Noun Phrases in English and Vietnamese

NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Running head: NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Le Thi Hong Phuong
University of Education
English Vietnamese Comparative Linguistics 2011

Instructor: Nguyen Ngoc Vu
Class: 4A08
December 30, 2011
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Abstract:
Language is a complicated category. Only human beings can use language to express their
ideas, concepts and feelings. The use of this tool is for the communication between the
addresser and the addressee. There are more than two hundred languages and each language
has its own feature all over the world. Language itself is a complex system and it is dependent
to us culturally, socially and personally. Learning a language involves many things such as
pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar The aim of this study is to discuss the noun phrases in
English and Vietnamese and their influence in teaching and learning English in Vietnamese
situation. I hope that this paper will provide as much information as possible on English and
Vietnamese noun phrases. It also attempts to state the similarities and differences in noun
phrases of the two languages. I pay attention to the analysis of the heads, the pre and post
modifications, their positions and functions of English and Vietnamese noun phrases. Finally,
there are some teaching implications made for those who are going to be English teachers.
Definition of Noun phrases:

What is a noun phrase? According to Wikipedia, In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase,
or nominal group (abbreviated NP) is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like
word (nominal) optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives.
Like all phrases, we can analyze the English noun phrases components into both functional
ones and formal ones. From a functional point of view, the noun phrase has four major
components, occurring in a fixed order:
Pre modification, which comprises all the modifying or describing constituents

before the head, other than the determiners;
the head, around which the other constituents cluster; and
post modification, those which comprise all the modifying constituents placed
after the head.
Noun phrases in English

In English grammar, a noun phrase has three components:
Pre modification
The head
Post modification
Pre modification: consists of all the words placed before the head. These words are
usually determiners, adjectives and nouns.
Predeterminers:
The predeterminers occur before other determiners (as you can probably guess from their
name). They includes multipliers (double, twice, four/five times . . . .); fractional expressions
(one-third, three-quarters, etc.); the words both, half, and all; and intensifiers such as quite,
rather, and such.
The multipliers precede plural count and mass nouns and occur with singular count nouns
denoting number or amount:
This van holds three times the passengers as that sports car.
My wife is making double my / twice my salary.
This time we added five times the amount of water.
In fractional expressions, we have a similar construction, but here it can be replaced with "of"
construction.
Charlie finished in one-fourth of the time his brother took.
Two-fifths of the respondents reported that half the medication was sufficient.

The intensifiers occur in this construction primarily in casual speech and writing and are more
common in British English than they are in American English. The intensifier "what" is often
found in stylistic fragments: "We visited my brother in his dorm room. What a mess!"
This room is rather a mess, isn't it?
The ticket-holders made quite a fuss when they couldn't get in.
What an idiot he turned out to be.
Our vacation was such a grand experience.
Adjective
Example
Determiner
Adjective
Noun
Head
phrase
That sophisticated city woman That
Many honest down-and-out
Many
small-town businessmen
sophisticated
honest
city
woman
down-and-out small-town businessmen
Determiners are said to "mark" nouns. That is to say that a noun will follow a determiner.
Some categories of determiners are limited (there are only three articles, a handful of
possessive pronouns, etc.), but the possessive nouns are as limitless as nouns themselves. This
limited nature of most determiner categories, however, explains why determiners are grouped
apart from adjectives even though both serve a modifying function. We can imagine that the
language will never tire of inventing new adjectives; the determiners (except for those
possessive nouns), on the other hand, are well established, and this class of words is not going
to grow in number. These categories of determiners are as follows: the articles (an, a, the
see below; possessive nouns (Joe's, the priest's, my mother's); possessive pronouns, (his, your,
their, whose, etc.); numbers (one, two, etc.); indefinite pronouns (few, more, each, every,
either, all, both, some, any, etc.); and demonstrative pronouns. The demonstratives (this, that,
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these, those, such) are discussed in the section on Demonstrative Pronouns. Notice that the
possessive nouns differ from the other determiners in that they, themselves, are often
accompanied by other determiners: "my mother's rug," "the priests' collar," "a dog's life."
Determiners are used in front of nouns to indicate whether you are referring to something
specific or something of a particular type.
Determiners are different to pronouns in that a determiner is always followed by a noun.
Therefore personal pronouns (I, you, he, etc.) and possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his, etc.)
cannot be determiners.
The definite and indefinite articles a/an/the are all determiners.
We use a specific determiner when people know exactly which thing(s) or person/people you
are talking about.
The specific determiners are:
the definite article : the
demonstratives : this, that, these, those
possessives : my, your, his, her, its, our, their
For example:
"The dog barked at the boy."
"These apples are rotten."
"Their bus was late."
You use general determiners to talk about people or things without saying exactly who or
what they are.
The general determiners are:
the indefinite articles : a, an

