Noun Formation: English And Vietnamese

Noun Formation: English And Vietnamese As we all know, word are the most important unit in one language. We use words everyday, in many various fields of life: from work to studying, form informal situation to formal situation. From word, we can create phrases, sentences to communication with each other under many forms. Amongst words, noun is a rather crucial part. Nouns have several functions in sentences. They can be the subject, an object, an appositive, or a complement (Rakoczy). Therefore, noun-formation can be recognized as the sub process of word-formation, and it will share some same characteristic of word formation. My essay is aimed at identifying, analyzing and contrasting the noun formation between English and Vietnamese to magnify the similarities and differences. Based on this paper, I hope to help my readers clear about noun formation and help the educators have a universal perspective of the unavoidable errors of learning process in both Vietnamese and English learners. NOUN-FORMATION IN ENGLISH Because noun-formation is the sub-process of word-formation, it also follows the same morphological rules of word-formation. Nouns are formed by morphemes as well. According to the classification, we have compounding, affixation or derivation, and conversion. More specifically: Affixation or derivation, forms nouns with affixes. Compounding is the combination of two or more morphemes. Conversion, also called zero derivation, is the creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form (Conversion, 2001). For example, word shifts from verb to noun without change of its morphemes. There is other noun-formation such as reduplication, clipping, blending, acronyms, and borrowing. Reduplication is repeating an item with a change in the beginning consonant or change in the middle vowel. Clipping is a process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts (Marchand:1969). Clipping is also known as truncation or shortening. (Clipping, 2001), without changing its meaning. Blending is combining of shortened of two or more morphemes to form a new word. On the other hand, acronyms are nouns using the initial letters in words, phrases, or proper names. Last is borrowing, which actually has two types: using the exact word from another the language and translating it literally, we often called the second type calque or loan translation. NOUN FORMATION IN VIETNAMESE Similar to English, noun in Vietnamese was also formed by morphemes. However, the noun-formation from affixation does not appear in Vietnamese as it is in English. The free morpheme and bound morpheme in Vietnamese are defined differently. More particularly, the bound morpheme in Vietnamese can be used as a separate word. In English, when the bound morpheme stands alone, it doesnt make a full word. In Vietnamese, noun was formed by combining two free morphemes, two bound morphemes, or one bound morpheme and one free morpheme. As a result, noun is formed by compounding, conversion together with other methods such as reduplication, clipping, acronyms, and borrowing. Moreover, because of the long-term domination of the Chineses dynasties and French colonist, the vocabularies which Vietnamese borrowed from Chinese and French are numerous and various. CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 1. Affixation (Derivation) In this part, I will discuss the affixation in English. The affixes involve prefixes and suffixes. For example, from the adjective literal, we only need to add the suffixes -cy to form the noun literacy. Together with the suffixes, the prefixes also contribute to the noun formation. When we offer a new add-on il-, we immediately have a new noun illiteracy which has the opposite meaning to the noun literacy. Consequently, the prefix of noun can change the meaning of the origin, but it still maintains the word class. The suffix, on the other hand, when be attached to the base, it can transform a verb to a noun or other word class. Some typical suffixes for noun are: -ant, -er, -or, -mentà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. In addition, prefixes and suffixes contain some given meanings which were displayed below: Prefixes Meaning Suffixes Meaning Anti- Against -tude state of Mis- wrong, astray -ist dealer, doer Post- After -ism doctrine, belief Dis- not, opposite of -ity state of being Inter- between, among -cy state of being De- get rid of -eer, -er, -or person who 2. Compound nouns In English, except some single words are noun themselves, noun can be formed by many methods, such as some in table Compound patterns Examples Noun + Noun bloodstream, seashore, cupboard Adjective + Noun hardboard, blueberry, softball Verb + Noun swimming pool, washing machine Preposition + Noun inbox, outbox, overcoat Verb + Verb make-work, drop-kick Verb + Preposition breakaway, hideout, takeaway Phrases Compound stock-in-trade, mother-in-law Special Compound tetragon, archeology According to the table, there are many patterns to form a noun. However, we