A comparison between English and Vietnamese morpheme system

Acknowledgment Firstly, we are deeply grateful to Ms Huyen Nguyen Thi Thanh, my supervisor for her valuable instructions, corrections and assistance during the implementation process of our graduation thesis. Secondly, we would like to give our special thanks to all lecturers and staff from the Foreign Language Faculty, English Department of Phuong Dong University for giving us opportunities and encouragement to complete our study. Finally, we also would like to express our sincere thanks to TA vu Son Tung for his support during our process to complete this essay. Group: Luong Thi Thuan Ha Kim Phuong OUTLINE Part I: Introduction. Rationale (reasons of the study) 3 Aims of the study 3 Scope of the study 3 Methods of the study 4 Part II: Development. Chapter 1: Theoretical background. An overview of English morpheme Definition of Morpheme 5 Type of morpheme 6 An overview of Vietnamese morpheme Definition of Vietnamese morpheme 9 Derivational morphology: word formation 9 Chapter 2: Comparison with Vietnamese morphology. The similarities 11 The difference 13 Some suggestion 15 Part III: Conclusion 18 Exercises 19 References 23 Part I: Introduction 1. The rationale “Language is the most important social communication among countries and people in the world”, said V.I Lenin. As the world changes and develops, the global integration becomes the trend in all over the world. All countries, including Viet Nam have been cooperated with each other in many aspects of society in order to enhance development of economy. It designated international communication as an important part of all sectors. English is considered as the international language which is widely used all over the world. However, each language as well as English has its own typical features which make difficulties for learners. To learn English well, first of all, we should understand deeply about its morpheme system. Living in a community, human beings need a tool to communicate with each other, and to carry on human and social affairs. They, therefore, arbitrarily named the things and occurrences around making use of vocal sounds for the purpose of communication. After that they showed the vocal sounds and sets of vocal sounds in written signals. Because of these reasons, we decided to choose the topic “English morpheme system and some applications of learning morpheme in establishing words”. 2. Aims of the study We hope that our study is useful for English learners, for those who want to consolidate their knowledge about morpheme. Furthermore, it can help people significantly improve their vocabulary to apply in translation and finally, they can also guess meanings new words without using dictionary. 3. Scope of the study. The elimination of the essay is from 15-20 pages, so we can only deal with Definition, types of English morpheme. Definition, types of Vietnamese morpheme. Some suggestions in forming words. 4. The methods of the study. To complete this study, we used some following methods: + Library research: we collected the data from curriculums, internet, and some valuable books of foreign and domestic scholars. We think these are valuable sources to effectively support for our study. + Comparison: we gave out the similarities and differences between English morpheme and Vietnamese morpheme. 5. Design of the study. Our essay is divided into five main parts: Part I: Introduction Part II: Development This is divided into 2 chapters: Chapter 1: Some theoretical background knowledge. Chapter 2: Comparison with Vietnamese morphology Part III: Conclusion Part IV: References Part V: Exercises Part II. Development Chapter 1: Theoretical background An overview of English morpheme Definition A morpheme is the smallest isolable unit in the linguistic structure which caries an independent meaning for example a noun or a verb stem as well as a suffix or prefix, and the meaning can be specific such as John (proper name), general such as a house, or purely grammatical such as pluralize, verbalize, etc. The first part of the definition is the sequence of words smallest isolable unit, which means that these elements are the shortest stretches of sound which can be replaced by another such segment, and which always have some element of meaning attached to them, however broad or general this meaning might be. The final requirement, for example, meaning associated with the segment, is necessary to eliminate the possibility of having two morphemes, such as cut and cot in which it might be said that the meaning difference between the two units was carried by the single phonemic distinction /ʌ/ and /ɔ/, which is of course true on the phonemic level of analysis, but it is probable also true that the meaning distinction is carried by only a single distinctive feature on the distinctive feature level of analysis. These are some examples of morpheme: One morpheme         boy  (one syllable)                                  desire, lady, water  (two syllables)                                  crocodile (three syllables)                             salamander (four syllables Two morpheme        boy + ish                                   desire + able Three morpheme       boy + ish + ness                                desire + able + ity Four morpheme         gentle+man+li + ness                                  un + desire + able + ity More than four           un + gentle + man + li + ness                                   anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism Types of English morpheme Morpheme Root morpheme Affixational morpheme free morpheme Bound morpheme The inflectional morpheme The derivational morpheme Prefix Suffix Root morpheme A root is a morpheme that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts. It is also called the lexical morpheme or simply the root. Example: book, system, school, etc.  Free Root Morpheme: run, bottle, phone, etc. Bound Root Morpheme: receive, remit, uncouth, nonchalant, etc Free morphemes Free morphemes are those that can stand alone as words. E.g.:    girl system Desire hope Act phone Happy love Bound morphemes Bound morphemes (affixes) must be attached to the word. They are prefixes, infixes, suffixes, such as {happy} as in unhappy, happily, happiness) or they may be grammatical (such as called, closing, and faster). Affixational morpheme The affixational morpheme is further divided into inflectional morpheme and derivational morpheme. The inflectional morpheme Inflectional morphemes have grammatical meaning or function in the sentence, they never change part of speech. It also called grammatical morpheme. Words can have an internal structure much like the syntax of phrases. Morphemes such as the, -s, and re- near the grammatical end of the continuum are called grammatical morphemes. Note that grammatical morphemes include forms that we can consider to be words like the, a, and, and of and others that make up parts of words like –s and -ed. E.g. pencils walked The derivational morpheme Root morpheme combines with Derivational Morpheme forming a new word with a new meaning (usually change grammatical class) N + Derivational Morpheme --> Adj E.g.: mountain + ous, Verb + Derivational Morpheme --> Noun E.g.: clear + ance Adj. + Derivational Morpheme --> Adverb E.g.: Exact + ly The Derivational morpheme consists of affix, which includes prefix and suffix. Affix is a morpheme that comes at the beginning (prefix) or the ending (suffix) of a base morpheme.  An affix usually is a morpheme that cannot stand alone.  Examples: -ful, -ly, -ity, -ness. A few exceptions are able, like, and less. a. Prefix is an affix that comes before a base morpheme.  E.g.: The -in in inspect. b. Suffix is an affix that comes after a base morpheme.  E.g.: The -s in cats. Vietnamese morpheme Definition of Vietnamese morpheme A Vietnamese morpheme is the smallest isolable unit in the linguistic structure which caries an independent meaning, forming by the repetition of that morpheme itself or some variants of that word Derivational morpheme: word formation There are 3 types of words in Vietnamese: simple (từ đơn), reduplicative (từ láy) and compound (từ ghép). Moreover, Vietnamese has borrowed vocabulary from other languages, including Chinese, French and English. Simple words Most simple words in Vietnamese are monosyllabic.The number of polysyllabic simple words such as bù nhìn (scarecrow), ễnh ương (frog), mồ hôi (sweat), mà cả (bargain) is relatively small. Reduplicative words Reduplication is a specific type of word-formation in Vietnamese. Vietnamese is among the languages in the world which most frequently use reduplicatives. Compounds There are three types of compounds in Vietnamese. a. Coordinate compounds Coordinate compounds are formed by two morphemes, neither of which modifies the other one, such as quần áo (cloths), mua bán (purchase and sell), phải trái (right and wrong). b. Subordinate compounds