Vietnamese morphology

Last updated

Vietnamese, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (and isolating) language.

Contents

Vietnamese lacks morphological markings of case, gender, number, and tense (and, as a result, has no finite/nonfinite distinction) and distinguishes them via classifier words instead. [1]

Overview

Vietnamese is often considered to be monosyllabic as its morphemes are considered to be monosyllabic e.g. "tim" meaning "heart". However, some Vietnamese words may consist of one or more syllables, composed of monosyllabic morphemes that form together to create another word. An instance of a compound word "mạnh mẽ" is derived from morphemes mạnh meaning "strong", mẽ meaning "dramatic", fused to create the word mạnh mẽ to mean "powerful".

There is a general tendency for words to have one or two syllables. Words with two syllables are often of Sino-Vietnamese origin. A few words are three or four syllables. A few polysyllabic words are formed from reduplicative derivation.

Additionally, a Vietnamese word may consist of a single morpheme or more than one morpheme. Polymorphemic words are either compound words or words consisting of stems plus affixes or reduplicants. [2]

Most Vietnamese morphemes consist of only one syllable. [3] Polysyllabic morphemes tend to be borrowings from other languages. Examples follow:

Vietnamese wordEnglish glossPhonological formMorphological form
cơm"cooked rice"monosyllabicmonomorphemic
cù lao [4] "island"disyllabicmonomorphemic
dưa chuột/dưa leo [5] "cucumber"disyllabicbimorphemic
vội vội vàng vàng [6] "hurry-scurry"polysyllabicpolymorphemic (reduplicative)

Most words are created by either compounding or reduplicative derivation. Affixation is a relatively minor derivational process.

Older styles of Vietnamese writing wrote polysyllabic words with hyphens separating the syllables, as in cào-cào "grasshopper", sinh-vật-học "biology", or cà-phê "coffee". Spelling reform proposals have suggested writing these words without spaces (for example, the above would be càocào, sinhvậthọc, càphê). [7] However, the prevailing practice is to omit hyphens and write all words with a space between each syllable.

Word-formation

Reduplication

Reduplication, [8] the process of creating a new word by repeating either a whole word or part of a word, is very productive in Vietnamese (as in other Austro-Asiatic languages), although not all reduplicative patterns remain fully productive.

Function and semantics

Its effect is to sometimes either increase or decrease the intensity of the adjective and is often used as a literary device (like alliteration) in poetry and other compositions, as well as in everyday speech.

Examples of reduplication increasing intensity:

  • đau → đau điếng: hurt → hurt horribly
  • mạnh → mạnh mẽ: strong → very strong
  • rực → rực rỡ: flaring → blazing

Examples of reduplication decreasing intensity:

  • nhẹ → nhè nhẹ: soft → soft (less)
  • xinh → xinh xinh: pretty → cute
  • đỏ → đo đỏ: red → reddish
  • xanh → xanh xanh: blue/green → bluish/greenish

Form

A type of assimilation known as tonal harmony is involved in Vietnamese reduplication. [9] The six tones are categorized into two registers: [10]

RegisterTones
Upperngang, sắc, and hỏi
Lowerhuyền, nặng, and ngã

The tones of all reduplicated words are always within the same tonal register (either upper or lower). For example, nhỏ "small" with the hỏi tone when reduplicated appears as nho nhỏ "smallish" with a ngang-toned reduplicant — both syllables are in the upper tonal register.

Vietnamese has several different types of reduplicative patterns including total, partial, initial, final, rhyming, and alliterative patterns involving only reduplicated material or both reduplicated material and affixation.

Reduplicant position. The resulting reduplicants can be either initial (preceding the base) or final (following the base).

Initial reduplication:
  • bự "big" > bừ bự "quite big" (less) (base: bự, initial reduplicant: bừ-)
  • khắm "fetid" > khăm khắm "smelly" (base: khắm, initial reduplicant/affix: khăm-)
Final reduplication:
  • mập "be fat" > mập mạp "be chubby" (base: mập, final reduplicant/affix: -mạp)
  • khóc "to weep" > khóc lóc "to whimper" (base: khóc, final reduplicant/affix: -lóc)

Total reduplication involves copying the entire word base:

  • vàng " yellow" > vàng vàng "yellowish"
  • vui "be joyful" > vui vui "jovial, fun"
  • nói "to talk" > nói nói "to keep talking and talking"
  • nghiêng "inclined" > nghiêng nghiêng "slightly slanted"

Partial reduplication involves copying only certain segments [11] of the word base. Partial reduplication typically involves the affixation of non-reduplicated segments. [12]

Affixation

Vietnamese has very limited affixation. Only prefixation and suffixation are attested. [13] A few affixes are used along with reduplication. Many affixes are derived from Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and are learned part of the lexicon. Some examples (not an exhaustive list) follow.

