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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract i
Acknowledgement………………………………………………………………………… ii
Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………………… iii
Lists of Tables and Figures…………………………………………………………………iv
Table of
Contents……………………………………………………………………………….v
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 1
3. Hypotheses 2
4. Scope of the study 2
5. Method of the study 2
6. Design of the study 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1. Introduction 4
1.2. Definitions of terms 4
1.2.1. Cognitive linguistics 4
1.2.2. Cognitive Semantics 5
1.3. Talmy’s theory of lexicalization patterns 5
1.3.1. Preliminaries 5
1.3.2. The Motion Event 6
1.3.3. The three-way typology: the verb root 6
1.3.3.1. Lexicalization pattern: Motion + Co-event 7
1.3.3.3. Lexicalization pattern: Motion + Path 7
1.3.3.4. Lexicalization pattern: Motion + Figure…………………………………… 8
1.3.4. The two-way typology: Path of motion 9

3. Limitations 40
4. Recommendations for further research 40
REFERENCES
APPENDIXES
5

ABBREVIATIONS
M Motion
P Path
F Figure
G Ground
HF Human Figure
NHF Non-human Figure
AM Agentive motion
NAM Non-agentive motion
Acc. Accumulation
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Cognitive linguistics has emerged in the last twenty-five years as a powerful approach to
the study of language, conceptual systems, human cognition, and general meaning
construction (Fauconnier, 2006). The use of cognitive linguistics in investigating verbs in
general and motion verbs in particular is frequently examined in linguistic and
psycholinguistics studies because of their syntactic and semantic complexity. They enter into
complex relationships with other words in the sentence: each verb requires or permits the
presence of other words called arguments. Thus, it might be said that a verb determines the
number and type of arguments within a verb phrase. Additionally, verbs can have multiple
meanings which are very often marked by a different argument realization:
(a) Mary came home.
(b) The trees are coming into leaf.
(c) John comes to work by bus.
In the examples above, the verb „to come‟ has different meanings: the transition in space
(a), the unfolding of an event (b) and the attendance (c). The question is whether a separate
lexical representation is necessary for each meaning. In linguistics, to avoid the confusion, a
dichotomy of verb meaning was suggested proposing that the overall meaning of a verb is
composed from its basic meaning (i.e. verb root) and syntactic frame (Levin & Hovav, 2005). It
is necessary to look mainly at the verb root alone and the kinds of lexicalization involving a
single morpheme when studying a verb (Talmy, 2000). Naturally, the investigation of verbs in
English and Vietnamese indicated that there are similarities and differences in the meanings and
use between the two languages.
Up to now, there has been a vast amount of research on the linguistic expression of
motion events in English and Spanish or Japanese, and of the claims about the semantics of their
manner verbs. In Vietnam, it seems that there hardly be any research on a particular verb and its
Vietnamese equivalent from cognitive perspective. Therefore, this thesis aims at filling this gap.
Hopefully, examining English verbs and its equivalents in Vietnamese is supposed to help
language teaching or translation more effectively.
From the above reason, I have decided to choose this topic for my thesis. It is my

structure. Additionally, the author does not try to propose all the meanings of come and về but
presents their typical meanings by analyzing the main conflations of semantic components.
5. Method of the study
In order to accomplish the thesis, the corpus-based study is used since the role of the corpus
is not only to provide a limited and representative data-based for statistical analysis, but also to
provide an authentic and realistic data (Mair, 1991:77). In this study, the corpus is over 50,000
words per language collected from some prewar literary works written by famous writers. The
English and Vietnamese literary works are chosen at random. The number of the works, the year
of the works written, the length and the structure of each work are not considered. The researcher
will use Wordsmith Tool version 5.0 which provides a concordance list and Wordlist expert.

According to Oakes (1998:149), a concordance is a list, arranged in an order specified by the
user, such as the order of appearance, of the occurrences of items in a source text, where each
occurrence is surrounded by an appropriate portion of its original context. “The frequency list is
very useful as a means of isolating words from the surrounding detail of the text so that they can
be surveyed in this way, but the lack of this detail also prevents us from seeing precisely how
these potential labels are actually used (Barnbrook, 1996:65-66).
Therefore, concordance and wordlist can combine well in this study in order to check the
occurrence frequency of the English verb come and Vietnamese verb về. From a concordance
list, the author will examine whether the meanings of come is equivalent to the meanings of về.
6. Design of the study
The study is divided into three parts:
Part I INTRODUCTION introduces the background, the aims, the scope, the method
and the organization of the study.
Part II DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1 LITERATURE REVIEW provides an overview of the theoretical background of
the study. It deals with the concepts of cognitive linguistics, cognitive semantics,
Talmy‟s theory about lexicalization patterns, image schema as well as their roles
in this study.
Chapter 2 DEICTIC MOTION VERBS presents English and Vietnamese verbs of deictic

