MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

PHUNG THI MAI HUONG
WORD ORDER OF SENTENCE COMPONENTS IN ENGLISH
AND VIETNAMESE SVA STRUCTURE
(A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS)
TRẬT TỰ TỪ CÁC THÀNH PHẦN CÂU TRONG CẤU TRÚC SVA
TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT
(PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU)
M.A. THESIS
Field: English language
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Pham Thi Tuyet Huong, Ph.D
HANOI, 2013
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that no part of the enclosed Master Thesis has been copied or
reproducted by me from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the
thesis is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor.
Hanoi 05- 11- 2013
Candidate
Phung Thi Mai Huong
APPROVED BY
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to
complete this thesis. I am deeply to my supervisor Pham Thi Tuyet Huong (Ph.D)
whose endless guidance, stimulating suggestions and encouragement helped me in
all time of the research.
In addition, I thank for the co-operation of the students who actively
participated in this study to help me complete the thesis successfully.

difficulty in learning a structure of a foreign language. Therefore, the study of
sentence structure is considered to be very important. A sentence structure is the
way in which all of the elements of a sentence are put in order. So knowledge of the
basic word order of a language is important because it has been found to correlate
with other grammatical properties of the language. The word order is a universal
concept of sentence structures in English as well as in Vietnamese. In the previous
researches of linguists, the word order of sentence structure is paid much attention.
However, the word order of components of SVA structure in English and
Vietnamese has not been paid much attention to. Especially the changes of position
of elements in SVA structure have not been written about. It describes what part of
the sentence will go first, second and third. The basic elements of SVA structure are
the subject (S), the verb (V) and the adverbial (A). The SVA structure is one of the
basic structures in English grammar which students are taught at the beginning
level. Therefore, it plays an important role both in teaching and learning of English.
Moreover, I do contrastive analysis with Vietnamese so as to find out similarities as
well as differences between two languages. For all the reasons, I would like to carry
out my research on the topic: “Word order of sentence components in English and
Vietnamese SVA structures”.
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This thesis hopes to help students to overcome the difficulties in the process of
their learning and translating.
2. AIM OF THE STUDY
The main aims of the thesis are to:
- Present main features of sentence components in English and Vietnamese
SVA structures
- Describe the word order of sentence components in English and Vietnamese
SVA structures
- Give a systemic description of the word order in English and Vietnamese
SVA structures.
- Try to point out some similarities and differences between sentence

- Part I: Introduction
This part consists of aims and objectives, scope and methodology and also
the design of the study.
- Part II: Development: It includes four chapters:
+ Chapter 1: Literature review
This chapter looks at the theoretical preliminaries, the study of word order in
English and Vietnamese deals with books, research work and articles and presents
some basic concepts about word order and basic simple sentence, syntactic and
semantic functions of components in SVA structure.
+ Chapter 2: Sentence components in English and Vietnamese SVA
structures and their word orders
This chapter presents the basic word order of components sentences and the
changes of word order of sentence components in English and Vietnamese SVA
structures.
+ Chapter 3: Contrastive analysis of the word order of sentence components
in English and Vietnamese SVA structures.
This chapter presents the similarities, the differences in English and
Vietnamese SVA structures and the frequency of using SVA structure in English
and Vietnamese literature, also points out the reasons of these uses.
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+Chapter 4: A research on common mistakes in using word order in English
SVA structure.
This chapter presents some common mistakes of students in using SVA
structure, especially, in translation. From that, the research gives some solutions and
suggestions for teaching and learning English. This study is conducted with third-
year students at Hanoi Open University.
- Part III: Conclusion
The concluding part summarizes the main findings of the study. At the end of
the thesis, references are included.
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In English word order is the prevailing method of syntactic expression, not only the
discursive but also material and emotional relations are expressed by word order.
According to Jacobs (1968), the different languages may use different types of
different orderings. The arrangement of word or phrase follows to certain structures
called word order parameter. In some languages word order is not strictly classified
as in English. In that ones have greater dependence on the suffixes and the other to
mark the elements of the sentence. Thus word order seems to be a set of types based
on a more general universal parameter in function marking, but there is no language
in which word order is totally insignificant.
According to R.A. Jacobs (1995, p35) word order parameter is differently
expressed in different languages but none of languages in which word order does
not meaning.
Biber et. al. (1999, p141-151) discussed about the word order, the major
English clause patterns are: subject- verb phrase (SV), subject- verb phrase-
obligatory adverbial (SVA), subject- verb phrase- subject complement (SVC),
subject- verb phrase- direct object (SVOd), subject- verb phrase- prepositional
object (SVOp), subject- verb phrase- indirect object- direct object (SVOiOd),
subject- verb phrase- direct object- prepositional object (SVOdOp), subject- verb
phrase- direct object- object complement (SVOdCo), subject- verb phrase- direct
object- obligatory adverbial (SVOdA). According to him, subject- verb phrase-
obligatory adverbial (SVA) includes clauses which provide answers to the questions
“When is/was X? And Where is was X?” (Biber et al. 1999, 143)
(1). The baby was lying on his back.
(2). The pleasant summer lasted well into March.
(Biber et. al. 1999, 143)
1.1.2. The study of word order in Vietnamese
Some Vietnamese linguists also paid a lot of attention to the word order such
as Nguyen Tai Can (1960), Ly Toan Thang (1981), Tran Huu Manh (2008), for
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instance, when contrastively analyzing between English and Vietnamese at sentence

