Vietnamese is an

analytic language In linguistic typology, an analytic language is a language that conveys relationships between words in sentences primarily by way of ''helper'' words (particles, prepositions, etc.) and word order, as opposed to using inflections (changing the f ...

, meaning it conveys relationship between words primarily through "helper words" as opposed to inflection. The basic word order is subject-verb-object (SVO), but sentences may be restructured so as to be topic-prominent. Vietnamese is otherwise largely

head-initial In linguistics, head directionality is a proposed parameter that classifies languages according to whether they are head-initial (the head of a phrase precedes its complements) or head-final (the head follows its complements). The head is the ...

, has a noun classifier system, is

pro-drop A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite int ...

(and pro copula-drop), wh-in-situ, and allows verb serialization.

Word classes

Vietnamese

lexical categories In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assi ...

(or "parts of speech") consist of: *nouns *demonstrative noun modifiers *articles *classifiers *numerals * quantifiers *the focus marker particle *verbs *adjectives *adverbial particles *prepositions The syntax of each lexical category and its associated phrase (i.e., the syntactic constituents below the sentence level) is detailed below. Attention is paid to both form and

function Function or functionality may refer to: Computing * Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards * Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system * Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-oriente ...

Morphosyntax

Nouns and noun phrases

Noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...

s can be distinguished from verbs syntactically in that the copula ''là'' "to be" is required to precede nouns in predications whereas the copula is not required before verbs/adjectives. : ''Mai là sinh viên''. : "Mai is (a) student." In the sentence above, the noun ''sinh viên'' "student" must co-occur with the copula. Omitting the copula, as in *''Mai sinh viên'' results in an

ungrammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to form ...

sentence. In contrast, verbs/adjectives do not co-occur with the copula. : ''Mai cao''. : "Mai is tall." The adjective ''cao'' (as in the sentence above) does not require a preceding copula, and thus the sentence *''Mai là cao'' is ill-formed. The noun category can be further subdivided into different noun classes according to semantic and syntactic criteria. Some of the subclasses identified in Nguyễn (1997) include: * proper noun * common noun ** item noun ** collective noun ** unit (or measure) noun ** mass noun ** time noun ** abstract noun * classifier * locative Nouns can be modified with other words resulting in complex

noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...

s. These modifiers include demonstratives, quantifiers, classifiers, prepositional phrases, and other attributive lexical words, such as other nouns and verbs. These modifiers co-occur with the modified noun (known as the head noun or noun phrase head), but there are restrictions on what kind of modifiers are allowed depending upon the subclass of noun. The noun phrase has the following structure: Example:

Article position

Following Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng (2004) and Nguyễn T. C. (1975), Vietnamese has an article lexical category slot that occurs before a quantifier.

Quantifiers

Quantifiers (also known as numerators) modify the adjacent noun by expressing their quantity. In Vietnamese they occur within a noun phrase before a head noun (with or without a classifier). Quantifiers include cardinal numerals, and other words which indicate some quantity. (Cardinal numerals are described in the numeral section.) Examples of quantifiers: : Quantifiers directly precede the head noun that they modify when the head occurs without a classifier: how many = bao nhiêu When a classifier co-occurs with a following head noun, the quantifier precedes the classifier: As in English,

mass nouns In linguistics, a mass noun, uncountable noun, non-count noun, uncount noun, or just uncountable, is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete elemen ...

such as ''thịt'' "meat", ''đất'' "soil", and

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...

nouns such as ''trâu bò'' "cattle", ''ruộng nương'' "(rice) fields" usually occur without quantifiers in Vietnamese. However, these nouns can be specified by words denoting measurement units such as ''cân'' "kilogram", ''lạng'' "

tael Tael (),"Tael" entry
at the

Focus marker position

The optional

particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

''cái'' is identified as a

focus Focus, or its plural form foci may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in South Australia Film *''Focus'', a 1962 TV film starring James Whitmore * ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based ...

