MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI HONG PHUONG

WORD ORDER IN ENGLISH
NOUN PHRASES IN COMPARISON WITH VIETNAMESE

(TRẬT TỰ TỪ TRONG CỤM DANH TỪ TIẾNG ANH
SO SÁNH VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT) M.A. THESIS

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Dr. Le Van Thanh HANOI – 2013


I am grateful for the precious support of the teachers at Postgraduate
Faculty who producing me with knowledge and basic skills to finish this
study.
I also would like to send my thanks to all my friends who have helped
me to develop ideas for the study.
Finally, my thanks must go to my family members whose continual
encouragement has been indispensable for the fulfillment of this challenging work. Hanoi, 21
st
November, 2013
Nguyen Thi Hong Phuong
iii

ABBREVIATIONS

H : Head (0)
M : Modiffier (1a)
PrM : Pre-modifier ( )
D : Determiner ( )

1.1.2. What is Contrastive Analysis? 6
1.2. Word and word order 9
1.2.1. Word 9
1.2.2. Word order and Linearity 12
1.2.3. Word order, patterns and structure 13
1.3. Phrases 15
Chapter 2. WORD ORDER IN ENGLISH NOUN PHRASES 18
2.1. Word order in general structures of English noun phrases 18
2.2. Word order in noun phrase variants 23
2.3. The head 27
2.4. Word order or pre-modification 27
2.4.1. Position 1a: 27
2.4.2. Position 2a 30
2.4.3. Position 3a 32
2.4.4. Position 4a 33
2.5. Post-modification 1b 35
v
2.5.1. Relative clause 35
2.5.2. Phrases with a preposition as head 36
2.5.3. Participles (the ING-participle and the ED-participle) 36
2.5.4. Adjectives 36
2.6. Grammatical categories of noun and their reflection through word order
37
2.7. Articles as determiners 39
Chapter 3. WORD ORDER IN VIETNAMESE NOUN PHRASES 45
3.1. General word order 45
3.2. Variants 47

4.3.1. Relative clause as post-modification 79
4.3.2. Participles as postmodifiers 80
4.3.3. Prepositional phrases as post-modification 81
4.4. Some predictions of Vietnamese students’ errors or mistakes in
learning English noun phrases 81
CONCLUSION 88
REFERENCES 89

1

INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
In the process of learning English, Vietnamese learners are likely to
produce such incorrect phrases “hat red” or “one night summer hot”. This can
be elucidated by the interference of the mother tongue. The former error is
probably due to the transfer of the Vietnamese pattern “chiếc mũ đỏ” and the
latter “một đêm hè oi ả”. Now it can be seen that these errors and many more
that can be found happening very often in learning English are concerned with
the word order of noun phrases. This is why many linguistics as well as
methodologists is unanimous in the claim that language 1 (native language)
influence is manifested in the learner’s use of language 2. In other words,
many errors by language 2 learners are attributable to language 1 interference.
It is also the main idea which laid the foundation for contrastive analysis (CA)
in history of linguistic inquiry.
This study is itself a contrastive analysis which attempts to exploit the
power of contrastive in predicting the difficulties Vietnamese learners may
encounter when learning English noun phrases.

The study findings show:
- A systemic description of basic word order in English and Vietnamese
noun phrases.
- Basic word orders and the changes of word order in English and
Vietnamese noun phrases.
- Some similarities and differences between word order in English and
Vietnamese noun phrases.
- Common mistakes when using word order in English and Vietnamese
noun phrases and solutions. 3

- Some suggestions in translating word order in English and Vietnamese
noun phrases.
3. Research questions
- What are types of word order in English and Vietnamese noun phrases?
- What are similarities and differences of word order in noun phrases
between the two languages?
- What are main functions of word order in English and Vietnamese noun
phrases?
- What are suggestions for learners and teachers of the two languages in
learning and teaching word order in English and Vietnamese noun phrases?
4. Scopes of the study
This paper attempts to focus on the contrastive analysis of the word
order of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese. In this study the most
important principles of the word order shall be described, the potential forces
to the operation of these principles are also sought. At the same time the
contrastive analysis is conducted on both the formal and operating rules of the
word order in noun phrases. In a word, it is an attempt to draw a picture on

the conclusion, presents a review of the study by summarizing the main points
discussed in the previous parts, provides suggestions for further study and
dues the limitations of this thesis.
5

DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1
THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES
This chapter will review the literature which relates to 1.1. Contrastive
analysis, 1.2. Word and word order, 1.3. Phrases. It will, therefore, serve as
the theoretical backgrounds for what is being presented in the following
chapters.
1.1. Contrastive analysis
1.1.1. A short history of contrastive studies
It is very difficult to trace the beginning of contrastive linguists.
Comparison of languages is as old as languages themselves and as old as
contacts between speakers of different languages. Comparison between
languages has had many aspects: from amateurish accidental during social
contacts to more systematic investigations; from comparative linguists
classifying languages according to their origin to, more recently, contrastive
linguists with more practical aims in view. Although the aims and methods of
contrastive analysis were not defined clearly until quite recently, contrastive
studies were written in a more systematic fashion as early as the beginning of
twentieth century. One of the first contrastivists was Vilem Mathesius. His
works are particularly important as the first works recognizing the necessity
of going beyond the sentence to reach a full and adequate description of
language. One of the fundamental concepts of his school is the concept of the

branch of applied, rather than pure linguists.
1.1.2. What is Contrastive Analysis?
Classification of linguist enterprise involves three dimensions or areas:
It was pointed out that there are two broad approaches to linguists, the
generalist and the particularist and that on the one hand, linguists treat
individual languages: English, French, Chinese, and so on. On the other hand, 7

they consider the general phenomenon of human language, of which
particular languages are examples.
Along the second dimension linguists divisible into those who choose
to study one, or each, language in isolation and those whose ambition and
methods are comparative.
The third dimension is that used by De Saussure to distinguish “two
sciences of language”: diachronic as opposed to synchronic: “everything that
relates to the static side of our science is synchronic; everything that has to do
with evolution is diachronic. Similarly, synchrony designate respectively as a
language state and evolutionary phase”. [35, 81]
Contrastive analysis with a nature as a linguist enterprise is neither
generalist nor particularist, but somewhere intermediate on a scale between
the two extremes. Likewise, contrastive analysis is as interested in the
inherent genius of the language under its purview as it is in the comparability
of languages. Yet it is not concerned with classification, and, as the term
“contrastive” implies, more interested in differences between languages than
in their likenesses.
Contrastive analysis seems, therefore, to be a hybrid linguist enterprise.
In term of the three criteria discussed here we might venture the following
provisional definition: contrastive analysis is a linguist enterprise which aims

interlingual study, or of “interlinguists”. As such, and in certain other
respects, it has much in common with the study of bilingualism. Bilingualism,
by definition, is not the study of individual single languages, or of language in
general, but of the possession of two languages. Bilingualism refers to the
possession of two languages by an individual or society whereas contrastive
analysis is concerned with how a monolingual becomes bilingual. Contrastive
analysis concerns with the effects exerted by the NL on the language being learnt,
the FL. 9

1.2. Word and word order
1.2.1. Word
Traditional grammars make use of a fairly wide technical vocabulary to
describe the concepts they use – words like “noun”, “singular”, “phrase” and
even “word” itself. They often began with a statement of “parts of speech”,
which today would be called “word classes”. According to most grammarians
there are eight parts of speech: Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Preposition,
Conjunct, Adverb, and Injection. However C.C. Fries, an American scholar
suggested that English had four parts of speech he labeled classes 1, 2, 3, 4,
but they are clearly what would normally be called “Nouns”, “Verbs”,
“Adjectives”, and “Adverbs”. Whereas Eastwood [23, 2] has a little different
idea on these word classes when he labels eight word classes in English:
Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Preposition, Conjunct, Adverb, and
Determiner which belong to either “vocabulary words” (verb, noun, adjective,
adverb) or “grammatical words” (preposition, determiner, pronoun, and
conjunct). Though the term “parts of speech” is a good term to use in text
books, methodological materials, and practical grammar books, it can serve as
a good starting point to go further into linguistic research. There are a number

the word is in some ways an isolable and individual unit.
In conclusion, however argumentative the concept of word may be, it is
certain that a view of the word, the smallest syntactical element, should be
based on different criteria and taken from a diverse and integrated perspective
to ensure a reliable investigation and serve as the foundation to go to other
syntactical elements.
According to D. Crystal (16) the term “word order” refers both to the
order of words in a phrase and to the order of multi-word units within a
sentence. The words in a phrase or a sentence are arranged in a certain order, 11

which is fixed for every type of the phrase and a sentence, and is therefore
meaningful. The main function of word order is to express grammatical
relations and determine the grammatical status of a word by fixing its position
in the phrase or in a sentence.
In linguist description, word order usually refers to the sequence in
which grammatical elements such as S, V, and O occur in sentences. A great
deal of attention has been paid to the way in which languages vary the order
of these elements, as part of typological studies.
As has been said above, word order expresses grammatical relations
and determines the grammatical status of a word. Then a change of the word
order often leads to either a change of the sentence meaning or a break down
of sentence structure, or both. In other words, any change of the position of a
word in a sentence often leads to a change of its grammatical status and
consequently a change of whole meaning of the sentence. Thus in the two
sentences below:
1. Maxim defends Victor [27, 139]
2. Mẹ yêu con [50, 116]