can classify all the patterns into 3 categories: The solid or closed form: two words were combined as one word. Ex: timetable, blackboard. The hyphenated form: two words are connected by a hyphen. Ex: son-in-law, stitch-up. The open or spaced form: the word consists of two longer words, and often written separately. Ex: high court, slow motion. Meanwhile, in Vietnamese we have the coordinated compound noun and the principal-and-accessory compound noun, which were also known in Vietnamese are tà ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ « ghà ©p Ä‘Ã ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ³ng là ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ­p and tà ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ « ghà ©p chà ­nh phà ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ ¥. The coordinated compound noun is the noun was built from two components with equal meaning, for example: chà ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ £ bà ºa, quà ¡Ã‚ ºn à ¡oà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. The coordinated compound noun often expresses the general and synthetic meaning which was one main point that makes it different from the principal-and accessory compound noun. The principal-and accessory compound noun is the noun that involves two components, in which one component depends on the other. The secondary component will classify the main component. For instance: we have the first component is Ä‘Æ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ ng, which means the way to go, and the second one is sà ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ¯t, a kind of metal that made this kind of way. When we combine those two components, we will have the new noun: Ä‘Æ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ ng sà ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ¯t, which actually means railway in order to distinguish with Ä‘Æ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ ng khà ´ng, Ä‘Æ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ ng thà ¡Ã‚ »y, Ä‘Æ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ ng bà ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â€ž ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ 3. Conversion The conversion is a very interesting process of forming new word. It occurs in both English and Vietnamese. Without changing its forms, we can change the meaning of the word, even the word class (but I dont talk about word class-change because this essay is focused on the noun formation, not the word formation) more specifically, lets examine these two examples: Ex 1: Firstly, in English, with the word stop in 2 sentences It is time to put a stop to the violence. I get off at the next stop. In the first one, stop means the act of stopping the violence, but in the second sentence, stop actually means a place where a bus or train stops regularly for passengers to get on or off. Clearly, the form of the noun stop doesnt change. Ex 2: In Vietnamese, take the word phà ¡Ã‚ »Ã… ¸ as example Mà ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ¹ tà ´i nà ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ¥u phà ¡Ã‚ »Ã… ¸ rà ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ¥t ngon. Khà ¡ nhià ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ u ngÆ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ i Ä‘Ã  n à ´ng hià ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬ ¡n nay cà ³ tÆ ° tÆ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã… ¸ng chà ¡n cÆ ¡m thà ¨m phà ¡Ã‚ »Ã… ¸. phà ¡Ã‚ »Ã… ¸ in the first sentence is a Vietnamese dish, but the second sentence connotes the meaning of something new, especially another women, not their wives. Thus, English and Vietnamese resemble each other on this process of forming new nouns. Being used under many various circumstances, the word itself generates many different metaphorical meanings. 4. Other formation a. Reduplication Both English and Vietnamese have reduplication. However, reduplication only seizes a small number of nouns in English. Vietnamese reduplication has two types: repeating the whole word (ba ba, chà ¢u chà ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ¥u, cà  o cà  oà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦) and repeating some components of the word. Moreover, we dont find many Vietnamese nouns which belong to the second types. The maximum length of Vietnamese reduplicative words is no more than four, and the minimum length is two. Most of the reduplicative words are two-word length. Some of reduplicative English words are: ping pong, flip flop, tick-tockà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. b. Clipping According to VÃ…Â © Ä Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ ©c Nghià ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬ ¡u, Vietnamese only considers this process as temporary form or the spoken form of word. By definition, it doesnt happen with every word (Nghià ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬ ¡u 2007). bÆ °Ãƒâ€ Ã‚ ¡m bÆ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬ ºm Æ’Â   bÆ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬ ºm ki-là ´-gam Æ’Â   kà ­ là ´ Ä Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ £ng cà ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â€ž ¢ng sà ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ £n Vià ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬ ¡t Nam Æ’Â   Ä Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ £ng Whereas, English have lots of words was formed by clipping such as: photo from photograph, rhino from rhinocerosà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ c. Acronym By using the initial letters of a phrase as one word, acronym has produced a massive number a word. Because those words were created by acronym are more memorable than the phrases, many people like this type of noun-formation, especially in names of some organizations. In English, we have AIDS, radarà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. In Vietnamese, we also have some acronymic words such as TW from trung Æ °Ãƒâ€ Ã‚ ¡ng, CLB for cà ¢u là ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ¡c bà ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â€ž ¢. d. Blending Blends deal with the action of abridging and then combining various lexemes to form a new word . This process combines shortened of two or more morphemes to form a word. For instance, brunch is the combination of breakfast and lunch, motel is the combination of motor and hotel. This is one special feature of English which doesnt exist in Vietnamese at all. e. Borrowing English and Vietnamese borrowed a vast number of words. In Vietnamese, because of the Chinese and French domination, the borrowed vocabularies are mainly from those two countries. It was divided into two layers: Chinese origin and Indo-European origin. Some examples should be taken into account are described in the tables below Vietnamese French xà   phà ²ng Savon pà ª-Ä‘an pà ©dale mà ¹i xoa mouchoir Vietnamese Chinese Ä‘Ã ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â€ž ¢c già ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ £ à ¨Ã‚ ®Ã¢â€š ¬Ãƒ ¨Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¦(dà ºzhĆº) kà ½ già ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ £ à ¨Ã‚ ¨Ã‹Å"à ¨Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¦(jà ¬zhĆº) Vietnamese also translate literally some vocabulary in Chinese and French into Vietnamese for necessary usage, it usually was known as quà ¡ trà ¬nh Vià ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬ ¡t hà ³a hoà  n toà  n such as: Ex: à ©Ã‚ £Ã¢â‚¬ ºÃƒ ¦Ã‚ ©Ã… ¸ (fÄâ€Å"ijÄ «) phi cÆ ¡, phi = bay, cÆ ¡ = mà ¡y mà ³c â‚ ¬Ã‚ ¢ mà ¡y bay (Vietnamese) (Ä Ãƒ  o Duy Anh, 2005) à ¨Ã‚ Ã‚ ½Ãƒ ¨Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ (tÄ «ngzhĆº) thà ­nh già ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ £ (Chinese), in Hà ¡n-Vià ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬ ¡t tà ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ « Ä‘ià ¡Ã‚ »Ã†â€™n già ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ £n yà ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ¿u, thà ­nh = nghe, già ¡Ã‚ ºÃ‚ £ = chà ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬ ° và ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚  ngÆ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ i â‚ ¬Ã‚ ¢ ngÆ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ i nghe (Vietnamese) (Ä Ãƒ  o Duy Anh, 2005) English also have two types of borrowing vocabulary: the exact foreign word and calque. According to different sources, around 30% of all English words have a French origin (Calque, 2001). Some of the French words that were used in English are ablation, accent, bonnet, desertà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. Similar to Vietnamese, English also translate the words literally from many other languages for usage. We can take some calques as examples: Latin: Lunae dies => Old English: Monan dà ¦g (day of the moon) => Modern English: Monday (University of Oxford, 2005) French: gratte-ciel and Spanish: rascal cielos (both literally means: scrape-sky) => English: skyscraper. (Calque, 2001) TEACHING IMPLICATIONS The aim of contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese is to draw out the linguistic same and differences. However, it also has another valuable practical basis for teaching and learning. By contrasting those two languages, we can forecast the potential difficulties that the learners may encounter when learning foreign languages. Firstly, Because of the differences in word order, Vietnamese pupils tend to produce error such as room dinning instead of dinning room, which means phà ²ng ăn in Vietnamese pie apple instead of apple pie, which in Vietnamese it is bà ¡nh tà ¡o. This error often happened in compound noun. Secondly, when we want to mention the plural forms of nouns in Vietnamese, we usually use the word nhià ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ u before