- Email: [email protected]
Endocentricity in Vietnamese syntax
by pkotsptint
or mkrc.dllm
without
written
permiosion
from
the puidisher
uist who is 01s lish or some other West-European apt to see mirrored in modern Vietnamese syntax the familial f subjects, verbs, objects, prepositional phrases and adverbial rs that ~hara~ter~~e twentieth century West-European languages. A 1rL ----I L- *-‘It -...:,1-t-. -__*-Y-c:- quialxly -..-l:cS. WI ,E ,..,L, AJ%rmuu&r1 nc Will qUlc#srY ILCALcite CAUCIC; SULII ,......r,,r:, 3ylllaLlIL fKU :-features as the ubiquitous compIex sets of verb-like elements in series and the frequent strings of clauses in sequence without markers of co-ordination or subordination, in general the sentence structure will probably strrke him as rather commonplace. At the same time, if he is concerned with an effort to find formal bases for word classes and constructions of the language, he is Ttidrklj forced to appreciate an enduring dissatisfaction : he instinctiv&y i?els that certain words are verbs, others nouns, that here is a subject. WC an object, but finds little but arbitrary frames to define such elemcilts. Even though the tradition of Vietnamese granmar that has grown up reflects a kind of “translation analysis” based on French structure (e.g.. the word 6, ‘be located, reside’ is often described as now a verb, now a preposition, now an adjective. presumably because of the French equivalents of such expressions as tiii 6 HA-n@ ‘j’habite Hanoi’, C!YPhtip ‘en France’, nhh & ‘maison pour habiter, habitation’), the falsity of’ the ‘) This study reflects my concern
with
Viefnameje
struc-*tire over a considerable
period, beginning with major field research in Yiet Nam during the years I95 I - I953 the A-nerican Council of Learned work supported at various tim by Yale University, Societies, the Ford Foundation and the Unrversity of Wa:;hington. The present understanding of the syntax was reached in connebm with tne preparation of ,4 Vietrtame~e Grmnrnur (Seattle, University of Washingtf,n Press, in the press) pursuant to a contract with the U.S. Office of Education, Department of %aIth, Eciu~*ainn and Welfare. The example in the paper are from materials on nortilern speech (roughly the area of Hanoi), but the structural formulations, I believe, reprzxnt the standard language as a whole.
18
LAURENCE
C. THOMPSON
procedure was at least partly recognized as early as 1912, when Jean Przyluski wrote: ‘Dans les ouvrages qui ont &e publies sur la langue annamite, les mots grammaticaux sont classes g&&=alement d’apres le sens qu’on leur donne en francais. Cette methode a l’inconv&nient de tenir CloignCs les uns des autres des vocables qui, logiquement, devraient &re group&s en sCries’.2) But it is no easy matter to be certain one is escaping this kind of formulation. And in spite of the deep penetrations of the structure that are afforded in such different modern treatments as those of L6 van I. y, M. B. Emeneau, P. J. Honey, F. Martini,3) a satisfying basis for definition of form classes has remained difficult. Perhaps the most telling clue to a profound difference between the syntactic structures of Vietnamese and (for example) English emerges as we attempt to justify the establishment of an apparent familiar actoraction type construction. A good deal in the following examples seems to suggest a basic similarity of structure at this level between the Vietnamese citations and their English glosses: Con cho 3y ngu. ‘That dog is sleeping.’ [“arlimal dog just-referredto sleep”].*) T6i dot sach. ‘I’m reading (a book).’ [“I read book”]. 2, ‘Les formes pronominales de l’annamite’, BEFEO, 12, 1912, 8, 5. 3, Le van Lo, Le parler vietnamlien, Paris, c. 1919. M. B. Emeneau, Studies in Vietnamese (Annarnese) Grammar, Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1951. P. J. Honey. ‘Word classes in Vietnamese’, BST/AS, 18, 1956. F. Martini, ‘L’opposition nom et verbe en vistnamien et en siamois’, BSL, 46, 1950; ‘De la morphematisation du verbe en vi&namien’, BSL, 48, 1952; see also his review of the Emeneau and Lit van Ly works in BEFEO, 49, 1958. ‘) Examples are cited in standard orthography.
Each is followed by an idiomatic translation enclosed in single quotation marks. Parenthetical elements of such glosses reflect specific parts of the Vietnamese expression which are optional in the English translation, either beca!:3e they are superfluous from the English point of view, or because they add de!4 that gives a better notion of the wider range of the: Vietnamese forms represented. Brackets within single quotes enclose elements added to the English gloss to sups2st better the meaning or flavour of the expression or to render the English intellip%te, but they do not translate any specific items of the Vietnamese original. Ex&ept in cases where the analysis of the example seems obvious or where it is fully analysed in the text, a literal word-for-woro gloss is also provided, this enclosed in brackets and double quotes. It IS often necessary to use several English words to render the sense of a single Vietnamese form; whenever this is the case in a literal gloss hyphens connect all words used to translate a single Vietnamese item. Hyphenated Vietnamese sequences are similarly treated as single elements. In some cases marks of punctuation are included in a literal gloss - the comma or period to help keep clear the correspondence between units in gloss and original, and the question mark to represent a particular terminal intonation which often marks a question. Occasionally
And this same sort of clause or sentence is found to recur ;lg:tin ;tnd again. although generally with somewhat greater ela~~oratron 01“ clemcnt~ tiilrng the typical positions. What is fundamentally diRerent a&out such sequences in the two languages does not become noticeable unless the Qietnanresc exi~mpB~*4 are compared with another extremely common type of sentence or clause:, which differs consistently from the one just demonstrated in tile ~~QYXICC‘ of the apparent actor or subject element. NgG. ‘[Someone] is sleeping.’ DQC s&h. ‘[Someone] is reading (a book).’ Some exploratory work with texts or with an intbrmant rev~~tl~ t/It\ mterebting fact that for nearly every sentence or clause wiii> 3n ;tpparent actor or subject ihere is another possible sentence or c’I1919~~ lacl\irq ttus PlPmPnt -1--.1-.1-.
