cho in vietnamese and its english...

“cho” and Give-Type Predicates in Vietnamese – Preliminary Findings (“cho” và nhóm vị từ trao/tặng trong tiếng Việt - những phát hiện ban đầu), Hội thảo Quốc tế Nghiên cứu và Giảng dạy tiếng Việt lần thứ nhất, 2011, tr. 186 - 198

CHO IN VIETNAMESE AND ITS ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS - A CONTRASTIVE ACCOUNT

Lam Quang DongVietnam National University, Hanoi

ABSTRACT

Cho is a very interesting word in Vietnamese thanks to its semantic diversity and polyfunctionality as a result of its flexibity to move across categories and its rich potentials for semantic expansion, which has created significant difficulties to language users, as has been reflected in numerous errors among our Vietnamese learners of English when they try to convey ideas using sentences with cho in English. This paper puts cho into contrastive consideration with its translations in English so that its meanings and uses can be further clarified to both Vietnamese and English language users in an attempt to help them avoid possible mistakes.

For that purpose, the paper deals with cho’s meanings and functions from cho as a verb to cho as a preposition or additional particle, analyses possible thematic roles marked by cho, and discusses various translations of cho in English in turn. The paper concludes with summative remarks, some recommendations for language teaching and our further research inclination.

Key words: cho, give-type predicates, semantic layers, thematic roles

TÓM TẮT

Cho là một từ rất thú vị trong tiếng Việt nhờ tính đa dạng ngữ nghĩa và đa chức năng của mình, kết quả của sự linh hoạt chuyển đổi giữa các phạm trù và tiềm năng mở rộng nghĩa phong phú của từ này; điều đó đã gây ra không ít khó khăn cho người sử dụng ngôn ngữ, như đã thấy qua nhiều sai lỗi của người Việt học tiếng Anh khi họ cố gắng diễn đạt câu có chứa cho bằng tiếng Anh. Bài viết này khảo sát cho đối chiếu với cách dịch trong tiếng Anh để có thể làm sáng tỏ hơn ý nghĩa và cách sử dụng cho cho cả người sử dụng tiếng Việt và tiếng Anh nhằm giúp họ tránh được sai lỗi có thể mắc phải.

Vì lẽ đó, bài viết miêu tả nghĩa và chức năng của cho từ tư cách động từ tới tư cách giới từ hoặc tác tử phụ, phân tích các vai nghĩa mà cho có thể đánh dấu và thảo luận lần lượt nhiều cách dịch khác nhau của cho trong tiếng Anh. Bài viết kết thúc với những nhận xét tóm tắt, gợi ý đối với việc giảng dạy ngôn ngữ cũng như hướng nghiên cứu tiếp theo của chúng tôi.

Từ khoá: cho, vị từ trao/tặng, lớp nghĩa, vai nghĩa

1


Introduction

Cho is rightfully regarded as a special word in the Vietnamese language thanks to its high frequency of appearance – the ultimate result of its semantic diversity and polyfunctionality as it can move across categories and has rich potentials for semantic expansion. As a three-place or trivalent predicate, it primarily is equivalent to give in English both semantically and syntactically, but difficulties arise when it comes to the questions where to position the two objects and which preposition to choose between to and for if one has to put it in English. When cho appears right after another verb, is the whole cluster a single predicate with two syllables, or a full verb and a preposition? How to treat such a cluster when cho precedes the other word, e.g. cho xem, cho biết? As a preposition, when must cho be present and when can it be omitted? What can serve as its substitutes when it occurs with other predicates? What are the thematic roles that cho marks? How are all these translated into English? These are common questions which cause recurrent errors to Vietnamese and English language users as we have found among numerous students we have taught and those we have talked with.

Several internationally renown authors have made indepth studies of Give-type predicates, and a number of Vietnamese linguists have dealt with cho in parts of their works, but only a few have made serious efforts to study this word in a comprehensive manner, and there remain a lot of issues to be investigated. Based on their works, existing literature and our own previous and on-going studies, in this paper, we would like to give an account of cho and its English translations in a contrastive perspective in order to help clarify some, if not all, of the questions posed above to help Vietnamese and English language users avoid possible mistakes.

For that purpose, the paper deals with cho’s meanings and functions from cho as a verb to cho as a preposition or additional particle, analyses possible thematic roles marked by cho, and discusses various translations of cho in English in turn. The paper concludes with summative remarks, some recommendations for language teaching and our further research inclination.

