verbs
Stative verbs (also known as verbs of quality, extended state verbs, adjectival verbs or adjectives) can be distinguished from functive verbs by two syntactic tests:- stative verbs can be preceded by a degree modifier such as rất "very"
- stative verbs cannot be preceded by the exhortative hãy
- Giáp rất cao.
- "Giap (is) very tall."
- *Hãy trắng! (ungrammatical)
- "Be white!"
Functive verbs
Functive verbs (also known as "real" verbs, verbs of action, "doing" words, or momentary action verbs) differ from stative verbs by the same syntactic tests:- functive verbs cannot be preceded by a degree modifier such as rất "very"
- functive verbs can be preceded by the exhortative hãy "let's (do)" (indicates commands, requests, etc.)
- *Giáp rất ăn. (ungrammatical)
- "Giap very eat."
- Anh hãy ăn đi!
- "Go ahead and eat!"
Tense markers
Although it is not usually required, past tense is indicated by adding the particle đã, present progressive tense by the particle đang, and future tense is indicated by the particle sẽ. Of course, "đã" and "đang" or "đang" and "sẽ" can be used together.Topic–comment structure
The topic–comment structure is an important sentence type in Vietnamese. Therefore Vietnamese has often been claimed to be a topic-prominent languageTopic-prominent language
A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N...
(Thompson 1991). As an example the sentence "Tôi đọc sách này rồi." ("I've already read this book.") can be transformed into the following topic prominent equivalent.
- Sách này thì tôi đọc rồi.
- This book (TOPICMARKER) I read already
External links
- Vietnamese Online Grammar Project
- Vietnamese/Cambodian references (Linguist List)
- Additional Vietnamese references (Linguist List)