Prefixes
PrefixGlossExamples
bán-"half"bán nguyệt "semicircular, semi-monthly" (bán- + -nguyệt "moon"),
bán đảo "peninsula" (bán- + đảo "island")
khả-"ability"khả kính "respectable" (khả- + kính "to respect"),
khả quan "satisfactory" (khả- + quan "to behold")
lão-familiar (added to surnames)lão Thinh "ol’ Thinh, good old Thinh" (lão- + Thinh surname)
phản-"counter to, against"phản cách mạng "counter-revolutionary" (phản- + cách mạng "revolution"),
phản chiến "anti-war" (phản- + -chiến "to fight")
phi-"not"phi nghĩa "unethical" (phi- + nghĩa "righteousness"),
phi chính phủ "non-governmental" (phi- + chính phủ "government")
siêu-"above, better"siêu thị "supermarket" (siêu- + thị "market"),
siêu đẳng "outstanding" (siêu- + đẳng "level")
tăng-"over, high"tăng a xit "hyperacidity" (tăng- + a xit "acid"),
tăng can xi "hypercalcaemia" (tăng- + can xi "calcium")
thứ-ordinal (added to numerals)thứ mười "tenth" (thứ- + mười "ten"),
thứ bốn mươi ba "forty-third" (thứ- + bốn mươi ba "forty-three")
Suffixes
SuffixGlossExamples
-gia"profession"chính trị gia "politician" (chính trị "politics" + -gia),
khoa học gia "scientist" (khoa học "science" + -gia)
-giả agentive tác giả "author" (tác "to create" + -giả),
học giả "scholar" (học "to learn" + -giả)
-hóaforms causative verba xít hóa "to acidify" (a xit "acid" + -hóa),
mỹ hóa "to americanize" (Mỹ "USA" + -hóa)
-học"field of study"ngôn ngữ học "linguistics" (ngôn ngữ "language" + -học),
động vật học "zoology" (động vật "animal" + -học)
-kế"measuring device"nhiệt kế "thermometer" (nhiệt- "warm" + -kế),
áp kế "manometer" (áp "get close, approach" + -kế)
-khoa"field of study"nha khoa "dentistry" (nha- "tooth" + -khoa),
dược khoa "pharmacy" (dược- "drug" + -khoa)
-sĩ"expert"hoạ sĩ "artist" (hoạ "to draw" + -sĩ),
văn sĩ "writer" (văn "literature" + -sĩ)
-sư"master"giáo sư "professor" (giáo "to teach" + -sư),
luật sư "lawyer" (luật "law" + -sư)
-viênagentivequan sát viên "observer" (quan sát "to observe" + -viên),
phối trí viên "coordinator" (phối trí "to coordinate" + -viên)

Ablaut

Vietnamese has the following tonal alternations (or tonal ablaut) which are used grammatically:

 tone alternation
đây "here"đấy "there"(ngang tone > sắc tone)
bây giờ "now"bấy giờ "then"(ngang tone > sắc tone)
kia "the other"kìa "yonder"(ngang tone > huyền tone)
(Nguyễn 1997:42-44)

Vietnamese also has other instances of alternations, such as consonant mutations and vowel ablaut. Different regional varieties of Vietnamese may have different types of alternations.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Comparison note: As such its grammar relies on word order and sentence structure rather than morphology (in which word changes through inflection). Whereas European languages tend to use morphology to express tense, Vietnamese uses grammatical particles or syntactic constructions.
  2. ↑ The reduplicant is the reduplicated part that is copied from the base. Reduplicants are similar in form to affixes.
  3. ↑ An exception to this may be demonstratives like đây "here", nầy "this", đấy "there", nấy "that", etc., which may be analyzed as consisting of the following sub-syllabic morphemes: đ- "nominal deictic", n- "noun modifier deictic", -ây~-ầy "proximal", -ấy "medial", etc. (See the demonstrative section in the syntax article.)
  4. ↑ Borrowed from Malay pulau.
  5. ↑ A compound of dưa "melon" + chuột "mouse".
  6. ↑ From vội vàng "hurriedly", which is from vội "be in a hurry".
  7. ↑ Mair, Victor (October 2, 2012). "Vietnamese polysyllabism". Language Log . Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  8. ↑ Called từ láy in Vietnamese.
  9. ↑ Tonal harmony should not be confused with the more common phenomenon of tone sandhi which is not present in Vietnamese.
  10. ↑ The term register is used in the Vietnamese linguistic literature; however, it should not be confused with the term register as used in the general phonological literature to refer to a contrastive complex of tone and voice quality.
  11. ↑ The term segment refers to either a consonant or a vowel.
  12. ↑ Martin Haspelmath has used the term duplifix to refer to this type of morpheme, Thompson (1965) uses the term chameleon affix.
  13. ↑ One Vietnamese linguist has considered an inserted vowel element in certain "dramatic" reduplications of disyllabic words to be an infix. These have the following form, where xxx represents sounds in the first syllable, yyy represents sounds in the second syllable, and a (or à or ơ) is the inserted vowel):
    xxx.yyy > xxx-y-a-yy-xxx.yyy.
    Examples:
    • lúng túng "at a loss" > lúng ta lúng túng,
    • hổn hển "panting" > hổn ha hổn hển,
    • lụng thụng "too roomy (clothes)" > lụng thà lụng thụng.

