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HCMC, 30/12/2008
ABSTRACT
Language is obviously a vital tool. We use language to serve our demands and activities in every minute, every second such as communicating, studying, and trading. Language is one of the key factors, which helps us to improve our life. However, to be frank, language is something very vague, not concrete and unspecific. What we use every day in every field of life is our words more precise and specific than language. No matter language we are speaking mother tongue or any foreign languages, words we are using come from what we have been heard, seen or taught before. As a result, we use them instinctively. In fact, everything has its origin. And words do, too. Every noun, verb, adjective or adverb we use to make up sentences in our speech has its own ways from which they were formed. As a Vietnamese student, a learner of English and a teacherto-be of English, I find that there are some similarities and differences between word formation in Vietnamese and English. Correspondingly, I do this research and I hope that it will make my readers clear about all the similarities and differences of word formation in English and Vietnamese so that they can avoid making mistakes in their translation between these two languages.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Words are among the most important and powerful things in the universe. No matter where we are, what we do, people have to use words to communicate every day. According to many assumptions, words are rule-governed. Every word we use has its own formation which is based on a particular way. Similarly, English and Vietnamese have their own ways of forming words. According to many researches of this kind, there are some similarities and differences of word formation in English and Vietnamese. What is a word? As for the Longman dictionary, a word is simply a smallest unit of language that people can understand if it is said or written on its own. This is just a very simple definition of a word. However, a word has its own more academic definition. That is a word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetic value (Wikipedia). According to this definition, words in English or Vietnamese are formed from morphemes. To some extends, it seems likely that word formation in English and Vietnamese are alike. In Nguyen Luong Ngocs research, she supposes there are two kinds of morphemes in English and Vietnamese words: free morphemes and bound morphemes. Free morphemes can occur alone, form words by themselves and are found in the central place of word structure. Bound morphemes can not occur by themselves. However, there are some differences between bound morphemes in English and Vietnamese. In English, bound morphemes cannot appear alone as separate words and they are prefixes like pre-, in-, un-, and suffixes like ly, -s, -able, etc.. Meanwhile, bound morphemes in Vietnamese cannot occur alone but they are separate words and can function as either compounding or reduplicative elements. As a result, words in English can be formed by one free morpheme only, such as picture, book, film, cinema, or can be a combination of one free morpheme and two or
more bound morphemes like readable, unluckily, etc. Words in Vietnamese can consist of one single morpheme such as my, xe, nh, ca or two free morphemes like nh my, my in ton, two or more bound morphemes, for example, thi s, quc k, ra-i-, one free and one bound morpheme such as lm, xanh l. In short, although both English and Vietnamese words are formed by morphemes, word structures in these two languages are completely different. In English, in some cases we can add prefixes or suffixes, which are considered bound morphemes, into a word to form a new word having the relation of meaning of the origin word, but we cannot do this in Vietnamese cases. In Vietnamese, when we want to form a new word having the relationship with the origin word, for most of the cases we have to add another separate word.
Affixation
Affixation is the morphological process whereby an affix is attached to a root (SIL International). Let us look at some following examples: meaningful or inability. We find that these two words are composed by putting together smaller elements to form larger words with more complex meaning. Obviously, the word meaningful can be analyzed as a combination of the root noun meaning and the ending ful. Or, the word inability can be analyzed as being derived from the adjective able by the attachment of the two elements in- and ity. Using Latin-influenced terminology, -ful or ity is called suffix and in- is called prefix. Affix is used to refer either a prefix or a suffix. Even the words prefix, suffix and affix are all formed from fix by the use of prefixes (u Ottawa): ad- + fix (attached) = affix pre- + fix (attached) = prefix sub- + fix (attached) = suffix For this reason, a prefix is a type of affix which is attached to the base so that it can modify or change the meaning of the base. Generally, prefixes do not alter the word class of a
base and are normally written together at the beginning of a base to form a new single word. There are many groups of prefixes according to their own meaning, e.g. negative prefixes, reversible prefixes, pejorative prefixes, prefixes of degree and size, prefixes of attitude, prefixes of time and order, number prefixes and conversion prefixes (see Appendix). Another type of affix is suffixes. In contrast with prefixes, a suffix is placed after the base of a word. Suffixes normally can alter the word class of the base. There are two types of suffixes: inflectional suffixes which carry grammatical information such as s, -ed, -ing and derivational suffixes which carry lexical information like ly, -ize, -ess. Like prefixes, suffixes can be grouped into four categories according to the word class. They are noun suffixes, verb suffixes, adjective suffixes and adverb suffixes (see Appendix). With the help of affixation, people can form more and more new words, which has diversified the treasure of English words.