few
fewer
a few
a little
all
another
any
both
less
neither
little
no
many
other
more
several
most
some
each
either
enough
every
much
For example:
"A man sat under an umbrella."
"Have you got any English books that I could have?"
"There is enough food to feed everyone."
Post determiners:
Post-determiners, as their name suggests, come after regular determiners in a Noun Phrase .
They come before nouns but follow regular determiners in a Noun Phrase .
Cardinal numbers like one, two, three, four, etc and ordinal numbers like first, second,
third, etc are post-determiners . Examples:
The first three apples
The first six boys
Please note ordinals always come before cardinals general ordinals like last, next other,
another etc are also post-determiners .
The important thing for an English learner to note is the order of various determiners in a premodification structure .
The first three boys
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The next four days
Another interesting case
If there is an adjective in the Noun Phrase it immediately precedes the noun, but follows postdeterminers .
The first three famous novels
The last six happiest days
Quantifiers like many, few, several, much, little etc are post-determiners and they precede
nouns in a Noun Phrase.
The head:
The word noun phrase means that a noun is the central element of a noun phrase. That word
is called the head. It may be mass or count noun. Beside that, the head of the noun phrase
can be a pronoun. Without a noun or a pronoun, it can not be called noun phrase. There are
some kinds of pronouns functioning as heads: personal pronoun, indefinite pronoun,
possessive pronoun, and demonstrative pronoun.
Type
Personal
Possessive
Reflexive
Demonstrative
Indefinite
Interrogative
Relative
Examples
I/ me, he/ him
Mine, hers
Myself, themselves
This, those
Someone, no one
Who, that
Which, that
a. she in she is my teacher.

b. someone in someone at the meeting.
c. his in his is expensive.
d. that in that will affect his life.

Post modification: contains words in the noun phrase that follow the head. These words
usually consist of prepositional phrases, nonfinite clauses, and relative clauses. Thus:
Example
The talkative man in the center
Post modification
Category
in the center of the room
prepositional phrase
walking on the bike path
non-finite clause
of the room
All the women walking on the
bike path
The house that I purchased for
that I purchased for my third

restrictive relative clause
my third husband
The house, which my partner
husband
which my partner and I bought a non-restrictive relative
and I bought a month after we

month after we met
clause
met
The third important component of a complex noun phrase is post-modification, called postmodifiers, comprising all the items placed after the head. These post-modifiers are mainly
realized by prepositional phrases, finite clauses (or relative clauses), nonfinite clauses,
adjective phrases, noun phrases or adverbial phrases:
1
2
3
4
5
6
determiner
a
the
the
a
the
the
head
book
man
girl
shelf
opera
road
post modification
with yellow covers
who told you the secret
speaking English fluently
full of books
Carmen
back
category
prepositional phrase
finite clause
nonfinite clause
adjective phrase
noun phrase
adverbial phrase
Here are some more examples:

function
(a)
E
(b)
X
(c)
A
(d)
M
(e)
P
(f)
Some examples of the Noun phrase in English

determiner
premodification
head
postmodification
lions
the
young
the
information
age
each
of the children
some
badly needed
time
with the family
this
conclusion
to the story
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L
E
S
(g)
(h)
(i)
(j)
FORMS
all my
several
such as
a
Pronoun
Article
Quantifiers
new mystery
marvelous
better
Participle
Noun
Adjective phrase
children
books
data bank
person
Noun
Adjective
pronoun
which we recently enjoyed

filled with information
than I
Prepositional phrase
Relative clause
Nonfinite clause
Complementation
Noun phrases in Vietnamese