marker by Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng (2004). It has been called by several other names, including ''general classifier'', ''general categorical'', 'extra" cái'', ''"extra" general classifier'', ''definite article'', ''superarticle'', ''definite word'', ''demonstrative word'', and ''chỉ xuất'' "indexical". Focus ''cái'' occurs directly before classifiers or unit nouns and may be preceded by other pre-noun modifiers such as quantifiers, numerals, and articles. It always co-occurs with a classifier. As can be seen by descriptions of focus ''cái'' as "general classifier", etc., this particle has often been analyzed as a classifier. However, it can be distinguished by its different behavior. Focus ''cái'' always precedes a following classifier and may not directly precede the head noun. The noun phrase is grammatical, but the phrase is not grammatical. More than one classifier is not allowed within the same noun phrase, whereas focus ''cái'' does occur along with a following classifier (as can be seen above). Examples of other modifiers preceding the focus marker are below: Again, ''cái'' must follow the other pre-noun modifiers, so phrases where ''cái'' precedes a numeral or article (such as ''*cái hai chó đen này'' or ''*cái các con mèo này'') are ungrammatical. The focus marker ''cái'' is distinct from the classifier ''cái'' that classifies inanimate nouns (although it is historically related to the classifier ''cái''). Thus, classifier ''cái'' cannot modify the noun ''chó'' "dog" (in ''cái chó'') since ''chó'' is animate (the non-human animate classifier ''con'' must be used: ''con chó''), whereas focus ''cái'' can modify nouns of any animacy (with their appropriate classifier): Functionally, ''cái'' indicates grammatically that an element within a noun phrase is in contrastive focus. It has been noted by Nguyễn Đ. H. (1997) (and others) that ''cái'' adds a pejorative

connotation A connotation is a commonly understood cultural or emotional association that any given word or phrase carries, in addition to its explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation. A connotation is frequently described as either positive o ...

, as in: : However, Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng (2004) claims that the connotation is not always negative and gives the following positive example: : Phonologically, the focus ''cái'' receives an intonational stress, and, in addition, the element receiving the focus also receives an intonational stress. In the following examples, the stressed words are indicated with capital letters (also underlined): : In the above sentence, the item in focus is ''đen'' "black", which receives the stress (as does ''cái''). Here, it is the feature of the horse's blackness that is being focused on (or singled out) in contrast to other horses that do not have the feature of blackness. In the sentence below, ''ngựa'' "horse" receives the focus and stress. : The focus marker is always stressed and must co-occur with another stressed item; thus, ''cái'' cannot occur without another stressed element within the noun phrase. Focus ''cái'' may focus a variety of noun phrase elements including prepositional phrases, relative clauses, constituents inside of relative clause modifiers, the head noun (by itself), the head noun plus preceding classifier, and adjectival verbs.

Classifier position

Vietnamese uses a rich set of classifiers and

measure word In linguistics, measure words are words (or morphemes) that are used in combination with a numeral to indicate an amount of something represented by some noun. Description Measure words denote a unit or measurement and are used with mass nouns ( ...

s (often considered a subset of the classifiers) to introduce or stand in for

count Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York ...

and

mass noun In linguistics, a mass noun, uncountable noun, non-count noun, uncount noun, or just uncountable, is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete elemen ...

