ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART A
INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In our globalization, the need for developing the relationship between
Vietnam and other countries has resulted in a great demand for language
studying, especially English studying throughout the country. However,
English and Vietnamese are two different languages. English has different
characteristics from those of Vietnamese, for example the grammar, the
vocabulary, the pronunciation, the meaning, etc. Anyway, whenever talking
about characteristics of any language, we should mention the components
forming the sentence of that language. They may be word phrases such as
noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase and adverb phrase, etc. Therefore,
in order to have a deep look about the verb phrase of English as well as of
Vietnamese, I decide to make a research with the topic “A contrastive
analysis of English and Vietnamese verb phrases”. In this topic, I will
present some general characteristics of the verb phrase in English and
Vietnamese. The purpose of presenting them is to discuss the similarities
and differences between them in two aspects: form and meaning. Also, I
provide some implications for studying the verb phrase effectively in
Vietnam. I hope that this research will help you distinguish the similarities
as well as the differences between verb phrases of the two languages. Above
all, I do this research with the hope that it can help my readers clearer about
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all the similarities and differences of the verb phrase in English and
Vietnamese so that they can avoid making mistakes in their translation
between these two languages.
2. Scope of the assignment
Due to the duration of time and the length as well as the references available,
this assignment does focus on the forms and meanings of the verb phrase in

predicative elements of a sentence and its function is to provide information
about the subject of the sentence. In the generative grammar framework, the
verb phrase is a phrase headed by a verb. A verb phrase may be constructed
from a single verb; often, however, the verb phrase will consist of various
combinations of the main verb and any auxiliary verbs, plus optional
specifiers, complements, and adjuncts. Especially, a verb phrase concludes
three parts: the main verb, the pre-additive elements and the post-elements
that express an action or state of being.
1.2. The verb phrase in English
According to Kies (2009), an English verb phrase consists of a head verb, its
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auxiliaries, its complements, and other modifiers. In general, it has two
functional parts: the auxiliary verbs and the main verbs (lexical verbs).
1.2.1. The auxiliary verbs
The auxiliary verb is the grammatical morpheme carrying information about
mood, tense, modality, and voice.
The mood system in English is divided into four subcategories.
+ The indicative mood conveys to the listeners that the speaker is making
a statement, referring to the real world in an honest, direct, relevant way.
One way in which it’s easier for learner to realize the indicative mood is
thanks to the word order. When the auxiliaries take their "usual" position
following the “subject”, we consider a clause as being in the indicative
mood.
For example:
A: When will you stop by?
B: Sometime after dinner.
+ The interrogative mood signals the speakers' desire for information by
asking a question or interrogating the listeners. The interrogative is
marked by starting a clause or a sentence with an auxiliary verb (can,
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She often goes to school by bus. ( Present tense)
She will go to school tomorrow. ( Future tense)
Verbs, using both the -s and -ed forms are known as “regular” verbs.
According to marking time, those verbs employ the most common and
productive inflection, such as look/ looked, like/ liked, try/ tried. “Irregular
verbs”, on the other hand, fall into seven subcategories. For examples, they
employ a number of inflections (such as -en for the participle inflection as in
broken, written, taken) or in some classes employ no participle inflections at
all (such as put as in “ Rachel put the book on the table yesterday”/ “Rachel
puts the book on the table”/ “Rachel has put the book on the table”).
- The modality system expresses the speakers’ sense of obligation, volition,
probability, permission, and ability. When you see a formation including
modal auxiliary and base verb, it is a modality.
Rachel (must/ should) go. ("Obligation")
Rachel will stop that immediately! ("Volition")
Rachel (may/ might) go. ("Probability")
Rachel (can/ may) go. ("Permission")
Rachel (can/ could) do it. ("Ability")
Rachel will do it tomorrow. ("Future"). (The modal will also express a
'future' sense.)
The modality system also includes a class of auxiliary verbs called semi-
auxiliaries (or semi-modals or quasi-modals). They often take the form of
BE + PARTICIPLE + TO. The semi-auxiliaries, starting with be, do not
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need do in order to support in negation or question formation, but most of
the others do.
- Aspect expresses either the completion or the continuation of the process
indicated by the verb in English.
- The perfect aspect which expresses the speakers' sense of completion, is
signaled by the use of a form of the auxiliary have and the -ed participle or

- Intensive verbs are the verbs used with complement or adverb such as to
be, become
Rachel becomes more attractive than ever.
- Monotransitive verbs are the verbs used with direct object such as buy,
sell
Rachel has just sold her house.
- Complex transitive verbs: the verbs are used with direct object and
complement or adverb such as paint, call, vote, appoint, elect
Rachel calls her dog Jack.
Rachel paints her room black.
- Distransitive verbs: the verbs are used with indirect object and direct object
such as give, offer, bring
Rachel gives Joe a piece of cake.
+ Distransive verb: gives
+ Direct object: Joe
+ Indirect object: a piece of cake
To sum up, in any English verb phrases, auxiliary is an optional component
but main verb is always an obligatory component.
1.3. The verb phrase in Vietnamese
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Verb phrases in Vietnamese include three elements: central element, pre-
additive element and post-additive element.
- The central element of Vietnamese verb phrases is divided into five groups.
Group 1: This kind of verb usually goes with other verbs, not standing
alone. It includes many different types:
● Modal verbs: phải, nên, cần, dám, có thể, sẽ, định
Anh ta cần mua một cái bàn.
Cần is the central element.
● Passive: bị, được, mắc, phải
Cô ấy được tuyên dương.