Object + Time Adverbial. Saussure [35, 213] points out that linearity as a
property of language makes it impossible for people to produce two linguist
signs simultaneously. This idea is supported by Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (42) that if
two sounds a&b are to be combined together there are only two combinatorial
possibilities: either ab or ba. In a word, when a person hears or looks at a
display of speech or writing, the dimension he is most conscious of is a
horizontal one, which shows the linear order of the bits of language. Apart
from the view of linear sequences of words, there are groupings within these
sequences. That results in hierarchical structures on which sister and daughter
relations can be defined. A particular sequence may be structurally
ambiguous, giving rise to more than one interpretation, each corresponding to 13

a different constituent structure tree. In addition to these properties of linearity
and hierarchy, there is another property of categoriality. The words of
sentences fall into lexical categories, with each category (and subcategory)
having its special properties and distribution.
1.2.3. Word order, patterns and structure
The term “chain” is used by M. Berry (7) to refer to the horizontal
dimension of language or the syntagmatic of language. In her point of view
any utterance consists of the number of bits of language, one after another, in
a sequence, the sequence being one-dimensional like a line. The dimension
along which the sequence occurs is called the dimension of axis of chain.
Each bit of language forms a link in the whole chain of a complete utterance.
Also according to her, the dimension of chain in spoken language can be
regarded as a time dimension and that in written language as a either time
dimension or a space dimension. Patterns occur along the dimension of chain.
Each has a number of patterns which belong to it but does not have certain

devices because Vietnamese is an uninflectional and isolating language in
which grammatical functions can only be relied upon the use of word order
and function words.
E.g.:
Bao giờ chị đi chợ? [38, 241]
Chị đi chợ bao giờ? [38, 241]
In this example the order of word closely refers to the meaning of time.
The word “bao giờ” as in Chị đi chợ bao giờ? refers to the past and the word
“bao giờ” as in Bao giờ chị đi chợ? refers to the future.
In addition, word order in different structures in Vietnamese expresses
different grammatical meaning. In the sentence “Bắc yêu Nam”, Bắc is the
giver and Nam is the receiver. But in the sentence “Nam yêu Bắc”, Nam now 15

is the giver and Bắc is the receiver [41, 223]. The word orders in this example
show the grammatical meaning “Giver – Receiver”. This is true with other
meanings such as “Cardinal number – Ordinal number” as in “phòng 3 (room
No.3) and 3 phòng (three rooms)” and so on.
Although English is an inflecting language but it is more isolating than
many other European languages. Hence, besides using such grammatical
means as inflectional and derivational suffixes, root inflection, etc. English
also employs word order to show grammatical relationships.
E.g.:
The black cat frightened Mary (i)
Mary frightened the black cat (ii)
The words in the above sentences are the same but it is the word order
which indicates who frightened whom, and that it is the black cat in sentence
(i) and Mary in sentence (ii)

“non-finite clause” to the embedded.
Words pattern into phrases which mean that phrases may be described
in terms of the kind of classes of words that function in them, and of the order
in which the words or classes of words arranged relate to each other.
One of the good definitions may be that given by O’Grady and
Dobrovolsky [9, 159]. They say “sentences have hierarchical structures
consisting of groups of words that may themselves consist of group of words,
and so on. This section will focus the internal structure of syntactical units
built around nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions with an emphasis on
the organizational properties that they have in common. Such units are called
phrases”. Sentences are thus analyzable into phrases.
They then further pointed out phrases.
XP (specifier) X (complement)
And four specific rules: 17

NP (Det.) N (Prepositional Phrase)
V (Auxiliary) V (Noun Phrase)
AP (Degree word) A (Prepositional Phrase)
PP (Degree word) P (Noun Phrase)
(in which NP is a Noun Phrase, a VP Verb Phrase, AP an Adjective Phrase
and PP, a Prepositional Phrase). Some grammar books may add Adverb
Phrase (Adv P) to this list of kinds of phrase but structurally more typical of
phrases are still the four NP, VP, AP and PP. R. Huddleston (37) lists three
properties of a phrase as below:
(i) It (a phrase) is a group of 2 or more words.
(ii) It does not contain a “finite” verb.
(iii) It is functionally equivalent to a single word, and will thus be classified

A noun phrase is thus composed of potential parts: a head element and
one or more dependents. The head element is obligatory; its presence is the
minimal requirement of the occurrence of a noun phrase. The other parts
occur optionally. Some dependents precede the head, others follow, we will
refer to them as pre-modification as termed by R. Quirk (32) or post – head as
by R. Huddleston (37) respectively.
E.g.:
Anew chapter in a novel [8, 108]
Pre-modifier Head Post-modifier
The stone frame of my door [8, 71]
Pre-modifier Head Post-modifier
Now we go further into the word order in English noun phrases.
2.1. Word order in general structures of English noun phrases
In English there is an argument that the structure of noun phrases
consists of only Determiner(s), Pre-modifier(s), the Head, and Post-