The corpus examined in this paper is taken from various sources and genres, including literary works, songs, on-line newspaper articles as well as everyday colloquial speech with a view to thoroughly considering cho’s diversity of uses and its English translations. It should be noted that the English translations given below each Vietnamese sentence are merely one suggested version to indicate

2


what it may mean in English while we are fully aware that there are other alternatives as well.

1. Cho as a verb

1.1 Cho as a Give-type verb

Primarily, cho in Vietnamese means give, and it bears syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features similar to those of other Give-type predicates across languages as seen in Newman’s work (1996) and many others.

e.g. 1. Lý Kiến thỉnh thoảng vẫn phải cho hắn tiền. (NC1) Ly Kien sometimes had to give him money.2. Lý Cường cho hắn năm sào rưỡi. (NC)

Ly Cuong gave him five and a half sao2.3. Cây cho trái và cho hoa. (S13)

Plants give fruits and flowers.

The three core participants in the giving event are the giver (x), the recipient (y) and the thing given (z), with the indefinite or generic recipient sometimes left implicit, as in (3) above. Possible thematic roles of these three core participants x, y and z respectively may include the following (Lam Quang Dong, 2008):

4. Agent Recipient/Beneficiary ThemeThầy vẫn cho mỗi đứa vài xu. (NC)

Father often gave each child some coins.5. Author Recipient Theme

Bà đã cho con một sự giáo dục tuyệt vời. (Seliverstova, 2004)She gave her children an excellent education.(She did not directly teach the children, but only provided them with access to education, for instance).

6. Source Experiencer (Theme implicit)Dịu dàng mùa thu Hà NộiCho bao thi sĩ làm thơ. (Quang Thu)

(lit.4) The grace of Hanoi Autumn gives so many poets (poetic inspiration) to make poems.

7. Location Experiencer Theme1 NC: Nam Cao2 sao: a Nothern Vietnamese measurement, equi. 360m2

3 S: song4 lit.: literal translation.

3


Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh cho tôi niềm kiêu hãnh. (S15)Ho Chi Minh City gives me pride

8. Agent Patient ComplementCứ như mọi hôm thì hắn đã cho thị cái tát. (NC)

Had it been another day as usual, he would have given her a slap.

9. Instrument Recipient ThemeĐàn anh đã cho tôi trời xanh như ước mơ tuổi thơ. (S12)

His guitar gave me the blue sky like that in my childhood dream.

Note in passing that these roles are inherent in each of the core participants, which may assume several, if not all, of these thematic roles simultaneously, and these roles are distributed across the four basic layers in the representational semantic structure of sentences with Give-type predicates, namely the Control-Possession Layer (x cause y to have z), Spatio-Dynamic Layer (x cause z to go to y), Human Interest Layer (x cause y to benefit from having z or x cause y to suffer from z), and Power Layer (how x relates to y and z in terms of age, position, status, attitude, etc.) (Lam Quang Dong, 2008).

When cho functions as a full Give-type verb, the giver must be either older, higher in position and social status than the recipient, or at least his/her equal. If this is not the case, the speaker must identify with the recipient and wants to show more respect to the giver or shorten the social distance between them by ‘lowering’ his/her own status.

Syntactically, the Recipient y tends to precede the Theme z more than the other way round. The research by Nguyen Thi Thu Hao (2001) on word order in Vietnamese three-place predicates reveals that the occurrences of Recipient-Theme order almost double that of the Theme-Recipient one (65% and 35% respectively). Although our statistics of these two orders does not reveal the same ratio, the Recipient-Theme order is found to considerably outnumber the Theme-Recipient one. Also syntactically, the longer noun phrase tends to follow the shorter, and in fact, the Recipient NP is normally the shorter one, which is frequently replaced by pronouns (or words of interpersonal communication in Vietnamese, like anh, chú, bác (elder brother, uncle)) (Pinker, 1993; Wechsler, 1995; Radford, 1997; Lam Quang Dong, 2008).

Cho as a causative verb (Let, Allow, Enable, Permit, Make, Cause)

4


The causative meaning of cho can be expressed in the function

CAUSE [ x do something with the intention that y have z]

as it appears in the following structures:cho + verb or cho + NP + verb

or is put after with other causative verbs like khiến cho, làm cho. In this sense, the whole cluster cho + verb or cho + NP + verb can be equivalent to numerous verbs in English, as these examples show:

10. Chính Quyền cho chúng tôi xem [bức thư]. (NC)Quyen himself showed us (let us see) [the letter].

11. Ông giáo cứ cho tôi gửi! (NC)Just allow me to leave it here, teacher!