Subordinate compounds are formed by two morphemes, one of which modifies the other one. E.g.: xe đạp (bicycle) xe máy (motorbike) xe hơi (car) xe lửa (train) khó tính (be difficult to please) khó chịu (unbearable) khó nghe (be difficult to hear) khó thương (unlovable) trắng tinh (immaculate) trắng muốt (pure white) trắng hếu (very light, white, of skin) trắng phau (very white) nhà báo (journalist) nhà văn (writer) nhà doanh nghiệp (businessman) nhà thơ (poet) hội trưởng (president of association) đội trưởng (head of group) nhóm trưởng (head of group) tổ trưởng (head of small group) Many morphemes in this type may be regarded as affixes. c. Isolated compounds Unlike the coordinate and subordinate compounds, isolated compounds do not form systems. Such compounds as mè nheo (bother with requests), thiêu thân (May fly), tai hồng (a part of bicycle) belong to the isolated type of compounds. Chapter 2: Comparison with Vietnamese morphology 2.1. The similarities First, both English morphemes and Vietnamese morphemes are the smallest unit of language and can not be divided into smaller parts They both have affix (prefix and suffix) E.g.: Some Vietnamese affix Prefixes Prefix Meaning Examples khả- "ability" khả kính "respectable" khả quan "satisfactory Phi- "not" Phi nghĩa "unethical" phi chính phủ "non-governmental" Siêu- "better”, “superior" Siêu thị "supermarket" siêu đẳng "outstanding" thứ- ordinal (added to numerals) thứ mười "tenth",thứ bốn mươi ba "forty-third" lão- familiar (added to surnames) lão Thinh "ol’ Thinh, good old Thinh" (lão- + Thinh surname) Suffixes Suffix Meaning Examples -gia "profession" chính trị gia "politician" (chính trị "politics" + -gia),khoa học gia "scientist" (khoa học "science" + -gia) -giả agentive tác giả "author" (tác "to create" + -giả),học giả "scholar" (học "to learn" + -giả) -học "field of study" ngôn ngữ học "linguistics" (ngôn ngữ "language" + -học),động vật học "zoology" (động vật "animal" + -học) -sĩ "expert" hoạ sĩ "artist" (hoạ "to draw" + -sĩ),văn sĩ "writer" (văn "literature" + -sĩ) -viên agentive quan sát viên "observer" (quan sát "to observe" + -viên) Some English affix: Suffix meaning example -ship State, condition, skill, art Friendship, Scholarship -tion (-sion) Action, state or result Devotion, Solution, Decision -ance Naming an act, state, condition Assistance, Dependence -ful -ly full of, abounding in characteristic of Hopeful, Useful, Manly, fatherly, daily, weakly -ize Denoting action Organize, nationalize -fy Naming action (make, form into) Beautify, Signify Prefixes Meaning Examples Un, dis-, non-, mis-, in- (ill-, im-, ir-) negation Unlucky, dishonest, nonsense, misunderstand, incorrect, illegal, impolite, irregular Un-, dis-, re- Reversal or repetition Unlock, disconnect, redo, retell, replay Pre-, post-, fore-, over-, super- Space and time relationship Prewar, postwar, foresee, oversleep, supermarket Second, some morphemes in the 2 language can increase or decrease the intensity of verbs, adjectives… E.g.: The reduplication increasing intensity: đau → đau điếng: hurt → agony mạnh → mạnh mẽ: strong → powerful rực → rực rỡ: flaring → blazing The reduplication decreasing intensity: nhẹ → nhè nhẹ: soft → mild (less) xinh → xinh xinh: pretty → cute đỏ → đo đỏ: red → reddish xanh → xanh xanh: blue/green → bluish/ greenish In addition, both of them can change the part of speeds of some words. E.g.: English: work à worker, working, hardworking Vietnamese: học à học hành, học vấn, học giả, học thuyết, hoá học, etc. 2.2. The differences First, in Vietnamese ,when you want to form a new word you can normally add affix to the certain morpheme but the new word will consist of at least 2 words; unlike English, when you add some affix it is still a single word only. E.g.: Vietnamese: ‘quên, quên lãng, quên bẵng, quên béng, khó quên English: forget, forgetful, forgetfulness, unforgettable Next, Vietnamese has the following tonal alternations (or tonal ablaut) which are used grammatically that English don’t have tone alternation đây "here" đấy "there" (ngang tone-sắc tone) bây giờ "now" bấy giờ "then" (ngang tone-sắc tone) kia "the other" kìa "yonder" (ngang tone-huyền tone) It leads to the difference when forming a Reduplicant. bự "be big" > bứ bự "be very big" (base: bự, initial reduplicant: bứ-) khẳn "fetid" > khăn khẳn "stinking" (base: khẳn, initial reduplicant/affix: khăn-) vàng " yellow" > vàng vàng "yellowish" vui "be joyful" > vui vui "jovial, fun,merry" nói "to talk" > nói