1.2.1. Cognitive linguistics
Cognitive Linguistics is an important interdisciplinary branch of cognitive science, and is
closely related to cognitive psychology and linguistics. It is a new approach to the study of
language which views linguistic knowledge as part of general cognition, studies the meaning and
thinking. According to Ungerer & Schmid (1996), cognitive linguistics is an approach to
language that is based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize
it.
Gilles Fauconnier (2006) describes cognitive linguistics as follows: „Cognitive linguistics
goes beyond the visible structure of language and investigates the considerably more complex
backstage operations of cognition that create grammar, conceptualization, discourse, and thought
itself. The theoretical insights of cognitive linguistics are based on extensive empirical
observation in multiple contexts, and on experimental work in psychology and neuroscience.
Results of cognitive linguistics, especially from metaphor theory and conceptual integration
theory, have been applied to wide ranges of nonlinguistic phenomena.‟
Taylor (2002) argues that cognitive Linguistics (with a capital „C‟) approaches the
relation between language and cognition rather differently than the Chomskyan tradition (with a
small „c‟) which describes the rules of a formalized grammar as generation of the well-formed
sentences of a language. Language is best regarded as an integral part of cognition and that it
will be insightful to study language in the light of what is known about the mind, whether this is
from experimentation, introspection, or even common-sense observation.
1.2.2. Cognitive Semantics
Apparently, cognitive semantics is a branch of cognitive linguistics. Like cognitive
linguistics, cognitive semantics is not a single unified theory. It studies language as a container

and an organizer (or as a gateway to knowledge, provided by Langacker [1]:58) of knowledge
within the human mind.
According to Vyvyan Evans (2006:156), cognitive semantics sees linguistic meaning as a
manifestation of conceptual structure: the nature and organization of mental representation in all
its richness and diversity, and this is what makes it a distinctive approach to linguistic meaning.
However, Talmy (2000:4) describes cognitive semantics and the main methodology as follows:


meaning of the deictic motion verb „Come‟ and „Ve‟ as well as the conflations of semantic
components in English and Vietnamese.
1.3.2. The Motion Event
The motion event which is described clearly in volume II of Toward a Cognitive
Semantics is one of the most important concerns of Talmy. Motion is defined as a dynamic
domain of experience and entails the movement of an entity through space. An event is a portion
of reality which has been delimited or bounded by the human mind (Talmy, 2000).
Talmy (2000:25) claims that a situation containing motion and the continuation of a
stationary location alike are treated as a Motion Event (with a capital M). A motion event,
therefore, is an event where an entity moves from place to place or is identified as located at a
particular place. It is basically composed of four semantic components such as the Figure, i.e. the
object that is in movement or that is located with respect to another object; the Path, i.e. the path
followed or site occupied by the Figure object with respect to the Ground object; a Ground, i.e.
the reference object with respect to which the Path is characterized; the Motion, i.e. the
occurrence of motion or location per se. For example:
(1) The napkin blew off the table.
Figure Motion Path Ground
Nonetheless, Talmy (1972) also gives a distinct semantic interpretation of the terms
Figure and Ground compared to ones taken from Gestalt psychology: “The Figure is a moving or
conceptually movable object whose path or site is at issue. The Ground is a reference frame, or a
reference object stationary within a reference frame with respect to which the Figure‟s path or
site is characterized” (Talmy, 2000: 26).
In sum, the sketch of a Motion event has been presented in this part. Definitions of
Motion, Event as well as Motion events have been offered and the semantic components of
motion events have been examined as well. In addition, manner verbs and causative verbs also
are defined and the relation between the Co-event and Motion event is explored.
1.3.3. The three-way typology: the verb root
According to Talmy (2000), when studying the verb, it is necessary to look mainly at the
verb root alone and the kinds of lexicalization involving a single morpheme. Therefore,

in addition, is a prototypical example of this type.
 Spanish expressions of Motion (non-agentive) with conflation of Path
(2) La botella entró a la cueva (flotando)
The bottle MOVED-in to the cave (floating)
„Cái chai trôi vào trong động‟
CL bottle to float to enter in cave
“The bottle floated into the cave”
 Spanish expressions of Motion (agentive) with conflation of Path
(3) Metí el barril a la bodega rodándolo
I-
A
MOVED-in the keg to the storeroom rolling-it
„Tôi lăn cái thùng vào trong kho‟
I to roll CL keg to enter in storeroom.
„I rolled the keg into the storeroom‟