are five elements in English sentence, including subject (S), verb (V), object (O),
complement (C), adjunct (A). Moreover, in “ The sentence componens of
Vietnamese” (1998) Nguyen Minh Thuyet and Nguyen Van Hiep stated there are
seven elements in Vietnamese sentence, including Subject (C), verb (Đ), object (B),
theme-complement (K), disjunct (T), complement (Đ), adverbial (Tr).
In this thesis, we would like to research the word order of sentence
components in SVA structure more deeply. I hope this thesis will be useful for both
teaching English to Vietnamese learners and Vietnamese to English learners. They
can gain some experiences in using SVA structure in learning and translating from
English into Vietnamese and vice- versa and hence understand deeply the changes
of word order of sentence components in SVA structure.
1.2. Some basic concepts.
1.2.1. Word order
When discussing about the word order, some linguistics gave some own
views. According to the view of F.Palmer (1971) stated that word order is the
combination between words in a phrase such as nouns with adjectives in noun
phrase, verbs with adverbs in verb phrase.
D.E. Rozental and M.A. Telenkova (M, 1972) defined that word order in a
sentence is the arrangement between sentence components together. This
arrangement has syntactic, semantic and stylistic meanings.
Leech (1991, p550) described word order as “the order of the element in a
sentence or clause”. In English, there are five basic elements of clause structure:
subject (S), verb (V), object (O), complement (C) and adverbial (A) (Quirk et al.,
1985, p49). Biber ( 1999, p898) and Leech ( 1991, p550) stated that English word
order is usually described as rather fixed, due to the fact that the position of the
above- mentioned elements indicates their syntactic function in a clause.
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Each language has different word order to form sentences grammatically. That
is one of the reason the researcher does this thesis.
According to Sara Cushing Weigle (2002, p.216) word order is the order in

SUBJECT PREDICATE
(6). Julie buys her vegetables in the market.
The subject is often described as the constituent defining the topic of the
sentence – that which the sentence is 'about' and which it presupposes as its point of
departure, whereas the predicate is the thing which is asserted about the subject.
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey and Svartvik, Jan
(1985, p720-721) stated that a simple sentence consists of a single independent
clause. According them, there are seven simple sentence types:
(7). SVA: He got through the window.
(8). SVO: He’ll get a surprise.
(9). SVC: He’s getting angry.
(10). SVOA: He got himself into trouble.
(11). SVOC: Most students have found her reasonably helpful.
(12). SVOO: He got her a splendid present.
(13). SV: The sun is shining.
According to Ann Hogue (1995, p18) the simple sentences can be written as
formulas: simple subject with simple verb (SV), compound subject with simple verb
(SSV), simple subject with compound verb (SVV), compound subject with
compound verb (SSVV). We can see examples:
(14). SV: My sister speaks English well.
(15). SSV: Nensi and Asti play volleyball.
(16). SVV: Naila reads and listens to music in the bedroom.
(17). SSVV: My mother and father speak and write English well.
According to Alice Oshima (2006, p164) A sentence is a group of words that
you use to communicate your ideas. Every sentence is formed from one or more
clauses and expresses a complete thought.
Alice Oshima also stated that simple sentence is one independent clause. The
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subject in simple sentence may be compound. The verb may also be compound.
What is important is that there is only subject-verb combination in a simple