In Vietnamese, noun phrases also have 3 components which are:
Pre modification
The head
Post modification
However, the elements in each component have a little difference from the components of
English noun phrases.
And the noun phrase has the following structure:
Pre modification
Head
Post modification
Totality Article quantifier Classifier Noun Attributive Demonstrative Prepositional
modifiers
phrase/
Possessive
Example:
c
hai
cun
totality
quantifier classifier
t in
noun
Anh Vit
ny
ca anh ta
attributive demonstrative prepositional phrase
Pre modification
Article: Many researchers claim that Vietnamese doesnt have lexical articles. But according
to T. H. Nguyen (2004) and Nguyen T. C. (1975), Vietnamese has an article lexical category
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slot that occurs before a quantifier. Those lexical articles are nhng, cc, . When they are
used, they come before the classifiers and the noun. For example:
nhng
ngh
article
noun
cc
cn nh
article
noun
Quantifier:
Quantifiers (also known as numerals) are words that can occur before a head noun (with or
without a classifier). Cardinal numerals are concluded in quantifiers and there are other words
which indicate some quantity. Here are the table of Vietnamese quantifiers and their
equivalence in English:
Quantifier
English gloss
Mt, hai
Cardinal numeral
Vi, vi ba
few
Dm, dm by
several, few
Mi
every
Mi
each
Tng
each in turn
My
few, how much/ many
Bao nhiu
how much/ many
By nhiu/ by nhiu
this much/ many
Here are some points about quantifiers (or numerals) that we should take in to consideration:
The first thing is that the quantifiers dont come before the focus marker ci. For example:
vi ci con tru, bao nhiu ci cn nh
The second thing is a quantifier (a numeral) doesnt go before collective nouns. For example,
we can not say hai gia sc, ba qun o. We can use quantifiers (numerals) before
collective nouns when the collective nouns refer to the members of a family. For example, it
can be said that hai v chng, ba anh ch em.
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The last thing is that when a classifier co-occurs with a following head noun, the quantifier
word must come before the classifier. For example: we must say hai cun t in, my con
c
The head:
There is one thing that we have to agree the head of the noun phrases must be nouns.
However, in Vietnamese noun phrases, the head can be a single noun or a classifier + a noun.
Classifiers are some words such as ci, con, ngi. There is a little difference between
the uses of these classifiers. Ci is used before the inanimate objects, for example ci bn,
ci gh. And con is used to combine with the nouns which refer to animate objects such
as con g, con nga when ngi is used for human being, for example ngi lnh,
ngi d thi.
There are some more common classifiers:
ci : used for most inanimate objects
chic: almost similar to ci, usually more connotative (e.g. when referring to a
cute object, chic might be more suitable than ci)
con: usually for animals and children, but can be used to describe some
inanimate objects (con dao = knife, con ng = street, con vt = screw)
bi: used for compositions like songs, drawings, poems, essays, etc.
cu: sentential constructs (verses, lyrics, statements, quotes, etc.)
cy: used for stick-like objects (plants, guns, canes, etc.)
ta: buildings of authority: courts, halls, "ivory towers".
qu/tri: used for globular objects (the Earth, fruits)
quyn/cun: used for book-like objects (books, journals, etc.)