I P ’tn cnmp Wh’l .- ..m._ . . . “V...W
hiohlv “‘b”.J
crwriali7d dyb”.Us.G*”
and USIU !imit,ed
s~wlec: tl>pt-P ,‘b.’ CI1k.Zb ~~-PII~\Ibb.c)l
such English sentences as Sleeps, Is sleeping, RPCILIS, Is reading (a~, for example, in stage directions of a dramatic script or in a telegram), surely no one would contend that such clauses or sentences form a part of the characteristic major structure of the language comparable to that exemplified by Tllar &II~is sleeping, I’ru reading. III \ ietnamese. !:oueter, the “subject-less” clabses are perhaps more common, and in any cahe frequently replace their longer counterparts in similar contehth. To put it in another way, the relationship of Ngb to Con ch6 2y nglll, and of Dgc shch to T6i d~c shch is similar to that of English He’s sieepiq~ to He’s sleeping rm~~~or Right at the mmwm /w’s sleeping, in the senbe that the later sentences are in each case expansions of the earlier ones, which latter contain the essential minimum. That is to say, we are dealing in Vietnamese with an endocentric construction. while actor-action phrases in English are specifically exocentric? A little persistence leads us to the f‘urtiler discovery that these elements are not simply endocentric in the usual sense - that is. that they belong to the same form class as at least one of their immediate constituents (or, to put it in other terms, that each resultant phrase hp.; the same syntactic yet. they demonfunction as one of its princ:ipal parts). More intr!-
:
20
LAURENCEC.THoMPSON
syntactic function) as the resultant phrase could replace the whole in its context, maintaining the same syntactic relationship to that context. For convenience we may refer to this constituent as the NUCLEAR MODEL of the resultant phrase. Next it becomes clear that these nuclear models can in turn be analysed into immediate constituents at least one of which can replace it in its context - that is, each nuclear model has in turn a nuclear mode1 of its own. And this new, smaller nuclear model is to similarly further analysed, and so on, down to the level of individual words!) Let us consider the step-by-step analysis of a fairly long sentence. In the discussion we shall use the technical terms IC (immediate constituent, or principal part), CONSTITUTE (the resultant phrase at any particular Iev of analysis from the point of view of the immediate constituents under disc!lssionj, PARTNER (another immediate constituent of the same constitute, from the point of view of the IC under discussion), and NWL MODEL (or simply MODEL) (that IC of a particular constitute which can replace it in its context, maintaining the same syntactic relationship to that context).‘) NgAy xuqa cci ngv&i hi&-l@, m$t h6m ra chp, gap ngay chg phiin vtia d6ng ngv&i &n bu6n bQn v&a l&m d6 h8ng. ‘Once upon a time there was a greedy fellow, [who] one day went out [into] the market-place on the day of a fair [when there were] both a great many people [who] had come to do business and a great deal of merchandise.’ The ICs of this sentence are ngAy xu9a c6 nglrbi hi&A@ ‘once upon a time there was a greedy fellow’ on the one hand, and the balance of the 6, For the identification and definition of word-like units, see my paper ‘The problem of the word in Vietnamese’, Word, 19, 1963. ‘) For a detailed exposition of IC analysis see Rulon S. Wells, ‘lmmediatz constituents’, bnguuge, 23, 1947. Note that my term (n&e& n&el, although adapted from his term model, represents of course a different, more specialized concept. When in this paper it is stated that an element (X) “could replace” another element “in its context” CY), technically what is meant is that a sequence morphemically identical to X occurs elsewhere in the language in a context which is morphemically identical to Y. The looser phrasing is used because it results in a simpler formulation, thus making the concept easier to grasp, but it should be remembered that each such statement is susceptible of rephrasing in the more abstract, rigorous terms. It should also be noted at this point that intonational elements have not been overlooked irl this treatment; it is clear that their functions are separate from the problems discussed here.
sentence on
tk
@ther.
The
rnod~t of the sentence.
first
IC can
replace the whole senience
ning line of’ a stoq; it is thus the second IC, partner of the nuclear hcs+contexts as cl sentence by itself, e, since it world not appropriately
in its
nuclear model,
is not a replace
cd as nuclear model of the whole sentence, xva ‘once upon a time’ and c6 tt I at‘ which the second is nuclear constitute. This decision is has d on the fact that c6 ngv&i tji$U-lQi wkate in its context - which means the next larger framc, ncc of the sentence mamtaining the same syntactic y xula, on the other hand, although sentence in other contexts, is not ~1 ause the relationship between it and the balance of nt from that of its constitute rlgay the sentence in this example. (Cf. ‘Once upon a time, one day [someone] went out [into] the market-place.. .’) Ng;iy xlra is analysed into ng&y ‘day’ and xllaa ‘in former times’ with the model xtra : this analysis is based on the existence of the sequence xula c6 ngu+i hi&-lqi ‘in former times these was a greedy fellow’ with the same interrelationship of parts. Ng&y does not appropriately replace the co~l4tute in this position. C6 ngu+i hi@uJqi has the KS 0’1 ‘exist’ (here: ‘ther:; was’)a) and ngv&i hi&Ayi
‘[a] greedy
person’,
of which CC, is nuclear model: ci, could replace the constrtute in ng&y xwa c6 ‘in former times there was’,
but not so ngu&4 hi&-lqi. This latter constituent, however, has its own nuclear model ngu6i ‘person’ and a non-model partner hi&-lqi ‘be greedy’. The rest of the sentence has the ICs mot ham ra chq ‘[whoJ one day went out [intoj thi;- market-place’ plus the balance; both partners are nuclear mcldels, since either would replace the constitute in its context with the same relaticnship of parts. The first is analysed into n@t h6m and ra chq, of which the second is a nuclear model, but not the first. MQt hiim hys the KS mot ‘one’ and h6m ‘day’, but neither could replace the iarger phrase in its context: there is thus no nuclear mode’ in this @)As the analysis of the sentence progresses elements are sometimes glossed somewhat differently in order to give a clearer notion of their basic meanings aqd functioning in the context at hand.
22
LAURENCE
C. THOMPSON
case. Ra chq, on the other hand, contains the nuclear model ra ‘go out [to]‘, and a non-model partner chp ‘market-(place)‘. Further analysis of the sentence gives us gap n countered a market-day’ (nuclear model) and the rest of the (non-model). G@p ngay chq phi&n contains the nucl ‘encounter’ and the non-model ngay chp phi&, which KS ngAy ‘day’ and chq phi&n ‘fair’, both models. Finally, chq phi8n is analysable into chq ‘market-(place)’ and phi&r “a turn in orderly succession’, again both models. (Chp phi&r refers to the fair or cyclical market-day which takes place at regular intervals at a particular market.) Vira &3ng ,lgLp&i6% buon bdn vita l&m do hhng has three KS - t correlative vira . . . vifa ‘both . . . and’ (not a model), bong ngv&i d buon ban ‘teeming [crowds of] people arriving to do business’, and l&m di3 hang ‘many things and merchandise’ (both models). Furt ’ dong ngv&i is a nuclear model o f its cowsstitute, while its partner bu8n ban is not. The former contains dbng “be in crowds’ (not a model) and the model ngu&i ‘persDn(s)‘. D$n buon ban contains the modeis d$n ‘arrive’ and Luiin bin ‘do business’, of which b&n ‘buy [for reselling]’ and ban ‘sell’ are both models. Finally, l&m d6 hting consists of lhrn ‘much, many’ (not a model) and do hang (model), the latter containing do ‘thing’ and hiing ‘goods, merchandise’ (both models). In the preceding analysis it is observable that the model elements regularly have models of their own, while non-model elements sometimes do not. There is a further, less obvious difference between model and non-model elements: in addition to those non-model sequences which have no models of their own (e.g., mot horn), there arc those which have recognizable models, but a comparison with other contexts, where the same sequence of words with the same construction serves c”s nuclear model of a larger constitute, shows that the analysis is then different. For example, in the sentence analysed above ngay xlra “once upon a time’ is analysed into ngay ‘day’ plus xu*a ‘in former times’; the model here is clearly xva, which could occur in the larger context (Xva co ngtrbi hi&r-lqi. ‘In former times there was a greedy fellow.‘). However, there is a similar possible sentence: NgAy xva By co ngvbi hi&t-lqi. ‘In those days of old of which we have been speaking there was a greedy {ellow.’ Tn this sentence ng&y xtra %y has the model ngay xva, which, in turn, has the model ng&y, since ng&y 5.y ‘the day (or days) just mentioned’ is possible in the context, while *xva 8y does not occur at all. This demonstrates two interesting :+qgs: first, the analysis of non-
ENDCK'FNTRICITY
IN VIETNAMESE
SYNTAX
23
models rs not consistent and tells us iittie that is helpful about the syntactic st ruedure * set M, a model of a non-model (like ng&y is not itself just a single n, and the hierarchy continues on down just ence. Thus non-models ir occurrence elsewhere arc, of c~utse, exbxptions *- ~~~~tcn~~~l and phrases in which the dcl analysis cannot be ut such cases are few, rand the pre~nder~n~e ofexamples where this type of analysis is possible, s the conclusion that a syntactic pattern of major significance I:; ements of endocentric constructs which Bloomfield cai’ls fined for Vietnamese as nuclear models of largtr nuclear tences. Non-modei partners of heads are COMPLE~NTS. For convenient reference the full analysis of the sentence just studied is provided in the Appendix, with model, head and complement elements marked. Consideration of a large number of examples reveals that there are just three basic construction types in Vietnamese phrases: those having two or more heads, those having a single head with a preceding complement, and those having a single head with a following complement. In terms of the consistent semantic relationships involved among the parts, each may be assigned a convenient Gemantic label - those with preceding complement involve RESTRICTIVE constructions; those with following complement, DESCRIPTIVE constructions; and those in which there are two or more heads, co-ORDINATING constructions. Phrases with a cc-ordinatrng construction sometimes also contain a complement, like the viPa . . . vtia ‘both . . . and’ in tk sentence analysed above. With the use of certain auxiliary formal criteria, it is possible to establish several sub-types of these constructions. The formally defined constructjons, jn turn, may serve as part of the basis for the definition of word classes, removing the necessity for most arbitrary choices of entities to establish recurring environments. There are other interesting implications. First, there is the fact that this entire structure is basically ENDOCENTRIC, in Bloomfield’s terms; As we observed earlier, thi:, there are no exocentric constructions. *) Op.
cit.,
195.
