A COMPARISION OF VERB PHRASE

BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Tuyet Minh

Group 4: Nguyen Thi Hoa
Nguyen Thu Ha
Pham Thu Trang

Table of contents
I. Introduction
II. Literature review
III. The study
IV. Findings and discussion
V. Conclusion
References

I. Introduction
In order to have a general look about
verb phrase of English as well as of
Vietnamese and to understand the
characteristics of verb phrase in English and
in Vietnamese, our group choose the
title:A comparison of verb phrase between
English and Vietnammese.

II. Literature review

In

our life, language is an

important thing. It is used for
communicated
every
day
Among the most important things
verb phrase is also the powerful
one.
According to many researches of
this kind, there are some
similarities or differences of verb
phrase
in
English
and
Vietnamese.

III. The study

1. Definition of verb phrase:

- Verb phrase is a free word phrase having

main - subordinate relation and containing
a verb serve as the central element and
many additive elements which modify the
meanings for the central element.

2. Characteristics of verb
phrase:
- Verb phrase always contains a
verb as the central element.
- The central element usually
governs additive elements.

3. Verb phrase in English

- Verb phrase in English includes
two main components:
+ auxiliary verbs or auxiliaries
+ main or lexical verbs

3.1 Auxiliary verb

- Auxiliaries are used to encode the following
categories within the verb phrase:
*Aspect is expressed by using either the verb
be and the present participle for the
progressive aspect or the verb have with a
past participle for the perfect aspect.
Formation:
Progress: to be + V_ing

Modality is expressed with the auxiliaries can, could, may,

might, must, will, would, shall, should, ought to, dare and
used to
Formation: modal + verb (bare infinitive)
Eg: He can sing.
* Passive voice is expressed by using the verb be and a main
verb in the past participle form.
Formation: to be + verb (past participle)

*Interrogative clauses are using by the

auxiliary do/does/did before the subject
and a main verb in the plain form.
Eg: Do you want that house?
*Negation is expressed by using the
auxiliary dont/doesnt/didnt and a main
verb in the plain form
Eg: I dont want that house.

3.2. Main verb

*Intransitive verb: come, go, move...
Eg: He has just come.
*Complex intransitive verb + complement/
adverb: to be, become...
Eg: They became close friends three years
ago.
*Transitive verb + object direct: buy, sell...
Eg: They have just bought a new car.

* Complex transitive verb + object

direct +complement/ adverb: paint,
vote, appoint, elect...
Eg: He painted this door blue.
* Distransitive verb + object indirect +
object direct: give, offer, bring...
Eg: He gave her a red rose on her
birthday.
Distransitive verb: gave
Object direct: her
Object indirect: a red rose

4.Verb phrase in
Vietnamese
Verb phrase in Vietnamese
includes three elements:
+ pre-additive element
+ central element
+ post-additive element.

Pre-additive element
We can divide pre-additive element into
the following groups:
* Words with sense of continuing of
activity or state: u, cng, vn, c, li,
mi, tip tc...
* Words indicate the time of action or
state: tng, , va, mi, ang, s...

* Words indicate the frequency: thng, hay,

nng, t, i khi, thnh thong...
* Words indicate the negation or affirmation:
khng, cha, chng, ch...
* Words indicate the order: hy, ng, ch...
* Words indicate the limitation: ch

5. The similarities and differences between

English and Vietnamese verb phrases

In two aspects: form and

meaning.
a, The similarities:
Both English and Vietnamese verb
phrases have three parts:
-the central element
-the pre-additive element
-the post-additive element

b, The differences
* In English, the central element must be a verb
and it is obligatory while two parts of additive
elements can be optional to go with the head
verb.
In contrast, Vietnamese verb phrases always keep
the same form in every situation; instead
Vietnamese uses subordinate words such as ,
va, mi, ang, s to denote the time.
For example:
Ti ang lm bi tp. (Im doing my homework )

* Form of the English verb phrase changes

in interrogative and negative sentences
while Vietnamese also keeps the same
form and adds subordinate words,
For example:
Ti khng nhn thy h. I didnt see them.

* In both languages, the central part must

contain
head verbs, some of which must be followed
by objects and some of which may not.
However, in English verb phrases, it contains
only one head verb but not a series of verbs
like in Vietnamese. In other words, unlike
English,Vietnamese have form of one verb
goes directly after another verb as a range.
For example:
They will go to the movie next Sunday
Ch nht tun sau ti n i coi phim.
.

* The pre-element of the verb phrase

cant be an adjective in English but it can
be in Vietnamese.
For example: nhanh khi, lu mn, kh
ku, nh nhng khuyn bo

In general, the verb phrase provides

information about the subject of the sentence.
The pre- additive element usually functions the
grammar while the post-additive element
functions the meaning. However, sometimes
the same English verb can go with different
prepositions to show different meanings, such
as make up, make from, make of, make for, and
make off. All of the have different meanings.
In contrast, Vietnamese doesnt have this
term but they use subordinate words such as
nn, phi, cn to express those meanings.

IV. Findings and discussion

Through a contrastive view of English
and Vietnamese verb phrase,
we
would
like
to
discuss
some
implications for language teaching at
high school in our country:
Firstly, most of Vietnamese students
have a tendency to translate word by
word. Therefore, they should be teach
how to translate Vietnamese verb
phrases into English verb phrases.

IV. Findings and discussion

Secondly,

teachers should use

syntactic diagram tree to help
students
understand
the
structure of English verb phrases
easily. As a result, they can know
what is the main element or what
is modifier, which is very useful
for students to make sentences
easily when they write.

IV. Findings and discussion

Finally,

teachers
should
remember that verb phrase is
very difficult for students at high
school to understand easily, so it
is necessary to give students
more exercises to practice. In
addition, teachers can introduce
verb phrase when teaching verbs
in vocabulary.

V. Conclusion
Verb phrase is a part in the
structure of a sentence. A
contrastive
analysis
between
English and Vietnamese is useful
because
it
can
help
us
understand
the
differences
between verb phrase of two
languages. Furthermore, some
implications for teaching are
discussed so that teachers can
make the teaching easier.

REFERENCES

L Cn, Phan Thiu, Dip Quang Ban, Hong Vn Thung. (1983). Gio
trnh ng php Ting vit tp II (93-95). Ho Chi Minh City: Education
Publishing House.

L Cn, Phan Thiu, Dip Quang Ban, Hong Vn Thung. (1983). Gio
trnh ng php Ting vit tp II (80). Ho Chi Minh City: Education
Publishing House.

English verb phrases versus Vietnamese verb phrases. Dec 20, 2009, from
http://docjax.cloudapp.net/document/view.shtml?id=796998&title=S
ome%20English%20verb%20phrases%20versus%20Vietnamese%20verb%20p
rases%20Any%20
...

The Verb Phrase. Dec 25, 2009, from

http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/grammar/ph_verb.htm

Verb phrases. Dec 15, 2009, from

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/linguistics/grammarpedia/verbphrase.htm

Trn Vn in. (1998). Vn Phm Ting Anh Thc Hnh. Vietnam: Ho Chi
Minh City.

THANK YOU FOR

YOUR ATTENTION!