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vietnamese language</span> Austroasiatic spoken language

Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the national and official language. Vietnamese is spoken natively by around 85 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined. It is the native language of the Vietnamese (Kinh) people, as well as a second or first language for other ethnic groups in Vietnam, and still used by Vietnamese diaspora in the world.

Tone sandhi is a phonological change that occurs in tonal languages. It involves changes to the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes, based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes. This change typically simplifies a bidirectional tone into a one-directional tone. Tone sandhi is a type of sandhi, which refers to fusional changes, and is derived from the Sanskrit word for "joining."

The phonology of Vietnamese features 19 consonant phonemes, with 5 additional consonant phonemes used in Vietnamese's Southern dialect, and 4 exclusive to the Northern dialect. Vietnamese also has 14 vowel nuclei, and 6 tones that are integral to the interpretation of the language. Older interpretations of Vietnamese tones differentiated between "sharp" and "heavy" entering and departing tones. This article is a technical description of the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including phonetics and phonology. Two main varieties of Vietnamese, Hanoi and Saigon, which are slightly different to each other, are described below.

Goemai is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in the Great Muri Plains region of Plateau State in central Nigeria, between the Jos Plateau and Benue River. Goemai is also the name of the ethnic group of speakers of the Goemai language. The name 'Ankwe' has been used to refer to the people, especially in older literature and to outsiders. As of 2020, it is estimated that there are around 380,000 Goemai speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tonkawa language</span> Native American language

The Tonkawa language was spoken in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico by the Tonkawa people. A language isolate, with no known related languages, Tonkawa has not had L1 speakers since the mid 20th centiury. Most Tonkawa people now only speak English, but revitalization is underway.

In linguistics, apophony is an alternation of vowel (quality) within a word that indicates grammatical information.

Uspantek is a Mayan language of Guatemala, closely related to Kʼicheʼ. It is spoken in the Uspantán and Playa Grande Ixcán municipios, in the Department El Quiché. It is also one of only three Mayan languages to have developed contrastive tone. It distinguishes between vowels with high tone and vowels with low tone.

Taos is a Tanoan language spoken by several hundred people in New Mexico, in the United States. The main description of its phonology was contributed by George L. Trager in a (pre-generative) structuralist framework. Earlier considerations of the phonetics-phonology were by John P. Harrington and Jaime de Angulo. Trager's first account was in Trager (1946) based on fieldwork 1935-1937, which was then substantially revised in Trager (1948). The description below takes Trager (1946) as the main point of departure and notes where this differs from the analysis of Trager (1948). Harrington's description is more similar to Trager (1946). Certain comments from a generative perspective are noted in a comparative work Hale (1967).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paris by Night 78</span> Episode of Paris by Night

Paris By Night 78: Đường Xưa is a Paris By Night program produced by Thúy Nga that was filmed at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre Studio #40 in Toronto, Canada on June 11, 2005. The MC's were Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn and Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Duyên. Seats are limited to a studio audience and is considered a private event.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Đăng đàn cung</span> Anthem of the Nguyễn dynasty

Đăng đàn cung was the royal anthem of the Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnam.

Vietnamese poetry originated in the form of folk poetry and proverbs. Vietnamese poetic structures include Lục bát, Song thất lục bát, and various styles shared with Classical Chinese poetry forms, such as are found in Tang poetry; examples include verse forms with "seven syllables each line for eight lines," "seven syllables each line for four lines", and "five syllables each line for eight lines." More recently there have been new poetry and free poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paris by Night 98</span> Episode of Paris by Night

Paris by Night 98: Fly With Us to Las Vegas is a Paris by Night program produced by Thúy Nga that was filmed at the Theatre for the Performing Arts in Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on September 18 and 19, 2009 and had a DVD release on December 10, 2009. The show was hosted by Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn and Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Duyên.

Tommo So is a language spoken in the eastern part of Mali's Mopti Region. It is placed under the Dogon language family, a subfamily of the Niger-Congo language family.

Mungbam is a Southern Bantoid language of the Lower Fungom region of Cameroon. It is traditionally classified as a Western Beboid language, but the language family is disputed. Good et al. uses a more accurate name, the 'Yemne-Kimbi group,' but proposes the term 'Beboid.'

The A-Hmao language, also known as Large Flowery Miao or Northeast Yunnan Miao, is a Hmongic language spoken in China. It is the language the Pollard script was designed for, and displays extensive tone sandhi. There is a high degree of literacy in Pollard among the older generation.

Tiwa (Lalung) is a Tibeto-Burman (Sino-Tibetan) language spoken by the Tiwa people in Assam and Meghalaya in North East India. Tiwa language is similar to Boro, Dimasa, Kokborok and Garo language of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area</span> Geolinguistic region sharing areal features such as tonality

The Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area is a sprachbund including languages of the Sino-Tibetan, Hmong–Mien, Kra–Dai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic families spoken in an area stretching from Thailand to China. Neighbouring languages across these families, though presumed unrelated, often have similar typological features, which are believed to have spread by diffusion. James Matisoff referred to this area as the "Sinosphere", contrasted with the "Indosphere", but viewed it as a zone of mutual influence in the ancient period.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.