s, respectively. This feature of Vietnamese is similar to the system of classifiers in Chinese. The most common classifiers typically do not translate to English: ' introduces most inanimate objects, while ' generally introduces animate objects, especially animals. In the following dialogue, the classifier ' initially introduces "chicken": Nouns may require the animate classifier even if they do not refer to living organisms. For instance, ' (knife), ' (road), ' (eye), ' (river), and ' (screw) all take the ' classifier to convey motion. More specific classifiers typically indicate the shape of objects, such as ' for round objects like balls or pieces of fruit, or ' for flat, rectangular objects like signage or panes of glass. These classifiers may be superficially likened to English partitive constructions like ''one head of cattle'' ("head", always singular regardless of number, indicates large livestock), ''two sticks of dynamite'' ("stick" indicates something relatively rigid, long and comparatively thin), ''three strands of hair'' ("strand" indicates something flexible, long and quite thin), or ''four bars of gold'' (a "bar" being similar to a "stick", but comparatively less "thin"). Some nominalizing classifiers introduce verbs or adjectives instead of nouns. Some linguists count as many as 200 classifiers in Vietnamese, though only a few are used in conversation or informal writing. Thompson (1987) notes that usage of ' for inanimate objects has increased at the expense of some of the rarer classifiers. Among the most common classifiers are: *' : used for most inanimate objects *': almost similar to ''cái'', usually more connotative (e.g. when referring to a cute object, ''chiếc'' might be more suitable than ''cái'') *': usually for animals and children, but can be used to describe some non-living objects that are associated with motion *'': used for people except infants *': used for compositions like songs, drawings, poems, essays, etc. *': sentential constructs (verses, lyrics, statements, quotes, etc.) *': used for stick-like objects (plants, guns, canes, etc.) *': a general topic, matter, or business *': smaller sheets of paper (letters, playing cards) *': buildings of authority: courts, halls, "ivory towers". *': used for globular objects (the Earth, fruits) *': used for book-like objects (books, journals, etc.) *': sheets and other thin objects made of paper (newspapers, papers, calendars, etc.) *': an event or an ongoing process Classifiers are required in the presence of a quantifier, except for "non-classified nouns": "time units" such as ' (minute), geographical and administrative units such as ' (province), and polysyllabic Sino-Vietnamese compound nouns. The classifier ' has a special role in that it can introduce any other classifier, e.g. ', ', but Nguyễn Hùng Tường (2013) considers this to be a non-classifier use of '.

Attributive modifier position

includes noun phrase modifiers, verb phrase modifiers

Demonstrative position

Nouns may be modified by certain demonstratives that follow the noun (see also

demonstrative Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

section below). These demonstratives include: ''này'' "this", ''nầy'' "this", ''nay'' "this", ''ni'' "this", ''đó'' "that", ''nấy'' "that", ''ấy'' "that", ''nãy'' "that", ''kia'' "that yonder", ''nọ'' "that yonder", ''kìa'' "that yonder (far)", ''nào'' "which". Examples:

Prepositional phrase position

Possession is shown in Vietnamese via a

prepositional phrase An adpositional phrase, in linguistics, is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or cir ...

that modifies the next word, a noun. Any words after that are subsequent to that are, essentially, articles or demonstratives that bring up qualifying clauses.

Reference, specificity, definiteness

Vietnamese nouns that stand alone are unmarked for number and definiteness. Thus, a noun, such as ''sách'', may be glossed in English as "a book" (singular, indefinite), "the book" (singular, definite), "some books" (plural, indefinite), or "the books" (plural, definite). It is with the addition of classifiers, demonstratives, and other modifiers that the number and definiteness can be specified. *

reference Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''name'' ...

** specific vs. generic reference

generic mood The gnomic (abbreviated ), also called neutral, generic, or universal aspect, mood, or tense, is a grammatical feature (which may refer to aspect, mood, or tense) that expresses general truths or aphorisms. Uses and occurrence Used to describe ...

generic antecedents Generic antecedents are representatives of classes, referred to in ordinary language by another word (most often a pronoun), in a situation in which gender is typically unknown or irrelevant. These mostly arise in generalizations and are particul ...

definiteness In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical ...

(identifiability of referent) *

count noun In linguistics, a count noun (also countable noun) is a noun that can be modified by a quantity and that occurs in both singular and plural forms, and that can co-occur with quantificational determiners like ''every'', ''each'', ''several'', et ...

vs.

* interaction with classifiers (presence and absence thereof) * see Behrens (2003)

Pronouns

Vietnamese pronouns act as substitutions for

s. : : : : Thus, the third person singular (arrogant) pronoun ''nó'' can substitute for a simple noun phrase ''Hoan'' (a personal name) consisting of a single noun or a complex noun phrase ''con chó này'' consisting of a noun plus modifiers (which, here, are a classifier and a demonstrative). Note that the pronominal system as a whole also includes kinship terms (see kinship term section below) and certain demonstratives (see demonstrative section below), which can also have a pronominal function. The pronouns are categorized into two classes depending on whether they can be preceded by the plural marker ''chúng''. Like other Asian pronominal systems, Vietnamese pronouns indicate the social status between speakers and other persons in the discourse in addition to

grammatical person In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically the distinction is between the speaker ( first person), the addressee ( second person), and others (third pers ...