nói "to keep talking and talking” Moreover, English morpheme is not as concrete as Vietnamese morpheme In English sometimes when we pronounce some sounds are lost and some are combined but it doesn’t happen with Vietnamese E.g.: unforgettable: /'ʌnfə'getəbl/ We can NOT read all morphemes ‘un’/forget’/able/ clearly and separately but with Vietnamese: ‘không / thể/ quên /được’ we can read each morpheme clearly and separately. One more difference is that: Vietnamese still do not have the phenomenon called ‘Elision ’. It is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect. Elision is normally unintentional, but it may be deliberate. The result may be impressionistically described as "slurred" or "muted." E.g.: "leave (it)" : /li:v vit/; "Middle (East)", /midl li:st/,... or "LA" (Los Angeles) : /el lei/; "MA" (Master of Arts), /em mei/... Other while in Vietnamese we can not do like that E.g.: "cảm ơn", can not be read: "cảm mơn", "im ắng", can not be: "im mắng". Some nuisances and suggestions 2.3.1. The deep understanding of morpheme can help you become a good editor or translator because you can analyze words to understand it even without dictionary The morpheme-based approach is the first one that beginners to morphology usually think of, and which laymen tend to find the most obvious. This is so to such an extent that very often beginners think that morphemes are an inevitable, fundamental notion of morphology, and many five-minute explanations of morphology are, in fact, five-minute explanations of morpheme-based morphology. This is, however, not so. The fundamental idea of morphology is that the words of a language are related to each other by different kinds of rules. Analyzing words as sequences of morphemes is one helpful ways. Applying a strictly morpheme-based model quickly leads to complications when one tries to analyze many forms of allomorphy. For example, the word dogs is easily broken into the root dog and the plural morpheme -s. The same analysis is straightforward for oxen, assuming the stem ox and a suppressive plural morpheme -en. How then would the same analysis "split up" the word geese into a root and a plural morpheme? In the same manner, how to split some words like HEN, DUCK, APPLE , MANGO , CHAIR, HOUSE STREET, BIRD ,CAR,SHEEP ? Theorists wishing to maintain a strict morpheme-based approach often preserve the idea in cases like these by saying that geese are goose followed by a null morpheme (a morpheme that has no phonological content), and that the vowel change in the stem is a morph phonological rule. Also, morpheme-based analyses commonly posit null morphemes even in the absence of any allomorphy. For example, if the plural noun “dogs” is analyzed as a root dog followed by a plural morpheme -s, then one might analyze the singular dog as the root dog followed by a null morpheme for the singular. Therefore, if you have deep understanding about morpheme you will never split up the word ‘dog’ into smaller piece because it is impossible. Another trouble is how to understand the word you do not know? First, you have to read all document related to that word Second, you need to analyze that word .But how to do that? The answer is that you should know much about morpheme, their meaning and formation E.g.: unforgettable = ‘un’ + ‘forget’ +’able’ You may think: un: cant, impossible (negative meaning) Forget: to cease or fail to remember Able: having the power, skill, means, or opportunity to do something: Unforgettable: impossible to forget, indelibly impressed on the memory By analyzing some examples we can see that the knowledge of morpheme can help learner to guess the meaning of the words or form a new word easier. 2.3.2. You can also listen to others clearly and understand what they say quickly First, sometimes when you listen to foreigners you may wonder why they pronounce different from dictionary. The answer lies on one of English rule related to morpheme called ‘elision’. You can look at some examples can help you to guess the meaning of words easier Word / combination Non-elision elision asked [ɑ:skt] [ɑ:st] lecture [‘lɛktʃə] [‘lɛkʃə] desktop [‘dɛsk,tɒp] [‘dɛs,tɒp] hard disk [,hɑ:d’dɪsk] [,hɑ:’dɪsk] kept quiet [,kɛpt’kwaɪət] [,kɛp’kwaɪət] kept calling [,kɛpt’ko:lɪŋ] [,kɛp’ko:lɪŋ] 2.3.3. This theory especially good for children at their first years of age because it is the first time to them to learn how to pronounce words. Children will meet some difficulties in spelling of many