As can be seen from the above examples, both Spanish non-agentive motion and agentive
motion show the same pattern of conflating Path in the verb. On the contrary, both Vietnamese
ones perform the different pattern of Path conflation in the verb because of showing Manner of
Motion verb trôi „to float‟ and a prototypical Path of Motion verb, vào „to enter‟. Talmy
(2000:49) defines that “a Co-event of Manner or Cause is expressed in the same sentence; it
must be as independent, usually adverbial or gerundive type constituent. In many languages like
Spanish, such a constituent can be awkward, so that information about Manner or Cause is often
either established in the surrounding discourse or omitted altogether. […] languages of this type
have a whole series of surface verbs that express motion along various paths”. Nevertheless,
Talmy also claims that English has a number of verbs that incorporate Path, as in the Spanish
case such as enter, exit, ascend, descend, cross, pass, circle, ect. These verbs require a type of
sentence similar to the Spanish type, with manner or cause expresses in a separate constituent as
in The rock passed by our tent (in sliding). In addition, he points out that these verbs are not the
most typical in English and that most of them but the last four words listed are borrowings from

in the verb root. They have a number of verbs of inherent motion such as entrar, i.e enter, or
salir, i.e exit.
 Verb-framed languages, e.g. Spanish
(7) La botella flotó a la cueva.
The bottle floated to the cave.
“The bottle floated to the cave.
It is different from English and Spanish, Vietnamese has motion verbs that seem to act
both as verb-framed and as satellite-framed. Vietnamese can show both Manner of Motion verbs
and Path of Motion verbs in the same sentence. Path of Motion verbs in Vietnamese can function
as prepositions or directional adverbs in English such as up, down, etc.
(8) „Cái chai trôi vào trong động‟
CL bottle to float to enter in cave
“The bottle floated into the cave”
Nagawa (2008) claims that the sentence above shows both a prototypical Manner of
Motion verb, „trôi‟,(to float) and a prototypical Path of Motion verb, vào (to enter).
Thus, it is ambiguous to define whether Vietnamese is a verb-framed or satellite-framed
language. As many Vietnamese sentences have more than one lexical main verb in the encoding
of motion verbs, it seems that Talmy‟s theory is not appropriate for serial verb languages such as
Vietnamese or Cantonese…
(9) Cô ấy bước vào trong một ngôi nhà nhỏ.
She that step enter inside a CL house small.
“She entered into a small house”.
However, by attempting to analyze Manner of Vietnamese motion verbs (coverbs)
Cassandra Pace (2009) argues that Vietnamese fits typologically with a satellite-framed language
instead of a verb-framed language. Perhaps, the reason is that Vietnamese is a part of the Austro-
asiatic language family; much Vietnamese vocabulary has been borrowed from Chinese. There is
also some influence from Frech because of the French invasion. According to Talmy (2000),
French, English or other languages belong to Indo-European languages. This reason can be taken
as explanation that Vietnamese can be considered as satellite – typed language.


Cognitive semantics considers linguistics meaning as a manifestation of conceptual structure
which emerges from bodily experience. It is concerned with the relationship between experience,
cognition and language. As a result, it explores the connections between human bodily
experience, the conceptual system and the semantic structure expressed by language.
This chapter has also presented Talmy‟s theory of lexicalization patterns concerning the
systematic relations in language between meaning and surface expression that are fundamental

theory for the analysis of the study. One of the most important notions of this theory is Motion
Event which is composed of four basic semantic components: Figure, Ground, Path and Motion.
Moreover, it is my initial assumption that Vietnamese belonging to Austro-asiatic and
English belonging to Indo-European might be the same type of language: satellite-framed
language. It is necessary to conduct further research to define what type of language Vietnamese
belongs to.
Image schema is the last notion mentioned in this chapter. Image schemas are considered
structures between perception and conception. They are pervasive organizing structures in
human cognition which emerge from our bodily and social interaction with the environment at a
preconceptual level. They are also dynamic patterns which recur in everyday action and thought
and allow us to mentally structure our experiences and perceptions.