Compounding
The second process to form a new word in English is compounding. A compound word is made up of two or more words that together express a single idea. In English, words are combined into compound structures in a variety of ways. There are three types of compounds. A solid or closed compound consists of two words that are written together as one word, for example, childlike, softball, secondhand. A hyphenated compound has words connected with a hyphen, e.g. brother-in-law, two-year-old, mass-produced. An open compound consists of words that are written separately such as post office, middle class. In term of function, compounds are classified as permanent or temporary. A permanent compound is accepted in ordinary usage and can be found in the dictionary, e.g. workshop,
fieldwork, whereas a temporary compound is once created for a specific purpose in a particular context (The American Heritage Book of English Usage). Based on the word class, compound words can be categorized into three sections: compound nouns, compound verbs and compound adjectives. Compound nouns are words which have two parts: the second part identifies the person or the object, the first part tells us what type of person or subject is or what its purpose is. In addition, the first part must modify or describe the second part. For example, in the word police man, the first part is police which give information about the type of the person and the second part is man. Compound nouns often have a different meaning from the two separate words (edufind.com). There are some ways form compound nouns: Patterns noun + verb noun + adverb verb + noun verb + verb verb + adverb adjective + noun adverb + noun Examples haircut, waterfall hanger-on, passer-by pickpocket make-believe, make-do press down, runaway fast-food, new generation overkill, over king
Compound nouns can be countable, uncountable, singular or plural (see some common compound nouns in Appendix). Compound adjectives are made up of two or more words, usually written with hyphen between them to avoid ambiguity and confusion. For example, it is incorrect to write: The black and blue mark suggested that he had been involved in an altercation. To be correct, we should rewrite: The black-and-blue mark suggested that he had been involved in an altercation.
However, in some cases, we do not use hyphen in a compound adjective when the adjectives are capitalized and when they are a part of a title like in this example, His book was entitled, Gender Neutral Language in English Usage, and it revolutionized the way people think about sex roles. In brief, compound adjectives are often written with hyphens when they are used in front of nouns and without hyphens when they are used as the complement of a link verb. Ex: It was free-and-easy relationship. This book is out of date. Some common patterns to make compound adjectives are: Patterns adjective + noun_ed adjective + past participle adjective + present participle noun + adjective noun + present participle noun + past participle adverb + past participle adverb + present participle Examples red-haired, old-fashioned, fair-skinned, absent-minded low-paid, high-bred, little-known good-looking, beautiful-sounding, easy-going nation-wide, noteworthy, duty-free time-consuming, breath-taking heart-broken, handmade outspoken, ill-equipped, well-behaved high-sounding, low-flying, well-becoming
There are also some groups of compound adjectives like compound qualitative adjectives, compound classifying adjectives, and compound color adjectives (see Appendix). Compound verbs consist of two or more words and they are usually written with hyphens. Sometimes we often misunderstand between compound verbs and phrasal verbs. So how to recognize the differences between these two types of verb? Obviously, if we can insert an object
between the two words, then it is a phrasal verb, otherwise it is a compound verb. For example, we can say pick something up but we cannot say spoon something feed. Therefore, pick up is a phrasal verb and spoon feed is a compound verb. Another difference is that the last word of a phrasal verb is a preposition; meanwhile, it is a verb or a noun for a compound verb. Some patterns of compound verb formation are: Patterns noun + verb verb + noun verb + verb adjective + verb adverb + verb Examples sky-dive, spoon-feed, water-ski, baby-sit, tape-record, window-shop do-time, dry-salt kick-start double-book, dry-clean, ill-treat overbook, overdo, undergo
Conversion
So far, we have known two ways of forming a new word in English by linking bases and bases or linking bases and affixes. However, there are some ways to form a new word without adding or linking. That is conversion. Conversion zero derivation- is the creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form (Wikipedia). For instance, we can turn nouns into verbs without adding anything into the base. Take this for an example, water is a noun, but we can use it as a verb with the meaning provide water. In English, conversion is fairly used.
Education + entertainment edutainment Another way, we can combine the beginning of the two words. Ex: cybernetic + organism cyborg
Conversion
According to professor Do Huu Chau, conversion is the method used to change the meaning of a word without changing its form. The new word and the original word have the same spelling and pronunciation but they have completely different meaning.