nouns such as: nhià ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ u ngÆ °Ãƒ ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ i, nhià ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ u hy và ¡Ã‚ »Ã‚ ngà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. That is the point. In English, we must add -s or -es behind countable nouns, for example: girls, boysà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and preserve the uncountable nouns. Therefore, Vietnamese learners have a tendency to forget the -s and -es for countable nouns and vice versa for uncountable nouns. This also elucidates the reasons why Vietnamese pupils misuse two words many and much for countable and uncountable nouns. Thirdly, in Vietnamese, we can say Chim Ä‘ang hà ³t without any determiners. This sentence conveys the full meaning and is grammatical right. Otherwise, if we apply this rule in to English, which requires the determiners for noun, it is completely wrong. We cannot say Bird is singing (the right sentence should be The bird is singing). Finally, I want to emphasize that, besides the methods of teaching and learning, the syllabus, one of the major causes of the above errors is the differences in English and Vietnamese, or we can call it the linguistic cause. CONCLUSION Vietnamese and English show similarities as well as differences, and noun formation is a complicated process in both languages. It demands the learners to master the rules and apply it in the proper place. Vocabulary in English and Vietnamese are copious. However, Vietnamese have more types of noun formation in English, which makes the Vietnamese is more difficult for the foreigners. If you understand these linguistic characteristics of theses two languages, you make a further step in absorbing them. What Age Should Marriage be Allowed? What Age Should Marriage be Allowed? People should be allowed to get married only after age of 30 Marriage is one of the most important systems which keep the continuation of the social unity through marriage between a man and a women, who agree together to build a family. Getting married is a very important decision in every individuals life because they are planning to spend their entire life with their spouses. Sometimes people get married at an early age and than experience problems in their relationship. If People are allowed to get married only after age of 30 than they will be more matured, professionally settled and have a good financial position. And lastly, individuals would have lived and enjoyed all their dreams which are sometimes not possible after marriage. Firstly, People should be allowed to get married only after age of 30 as they will be able to understand relationships more maturely. Age and experience brings with it wisdom most of the time. An individual marrying after the age of 30 would be able to precisely understand their spouse, would have learnt to deal with problems effectively, which will help them lead a healthier married life. For instance, if a couple gets married at an early age and if they do not know how to handle family problems than this can become a big drawback for their marriage and can lead to divorce. Secondly, People should be allowed to get married only after age of 30 as till this age most of the individuals would have achieved a lot of success in their career life and would have a good financial position to take care of their family. If individuals get married at an early age than the couple have to struggle in personal and professional lifes due to insufficient funds. For instance, if people will be allowed to get married only after age of 30 than they will plan their future well and have enough earnings to handle the expenses to keep their family happy. Lastly, People should be allowed to get married only after age of 30 is that waiting till the age of 30, will allow people to â€Å"live their dreams† as they will have many years after education to achieve what they want to. Individuals would have lived and enjoyed their peak years in their lifes which will lead to fulfillment of their dreams and will provide them with a sense of satisfaction in life. For instance, if an individual is allowed to get married after age of 30 will know a particular age limit of getting married and will try to live all their dreams in life till that age so that after marriage they do not have any complications related to their dreams and they can live a joyful married life. In conclusion, people should be allowed to get married only after age of 30 because they will be more matured and will have a better understanding of relationships, secondly till the age of 30 individuals would have achieved success in their careers and lastly individuals would have lived all their dreams till they turn to 30. These factors will make them feel more comfortable about their married life. They will be able to give all the happiness and love to their life partners because till 30 they would have found a right life partner who can take good care of their needs and wants.