Pha cà phê với sữa.
+ Pha is the central element.
+ Cà phê and sữa are objects
● Verbs describing sense of governing additive elements. The structure
which is used is “A is B” with the meaning of evaluating: coi, bầu, lấy, xem,
cử…
Xem anh là đối tác.
Lấy anh làm gương.
Group 3: Combination verbs: chạy ra chạy vào, bàn qua bàn lại, đi ngược
về xuôi, trèo lên tụt xuống
Cô ấy chạy ra chạy vào phục vụ khách.
Group 4: Verbs describing sense of the state or a period of an action: bắt
đầu học, tiếp tục đi, thôi nói, hết chạy, ngừng học
Cô ấy ngừng học piano.
Group 5: Verbs describing sense of mood: lo lắng, bồn chồn, thoi thóp, thấp
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thỏm
Cô ấy bồn chồn đứng ngồi không yên.
- Pre -additive element includes following groups:
● Words indicating sense of continuation of activity or state: đều, cũng, vẫn,
cứ, lại, mãi, tiếp tục
Họ tiếp tục thảo luận về đề tài đó.
Tiếp tục is the pre-additive element of the verb phrase “tiếp tục thảo luận”.
● Words indicating the time of action or state: từng, đã, vừa, mới, đang, sẽ
Mẹ tôi đang nấu ăn.
Đang is the pre -additive element of the verb phrase “đang nấu ăn”.
● Words indicating the frequency: thường, hay, năng, ít, đôi khi, thỉnh
thoảng
Anh ta ít khi gọi cho tôi.
Ít khi is the pre-additive element of the verb phrase “ít khi gọi”.

+ words with sense of state and process of actions: đi ngay, nói liền, trả lời
lập tức, ăn nữa, nói hoài
Cô ấy trả lời ngay lập tức câu hỏi của ban giám khảo.
+ words with sense of order: về nào, nói đi, nghỉ thôi, chờ với, ngủ đã, tiến
lên, hát lên…
Anh cứ nói đi.
+ words with sense of finishing or beginning an action: làm xong, ăn xong,
có rồi, hiểu rồi, nghe rồi
Cuối cùng thì tôi cũng làm xong bài tập.
+ words with sense of passive, beneficial or damaged results: gặp phải, bay
mất, hao đi, đá phải, nhận được, thu về
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Hôm nay tôi gặp phải rất nhiều chuyện xui.
+ words with sense of mutual interaction or itself: làm lấy, viết lấy, giải
quyết lấy
Anh hãy tự giải quyết lấy sai lầm của mình.
+ words with sense of including two elements connecting A and B
Trộn bột với đường.
+ words with sense of addition: nói vào, bàn vào
+ words with sense of decreasing: cào ra, bớt đi
+ words with sense of increasing: xông tới, tăng lên
+ words with sense of repetition: nói lại, vặn lại, nhắc lại, xin lại
2. Contrast between English and Vietnamese verb phrases
Through this paper, the author intends to contrast between English and
Vietnamese verb phrases in two aspects: form and meaning.
The first aspect to take into consideration when contrasting between English
and Vietnamese verb phrases is their forms. Learners can easily recognize
that both English and Vietnamese verb phrases have three parts: the central
element, the pre-additive element, and the post-additive element. Among
them, the central element must be a verb and it is obligatory while two parts

respond to, compare to, introduce to…
In addition, there are similarities and differences in form of each part
between two languages. 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,
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Vietnamese have form of one verb goes directly after another verb as a
range, for example:
(+) Chủ nhật tuần sau tụi nó đi coi phim. They will go to the movie next
Sunday.
(+) Tôi làm mất chìa khòa.  I have lost my key.
(+) Nó đi ngủ .  He goes to sleep .
The pre-element of the verb phrase can’t be an adjective in English but it can
be in Vietnamese, for example: nhanh khỏi, lâu mòn, khẽ kêu, nhẹ nhàng
khuyên bảo. Another aspect to consider about English-Vietnamese verb
phrases is the similarities and differences in their meaning. 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 them have different
meanings. Moreover, the meaning of English auxiliaries is much more
diversified. Although some auxiliaries such as “must, might, need, ought to,
should” have the same meaning of obligation to do something, their usage
depends on the level of obligation, for example, the meaning of “must”
shows the strongest obligation among them. In contrast, Vietnamese doesn’t
have this term but they use subordinate words such as “nên, phải, cần…”
to express those meanings. Besides, according to Du (2005), some verbs
have different meanings like the verb “có” in Vietnamese have both

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meaning of a verb with its preposition, for example: laugh at, listen to, wait
for and so on. In contrast, every phrasal verb has specific meaning, for
example: “put off” means “ postpone”, “turn down” means “ refuse”, “pass
away” means “die” and many examples like that.
PART III: CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the verb phrase is a very important component to form
sentences. Language is the most effective method of communication of
human beings. However, to understand the structure, the formation, the
origin, especially the characteristics of language is not simple at all.
Actually, English and Vietnamese are different languages. For this reason, it
is obvious that each of them has its own characteristics. That’s reason why
making a comparison between the two languages is very difficult. In this
research paper, the author offered some general knowledge about the verb
phrase in English and Vietnamese as well as the contrast between them in
their forms and meanings. Moreover, the author also suggested some
implications for studying languages in Vietnam. In general, every language
has its own interesting characteristic. The important thing is that we need to
know how to use them and distinguish the differences as well as the
similarities between these languages. To sum up, the author hopes that this
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study will offer some explorations about English-Vietnamese verb phrases
as well as provide some useful ideas for language students.
REFERENCES
Beare, K. (2009). Verb Structures and Patterns. Retrieved December 15th,
2009, from http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aa052902a.htm
ESLDESK. English Verbs. Retrieved December 25th, 2009 from
http://www.esldesk.com/grammar/verbs
James, Carl. (1980). Contrastive Analysis. Macquarie University.
Kies, Daniel. (1995). The verb phrase. Retrieved December, 22, 2009, from