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The method conversion happens based on the two basic methods: metaphor and metonymy. Let us take the word leg (chn) for example. The original meaning is a part of a body. However, we can use the word chn to refer to other meanings such as the position in an organization (c chn trong ban gim hiu), or a job of a person (chn th k). Another example, we can use some words which means the state of fruit like non, gi, chn to imply the degree of measurements such as non mt cn, gi mt cn, or suy ngh cn non, suy ngh gi dn. In short, by conversion, the form of a word remains but the meaning has been changed through metaphor and metonymy.
Compounding
Another method of word formation in Vietnamese is compounding. Compared to English, compounding in Vietnamese and English are similar to some extends. Compound words are made up from two or more single words, which have relationship of meaning. There are two types of compound words in Vietnamese: coordinated compound words (t ghp ng lp) and principal-and-accessory compound words (t ghp chnh ph). Coordinated compound words are words in which components have equal meanings. For example, n and are the two words which have the meaning when they are alone, and they have equal meaning to some extends. Therefore, when we compound these two words, we have a new word n . Principal-and-accessory compound words are words in which one component depends on another component. The accessory component has the role of modifying the principal component. Let us take tu ha for example. Ha is the accessory component which tells us the function of this machine.
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Similar to English words, compound words in Vietnamese are also divided into three groups according to word class: compound nouns, compound verbs, and compound adjectives. As you know, Vietnam used to be dominated by Chinese. Therefore, Vietnamese language has been influenced by Chinese. For this reason, compound nouns in Vietnamese are mostly created based on Chinese words. Compound nouns can be two Han-Viet words which are in the same category and the meanings of the two words are interdependent. Ex: t tng (t: ngh, tng: ngh ngi) y phc (y: o, phc: trang phc) Compound nouns in Vietnamese can consist of two or more Han-Viet words, in which one word has the main meaning and others modify the main component. Ex: n nhn (nhn is the major word, n is the modifier for nhn) hng khng mu hm (hm is the major word, mu is the modifier for hm, and hng khng is the modifier for mu hm) Not only are Han-Viet words used in noun compounding, Nm can be used. Therefore, compound nouns can be made up from two Nm words to have a new word which has a general meaning, e.g. qun o, bt da, nh ca, rung vn. Another way of forming compound nouns is to combine one noun and one idiomatic phrase, such as phng gi o ti cm, k ry y mai , bn mi quc cu vinh (Vn phm Vit Nam 1992). Another type of compound words is compound adjectives. Like compound nouns, compound adjectives are mostly formed by the same methods. Here are some patterns Patterns Han-Viet + Han-Viet Han-Viet (major) + Han-Viet (minor) Examples anh hng, thanh nh, chnh trc, lch duyt i quc, hiu ha
Word Formation in English and Vietnamese Han-Viet (minor) + Han-Viet (major) Nm + Nm (equal meaning) Han-Viet idiomatic phrases Nm idiomatic phrases nouns verbs (Bi c Tnh 1992: 87-89) Vietnamese compound verbs has no exception, they are influenced by Chinese words. Here are some common patterns by which compound verbs are formed: Patterns Han-Viet + Han-Viet Han-Viet adjective/ noun + ha Nm verb + Nm verb Nm verb (major) + Nm verb (minor) verb + noun verb + adjective verb + adverb verb phrase nouns adjectives idiomatic phrases (Bi c Tnh 1992: 98-100) Examples khch l, quan st gin d ha, qun s ha, n l ha bun bn, thng yu, n , n ung nh la, ni thch, n xin nh bc, hnh ti, bit n lm giu, lm kiu vo trong, i ra, n ngoi Ni i ni li, dn i dn li C bc, ru ch Ln, ngc Ging ng kch ty, ry y mai v l, phi ngha, bt hiu Ti tt, m du, khe mnh (thi ) mc h v nhn (cu ni) hng tm hng c (t tng) quc gia, (hot ng) vn ha (t tng) tin b, (hnh ng)phn bi
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Word Formation in English and Vietnamese In brief, compounding is totally different from conversion. The conversion just impacts
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on one words, whereas the compounding impacts on the two words so that we have a new word which has not been existed before.
Reduplication
Reduplication in Vietnamese is somehow similar to reduplication in English. This method impacts on one component and produces minor component. There is a relationship between the root component and the minor component. The combination of these two words is called reduplicative word. According to the information of the Net Ngon Ngu website, the length of reduplicative words is two words for minimum and four words for maximum. There are types of reduplication words. In the first type, the two components are completely the same, such as ba ba, co co, khng khng. The second type is the reduplication of the rhythm. The components of the two words are totally similar, but the rhythm is different, e.g o , phi phi, thoang thong. The last one reduplicates the rhyme. In this type, the first rhyme or the second rhyme of the two components is repeated, e.g. cm cp, hm hp. By reduplication, new words which have never been existed before are formed. Reduplicative words are used in literature and music at most.