type is “S+V+A” where the A is required and is often a prepositional phrase used
for location or time. We can see examples:
(25). S+ V+ SP: The soup tasted salty. The cook is not a very good cook.
(26). S+ V+ A: The soup is on the table. The cook is in the kitchen
Simple sentence in Vietnamese
According to Hoang Trong Phien (1980, p40-41) subject- predicate structure
is the smallest unit of Vietnamese syntax. Basic order in Vietnamese sentence is:
TR + C + V + B
(Tr: adverbial, C: subject, V: predicate, and B: object)
Examples:
(27). Mùa hè năm ấy nhà tôi chuyển về thành phố.
Tr C V B
Diep Quang Ban (1987, p32) distinguished basic components (subject and
predicate) and subordinate elements (complement, theme, adjunct, conjunctive and
explanative)
Examples:
(28). Quan, người ta sợ cái uy của quyền thế
Đề ngữ Chủ ngữ Vị ngữ
(theme) (subject) (predicate)
(29). Em ơi Ba Lan mùa tuyết tan
Phụ ngữ Chủ ngữ Vị ngữ
(adjunct) (subject) (predicate)
(Diep Quang Ban, 1987,p198)
A part from that, Nguyen Minh Thuyet and Nguyen Van Hiep (1998)
distinguished between basic parts of the sentence (subject and predicate) and
secondary elements (topic, modality, adjunct and adverbial). Additionally, they
define that predicate is a part of the nucleus of sentence in front of which we can
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complete the functional words such as đã, sẽ, đang, không. In “The sentence
components of Vietnamese” (2004), Nguyen Minh Thuyet and Nguyen Van Hiep

individual words. They are made up of word groups called constituents, which
themselves may consist of smaller groups. Words are not, necessarily, the only
constituents of sentences. There are also higher level constituents to form sentences.
This sort of hierarchical organization represents a more general strategy that the
human mind uses to organize the experience and knowledge of the language.
3. Categoriality
A descriptive grammar must differentiate between items that are the same and
those that are different. Words and the larger constituents they make up (such as
phrases), belong to distinct categories, each with its particular features. This
characteristic is known as Categoriality.
1.2.4. Syntactic and semantic functions of clause elements
Syntactic functions of clause elements.
The traditional approach to syntactic function identifies constituents of the
sentence, states the part of speech each word belongs to, describes the inflexion
involved, and explains the relationship each word related to the others.
According to its relation to other constituents, a constituent may serve a
certain syntactic function in a clause.
There are five functional categories of clause constituents (Quirk et al.,
1985, p49):
- Subject: the part of the sentence, usually a noun or noun phrase, that acts as
the agent, doer, or experiencer of the verb.
- Verb: shows what a subject does, what the subject is, or what the subject is like.
- Complement (subject or object complement): anything that comes after the
verb to complete a sentence.
- Object (direct or indirect object): A noun, pronoun, or noun phrase that
receives the action of the verb.
- Adverbial: a construction (adverb, adverb phrase, temporal noun phrase,
prepositional phrase or clause) that modifies, or describes verbs.
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Semantic roles of clause elements