words. By making them aware of the morpheme that builds the words will help them solve these difficulties. It also has many positive effects on their vocabulary growth. Children who have good awareness of morpheme will also find out a good way to attack to sound word, which can help them much in spelling and developing their vocabulary. Morphemes give an indication of the meaning of words. They also have a fixed spelling. Because morphemes are represented in spelling, many word that is seemed to have an unpredictable or irregular spelling can be actually considered regular. It will be difficult for children to distinguish whether they spell correct or not. E.g.: Magician confession Both 2 word above sound exactly the same in the end with / ∫n/ but they are spelled differently. We can wonder that whether “magician” or “confession” is regular? The answer is both of them are regular. “Magician”: Written by adding “ian” to “magic” to form a person word. “Confession”: Written by adding “ion” to “confess” to form abstract nouns. Therefore, having a good acknowledgment of morpheme, especially in children, will help them much in spelling, as well as in improving vocabulary. Part III. Conclusion In short, English nowadays is become more and more important part of human’s life. It helps people from all over the world be closer. The more popular of English becomes the more important of using correct English we should do. In the limited time and scope, we have introduced some features of English morpheme system as well as its importance in learning English in general and spelling, developing vocabulary in particular. It’s also play an important part in teaching English for children at the first year of ages in order to help them have a basic acknowledgement about English and find out the good ways to spell and build words. We also give you some exercise to help you test your knowledge about morpheme. Let’s do it by your-self and check with the keys below. With all the information we focused above and these exercises, we hope that they will help you much in learning English. Exercise Count the number of morphemes in each word. Underline the bound morphemes. 1. alligator 2. calmly 3. running 4. blindness 5. stapler 6. bargain 7. regrouping 8. undeniable 9. assertion 10. certainly 11. corner 12. prepay 13. tighten 14. staying 15. dislocation 16. smarten 17. ladylike 18. suddenly 19. purposeful 20. dislocate Choose the correct answer 1. Smallest linguistic unit that has meaning or grammatical function. A. bound morpheme B. free morpheme C. morphemes D. derivational morphemes 2. Bound morphemes that change the meaning or syntactic function of the words to which they attach... A. Prefix B. Suffix C. Affix 3. An affix that attaches to the beginning of a stem... A. Prefix B. Suffix C. Affix 4. Morphemes that change the meaning or lexical category of the words to which they attach... A. Derivational morphemes B. Inflectional morphemes 5. Morphemes that serve a purely grammatical function, never creating a new word but only a different form of the same word... A. Derivational morphemes B. Inflectional morphemes 6. ‐ed‐ in He washed the car is... A. Inflectional morphemes B. Derivational morphemes 7. ‐s‐ in He walks to school is... A. Inflectional morphemes B. Derivational morphemes 8. ‐tion‐ in Radiation leaked out of the plant is... A. Inflectional morphemes B. Derivational morphemes 9. ‐ing‐ in She is studying everyday is... A. Inflectional morphemes B. Derivational morphemes 10. ‐ly‐ in Slowly, he ambled down the street is... A. Inflectional morphemes B. Derivational morphemes 11. ‐est‐ in That is the biggest fish I have ever seen is... A. Inflectional morphemes B. Derivational morphemes Answers I. 1. alligator 1 2. calmly 2 3. running 2 4. blindness 2 5. stapler 2 6. bargain 1 7. regrouping 3 8. undeniable 3 9. assertion 2 10. certainly 2 11. corner 1 (the –er here is not the same as the the –er of stapler) 12. prepay 2 13. tighten 2 14. staying 2 15. dislocation 3 16. smarten 2 17. ladylike 2 18. suddenly 2 19. purposeful 2 20. dislocate 2 II. 1. C 2. C 3. A 4. A 5. B 6. A 7. A 8. B 9. A 10. A 11. A References Books: Lê Đình Tư & Vũ Ngọc Cân. Nhập môn ngôn ngữ học. Hà Nội, 2009 Word-formation in English by Ingo Plag Universität Siegen in press Cambridge University Press Series 'Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics' Draft version of September 27, 2002 Basic English lexicology by Hoang Tat Truong, Links: www.seasite.niu.edu