phrase is presented. They identify motion verbs class based on their syntactic behaviour or the
close relation between their syntax and semantics. Levin & Hovav (1992: 252-253) proposes
motion direction class such as go, come, depart, arrive, return, ect. These verbs express inherent
direction as their meaning includes a specified direction of motion.
However, Beth Levin in her book, English Verb class and Alternations (1993: 263-270)
proposes some more verbs denoting inherently directed motion such as arrive, come, depart,
descend, ascend, enter, go, leave, return, exit, fall, advance, rise, tumble, and flee. She claims
that the meanings of these verbs include a specification of the direction of motion – that is Path,
even in the absence of a directional complement. None of these verbs specifies the Manner of
motion. Verbs differ as to how they can express the goal, source, or trajectory of motion. These
may be expressed in a prepositional phrase.
(10) The thief escaped from the police/ The thief escaped the police.
In addition, verbs of motion using a Vehicle like balloon, bike, bus, coach, cycle, etc or
that mean „go using the vehicle named by the noun‟ or non-using vehicle names such as fly,
drive, ride, etc. do not imply direction of motion unless there is an explicit directional phrase
present.
(11) He skated across the river.
(12) She drove over the bridge.

Finally, waltz verbs like dance, tango, cancan, tapdance, waltz, ect. that mean roughly
„perform the dance‟, there is no specific direction of motion implied unless there is an explicit
directional phrase present.
(13) They danced across the room.
So far, almost verbs are regarded as encoded motion in their meaning. There are many
verbs appearing with directional phrases, whose meanings are only indirectly connected to
movement. Some verb classes are not implied direction of motion unless an explicit directional
phrase is presented.
2.2. Deictic motion verbs in Vietnamese
As stated by Talmy (2002), motion verbs are categorized languages as either verb-framed
or satellite-framed depending on how the core schema „motion‟ is mapped onto an expression.

from one state to another, from a void to existence‟, with the starting point comparatively less
spacious and less well lit then the area of destination, also denotes growth, expansion,
dismantling, separation or disentanglement. (Hoa, Nguyen, 1996:145, Vietnamese verbs)
(23) cởi ra „untie, take off (clothes)‟
or a movement from the seacoast to the ocean, from the shore to the water.
Furthermore, within the context of Vietnamese geography, „to go north‟ is đi ra bắc („go
+ exit + north) – from Hue. On the other hand, vào „to enter‟ is used when one moves from a
given location to another situated further south: vào Huế means „to go (south) to Hue – (from
Hanoi).
The postverb lên „to ascend‟ denoted an upward motion both literally and figuratively
speaking. The movement may indeed to toward a higher altitude (e.g. gửi lên Hà Nội, „to send up
to Hanoi), or toward a higher-ranking agency or official (e.g. trình lên Thủ tướng „to report to the
Premier‟).
According to Lai Nguyen (1992), Vietnamese verbs of motion cannot act as affixal
elements. He also concludes that the morphological identity between the stem and the affix, the
fusion between the motion factor and the direction factor from the semantical viewpoint are two
inseparable aspects determining the most basic characteristic of word groups denoting the
direction of motion Vietnamese.
In short, a brief overview of the above scholars‟ studies provides the researcher with clear
understanding into the semantic and syntactic nature of deictic motion verbs in terms of their
characteristics in general and the verbs English come and Vietnamese về in particular. More
specifically, when exploring the meanings of the verb về, it is necessary to examine the link
between the motion and verbs of motion acted as prepositional meanings. Thus, this proves that
both English and Vietnamese might be satellite – typed languages. From then, the scope of the
study is defined and the research will investigate all possible meanings of these two verbs.
Motion verbs in general and deictic motion verbs in particular have been the subject of a
great deal of studies from different theoretical frameworks because they present interesting
semantic and syntactic characteristics. This chapter reviews briefly deictic motion verbs in
English and Vietnamese. Section 2.2 reviewed Levin‟s framework of classification of motion
verbs that helps to define inherently directed motion verbs and some verbs classes can be implied

the –ing participle „coming‟. The base morpheme come designates a kind of activity and the
time at which the activity is instantiated is not specified. The past form came consists of the
base verb come plus the past-tense morpheme. The combined expression came designates a
past-time instance of the activity. It also can be combined with the agentive affix –er: comer.
This word is a noun, which designates a person who performs the activity designated by the
base verb. In addition, come combines with derivational prefixes „over‟ and „out‟: overcome
(v) – to succeed in dealing with or controlling a problem that has been preventing you from
achieving something, outcome (n) – the result or effect of an action or event.
(24) “Sometimes Mrs. St. John comes over and drops off a casserole or some cookies or
something.” (The Secret City by Chris Archer, p.69)
On the contrary, „Về‟ is a monosyllabic word like any other Vietnamese verbs. Is has
only one form in any mood, voices and tenses. It has no derivates. This means there is no
changes in the appearance of it in any statement or sentence. For example:
(25) Chị Thảo về rồi. (Bài học quét nhà, Nam Cao, p.1)
17