- The subject determines the number and the gender of the subject complement
[Cs] when that is a noun phrase. We can see example:
(40). Johnny and Alice are my grandchildren.
- The subject determines the number, person and gender of the reflexive
pronoun as direct object (Od ), indirect object (Oi), subject complement (Cs), or
prepositional complement/ object (Cp). We can see example:
(41). Peter considers himself a poet.
- There is a systematic correspondence between active and passive clauses: the
direct object and the indirect object of an active sentence can become the subject of
the passive sentence. We can see examples:
(42). He can repair your car.
(43). Your car can be repaired by him.
- A subjectless nonfinite clause has an implied subject which is identical with
the subject of the regent clause.
In the book “ Contrastive linguistics” (2004, p.205- 206), Le Quang Thiem
stated the subject in English can be a noun, a noun phrase, a pronoun. It often
precedes the verb in the affirmative and negative form but follows the auxiliary in
the interrogative.
According to Le Quang Thiem (2004, p.205), the subject in Vietnamese has
two types: subjects consisting of the verb and subjects consisting of the copula “là”.
The subject consisting of the verb can be a noun, a pronoun or a subject-verb
structure and always precedes the verb. The subject consisting of the copula “là”
can be a noun, pronoun or verb and can change its position in the sentence.
Subjects consisting of the verbs
- Subject is a noun. We can see example:
(44). Cầu sập
- Subject is a pronoun. We can see example:
(45). Chúng nó đi học
- Subject is an inseparable part. We can see example:
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(54). She has a car.
Instrument, entity used by an agent to perform the action (agent: terrorists,
who used the explosion for their purpose). We can see example:
(55). An explosion destroyed the city.
Locative, Positioner and Time which express the semantic ideas of location,
space and time respectively. We can see examples:
(56). Sahara is hot.
(57). Rose was lying on her bed
(58). Last night was fine.
Drop-IT subject role: little or no semantic content: no participant, the subject
function is occupied by IT. We can see example:
(59). It is getting late.
1.2.4.2. Syntactic and semantic functions of the Verb
Syntactic functions of the verb
The verb plays a significant part in most English sentences; it determines the
meaning of a sentence.
In English, the verb may be classified into various types according to their
complementation. Where no complementation occurs, the verb is said to have an
intransitive use. According to Quirk et al., (1985, p1170-1171), types of verb
complementation and their variants are as follow:
(60). Copular: John is only a boy.
(61). Mono transitive: I have caught a big fish.
(62). Complex transitive: She called him a hero.
(63). Ditransitive: He gave Mary a doll.
Berk (1999) found that in English sentences, the verb is the main part of the
verb phrase. The verb in English always combines with tenses to indicate the time
of the action or state. Moreover, the verb in English is conjugated to show
agreement with the subject. There are three kinds of verb in English: intransitive,
transitive and stative verbs.
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Verbs are essential when dealing with semantic roles. According to Cook, W.
A. (1979) there are four semantic types of verbs which he links with semantic roles.
- Basic verb types which involve the role of Agent and/or Patient, such as dry,
die, laugh, kill, etc.
- Experiental verb types in which an experiencer may be the subject or the
object of the sentence, example: doubt, amuse, know, praise, tell, etc.
- Benefactive verb types that convey a Beneficiary object or subject: have,
help, give, etc.
- Locative verb types that involve a Locative in the sentence like stay, walk,
place, etc.
1.2.4.3. Syntactic and semantic functions of the adverbial.
Syntactic function of the adverbial
The adverbial is normally an adverb phrase, prepositional phrase, or adverbial
clause. It may also be a noun phrase. In general, the adverbial is capable of
occurring in more than one position in the clause. Constraints on its mobility
depend on the type and form of the adverbial. The adverbial in the SVA type
normally follows the subject and verb.
Adverbials, in English, are elements of a sentence which provide information
about the verb. They can have a number of forms and can be found in various
positions within a sentence. Adverbials in English can modify a verb, an adjective
or another adverb.
According to Quirk et al.,(1985: 348-349), an adverbial is capable of
occurring in more than one position in the clause; is generally optional and it may
be added or removed from a sentence without affecting its acceptability.
According to Martin (2005), adverbial means a word or group of words that
say when, where, how, etc. something happens. They may consist of an adverb, a
prepositional phrase, a noun phrase, or an adverbial clause, an adverb phrase and
an infinitive. They act like adverbs – that is, they modify verbs, adjectives and other
adverbs. Adverbials answer such questions as “How?”, “Where?”, “When?”,
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