24
LAURENCEC.THOMPSON
contrasts significantly with the syntactic structure of English, where the exocentric actor-action construction furnishes the prevalent means for sentence formation. Another valuable feature of this type of analysis is the clear-cut distinction it makes between heads and complements. Direct examination of the material, especially when approaching it from the expri English and other Indo-European languages, is apt to influence one in quite a different direction. We observed earlier that many Vietnamese sentences resemble English sentences with actor-action and actionphrases like the dog was sieephg, read a book. Nuclear model analysis, however, reveals such elements as con ch6 ay in Con ch6 Zayng& and s;ich in dot sach as complements of the heads ngli and dgc - the first a preceding or restrictive complement, the second a following or descriptive complement. Foilowing this notion and attempting the ana!ysis of !zrge numbers of Vietnamese sentences we soon find that this view of the predicative element as *the head of an endocentric construction leads to a very productive picture of the syntactic structure, A number of problems where complex different analyses would seem to be required are resolved. Consider, for example, the case of the verbal element c6, which is traditionally translated ‘to have’. We find sentences like the following: Cc>nhisu rtgvbi IAm ruong. ‘There are many (rice) farmers.‘ [“c6 be-many(-much) person(s) act rice-field”]. Vi&-nam c6 nhi& ngu9lvi lhrn ruang. ‘Viet Nam has many (rice) farmers.’ [“Viet-Nam ~6.. .“I. 6’ Vi&-nam c6 nhi& ngu+i l&m ruQng. ‘In Viet Nam there are many (rice) farmers.’ [“be-located Viet-Kam c6.. .“I. Viewing Vi&-nam as a subject, or kind of actor, in the secr;ind sentence (as might well seem logical), establishes a special meaning for the verbal element and suggests that the structures of the three sentences are somehow fundamentally different - in a way, incidentally, that can best be described in terms of English syntax. But the analysis to which we are led by the formal determination of heads and complements clearly establishes the three sentences as basically the same: the last two are simply expansions of the first, each having a preceding complement. It is the shape (and internal structure) of this preceding complement which is different in the two cases. And the meaning of c6 in all these cases is somethirrg like ‘be in existence’.
ENDOCENTKICITY
y 1
IN
VIETNAMIESE
SYNTAX
25
can recognize that the following three sentences in common, while their counterparts in English diverse elements :
we
fish.’ [“gentlernan just-referred-to
eat
to Hanoi.’ [“. . . go Hanoi”). hort arms.’ I‘“.,. be-short arm”]. 1 elements (tin ‘eat’, di ‘go’, nghn ‘be short’) aflbplement - in the first case c;i ‘fish’, tc y ‘arm*. They add descriptive detail short’ stated by the respective heads. uctisns better helps a good deal with the nt on the fact that the Vietnamese verb is not basically either active or passive in reference. in most cases the context makes the -CA-,I,,, z3.A :, L&W_% ,C,.-AA-r_-d:-, AL_ I?__-,rl-- 01 -CAL_ ___-*r_. ISICCXJlL~ VIF&aI. RlIL III CCEIIIJ 01 UI1UCtSZdflUlIl~ WC ll.I~LllWKl lilt: Sj’KlldJ’L this lack of cleslrly marked actors and goals fits very well with verbs that formalize no distinctions of voice. Following are several sequences exemplifying this phenomenon, the first few in contrastive pairs. LAm vi@ nky r8i. ‘[Someone has] already done this job.’ [“act job this already”]. Vi&z n&y lam r6i. ‘This job has already been done.’ [“job this act already”]. &lg $y cat nh8 6) g$n tru+ng hoc. ‘He’ uilding a house near the school.’ [“gentleman just-referred-to bui ouse be-located be-near school to-study”]. Hai c&i ah& kia cat g%n nhau cung tren mot m&g d&t. ‘Tirose two houses are built close together on the same lot.’ [“two object house(s) over-there build be-near reciprocally accompany top one piece land”]. Hai th&ng tr@m v@ ra b& ruQng 14 khieng chum vang v8 nhh dinh mb ra chia nhau. Nhung v5ng chh th?iy &u chi th3y toan lb rb d&. The two thieves hastened out to tht edge of the (rice) field and together carried the pot of gold back home, determined to open [it] up and divide [the gold] between them. But gold [they] saw now5ere - [they] only saw that [it] was entirely [full of] poisonous snakes.’ [“two male-inferior steal hasten go-out edge rice-field and carry-severalWpeopleWco-operating pot gold return house dthtermine open (go-)out divide reciprocally. But gold not-at-all perceive
26
LAURENCE
C. THOMPSON
wherever only perceive nothing-but identificational-marker . be-poisonous”].
serpent(s)
It is true that it is possible to distinguish on the basis of relative position several categories of the preposed complements that we are at first tempted to call subjects. Some of these correspond logically to En elements of the subject or actor type; others are more like expl23ftons denoting place, time or manner, and in a variety of sentences crjntainin more than one such complement, a basic order can be discerned. For example :
~
Nhur tht hiim qua tai chp tai mua nhi$u 66. ‘So it was that yesterday at market I bought a lot of things.’ [nhu the ‘thus’ (manner), ham qua ‘yesterday’ (time), tai cho. ‘at market’ (place), toi ‘1’ (topic)].