(Thao came home.)
(26) Lý Cường đã về! (Chí Phèo, Nam Cao)
(Ly Cuong is coming.)
As can be seen from the examples above, the motion verb came denotes the action
finished in sentence (25) whereas is coming is a signal link of the action in sentence (26).
However, the verb về still keeps one form even though the tense of these sentences is past or
future.
The verb về can combine with other words to create principle and accessory compound
words and jargons belonging to different parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, or adjectives:
(27) Ấy là một cái khăn tay Hàn đã đặt làm ngoài tỉnh, rưới vào mấy giọt nước hoa rồi gói
vào một mảnh giấy bóng, đem về tặng Tơ… (Nam Cao)
(That is a handkerchief which Han ordered in the provincial capital, sprinkled a few
drops of perfume, wrapped it in the polished paper and gave it to To…)
3.2. Semantic features

lexical meaning of come is defined as „movement toward the speaker‟s location at coding
time, reference time‟; „movement toward the addressee at coding and reference time‟ and
movement toward any other goal distinct from the speaker and address. Take a look at the
following examples:
(30) "I have come to you for some information that's not in my line…”
(Coming, Aphrodite! by Willa Cather)
(31) “I think I will come to the village with you”.
(Lord Emsworth and the girl friend by P.G.Wodehouse et al, p.26)
In sentence (30), it can be assumed that the goal is the „expected‟ location of the
speaker/addressee at the time of arrival. In (31), the assumption is that the speaker or the
addressee is making the same journey.
On the other hand, come has other different meanings in accordance with different
combinations. The typical path conflated with come is to with the meaning of a movement.
However, it has other meanings like recovering consciousness or occurring to the mind, ect.
The following examples will illustrate the statement:
(32) The fainting victim came to.
(33) The truth suddenly came to me.
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Additionally, come conflated with the path from has the meaning of being produced from a
particular thing or the result, ect. apart from the meaning of having as the place where
someone lives. For example:
(34) Understanding comes from experience.
(35) A cry came from the frightened child.
Come also can conflate with the adjectives that also make its meanings change:
(36) My fondest dreams have at last come true.
In sentence (36), come means becoming or happening as predicted while it means turning out
to be.
Similarly, come has the meaning of occurring in time or take place when it conflates with a
noun:

(Sáu mạng người, Nguyễn Công Hoan)
(But come back to Sing at this time, his aim is to see festival…)
Về indicates a movement against the direction that someone leaves:
(42) Lúc trở về nhà, nó thấy bố và hai em đã dậy rồi. (Một đám cưới, Nam Cao)
(When coming home, she saw her dad and brothers getting up.)
In addition, Than, Nguyen Kim (1999) considers deictic motion verb về as not only
head verbs but also directional postverbs or coverbs to identify a verb of action (or functive
verb). The following example taken from Than, Nguyen Kim (1999) illustrates this case:
(43) Rồi hàng tháng, chị sẽ gửi tiền về cho các em tiêu. (Cô hàng xén, Thạch Lam)
(Monthly, I will send money to you)
Directional postverb về denotes motion directed to the starting point where village or
homeland is defined:
(44) Con là Bính, gửi vài hàng về kính chúc thầy mẹ. (Bỉ vỏ, Nguyên Hồng, 160)
(I‟m Binh, I‟m sending some … to you)
(45) Mẹ con mua ở Lầu Cai đem về cho con. (Tắt đèn, Ngô Tất Tố, 79)
(My mother bought them for me from Lao Cai)
Than, Nguyen Kim (1999) also mentions that về indicates motion toward the location
of the speaker and motion which is not toward the location of the speaker. Take a look at the
following examples:
(46) “À, Anh Sử đã về.” (Vùng Mỏ, Võ Huy Tâm)
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(Ah, Su is coming home)
(47) “Tôi thế nào cũng phải về.” (Bước đường cùng, Nguyễn Công Hoan)
(Whatever it is, I have to come home.)
Apart from the meaning of a movement, về denotes the meaning of stative motion:
(48) Ông ấy về hưu cách đây 3 năm rồi.
(He retired 3 years ago)
By investigating the meanings of motion verb về, the author found out that về can act as an
adverb when accompanying with a verb.