12. Cho bu mượn cái đĩa đi, con! (NC) (lit. let me borrow the disk, daughter)

Pass/Fetch me the disk, please!13. Cho chết/ cho mày chết! (video.tamtay.vn)

[You] go to hell! / It serves you right! (lit. let die / let you die)14. A: Chú cho tôi xin chén nước! (CS5)

Please pour/give/ get me a cup of tea! (lit. let me have)15. Làn môi thắm và đôi mắt huyền cho đêm nay tôi càng cháy lòng (S4)

(lit.) Her red lips and black eyes make my heart more burning tonight.

16. Bạn tôi cho hay sau ngày xong chiến đấu sẽ đi nông trường sớm hôm trên đồng lái máy cày. (S9)

(lit.) My friend causes (me) to know that later, when he finishes fighting, he will go to a farm to drive a tractor on the field from dawn to dusk.

17. Chúng không cho các nhà tư sản ta ngóc đầu lên. (HCM6)They didn’t allow our bourgeoisies to rise.

18. Theo đó, Việt Nam cam kết mở cửa thị trường trên nhiều lĩnh vực quan trọng như cho phép thành lập chi nhánh bảo hiểm (tim.vietbao.vn)

Accordingly, Vietnam is committed to open the market in various important areas such as granting permission to establish insurance affiliates.

19. Mẹ Việt Nam ơi, cho con hôn đôi mắt mỏi mòn! (S13)Oh Mother Vietnam, let me kiss your sorrowful eyes!

5 CS: colloquial speech6 HCM: Hồ Chí Minh

5


20. Đạo làm thầy: Những vết đen không thể tặc lưỡi cho qua! (www.tuanvietnam.net)Teachers’ ethics: The stains that can’t be let go/ pass!

The adjacency of both cho and another verb like these records very high frequency, and many of them look very much like fixed expressions, e.g. cho hay, cho biết, cho thấy, which are normally regarded as one verb rather than two. More often than not, their English equivalents are also one verb, and two-verb combinations are rare. However, this may not readily lead to the conclusion that they are disyllabic verbs, not a combination of two separate ones (i.e. cho and another verb), as the meaning of cho remains clear and, as the above examples show, it is almost always possible to insert the Recipient in between.

Previously, some eurocentric Vietnamese linguists used to regard cho xem, cho thấy, cho mượn, etc., as one single verb or cho is just an additional element marking the favor or benefaction, because when translated into many European languages with which those linguists were familiar, these combinations were merely equivalent to one verb like show, reveal, lend. In fact, the subject NP is the agent of cho, not of xem, thấy or mượn. That is the reason why it is possible for the Beneficiary or Experiencer, which is the subject of xem, thấy, mượn, to be inserted there. We, therefore, posit that in this case two separate verbs are used simultaneously with the Beneficiary or Experiencer sometimes left implicit.

cho as put, move, add, pourAs a verb indicating movement of a certain object (Theme) z from a Source (x) to a Goal (y) in the Spatio-Dynamic Layer, cho can be used as the verbs add, put, move, pour in English,

e.g. 21. Không nên cho thêm muối vào thực đơn của trẻ dưới 1 tuổi. (giadinh.net.vn)

It is not advisable to add salt to the diet of Under-1 infants.22. Cho cái ghế này ra đằng kia! (CS)

Move this chair over there!23. Ta nên rửa sạch chảo, cho lên bếp đun nóng, dùng một lát gừng sống xát lên mặt chảo đã đun nóng một lượt, sau đó cho dầu vào rán. (www.daynauan.vn)

We should cleanse the pan, put it on the cooker to heat, use a slice of ginger to rub all over the heated pan once, and then pour oil in to fry.

1.4 Cho as a verb stating opinion or thought

6

http://www.daynauan.vn/

http://giadinh.net.vn/2010060902349589p0c1016/khong-nen-cho-them-muoi-vao-thuc-don-cua-tre-duoi-1-tuoi.htm


http://www.tuanvietnam.net/


Very often, cho is used to state an opinion, a point of view or thought, which is equivalent to think, believe, consider, etc. in English, e.g.

24. (Sau đó, lữ khách bảo: - Hai cha con nhà này ngốc thật! Trời nóng thế này thì cả hai cùng cưỡi lừa có phải tốt không!) Hai cha con cho là phải. (TXH7)

(Then the traveler said, “You two are so foolish! In this hot weather, it’d better if you both rode the donkey!) The father and the son considered it right.