For a moment it may appear that we are returned to the position of identifying toi ‘1’ in this sentence as an actor or subject. But study of ;I large number of sentences shows that nothing sets apart subject-like elements from those specifying manner, time and place any more dktinctly than the latter are set off from one another. In other words, they are all preceding complements with reference to the predicate head. It is interesting in this connection to note that when word classes are worked out based on formal criteria making use of these constructions, a class emerges which is directly related to the position just discussed that of preceding complements to predicates. While elements identified as substantival and verbal appear as single-word restrictive complements !3 predicates, there are other words that occupy this position which do not belong to either substantival or verbal classes. Among them we axe not surprised to find words such as xua ‘in former times’, sao ‘however’ and day ‘here’. What is interesting is that toi *I’, no ‘he, she, it’ (abrupt form), and chung ‘group of animate beings’ also belong here: they obviously pattern quite differently from substantives, and similarly to the words just mentioned, although we might well expect them to be like substantivesP) The notion of similarity and interdependence of these restrictive complements to predicates is reinforced by two phenomena observarble 9 These (logically dubbed PRONOUNS) should be clearly distinguished from other elements which, again because of “translation grammar”, we have been assigning pronominal status: there is a host of words like 6ng ‘grandfat!zr; gentleman’, b& ‘grandmother; lady’, which are used much as is the expression Her Ladyship in FYhen ~42 Her Ladyship take tea? to convey courtesy in addressing persons or speaking of
ENDOCENTRlClTY
IN
VIETNAME!EE
SYNTAX
27
in complex sequences: the use of particularizing complements and the habit of placing emphatic topics tirst. The following sentence exemplifies bth:
14 ctk cd Vi@-nam mai ltic nBo cling db mt’tkh6ng c$n dirng
s&p m8i, chf nhai mot mi u lir cU m8i db c& ng8y. ‘Vietnamese rls [have] lips [which are] always red without needing 9 [they) just chew a portion of betel, which is enough [so tilat their] lips ark red all day long.’ [“plural lady and plural iet-Nam lip(s) occasion whichever likewise be-red particle not need to-use wax lip(s), only chew one tel identification&marker su ce lip(s) be-red all-of day”]. The complement chic bir vl‘\ C&Zc6 Vi&nam ‘Vietrzcrnese women and girls” (with generalized reference) is follows by a more specific cornpIement m6i ‘lips’. These are also empbdtic topics, preceding a complement denoting time - 16~ nho ‘whenever’, which, with the following particle cQng ‘likewise’ gives the notion ‘always’. Turning to examples of following complements we find again that our structural definition groups as descriptive complements, samples of what translation grammar would cause us to classify in several quite different categories. Thus we see apparent goals or objects treated structurally in the same way as. postpositive modifiers (adverbial elements) and various sequences usually translated by prcptAtional phrases. di S&g45n ‘go to Saigon’ [“go Saigon”]. an ci ‘eat fish’. ;in cao&i ‘eat at a restaurant’ [“eat restaurant”]. h& ba cAu ‘ask t ree questions’ [“to-question t!iree sentences”]. n6i ba Ian ‘say [something] three times’. I&m @? ‘doing what?’ [“act whatever?“]. l&m linh *be a soldier’ [&&act soldier’*]. .ng&n t&y ‘short of arm’ [“be-short arm”]. B&n gi? ‘What [are you] sad about?’ [“be-sad whatever?“]. xa nh8 ‘far from home’ [“be-far house”]. vui tai ‘pleasing to the ears’ [“be-pleasing ear(s)“]. vG tinh ‘pleasant by nature’ [“be-pleasing disposition”]. N6 gi&u cba nhlvng ngh&o con. ‘He’s rich in possessions, but poor in children.’ [“he be-rich belonging(s) but be-poor offspring”]. them, and in fact are sometimes used to reit;; *o the speaker himself. Such words are grammatically substantives, not members of the special class discussed here.
28
LAURENCEC.THOMPSON
This fact, incidentally, removes the quandary one faces when it is unclear (in translation grammar) whether an element is an object or a modifier: from the point of view of the structure of Vietnamese the diffe immaterial. Consider, for example : gn nhi&t ‘eat a great deal’ [“eat be-much(-many)“]. xin l&i *beg pardo ’ (“beg [from point of view of] error”‘). It also allows us to deal more realistically with cases where traditional grammar recognizes preceding modifiers with special idiomatic meanin From this point of view, what translation grammar identifies as head is actually a following complement. tay mat ‘a cool hand’ [“hand be-cool”] : m8t tay ‘be s’kilful’(“cool [of] hand”). rang trang ‘white teeth’ [“tooth{-teeth) be-white”]: t&g rtig ‘be still young’ (“white [of] tooth”). ngv&i l&n ‘adult, grown-up’ [“person be-big”]: l&n ngu&I ‘(be) a tall person’ (note that in this case the item which would be designated as involving idiomatic meaning - l&n ngw&i - actually seems more concrete, closer to the basic meanings of the individual elements). There are also cases where from the point of view of translation it might appear that a “subject”’ follows its predicate. These arc now similarly revealed as following complements. Ngvbi ch8ng th$t 19d&r-d&luc v&g VQ thf.h& s&c lay l&iiin-t.6na& v&Gme, liic vfing me thi nghiem-nghi khuyen-can VQ. ‘The husband was really worried; when [his] wife was out he put a lot of effort into talking calmly with [his] mother; when [his] mother was out he was stern in warning [his] wife.’ [“person husband be-real identificationalmarker be-worried, occasion be-absent wife then be-used-up force take speech be-calm speak with mother, occasion be-absent mother then be-stem warn wife”] (This involves the illusive meaning of the word i;&ng‘[place is] deserted, empty, [people are] absent’ : in each case the following element is descriptive complement to it. The phrases vbng VQ and vang me are then each descriptive complements to ltic ‘occasion, time when’.) As one examines more and more sentences in the language one is struck by the recurrence of the basis construction types that have been identified here, and there seem to be no examples which suggest different patterns.
ENDOCENTRfCfTY
IN VIETNAMESE
SYNIAX
29
The few sequences which arc not rigorously haudied in these terms invoke vocabulary items whose restricted distribution makes them uences containing it’s; sts parallels in terms of which their t sentences which do not accomare seen from the point of view of ents -_they turn up as non-model ulation of Vietnamese elements and descripite independent of the also brings into sharp of western European syntaxes. Certainly the view of a language where endocentricity is the i-utc seems quite alien to the famiiiar exocentric sentences of English or French, and the realization that phrases typically contain smaller and smaller repiicas of themselves further accentuates the exotic impression. In addition, the method of nuclear model analysis may well furnish a valuable tool in exploring the syntactic structures of languages other than Vietnamese, and may lead to a new and valuable typological category for comparing and contra&g otherwise quite disparate structures. University of Washington
-
11) Fo, exampc, the word tuii ‘year(s) old’ is definable as a substantive, but it is far more spe&lized than most substantives gf its type by virtue of the relatively few ’ 4 for. Model analysis of phrases involving this word circumstances in which it is caL thus break down at a certain point bec~se of its narrow distribution.
LAURENCEC.TMOMPSON
APPENDIX Ng9y x\pa c6 ngu+i hi&-Ipi, mot ham ra chry, g@png&y chq phi&n tia BBng ngur&i $8311 b&n b&n v&a l&m d6 h8ng. “Once upon a time there was a greedy fellow [who] one day went out [into] the market-place on the day of a fair [when there were] both a great many people [who] had come to do business and a great deal of merchandise.’ MODEL HEAD COMPLEMENT
ng&yxwa c6 ngutbi hi&-lpi / ng8y ‘day’ I'@IyXU'a \.xt~a ‘in former times’ (MODEL)
MODEL HEAD MODEL HEAD
ngv&i hi&-lqi
COMPLEMENT
/ ngu%Yi ‘person’ (MODEL) \_ hi$u-!qi‘& greedy'
mot hiim ra chq, g&p ngicy chp phi& vira dbng ngvbi den buiin b&nvifa l&m66 h&ng MODEL mot h6m ra chq, 9 mot ‘one’ COMPLEMENT mot ham,< \ hiim ‘day’
COMPLEMENT
ra chp
MODEL HEAD
I-a‘go out
MODEL HEAD
[to]
chq, ‘market-(place)’ g&p ng&y c.tlq phi& vtia Bang nglriri dSn buiin b8n viFa l&md6 hang gap ng&ychq phi&
COMPLEIMENT MODEL MODEL HEAD
MODEL HEAD
&@P‘enCOUnter'
COMPLEMENT
ngAy chp phi&n,
J* nghy
‘day’ (MODEL) \chq phi& (MODEL) cha ‘market-(place)’ (MODEL HEAD)
phi& ‘successive turn’ (MODEL HEAD) COMPLEMENT
vtia d6ng ngvbi d$n buiin b&nvba ldm 86 hang
MODEL MODEL HEAD
vtia . . . vtia ‘both . . . and’ d6ng ngu+i den bu6n b&n d&g ‘be in crowds’ (COMPLEMENT) dangngvbi \ ngvbi ‘person(s)’ (MODEL HEAD)
ENDOCENTRICITY
COMPLEMENT
IN VIETNAMESE
den b&n bin’
SYNTAX
44% ‘arrive’ (MODEL) \ bu&n bkn (MODEL) bu8n ‘buy [for resak]’ (MODEL HEAD)
b&n ‘sell’ (MODEL HEAD) blODEL CoMptEMENT MODEL HEAD
Idm ‘many, pto~w~’ /*d6 ‘k\ng, item’ (MObCl HEAD) d6 hAng, B hhrrg ‘merchandise’ (MODEL HEAD)
31
or mkrc.dllm
without
written
permiosion
from
the puidisher
uist who is 01s lish or some other West-European apt to see mirrored in modern Vietnamese syntax the familial f subjects, verbs, objects, prepositional phrases and adverbial rs that ~hara~ter~~e twentieth century West-European languages. A 1rL ----I L- *-‘It -...:,1-t-. -__*-Y-c:- quialxly -..-l:cS. WI ,E ,..,L, AJ%rmuu&r1 nc Will qUlc#srY ILCALcite CAUCIC; SULII ,......r,,r:, 3ylllaLlIL fKU :-features as the ubiquitous compIex sets of verb-like elements in series and the frequent strings of clauses in sequence without markers of co-ordination or subordination, in general the sentence structure will probably strrke him as rather commonplace. At the same time, if he is concerned with an effort to find formal bases for word classes and constructions of the language, he is Ttidrklj forced to appreciate an enduring dissatisfaction : he instinctiv&y i?els that certain words are verbs, others nouns, that here is a subject. WC an object, but finds little but arbitrary frames to define such elemcilts. Even though the tradition of Vietnamese granmar that has grown up reflects a kind of “translation analysis” based on French structure (e.g.. the word 6, ‘be located, reside’ is often described as now a verb, now a preposition, now an adjective. presumably because of the French equivalents of such expressions as tiii 6 HA-n@ ‘j’habite Hanoi’, C!YPhtip ‘en France’, nhh & ‘maison pour habiter, habitation’), the falsity of’ the ‘) This study reflects my concern
with
Viefnameje
struc-*tire over a considerable
period, beginning with major field research in Yiet Nam during the years I95 I - I953 the A-nerican Council of Learned work supported at various tim by Yale University, Societies, the Ford Foundation and the Unrversity of Wa:;hington. The present understanding of the syntax was reached in connebm with tne preparation of ,4 Vietrtame~e Grmnrnur (Seattle, University of Washingtf,n Press, in the press) pursuant to a contract with the U.S. Office of Education, Department of %aIth, Eciu~*ainn and Welfare. The example in the paper are from materials on nortilern speech (roughly the area of Hanoi), but the structural formulations, I believe, reprzxnt the standard language as a whole.