Common Errors
Because we are native Vietnamese people and we are learners of English, making errors when transforming our ideas in native language into foreign language is common and obvious. The most common error we meet is using wrong words, although we have been clear about the word formation of each language.
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Moreover, some English nouns are considered to be count but they turn into non-count nouns in Vietnamese and vice versa. For instance, nouns of animals, fruits, trees are count nouns in English but non-count nouns in Vietnamese. Some nouns are countable in Vietnamese but uncountable in English, for example, work, news, advice, thought, and hope. In Vietnamese, it is grammatically right to say mt li khuyn hay mt tin tc. However, it is completely wrong if we say one advice or one news.
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CONCLUSION
English and Vietnamese are the two different cultures. For this reason, the word formation of English and Vietnamese are not the same at all. In general there are some similarities between word formations of these two languages; however, there are still some differences. The most invisible difference between English and Vietnamese is that English can be formed by adding affix, meanwhile this situation cannot be found in Vietnamese. Most of words in English and Vietnamese words are formed by compounding, conversion (more in Vietnamese), and reduplication. To master a language, a learner must acknowledge how the new words are formed and how they are used in sentence.
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REFERENCES CITED
(1996). The American Heritage Book of English Usage. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Bi c Tnh. (1991). ng t. Vn phm Vit Nam (98-100). Vietnam: Hochiminh City. Bi c Tnh. (1991). Tnh t. Vn phm Vit Nam (87-9). Vietnam: Hochiminh City. Compound Adjectives. Nov 19, 2008, from http://www.sohoavn.com. Conversion. Nov 19, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki. Hu Chu. (2004). Gio trnh t vng hc Ting Vit. Vietnam: University of Education. Nguyn Lng Ngc. (1997). A Contrastive Study of Vietnamese and English. India Nouns. Nov 19, 2008, from http://www.edufind.com. Reduplication. Dec 20, 2008, from http://www.phrases.org.uk. Word Formation. Nov 19, 2008, from http://www.arts.uottawa.ca. Word. Oct 29, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki.
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APPENDIX PREFIXES
1. Negative Prefixes unnonina(n)disunfair, unadorned non-confomist, non-existence invisible, illogical amoral, atheist disloyal, disobey
2. Reversible Prefixes un de dis3. Pejorative Prefixes mis mal pseudomishear, misconduct, misleading, misrepresentation maltreat, malformed, malfunction pseudo-scientific, pseudo-classicism undo, undress, unhorse defrost, depoliticize discouraging, disheartened, disinterested
Word Formation in English and Vietnamese hyper-/ ultra- hypersensitive mini-/ macro-/ micromicrowave
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5. Prefixes of Attitude
cocounteranti-/ procooperative, co-director counter-espionage, counter-attack anti-nuclear, anti-democracy
6. Locative Prefixes
supersubintersuperstructure, subway, subconscious, subdivide international, intermarry, interweave, interplay transatlantic, transplant
trans-
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aSUFFIXES
A. NOUN SUFFIXES
afloat
1. Occupational Suffixes -eer -ster -er engineer gangster, gamester, trickster Londoner, banker
2. Diminution and Feminine Suffixes -let -ette -ess -y booklet, owlet, piglet cigarette, kitchenette countess, hostess Johnny, daddy, pussy
3. Status, Domain Suffixes -hood -ship boyhood, brotherhood, falsehood, likelihood friendship, companionship seldom
5. Noun/ Adjective Suffixes -ite -(i)an -ese -ist Israelite, Raphaelite Shakespearian, Elizabethan Japanese, Chinese novelist, violinist, typist
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6. De-verbal Suffixes -er -ant -ation -ment -al -ing -age -ee worker, onlooker, drinker inhabitant, occupant operation, exploration arrangement, argument approval, refusal swimming, shopping, living, painting package, shortage, peerage trainee, employee
7. De-adjectival Suffixes -ness: goodness, happiness, selfishness readable, readability, sentimental, sentimentality
B. VERB SUFFIXES -ify -ize -en certify, indentify scandalize, organize blacken, widen, sadden
C. ADJECTIVE SUFFIXES -able -al -ful -ed -en readable, drinkable chemical, criminal, special beautiful, plentiful blue-eyed, odd-shaped wooden, leaden
Word Formation in English and Vietnamese -ic -ish -less -like Germanic, specific foolish, boyish, snobbish helpless, hopeless childlike
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Word Formation in English and Vietnamese Lost property Mail order Make up Old age Remote control Social security First aid Water-skiing
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