A study on the collocations of lexical verb
"do" with Vietnamese equivalents Đỗ Thị Ngọc Lan

Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ
Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Dr. Trần Xuân Điệp
Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Abstract: Although collocations have been studied and viewed from different angles by
numerous scholars, it is still an interesting topic which attracts people’s interest. This study
investigates the collocations of lexical verb ‘do’. The author only focuses on the most
frequent type ‘do + noun phrase’ to analyze.
The study starts with providing/offering some theoretical preliminaries, in which the notion
of collocation with its definition, classification and characteristics is presented. The
researcher also gives some previous studies on collocations. Several previously-conducted
studies are then reviewed briefly.
The main part focuses on analysis of ‘do + noun phrase’ collocations in different contexts, in
which their meanings appeared. Data used in this study are collected from various sources of
textbooks, articles, stories, etc. To obtain one of the objectives of the study is to show the
Vietnamese equivalents of this type of collocations, we take examples in both English and
Vietnamese into consideration.
Finally, some major findings are pointed out. The results show that ‘do + noun phrase’
collocations have different Vietnamese equivalents when they occur in different contexts.

Keywords: Động từ; Ngữ pháp; Tiếng Anh.
Content:


1.2. Theory of verbs 13
1.2.1. Definition 13
1.2.2. Classification 13
1.2.2.1. Auxiliary verbs 14
1.2.2.2. Semi-auxiliary verbs 15
1.2.2.3. Lexical verbs (full verbs) 15
1.2.3. The verb „Do‟ in English 15
1.2.3.1. The auxiliary „do‟ 15
1.2.3.2. The lexical „do‟ 16
1.3. Review of some previous studies of collocations 17

CHAPTER 2: COLLOCATIONS OF LEXICAL VERB “DO” WITH
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 20
2.1. Collocations of lexical verb „do‟ with Vietnamese equivalents 20
2.1.1. Form 21
2.1.2. Meanings 22
2.1.2.1. 'Do' for general ideas 22
2.1.2.2. 'Do' for –ing activities 23
2.1.2.3. „Do‟ for „an activity or a task‟ 24

v
2.1.2.4. „Do‟ for „business‟ 27
2.1.2.5. „Do‟ for „sport‟ 27
2.1.2.6. „Do‟ for „subjects of study‟ 29
2.1.2.7. „Do‟ in other cases 29
2.2. Summary 31

CONCLUSION 33
1. Recapitulation 33
2. Limitations of the study 33

Although collocation has become the subject of a linguistic study only recently, it arouses a
growing interest in numerous linguists and is defined in various ways. Accordingly, there is no
exhaustive and uniform definition or categorization of collocation. Therefore, it tends to be
one of the most problematic and important area of vocabulary, especially for second language
learners. Hill (1999:5) goes so far as to suggest: “We are familiar with the concept of
communicative competence, but perhaps we should add the concept of collocational
competence to our thinking”. He also claims that non-native speakers have problems “not
because of faulty grammar but a lack of collocations”. Along with Hill, McCarthy (1990:12)
claims that “collocation deserves to be a central aspect of vocabulary study.” These pieces of
evidence done can show the great importance of collocation in acquisition of a language. The
author would like to investigate the possibility of combining words into fixed expressions.
As mentioned above, phrases are formed by words together. Words in English are classified
into different classes in which verbs have always been one of the most complex classes of
words because verb, or rather, phrasal verb is the central to the structure of the sentence.

2
According to Palmer (1965:1), “learning a language is, to a very large degree, how to operate
the verbal forms, the pattern and the structure of the verb in that language”. There is a question
which need to be answer is that how verbs collocate with other classes of word. A verb can
collocate with a noun, a preposition, an adjective or even another verb. Verb phrases are then
created. Investigating the combinations of verbs must be necessary for improving the students‟
knowledge and lessening their difficulties.
As can be seen from the discussion above, collocation is a big area in linguistics. Due to the
constraints of time, the focus of this study is only on the collocations with the lexical verb
„do‟, a rather special and complex verb in English. Since the research is carried out against the
Vietnamese backgrounds, the corresponding Vietnamese equivalents are also provided. The
research is so entitled “A study on collocations of lexical verb ‘do’ with Vietnamese
equivalents”.
2. Aims of the study
This study aims at investigating the collocations the lexical verb „do‟ in English. This study is

are provided to illustrate the description. The qualitative method is used in collecting data.
Collocations with the lexical verb „do‟ will be collected from different sources such as stories,
books, magazines, journals, etc… then analyzed systematically to generalize the uses of these
collocations. In addition, a comparative and contrastive view is used to compare and contrast
collocations of „do‟ and their equivalents in Vietnamese. The method is, overall, both
deductive and inductive.
5. Design of the study
This study is composed of three main parts:
The first part, Introduction, states reasons for choosing the topic, the aims of the study with
the detailed methodology to gain these aims, the scope of the study and the organization of the
study.

4
The second part, Development, includes two chapters:
Chapter 1: features the review of related literature and the theoretical backgrounds for
the study, in which the collocation and the theory of verbs will be discussed. The verb
„do‟ will be also identified in terms of grammatical characteristics in structures related
to „do‟.
Chapter 2: presents and describes concrete cases of collocations with the lexical verb
„do‟ with their Vietnamese equivalents in corresponding contexts.
The third part is the Conclusion summarizing the main ideas discussed in the previous parts,
showing the limitations of the study and providing the suggestions for further studies.
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