18
LAURENCE
C. THOMPSON
procedure was at least partly recognized as early as 1912, when Jean Przyluski wrote: ‘Dans les ouvrages qui ont &e publies sur la langue annamite, les mots grammaticaux sont classes g&&=alement d’apres le sens qu’on leur donne en francais. Cette methode a l’inconv&nient de tenir CloignCs les uns des autres des vocables qui, logiquement, devraient &re group&s en sCries’.2) But it is no easy matter to be certain one is escaping this kind of formulation. And in spite of the deep penetrations of the structure that are afforded in such different modern treatments as those of L6 van I. y, M. B. Emeneau, P. J. Honey, F. Martini,3) a satisfying basis for definition of form classes has remained difficult. Perhaps the most telling clue to a profound difference between the syntactic structures of Vietnamese and (for example) English emerges as we attempt to justify the establishment of an apparent familiar actoraction type construction. A good deal in the following examples seems to suggest a basic similarity of structure at this level between the Vietnamese citations and their English glosses: Con cho 3y ngu. ‘That dog is sleeping.’ [“arlimal dog just-referredto sleep”].*) T6i dot sach. ‘I’m reading (a book).’ [“I read book”]. 2, ‘Les formes pronominales de l’annamite’, BEFEO, 12, 1912, 8, 5. 3, Le van Lo, Le parler vietnamlien, Paris, c. 1919. M. B. Emeneau, Studies in Vietnamese (Annarnese) Grammar, Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1951. P. J. Honey. ‘Word classes in Vietnamese’, BST/AS, 18, 1956. F. Martini, ‘L’opposition nom et verbe en vistnamien et en siamois’, BSL, 46, 1950; ‘De la morphematisation du verbe en vi&namien’, BSL, 48, 1952; see also his review of the Emeneau and Lit van Ly works in BEFEO, 49, 1958. ‘) Examples are cited in standard orthography.
Each is followed by an idiomatic translation enclosed in single quotation marks. Parenthetical elements of such glosses reflect specific parts of the Vietnamese expression which are optional in the English translation, either beca!:3e they are superfluous from the English point of view, or because they add de!4 that gives a better notion of the wider range of the: Vietnamese forms represented. Brackets within single quotes enclose elements added to the English gloss to sups2st better the meaning or flavour of the expression or to render the English intellip%te, but they do not translate any specific items of the Vietnamese original. Ex&ept in cases where the analysis of the example seems obvious or where it is fully analysed in the text, a literal word-for-woro gloss is also provided, this enclosed in brackets and double quotes. It IS often necessary to use several English words to render the sense of a single Vietnamese form; whenever this is the case in a literal gloss hyphens connect all words used to translate a single Vietnamese item. Hyphenated Vietnamese sequences are similarly treated as single elements. In some cases marks of punctuation are included in a literal gloss - the comma or period to help keep clear the correspondence between units in gloss and original, and the question mark to represent a particular terminal intonation which often marks a question. Occasionally
And this same sort of clause or sentence is found to recur ;lg:tin ;tnd again. although generally with somewhat greater ela~~oratron 01“ clemcnt~ tiilrng the typical positions. What is fundamentally diRerent a&out such sequences in the two languages does not become noticeable unless the Qietnanresc exi~mpB~*4 are compared with another extremely common type of sentence or clause:, which differs consistently from the one just demonstrated in tile ~~QYXICC‘ of the apparent actor or subject element. NgG. ‘[Someone] is sleeping.’ DQC s&h. ‘[Someone] is reading (a book).’ Some exploratory work with texts or with an intbrmant rev~~tl~ t/It\ mterebting fact that for nearly every sentence or clause wiii> 3n ;tpparent actor or subject ihere is another possible sentence or c’I1919~~ lacl\irq ttus PlPmPnt -1--.1-.1-.