25. Cáo cho rằng loài cáo thông minh và nhanh nhẹn vượt xa loài khỉ. (TXH)

The fox thought foxes were far smarter and swifter than monkeys.26. Nhưng lũ con của phú ông cho rằng đó là tiên ông giả dạng. (TSCTSN8)

But the rich man’s children believed he was the fairy in disguise.

2. Cho as a preposition or an additional particle

2.1 cho as for / to or a coverb9?

Our statistics show that cho used as a verb only accounts for 16% of the examples collected, while as a preposition or additional particle it accounts for 84%. With regards to the thematic roles of the phrase that follows cho, in all the examples, the benefactive reading is very prominent, accounting for as many as 84%, particularly with cho as an independent verb. It is possible to conclude that the benefactor-benefactive relationship between the arguments x and y in the semantic structures of these verbs appears to be more predominant than any others, and thus the roles of Benefactor/Beneficiary could be the highest in the thematic hierarchy. This may be a considerable difference compared to English. On the other hand, the trajectory reading x cause z to go to y of x give z to y with x and y assuming the roles of Source and Goal is weaker, as evident in the non-grammaticality or abnormality of sentences with cho replaced by typical goal-markers tới, đến

27a. Lang đưa cho cô gái chiếc áo len duy nhất của anh. (TH10)Lang hands / gives the girl his only cardigan.

27b.*Lang đưa tới cô gái chiếc áo len duy nhất của anh.7 TXH: Trịnh Xuân Hoành8 TSCTSN: Tủ sách Cổ tích Song ngữ9 Clark’s term, 197810 TH: Tô Hoài

7


*Lang gave to the girl his only cardigan.28a. Ông quăng cho hắn 5 đồng bạc. (NC)

He throws him 5 dong.28b.*Ông quăng đến hắn 5 đồng bạc.

*He throws to him 5 dong

When the sentence does appear grammatical, the Recipient as well as the Benefactive reading of the second NP is lost, and only the Goal reading remains, as in

29a. Tạo On đem cho ông Mờng một gánh thóc. (TH)Tạo On brings Mr. Mong two baskets of rice (on a shoulder pole).

29b. Tạo On đem đến ông Mờng một gánh thóc.Tạo On brings (to) Mr. Mong two baskets of rice.

As indicated earlier, cho can stand alone as a full lexical verb. Meanwhile, a number of other ditransitive verbs cannot be used without cho if the Recipient/Beneficiary is present:

30a. Nó đem cho bạn quà. (Nguyễn Thị Quy, 1995)He brings his friends gifts.

30b. Nó cho bạn quà. He gives gifts to his friends.

30c. Nó đem quà cho bạn. He brings gifts to his friends.30d. *Nó đem bạn quà.

He brings his friends gifts.30e. *Nó đem quà bạn.

He brings gifts his friends.31a. Nàng ném cho tôi một cái nhìn không rõ nghĩa. (NC)

She casts me a vague glance.31b. Nàng cho tôi một cái nhìn không rõ nghĩa. She gives me a vague glance.31c.* Nàng ném tôi một cái nhìn không rõ nghĩa.

She casts me a vague glance.

When they can, the meaning of the sentence completely differs, e.g.32a. Hắn trả lại vườn cho họ (NC) He returned the garden to them.32b. Hắn trả lại vườn [của] họ.

He returned their garden [to whom or which state is uncertain].

8


33a. Thị lo cho chồng ba thứ ấy. (NC) She worries about getting her husband those three things.33b. Thị lo chồng ba thứ ấy.

She worries about her husband concerning those three things / She worries that her husband may get involved in those three evils.

It is these ambiguous cases that make it difficult to determine which function cho assumes, as in

34a. Nó đem sách cho bạn. (CS)??He brings books for / to give his friends

35a. Uyển tìm rất nhiều hoa cho tôi. (NC)??Uyen finds a lot of flowers for / to give me.

because Vietnamese verbs can be used successively in the sentence (relatively similar to the use of the catenatives in English) and there are no morphological changes to rely on as clues. Furthermore, such verbs as đem and tìm can appear as bivalent predicates, and the Beneficiary is merely a peripheral participant, e.g.

34b. Nó đem sách. He brings books.

34a. Nó đem sách cho bạn.He brings books [e.g. to school] for his friends [to save them of the trouble]

35b. Uyển tìm rất nhiều hoa. Uyen finds a lot of flowers.35a. Uyển tìm rất nhiều hoa cho tôi.