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t: sheets and other thin objects made of paper (newspapers, papers, calendars,
etc.)
l: smaller sheets of paper (letters, playing cards)
vic: an event or an ongoing process
chuyn: a general topic, matter, or business
The classifier ci has a special role in that it can extend all other classifiers, e.g. ci con, ci
chic.
There are some special noun phrases that the classifier can be absent such as in the noun
phrases 1 c ph, 1 sinh t. In these examples, the classifier ly is omitted.
Post modification:
Unlike the pre modification which all the positions are in order, the post modification is more
complicated.
The attributive modifiers:
The attributive modifiers are used for describing thr head noun. They are can be a noun
phrase, a verb phrase, an ajective phrase, a prepositional phrase, or a pronoun. For example:
a. cn nh xy nm trc (verb phrase)
b. phng tp v (noun phrase)
c. cy kh sau vn (prepositional phrase)
d. khu vn xanh tt (adjective phrase)
e. phng ca h (pronoun)
Demonstratives:
Another post modification in Vietnamese noun phrases is demonstrative. It is considered the
rightmost post modification. They are y, n, ny, kia and follow the head noun as in
con nga , ci cp kia.
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When there are other modifiers co-occurring with demonstratives, the demonstratives often
occur after those mofifiers. For example, in the phrase:
Cn nh
mi
kia
Attributive modifier
demonstrative
Possessives:
In Vietnamese grammar, we usually use ca + a possessor to express the possession. The
possessor can be a personal pronoun, a proper name, or a full noun phrase For example:
N l bn hc ca ti.
To avoid confusion and the grammatical mistakes, we can leave out or keep the first
preposition ca when there are mpre than two possessive phrases in the same noun phrase.
For example:
N l chu ca m ca ti.
The second word ca can be left out. So that sentence becomes N l chu ca m ti.
This way is often used in spoken Vietnamese because it makes a smooth speech.
Here are an example of Vietnamese noun phrase with almost elements.
Pre-modification
Totality
Article
Head
Classifier
Noun
(thnh t
(loi t)
Post-modification
Attributive
Demonstrative
modifier
(thnh t ph ch
ph ch tng
(thnh t ph nu
nh)
lng)
Tt c
c trng miu t)
en
nhng
con
mo
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Contrast between English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun

phrases
Similarities:
English and Vietnamese noun phrases have some similar elements such as article,
demonstrative, possessive, They may be in different word order but they have the same
functions which help the head noun have the clear meaning.
Differences:
Word order in noun phrases:
Word order
Classifier
English
Determiner adjective - noun
Vietnamese
Classifier noun - adjective
We see that the big gap between English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases is the
order of modifiers as we can see clearly in the essay.
Moreover in Vietnamese noun phrases, there is the focus marker ci which is used foe
emphasizing the noun mentioned in the head. In addition, the focus marker ci is often
accompanied by a demonstrative that appears after the head noun. For example, ci con
ngi t bc y. It is advisable that we should distinguish the focus marker ci from the
classifier ci. The focus marker ci can go with any noun, whereas the classifier ci can
only go with noun that are inanimate objects.
Implications in teaching and learning English

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In short, according to the differences between English and Vietnamese language, the structure
of noun phrases also differentiates, which students have to pay attention when learning the
target language.
When students learn the second language, they usually understand the target language based
on the knowledge of his mother tongue. Because they use their first language to study the
second language, the analysis will base on the mother language. We know that English and
Vietnamese have their own value and feature and each is different from the other.
Vietnamese learners of English will have errors when they study English because of their
Vietnamese structure how they can overcome this problem. I think that Vietnamese people
have the habit of using clause or sentence when speaking or writing. Because noun phrases
contain many adjectives and they have to be in the correct order. Therefore, as English
teachers we should give students the clear explanation about the organization of both English
noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases. Teachers are the person who can affect the
wrongness of student because we can correct the error directly in class. We must be the
correct model of students. When the students are confused about noun phrase, teachers can
help them by giving some funny examples or real examples to show the similarities and
differences between English and Vietnamese noun phrases to help them remember easily.
When they can see and understand the situation they will do it correctly and make their brain
used to the correct form.
References
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Ban, D. Q. (2005). Ng php ting Vit-tp 2. Nh xut bn Gio dc.
Can, N. T. (2004). Ng php ting Vit. H Ni: Nh xut bn quc gia H Ni.
Jackson, H. (1999). Analyzing English: An Introduction of Descriptive Linguistics .
Clark, M. (1978). Coverbs and case in Vietnamese: Pacific Linguistics. The Australian
University.
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Noun Phrases in English and Vietnamese

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NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Running head: NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

English Vietnamese Comparative Linguistics 2011