I P ’tn cnmp Wh’l .- ..m._ . . . “V...W
hiohlv “‘b”.J
crwriali7d dyb”.Us.G*”
and USIU !imit,ed
s~wlec: tl>pt-P ,‘b.’ CI1k.Zb ~~-PII~\Ibb.c)l
such English sentences as Sleeps, Is sleeping, RPCILIS, Is reading (a~, for example, in stage directions of a dramatic script or in a telegram), surely no one would contend that such clauses or sentences form a part of the characteristic major structure of the language comparable to that exemplified by Tllar &II~is sleeping, I’ru reading. III \ ietnamese. !:oueter, the “subject-less” clabses are perhaps more common, and in any cahe frequently replace their longer counterparts in similar contehth. To put it in another way, the relationship of Ngb to Con ch6 2y nglll, and of Dgc shch to T6i d~c shch is similar to that of English He’s sieepiq~ to He’s sleeping rm~~~or Right at the mmwm /w’s sleeping, in the senbe that the later sentences are in each case expansions of the earlier ones, which latter contain the essential minimum. That is to say, we are dealing in Vietnamese with an endocentric construction. while actor-action phrases in English are specifically exocentric? A little persistence leads us to the f‘urtiler discovery that these elements are not simply endocentric in the usual sense - that is. that they belong to the same form class as at least one of their immediate constituents (or, to put it in other terms, that each resultant phrase hp.; the same syntactic yet. they demonfunction as one of its princ:ipal parts). More intr!-
:
20
LAURENCEC.THoMPSON
syntactic function) as the resultant phrase could replace the whole in its context, maintaining the same syntactic relationship to that context. For convenience we may refer to this constituent as the NUCLEAR MODEL of the resultant phrase. Next it becomes clear that these nuclear models can in turn be analysed into immediate constituents at least one of which can replace it in its context - that is, each nuclear model has in turn a nuclear mode1 of its own. And this new, smaller nuclear model is to similarly further analysed, and so on, down to the level of individual words!) Let us consider the step-by-step analysis of a fairly long sentence. In the discussion we shall use the technical terms IC (immediate constituent, or principal part), CONSTITUTE (the resultant phrase at any particular Iev of analysis from the point of view of the immediate constituents under disc!lssionj, PARTNER (another immediate constituent of the same constitute, from the point of view of the IC under discussion), and NWL MODEL (or simply MODEL) (that IC of a particular constitute which can replace it in its context, maintaining the same syntactic relationship to that context).‘) NgAy xuqa cci ngv&i hi&-l@, m$t h6m ra chp, gap ngay chg phiin vtia d6ng ngv&i &n bu6n bQn v&a l&m d6 h8ng. ‘Once upon a time there was a greedy fellow, [who] one day went out [into] the market-place on the day of a fair [when there were] both a great many people [who] had come to do business and a great deal of merchandise.’ The ICs of this sentence are ngAy xu9a c6 nglrbi hi&A@ ‘once upon a time there was a greedy fellow’ on the one hand, and the balance of the 6, For the identification and definition of word-like units, see my paper ‘The problem of the word in Vietnamese’, Word, 19, 1963. ‘) For a detailed exposition of IC analysis see Rulon S. Wells, ‘lmmediatz constituents’, bnguuge, 23, 1947. Note that my term (n&e& n&el, although adapted from his term model, represents of course a different, more specialized concept. When in this paper it is stated that an element (X) “could replace” another element “in its context” CY), technically what is meant is that a sequence morphemically identical to X occurs elsewhere in the language in a context which is morphemically identical to Y. The looser phrasing is used because it results in a simpler formulation, thus making the concept easier to grasp, but it should be remembered that each such statement is susceptible of rephrasing in the more abstract, rigorous terms. It should also be noted at this point that intonational elements have not been overlooked irl this treatment; it is clear that their functions are separate from the problems discussed here.
sentence on
tk
@ther.
The
rnod~t of the sentence.
first
IC can
replace the whole senience
ning line of’ a stoq; it is thus the second IC, partner of the nuclear hcs+contexts as cl sentence by itself, e, since it world not appropriately
in its
nuclear model,
is not a replace
cd as nuclear model of the whole sentence, xva ‘once upon a time’ and c6 tt I at‘ which the second is nuclear constitute. This decision is has d on the fact that c6 ngv&i tji$U-lQi wkate in its context - which means the next larger framc, ncc of the sentence mamtaining the same syntactic y xula, on the other hand, although sentence in other contexts, is not ~1 ause the relationship between it and the balance of nt from that of its constitute rlgay the sentence in this example. (Cf. ‘Once upon a time, one day [someone] went out [into] the market-place.. .’) Ng;iy xlra is analysed into ng&y ‘day’ and xllaa ‘in former times’ with the model xtra : this analysis is based on the existence of the sequence xula c6 ngu+i hi&-lqi ‘in former times these was a greedy fellow’ with the same interrelationship of parts. Ng&y does not appropriately replace the co~l4tute in this position. C6 ngu+i hi@uJqi has the KS 0’1 ‘exist’ (here: ‘ther:; was’)a) and ngv&i hi&Ayi
‘[a] greedy
person’,
of which CC, is nuclear model: ci, could replace the constrtute in ng&y xwa c6 ‘in former times there was’,
but not so ngu&4 hi&-lqi. This latter constituent, however, has its own nuclear model ngu6i ‘person’ and a non-model partner hi&-lqi ‘be greedy’. The rest of the sentence has the ICs mot ham ra chq ‘[whoJ one day went out [intoj thi;- market-place’ plus the balance; both partners are nuclear mcldels, since either would replace the constitute in its context with the same relaticnship of parts. The first is analysed into n@t h6m and ra chq, of which the second is a nuclear model, but not the first. MQt hiim hys the KS mot ‘one’ and h6m ‘day’, but neither could replace the iarger phrase in its context: there is thus no nuclear mode’ in this @)As the analysis of the sentence progresses elements are sometimes glossed somewhat differently in order to give a clearer notion of their basic meanings aqd functioning in the context at hand.
22
LAURENCE
C. THOMPSON
case. Ra chq, on the other hand, contains the nuclear model ra ‘go out [to]‘, and a non-model partner chp ‘market-(place)‘. Further analysis of the sentence gives us gap n countered a market-day’ (nuclear model) and the rest of the (non-model). G@p ngay chq phi&n contains the nucl ‘encounter’ and the non-model ngay chp phi&, which KS ngAy ‘day’ and chq phi&n ‘fair’, both models. Finally, chq phi8n is analysable into chq ‘market-(place)’ and phi&r “a turn in orderly succession’, again both models. (Chp phi&r refers to the fair or cyclical market-day which takes place at regular intervals at a particular market.) Vira &3ng ,lgLp&i6% buon bdn vita l&m do hhng has three KS - t correlative vira . . . vifa ‘both . . . and’ (not a model), bong ngv&i d buon ban ‘teeming [crowds of] people arriving to do business’, and l&m di3 hang ‘many things and merchandise’ (both models). Furt ’ dong ngv&i is a nuclear model o f its cowsstitute, while its partner bu8n ban is not. The former contains dbng “be in crowds’ (not a model) and the model ngu&i ‘persDn(s)‘. D$n buon ban contains the modeis d$n ‘arrive’ and Luiin bin ‘do business’, of which b&n ‘buy [for reselling]’ and ban ‘sell’ are both models. Finally, l&m d6 hting consists of lhrn ‘much, many’ (not a model) and do hang (model), the latter containing do ‘thing’ and hiing ‘goods, merchandise’ (both models). In the preceding analysis it is observable that the model elements regularly have models of their own, while non-model elements sometimes do not. There is a further, less obvious difference between model and non-model elements: in addition to those non-model sequences which have no models of their own (e.g., mot horn), there arc those which have recognizable models, but a comparison with other contexts, where the same sequence of words with the same construction serves c”s nuclear model of a larger constitute, shows that the analysis is then different. For example, in the sentence analysed above ngay xlra “once upon a time’ is analysed into ngay ‘day’ plus xu*a ‘in former times’; the model here is clearly xva, which could occur in the larger context (Xva co ngtrbi hi&r-lqi. ‘In former times there was a greedy fellow.‘). However, there is a similar possible sentence: NgAy xva By co ngvbi hi&t-lqi. ‘In those days of old of which we have been speaking there was a greedy {ellow.’ Tn this sentence ng&y xtra %y has the model ngay xva, which, in turn, has the model ng&y, since ng&y 5.y ‘the day (or days) just mentioned’ is possible in the context, while *xva 8y does not occur at all. This demonstrates two interesting :+qgs: first, the analysis of non-
ENDCK'FNTRICITY
IN VIETNAMESE
SYNTAX
23
models rs not consistent and tells us iittie that is helpful about the syntactic st ruedure * set M, a model of a non-model (like ng&y is not itself just a single n, and the hierarchy continues on down just ence. Thus non-models ir occurrence elsewhere arc, of c~utse, exbxptions *- ~~~~tcn~~~l and phrases in which the dcl analysis cannot be ut such cases are few, rand the pre~nder~n~e ofexamples where this type of analysis is possible, s the conclusion that a syntactic pattern of major significance I:; ements of endocentric constructs which Bloomfield cai’ls fined for Vietnamese as nuclear models of largtr nuclear tences. Non-modei partners of heads are COMPLE~NTS. For convenient reference the full analysis of the sentence just studied is provided in the Appendix, with model, head and complement elements marked. Consideration of a large number of examples reveals that there are just three basic construction types in Vietnamese phrases: those having two or more heads, those having a single head with a preceding complement, and those having a single head with a following complement. In terms of the consistent semantic relationships involved among the parts, each may be assigned a convenient Gemantic label - those with preceding complement involve RESTRICTIVE constructions; those with following complement, DESCRIPTIVE constructions; and those in which there are two or more heads, co-ORDINATING constructions. Phrases with a cc-ordinatrng construction sometimes also contain a complement, like the viPa . . . vtia ‘both . . . and’ in tk sentence analysed above. With the use of certain auxiliary formal criteria, it is possible to establish several sub-types of these constructions. The formally defined constructjons, jn turn, may serve as part of the basis for the definition of word classes, removing the necessity for most arbitrary choices of entities to establish recurring environments. There are other interesting implications. First, there is the fact that this entire structure is basically ENDOCENTRIC, in Bloomfield’s terms; As we observed earlier, thi:, there are no exocentric constructions. *) Op.
cit.,
195.