Uyen finds a lot of flowers for me [to save me of the trouble].

This is a common phenomenon called serialization in Vietnamese, like Chinese and several other serial verb languages (Hansell, 1993). For this reason, it is possible to regard cho in Nó đem sách cho bạn as a full lexical verb rather than a mere Benefeciary role-marking particle. The first verb carries the emphasis on the mode, means or manner whereby z gets to the place where the action of giving takes place. In other cases, it is even more difficult to identify cho as a preposition for/to, a full lexical verb, or just a coverb, as in

36a. Bao giờ lão cũng vất cho hắn mấy hào. (NC) The old bloke always throws him some dimes.37a. Họ sẽ gửi cho Điền những bức thư xinh xinh ướp nước hoa. (NC)

They will send Dien pretty letters scented with perfume.38a. Nàng gửi cho tôi chiếc ví da (CS)

She sent me a leather wallet.

9


39a. Cô nàng hầu bón cơm cho bố nó. (TH) The maid feeds rice to his/her father[’s mouth]

Here, it is our inclination to posit that cho used in this way is more plausibly regarded as a coverb, for it has not completely lost its verbal behavior nor has it totally become a function word like the English preposition to or for. Furthermore, many of these verbs cannot be used without cho, especially when the Theme precedes the Recipient. Meanwhile, cho can replace them both, can be replaced with other Give-type predicates, or can be omitted without affecting the grammaticality of the sentence. For instance,

36b. Bao giờ lão cũng cho hắn mấy hào.37b. Họ sẽ gửi Điền những bức thư xinh xinh ướp nước hoa.38b. Nàng gửi tặng tôi chiếc ví da.39b. *Cô hầu bón cơm bố nó

*The maid feeds rice his/her father40a. Người mẹ ấy lần này còn đem cho tôi những cảm xúc và những ý nghĩ sâu mạnh hơn (NH11)

The mother brought me stronger and more profound feelings and thoughts this time.

40b. Người mẹ ấy lần này còn cho tôi những cảm xúc và những ý nghĩ sâu mạnh hơn. 40c. *Người mẹ ấy lần này còn đem tôi những cảm xúc và những ý nghĩ sâu mạnh hơn.

The examples apparently demonstrate the argument-sharing feature of these verbs. The basis for their co-occurence is possibly the common roles that their arguments assume. This also explains why arguments can simultaneously assume different roles, which further asserts that the mapping of conceptual structure onto argument structure is by no means one-to-one but one-to-many and many-to-one correspondence.

As discussed at the beginning of this section, by and large, cho is a Benefactive marker, and in much fewer instances, it marks the Goal or Direction. However, in numerous cases, cho in Vietnamese cannot be translated as for in English; instead, to prevails with the trajectory reading x cause z to go to y of x give z to y. That is the reason why we consider this a considerable difference between the two languages. It is also the major culprit of recurrent confusion between to and for among Vietnamese learners of English.11 NH: Nguyên Hồng

10


Furthermore, when the Recipient NP is adjacent to the verb, cho in Vietnamese does not show up at all in its English translation, since it is not needed in English. The following examples help illustrate this point:

41. Con đi lấy cho thầy cái ghế buộc giậu, với sợi thừng! (NC)Get me the stool for doing the fence and a rope, daughter!

42. Anh chị trao đổi cho nhau ít ra là một nụ cười. (NC)They exchange at least a smile.

43. Nó giúi cho bà hai xu. (NC)He thrust her two coins.

2.2 Restricted use of cho

It must be specially noted that in the Power Layer, various correlations between the giver and the recipient in terms of age, social status, kinship, power, etc., result in different natures and levels of solemnity/politeness of the giving events. These have been encoded in the lexical meanings of Give-type predicates themselves and, together with other contextual, pragmatic factors, they pre-determine the choice of predicates to describe the various giving events that occur. This layer is clearly manifested in the subclassification of GIVE-type predicates into three groups:

Group 1: tentatively called the upward group (suspectus), which indicates that the giver is younger, inferior, or less powerful than the recipient, for example: cúng, dâng, biếu (donate, dedicate, present), as in

44a. Họ cúng chùa pho tượng Quan Âm bằng đồng. (CS)They donate a Kwan Yin bronze statue to the pagoda.

45a. Con biếu thầy ba đồng. (NC)I present you with 3 dong.

46a. Nở ngàn hoa chiến công ta dâng lên Người (S2)Thousands of blooming victory flowers we donate to Him [the late President Ho Chi Minh).

Group 2: the downward group (despectus), which includes such predicates as phú, ban, thí (bestow, endow), e.g.

47. Trời phú cho hắn sức lực ít ai bì kịp (NC)He is endowed with rarely unrivaled strength.

48. Tạo hoá ban cho họ những quyền không ai có thể xâm phạm. (HCM)They are endowed with inalienable rights.

11


49. Mỗi năm người ta cũng thí cho cái quần cái áo (NC)Each year they would give [you] some clothes.

Group 3: the neutral one, including cho, tặng, give, present, etc.Groups 1 and 2 account for about one-fifth of GIVE-type predicates investigated, while Group 3, being the most predominant, accounts for four-fifths. The following diagram may help illustrate such grouping (Lam Quang Dong, 2008:127):

When Give-type predicates of Group 1 are used, the appearance of cho as a preposition or additional particle is restricted: they only allow cho to be present in rare circumstances when the act of giving is referred to by a third party (i.e. the giver and the recipient are not present at the moment of speaking), when the act of giving is taking place between the giver and the recipient where the speaker identifies with the recipient and wants to show more respect to the giver by ‘lowering’ his/her own status, and normally cho is replaced with other prepositions showing upward direction (Lam Quang Dong, 2008:122-132). This is very much similar to Japanese and other languages. As Newman (1996) points out, in Japanese, there are a whole range of verbs of giving which take into account the social status of the giver and recipient. For instance,

50. Watashi wa sensei ni hon o sashiage-mashita. I gave the teacher a camera

but 51. Sensei ga watashi ni hon o kudasai-mashitaThe teacher gave me a camera.

12

Giver

Recipient

Recipient

Recipient


In writing, the verbs that describe the speaker giving something to others are written with a Kanji character meaning up, while those describing others giving something to the speaker are written with a character meaning down. Such cases with GIVE-type predicates are observed in our still very limited knowledge of the Korean language. Like Japanese and Korean, in Vietnamese, in case of an inferior, subordinate person giving something to a superior, senior person, cho almost always must not be used, as in biếu, tết. Likewise, dâng is not followed by cho; instead, lên (up) is used. e.g.

44b. *?Họ cúng cho chùa pho tượng Quan Âm bằng đồng.45b. *Con biếu cho thầy ba đồng.46b. *Nở ngàn hoa chiến công ta dâng cho Người.

In such cases, wrong choices of these verbs and prepositions can result in violation of politeness principles, and ultimately serious communication problems.

2.3 cho indicating extent or purpose

Sometimes cho precedes an adjective or adverb to indicate the extent to which the action denoted by the verb reaches, or the resultative or accomplished state of the action denoted by the verb, e.g.

52. Ta may áo này sao cho kỹ. (S3)We must make these shirts carefully.

53. Giọng em ngân lên rằng thương nhau cho trọn. (S11)Your voice sings that we must love each other to the utmost.

54. Anh càng yêu em càng hăng say xây cho nhà cao cao mãi. (S14)The more I love you, the more enthusiastic I am to build houses higher and higher.

55. Luyện cho đôi chân vượt đường xa không mỏi. (S6) Train yourselves so that you can walk long distances without fatigue.56. Bao đêm em đi mở đường cho từng chuyến xe anh qua. (S10)

So many nights you go to open up roads for our trucks to pass.

2.4 cho as an additional particle

13


In many cases, cho appears together with other words as an additional particle which can be omitted, for instance, in concession clauses,

e.g. 57. Cho dù có đi nơi đâu, ta cũng không quên được nhau. (S7)Wherever we go, we can’t forget each other.

58a. Cho dẫu mai đây xa ánh đèn thành phố anh vẫn thấy đời không lẻ loi. (S8)

Even though I will be away from city lights, I won’t feel lonely.59a. Dù cho bến cách sông ngăn, dễ gì chặn được duyên anh với nàng. (S5)

Despite separation by rivers, it is not easy to prevent our love.

It is interesting that either of these two words (cho dù/ dù cho, cho dẫu/ dẫu cho) can stand alone to fullfil the functions of both,

e.g. 58b. Dẫu mai đây xa ánh đèn thành phố anh vẫn thấy đời không lẻ loi.59b. Dù bến cách sông ngăn, dễ gì chặn được duyên anh với nàng.

or 60. Cho gậy mòn dốc núi vẫn luôn giữ tấm lòng son. (S6)Even if the canes wear out on mountain slopes, we still maintain our strong-willed commitment.