24
LAURENCEC.THOMPSON
contrasts significantly with the syntactic structure of English, where the exocentric actor-action construction furnishes the prevalent means for sentence formation. Another valuable feature of this type of analysis is the clear-cut distinction it makes between heads and complements. Direct examination of the material, especially when approaching it from the expri English and other Indo-European languages, is apt to influence one in quite a different direction. We observed earlier that many Vietnamese sentences resemble English sentences with actor-action and actionphrases like the dog was sieephg, read a book. Nuclear model analysis, however, reveals such elements as con ch6 ay in Con ch6 Zayng& and s;ich in dot sach as complements of the heads ngli and dgc - the first a preceding or restrictive complement, the second a following or descriptive complement. Foilowing this notion and attempting the ana!ysis of !zrge numbers of Vietnamese sentences we soon find that this view of the predicative element as *the head of an endocentric construction leads to a very productive picture of the syntactic structure, A number of problems where complex different analyses would seem to be required are resolved. Consider, for example, the case of the verbal element c6, which is traditionally translated ‘to have’. We find sentences like the following: Cc>nhisu rtgvbi IAm ruong. ‘There are many (rice) farmers.‘ [“c6 be-many(-much) person(s) act rice-field”]. Vi&-nam c6 nhi& ngu9lvi lhrn ruang. ‘Viet Nam has many (rice) farmers.’ [“Viet-Nam ~6.. .“I. 6’ Vi&-nam c6 nhi& ngu+i l&m ruQng. ‘In Viet Nam there are many (rice) farmers.’ [“be-located Viet-Kam c6.. .“I. Viewing Vi&-nam as a subject, or kind of actor, in the secr;ind sentence (as might well seem logical), establishes a special meaning for the verbal element and suggests that the structures of the three sentences are somehow fundamentally different - in a way, incidentally, that can best be described in terms of English syntax. But the analysis to which we are led by the formal determination of heads and complements clearly establishes the three sentences as basically the same: the last two are simply expansions of the first, each having a preceding complement. It is the shape (and internal structure) of this preceding complement which is different in the two cases. And the meaning of c6 in all these cases is somethirrg like ‘be in existence’.
ENDOCENTKICITY
y 1
IN
VIETNAMIESE
SYNTAX
25
can recognize that the following three sentences in common, while their counterparts in English diverse elements :
we
fish.’ [“gentlernan just-referred-to
eat
to Hanoi.’ [“. . . go Hanoi”). hort arms.’ I‘“.,. be-short arm”]. 1 elements (tin ‘eat’, di ‘go’, nghn ‘be short’) aflbplement - in the first case c;i ‘fish’, tc y ‘arm*. They add descriptive detail short’ stated by the respective heads. uctisns better helps a good deal with the nt on the fact that the Vietnamese verb is not basically either active or passive in reference. in most cases the context makes the -CA-,I,,, z3.A :, L&W_% ,C,.-AA-r_-d:-, AL_ I?__-,rl-- 01 -CAL_ ___-*r_. ISICCXJlL~ VIF&aI. RlIL III CCEIIIJ 01 UI1UCtSZdflUlIl~ WC ll.I~LllWKl lilt: Sj’KlldJ’L this lack of cleslrly marked actors and goals fits very well with verbs that formalize no distinctions of voice. Following are several sequences exemplifying this phenomenon, the first few in contrastive pairs. LAm vi@ nky r8i. ‘[Someone has] already done this job.’ [“act job this already”]. Vi&z n&y lam r6i. ‘This job has already been done.’ [“job this act already”]. &lg $y cat nh8 6) g$n tru+ng hoc. ‘He’ uilding a house near the school.’ [“gentleman just-referred-to bui ouse be-located be-near school to-study”]. Hai c&i ah& kia cat g%n nhau cung tren mot m&g d&t. ‘Tirose two houses are built close together on the same lot.’ [“two object house(s) over-there build be-near reciprocally accompany top one piece land”]. Hai th&ng tr@m v@ ra b& ruQng 14 khieng chum vang v8 nhh dinh mb ra chia nhau. Nhung v5ng chh th?iy &u chi th3y toan lb rb d&. The two thieves hastened out to tht edge of the (rice) field and together carried the pot of gold back home, determined to open [it] up and divide [the gold] between them. But gold [they] saw now5ere - [they] only saw that [it] was entirely [full of] poisonous snakes.’ [“two male-inferior steal hasten go-out edge rice-field and carry-severalWpeopleWco-operating pot gold return house dthtermine open (go-)out divide reciprocally. But gold not-at-all perceive
26
LAURENCE
C. THOMPSON
wherever only perceive nothing-but identificational-marker . be-poisonous”].
serpent(s)
It is true that it is possible to distinguish on the basis of relative position several categories of the preposed complements that we are at first tempted to call subjects. Some of these correspond logically to En elements of the subject or actor type; others are more like expl23ftons denoting place, time or manner, and in a variety of sentences crjntainin more than one such complement, a basic order can be discerned. For example :
~
Nhur tht hiim qua tai chp tai mua nhi$u 66. ‘So it was that yesterday at market I bought a lot of things.’ [nhu the ‘thus’ (manner), ham qua ‘yesterday’ (time), tai cho. ‘at market’ (place), toi ‘1’ (topic)].