Conclusion

1. Our brief account presented above is by no means an exhaustive list of all possible uses and meanings of cho in Vietnamese; it merely shows cho’s key functions as a full verb, a coverb, a preposition, a connector in concession clauses, or purely an additional particle. Accordingly, cho can find numerous equivalents in English, either give, a causative verb like cause, enable, let, a verb of movement such as put, move, a verb expressing opinion or thought, for or to, or is simply absent because it is not needed in English when the Recipient is immediately adjacent to the verb.

2. Vietnamese learners of English should be aware of a major difference between English and Vietnamese: although cho is usually a Beneficiary marker in Vietnamese, it is mostly equivalent to to rather than for, as the trajectory reading x cause z to go to y is predominant in English. In other words, while Vietnamese speakers put the Benefactor/Benefactive relationship between the giver and the recipient in the act of giving above all, their English counterparts tend to regard the act of giving as movement of an object from a source to a goal, or in a certain direction.

14


3. As the paper has discussed, cho can be used with a wide variety of verbs in Vietnamese. Foreign learners of Vietnamese, and Vietnamese learners of English, therefore, need to acquire certain understanding of the roles that cho marks in order to fully grasp the meaning of the utterances and put them properly into English. Teachers of English and/or Vietnamese should dedicate conscious efforts in explaining these sutleties carefully to learners of English so that confusion between for and to, and other mistakes in translating cho into English can be reduced before they can be totally eliminated. The principle of politeness in communication should also be emphasized by language teachers in connection with the restricted use of cho and Give-type predicates in societies where social hierarchy, age and relations, amongst others, are respected and encoded in their languages like the Vietnamese and the Japanese.

4. Like other polysemantic, polyfunctional words in the language, cho can cause considerable ambiguities in many cases, as in

61. Bà mua cho ông cỗ áo quan có non ba đồng. (NC)She bought him a coffin for less than 3 dong.

62. Bà mua cho con nốt chỗ rươi này – còn tươi lắm. (NH)Please buy up these holothurians for me, ma’am – they’re still fresh.

(Lam Quang Dong, 2005:56-63). The NP marked by cho can be either a Recipient/Beneficiary, or a Source/Beneficiary, which means cho can be translated as both from and for. In other cases, e.g.

63. 30 'sắc nước hương trời' đại diện cho 30 quốc gia (2sao.vietnamnet.vn) 30 ‘heavenly beauties’ representing / representatives of 30 countries

cho can be equivalent to of, or is not needed when a noun or a present participle is used respectively. Apart from for, to, from, of, up, other prepositions can serve as cho’s substitutes as well; thus what prepositions they are remains a question for our further investigation.

REFERENCES

Clark, Marybeth (1978) Coverbs and Case in Vietnamese, Pacific Linguistics Series B, No 48, Canberra: The Australian National University

Lâm Quang Đông (2005) ‘Giới từ “cho” và “của” với vai nghĩa của một số tham thể trong cấu trúc nghĩa biểu hiện của câu với vị từ đa trị “mua”’, Tạp chí Khoa học Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội, số 4/2005, trang 56 - 63

Lâm Quang Đông (2008) Cấu trúc nghĩa biểu hiện của câu với nhóm vị từ trao/tặng (trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt), Hà Nội: NXB KHXH

15


Hansell, Mark (1993) 'Serial Verbs and Complement Constructions in Mandarin: A Clause Linkage Analysis', in Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. (ed.) Advances in Role and Reference Grammar, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 197 – 234.

Nguyễn Thị Thu Hảo (2001) Bước đầu khảo sát trật tự các bổ ngữ trong câu có hai bổ ngữ , tiểu luận tập sự, Hà Nội: Viện Ngôn ngữ học.

Newman, John (1996), Give: a Cognitive Linguistic Study, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Pinker, Steven (1993) Learnability and Coginition – The Acquisition of Argument Structure, Cambridge:

the MIT Press.Nguyễn Thị Quy (1995) Vị từ hành động tiếng Việt và các tham tố của nó (so sánh với tiếng Nga và tiếng

Anh), Hà Nội: NXB Khoa học xã hội.Radford, Andrew (1997) Syntactic theory and the structure of English, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. Seliverstova, O.N. (2004) “The Verb Give”, in Issues in Semantics, Moscow: Yazyki Slavyanskoy Cultury,

pp. 245-264Wechsler, Stephen (1995) The Semantic Basis of Argument Structure, Stanford: CSLI Publication (Center

for the Study of Language and Information).