For a moment it may appear that we are returned to the position of identifying toi ‘1’ in this sentence as an actor or subject. But study of ;I large number of sentences shows that nothing sets apart subject-like elements from those specifying manner, time and place any more dktinctly than the latter are set off from one another. In other words, they are all preceding complements with reference to the predicate head. It is interesting in this connection to note that when word classes are worked out based on formal criteria making use of these constructions, a class emerges which is directly related to the position just discussed that of preceding complements to predicates. While elements identified as substantival and verbal appear as single-word restrictive complements !3 predicates, there are other words that occupy this position which do not belong to either substantival or verbal classes. Among them we axe not surprised to find words such as xua ‘in former times’, sao ‘however’ and day ‘here’. What is interesting is that toi *I’, no ‘he, she, it’ (abrupt form), and chung ‘group of animate beings’ also belong here: they obviously pattern quite differently from substantives, and similarly to the words just mentioned, although we might well expect them to be like substantivesP) The notion of similarity and interdependence of these restrictive complements to predicates is reinforced by two phenomena observarble 9 These (logically dubbed PRONOUNS) should be clearly distinguished from other elements which, again because of “translation grammar”, we have been assigning pronominal status: there is a host of words like 6ng ‘grandfat!zr; gentleman’, b& ‘grandmother; lady’, which are used much as is the expression Her Ladyship in FYhen ~42 Her Ladyship take tea? to convey courtesy in addressing persons or speaking of
ENDOCENTRlClTY
IN
VIETNAME!EE
SYNTAX
27
in complex sequences: the use of particularizing complements and the habit of placing emphatic topics tirst. The following sentence exemplifies bth:
14 ctk cd Vi@-nam mai ltic nBo cling db mt’tkh6ng c$n dirng
s&p m8i, chf nhai mot mi u lir cU m8i db c& ng8y. ‘Vietnamese rls [have] lips [which are] always red without needing 9 [they) just chew a portion of betel, which is enough [so tilat their] lips ark red all day long.’ [“plural lady and plural iet-Nam lip(s) occasion whichever likewise be-red particle not need to-use wax lip(s), only chew one tel identification&marker su ce lip(s) be-red all-of day”]. The complement chic bir vl‘\ C&Zc6 Vi&nam ‘Vietrzcrnese women and girls” (with generalized reference) is follows by a more specific cornpIement m6i ‘lips’. These are also empbdtic topics, preceding a complement denoting time - 16~ nho ‘whenever’, which, with the following particle cQng ‘likewise’ gives the notion ‘always’. Turning to examples of following complements we find again that our structural definition groups as descriptive complements, samples of what translation grammar would cause us to classify in several quite different categories. Thus we see apparent goals or objects treated structurally in the same way as. postpositive modifiers (adverbial elements) and various sequences usually translated by prcptAtional phrases. di S&g45n ‘go to Saigon’ [“go Saigon”]. an ci ‘eat fish’. ;in cao&i ‘eat at a restaurant’ [“eat restaurant”]. h& ba cAu ‘ask t ree questions’ [“to-question t!iree sentences”]. n6i ba Ian ‘say [something] three times’. I&m @? ‘doing what?’ [“act whatever?“]. l&m linh *be a soldier’ [&&act soldier’*]. .ng&n t&y ‘short of arm’ [“be-short arm”]. B&n gi? ‘What [are you] sad about?’ [“be-sad whatever?“]. xa nh8 ‘far from home’ [“be-far house”]. vui tai ‘pleasing to the ears’ [“be-pleasing ear(s)“]. vG tinh ‘pleasant by nature’ [“be-pleasing disposition”]. N6 gi&u cba nhlvng ngh&o con. ‘He’s rich in possessions, but poor in children.’ [“he be-rich belonging(s) but be-poor offspring”]. them, and in fact are sometimes used to reit;; *o the speaker himself. Such words are grammatically substantives, not members of the special class discussed here.
28
LAURENCEC.THOMPSON
This fact, incidentally, removes the quandary one faces when it is unclear (in translation grammar) whether an element is an object or a modifier: from the point of view of the structure of Vietnamese the diffe immaterial. Consider, for example : gn nhi&t ‘eat a great deal’ [“eat be-much(-many)“]. xin l&i *beg pardo ’ (“beg [from point of view of] error”‘). It also allows us to deal more realistically with cases where traditional grammar recognizes preceding modifiers with special idiomatic meanin From this point of view, what translation grammar identifies as head is actually a following complement. tay mat ‘a cool hand’ [“hand be-cool”] : m8t tay ‘be s’kilful’(“cool [of] hand”). rang trang ‘white teeth’ [“tooth{-teeth) be-white”]: t&g rtig ‘be still young’ (“white [of] tooth”). ngv&i l&n ‘adult, grown-up’ [“person be-big”]: l&n ngu&I ‘(be) a tall person’ (note that in this case the item which would be designated as involving idiomatic meaning - l&n ngw&i - actually seems more concrete, closer to the basic meanings of the individual elements). There are also cases where from the point of view of translation it might appear that a “subject”’ follows its predicate. These arc now similarly revealed as following complements. Ngvbi ch8ng th$t 19d&r-d&luc v&g VQ thf.h& s&c lay l&iiin-t.6na& v&Gme, liic vfing me thi nghiem-nghi khuyen-can VQ. ‘The husband was really worried; when [his] wife was out he put a lot of effort into talking calmly with [his] mother; when [his] mother was out he was stern in warning [his] wife.’ [“person husband be-real identificationalmarker be-worried, occasion be-absent wife then be-used-up force take speech be-calm speak with mother, occasion be-absent mother then be-stem warn wife”] (This involves the illusive meaning of the word i;&ng‘[place is] deserted, empty, [people are] absent’ : in each case the following element is descriptive complement to it. The phrases vbng VQ and vang me are then each descriptive complements to ltic ‘occasion, time when’.) As one examines more and more sentences in the language one is struck by the recurrence of the basis construction types that have been identified here, and there seem to be no examples which suggest different patterns.
ENDOCENTRfCfTY
IN VIETNAMESE
SYNIAX
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The few sequences which arc not rigorously haudied in these terms invoke vocabulary items whose restricted distribution makes them uences containing it’s; sts parallels in terms of which their t sentences which do not accomare seen from the point of view of ents -_they turn up as non-model ulation of Vietnamese elements and descripite independent of the also brings into sharp of western European syntaxes. Certainly the view of a language where endocentricity is the i-utc seems quite alien to the famiiiar exocentric sentences of English or French, and the realization that phrases typically contain smaller and smaller repiicas of themselves further accentuates the exotic impression. In addition, the method of nuclear model analysis may well furnish a valuable tool in exploring the syntactic structures of languages other than Vietnamese, and may lead to a new and valuable typological category for comparing and contra&g otherwise quite disparate structures. University of Washington
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11) Fo, exampc, the word tuii ‘year(s) old’ is definable as a substantive, but it is far more spe&lized than most substantives gf its type by virtue of the relatively few ’ 4 for. Model analysis of phrases involving this word circumstances in which it is caL thus break down at a certain point bec~se of its narrow distribution.
LAURENCEC.TMOMPSON
APPENDIX Ng9y x\pa c6 ngu+i hi&-Ipi, mot ham ra chry, g@png&y chq phi&n tia BBng ngur&i $8311 b&n b&n v&a l&m d6 h8ng. “Once upon a time there was a greedy fellow [who] one day went out [into] the market-place on the day of a fair [when there were] both a great many people [who] had come to do business and a great deal of merchandise.’ MODEL HEAD COMPLEMENT
ng&yxwa c6 ngutbi hi&-lpi / ng8y ‘day’ I'@IyXU'a \.xt~a ‘in former times’ (MODEL)
MODEL HEAD MODEL HEAD
ngv&i hi&-lqi
COMPLEMENT
/ ngu%Yi ‘person’ (MODEL) \_ hi$u-!qi‘& greedy'
mot hiim ra chq, g&p ngicy chp phi& vira dbng ngvbi den buiin b&nvifa l&m66 h&ng MODEL mot h6m ra chq, 9 mot ‘one’ COMPLEMENT mot ham,< \ hiim ‘day’
COMPLEMENT
ra chp
MODEL HEAD
I-a‘go out
MODEL HEAD
[to]
chq, ‘market-(place)’ g&p ng&y c.tlq phi& vtia Bang nglriri dSn buiin b8n viFa l&md6 hang gap ng&ychq phi&
COMPLEIMENT MODEL MODEL HEAD
MODEL HEAD
&@P‘enCOUnter'
COMPLEMENT
ngAy chp phi&n,
J* nghy
‘day’ (MODEL) \chq phi& (MODEL) cha ‘market-(place)’ (MODEL HEAD)
phi& ‘successive turn’ (MODEL HEAD) COMPLEMENT
vtia d6ng ngvbi d$n buiin b&nvba ldm 86 hang
MODEL MODEL HEAD
vtia . . . vtia ‘both . . . and’ d6ng ngu+i den bu6n b&n d&g ‘be in crowds’ (COMPLEMENT) dangngvbi \ ngvbi ‘person(s)’ (MODEL HEAD)
ENDOCENTRICITY
COMPLEMENT
IN VIETNAMESE
den b&n bin’
SYNTAX
44% ‘arrive’ (MODEL) \ bu&n bkn (MODEL) bu8n ‘buy [for resak]’ (MODEL HEAD)
b&n ‘sell’ (MODEL HEAD) blODEL CoMptEMENT MODEL HEAD
Idm ‘many, pto~w~’ /*d6 ‘k\ng, item’ (MObCl HEAD) d6 hAng, B hhrrg ‘merchandise’ (MODEL HEAD)
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