Sources of Corpus

Books

Trịnh Xuân Hoành (kể lại) (2006) Ngụ ngôn Ê-dốp – Gió bắc và Mặt trời, Hà Nội: NXB Văn hoá-Thông tin

Nguyên Hồng (2002) Tác phẩm chọn lọc, Hà Nội: NXB Hội Nhà văn. Lan Hương (tuyển chọn) (2000) Nam Cao - Truyện ngắn tuyển chọn, Hà Nội: NXB Văn học. Hồ Chí Minh (1945) Tuyên ngôn Độc lậpNguyễn Sông Thao (1999) (tuyển chọn) Tô Hoài - Truyện Tây Bắc - ký và truyện ngắn, Hà Nội: NXB Văn

hoá dân tộc.Quang Thu (2003) Brisbane Mơ về Hà Nội, unpublished poetryTủ sách Cổ tích Song ngữ (2008) Đít Khỉ bị đỏ, Tp HCM: NXB Văn hoá Sài Gòn

Song Titles

1. Bác Hồ, Người cho em tất cả Thơ: Thu Phong, Nhạc: Hoàng Long-Hoàng Lân 2. Bác vẫn cùng chúng cháu hành quân Huy Thục3. Bài ca may áo Xuân Hồng4. Bản Tăng gô Hà Nội Diệp Minh Tuyền5. Câu hò bên bờ Hiền Lương Lời: Đằng Giao, Nhạc: Hoàng Hiệp6. Chiếc gậy Trường Sơn Phạm Tuyên7. Cho dù có đi nơi đâu,Thế Hiển - Thế Vượng8. Chút thơ tình người lính biển Thơ: Trần Đăng Khoa, Nhạc: Hoàng Hiệp9. Đồng đội Hoàng Hiệp10. Đường Trường Sơn xe anh qua,Văn Dung11. Giữa Mạc Tư Khoa nghe câu hò ví dặm Trần Hoàn12. Mặt trời bé thơ Trần Tiến13. Người mẹ của tôi Xuân Hồng14. Những ánh sao đêm Phan Huỳnh Điểu15. Thành phố của tôi Phan Nhân

16


On-line newspapers

http://giadinh.net.vn/2010060902349589p0c1016/khong-nen-cho-them-muoi-vao-thuc-don-cua-tre-duoi-1-tuoi.htm, retrieved 16 July 2010.

http://tim.vietbao.vn/cho_ph%C3%A9p/ Nội dung chi tiết cam kết Việt - Mỹ trong đàm phán gia nhập WTO, Thứ năm, 01 Tháng sáu 2006, 16:25 GMT+7

http://video.tamtay.vn/play/243753/CHO-CHeT-AI-BAO-DuA-DAI.html, retrieved 16 July 2010.http://www.daynauan.vn/goc-am-thuc/tin-1202/cach-lam-ca-khong-dinh-noi-dinh-chao , retrieved 16 July

2010.http://www.tuanvietnam.net/dao-lam-thay-nhung-vet-den-khong-the-tac-luoi-cho-qua, retrieved 16 July

2010.http://2sao.vietnamnet.vn/p1004c1006n20091210211730089/30-sac-nuoc-huong-troi-dai-dien-cho-30-

quoc-gia-p1.vnn 30 'sắc nước hương trời' đại diện cho 30 quốc gia (P1) Thứ sáu, 18/12/2009 02:15

17

http://2sao.vietnamnet.vn/p1004c1006n20091210211730089/30-sac-nuoc-huong-troi-dai-dien-cho-30-quoc-gia-p1.vnn

http://2sao.vietnamnet.vn/p1004c1006n20091210211730089/30-sac-nuoc-huong-troi-dai-dien-cho-30-quoc-gia-p1.vnn

http://www.tuanvietnam.net/dao-lam-thay-nhung-vet-den-khong-the-tac-luoi-cho-qua

http://www.daynauan.vn/goc-am-thuc/tin-1202/cach-lam-ca-khong-dinh-noi-dinh-chao

http://video.tamtay.vn/play/243753/CHO-CHeT-AI-BAO-DuA-DAI.html

http://vietbao.vn/Kinh-te/Noi-dung-chi-tiet-cam-ket-Viet-My-trong-dam-phan-gia-nhap-WTO/65055285/87/

http://vietbao.vn/Kinh-te/Noi-dung-chi-tiet-cam-ket-Viet-My-trong-dam-phan-gia-nhap-WTO/65055285/87/

http://tim.vietbao.vn/cho_ph%C3%A9p/



cho in vietnamese and its english...

Documents