and

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

. The table below shows the first class of pronouns that can be preceded by pluralizer. : The first person ''tôi'' is the only pronoun that can be used in polite speech. The second person ''ta'' is often used when talking to oneself as in a soliloquy, but also indicates a higher status of the speaker (such as that of a high official, etc.). The other superior-to-inferior forms in the first and second persons (''tao'', ''mày'', ''mi'', ''bay'') are commonly used in familiar social contexts, such as among family members (e.g. older sister to younger sister, etc.); these forms are otherwise considered impolite. The third person form ''nó'' (used to refer to inanimates, animals, children, and scorned adults, such as criminals) is considerably less arrogant than the second person forms ''tao'', ''mày'', ''mi'', ''bay''. The pronoun ''mình'' is used only in intimate relationships, such as between husband and wife. The pronominal forms in the table above can be modified with plural ''chúng'' as in ''chúng mày'' "you (guys)", ''chúng nó'' "them". There is an exclusive/inclusive plural distinction in the first person: ''chúng tôi'' and ''chúng tao'' are exclusive (i.e., me and them but not you), ''chúng ta'' and ''chúng mình'' are inclusive (i.e., you and me). Some of the forms (''ta'', ''mình'', ''bay'') can be used to refer to a plural referent, resulting in pairs with overlapping reference (e.g., both ''ta'' and ''chúng ta'' can mean "inclusive we", both ''bay'' and ''chúng bay'' can mean "you guys"). The other class of pronouns are known as "absolute" pronouns (Thompson 1965). These cannot be modified with the pluralizer ''chúng''. Many of these forms are literary and archaic, particularly in the first and second person. : Unlike third person pronouns of the first type, these absolute third person forms (''y'', ''hắn'', ''va'') refer only to animate referents (typically people). The form ''y'' can be preceded by the pluralizer in southern dialects in which case it is more respectful than ''nó''. The absolute pronoun ''người ta'' has a wider range of reference as "they, people in general, (generic) one, we, someone". As a result of

language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for th ...

, some linguists have noted that some Vietnamese speech communities (especially among young college students and bilingual speakers) have borrowed French and English pronouns ''moi'', ''toi'', ''I'', and ''you'' in order to avoid the deference and status implications present in the Vietnamese pronominal system (which lacks any truly neutral terms).

Verbs and verb phrases

As mentioned in the noun section above, verbs can be distinguished from nouns by their ability to function as predicators by themselves without a preceding copula ''là''. Additionally, verbs may be categorized into two main subtypes, stative and functive, according to their syntactic behavior.

Stative verbs

Stative verbs (also known as verbs of quality, extended state verbs, adjectival verbs or adjectives) can be distinguished from functive verbs in two: # stative verbs occur with a degree modifier such as ''rất'' ‘very’ # stative verbs preclude the use of exhortatives such as ''hãy'' : ''Giáp rất cao'' : “Giap is very tall” : *''Hãy trắng!'' (ungrammatical) : “Be white!”

Functive verbs

Functive verbs (also known as "real" verbs, verbs of action, "doing" words, or momentary action verbs) differ from stative verbs by the same syntactic tests: # functive verbs cannot be preceded by a degree modifier such as ''rất'' "very" # functive verbs can be preceded by the exhortative ''hãy'' "let's (do)" (indicates commands, requests, etc.) : *''Giáp rất ăn.'' (ungrammatical) : "Giap very eat." : ''Anh hãy ăn đi!'' : "Go ahead and eat!" A verb can interleave with a direct object for emphasis: In the last example, the verb ''nói'' splits the

bound morpheme In linguistics, a bound morpheme is a morpheme (the elementary unit of morphosyntax) that can appear only as part of a larger expression; a free morpheme (or unbound morpheme) is one that can stand alone. A bound morpheme is a type of bound form, ...

s of the reduplicated word ''bậy bạ''.

Tense markers

Although it is not required, Vietnamese has many particles that are used to mark tenses. However, they are not always used as context may suffice. All these markers, except "rồi" which goes after the verb, go before the verb. (Below each point, there is an example of the marker being used with the verb "to have dinner" or "ăn tối".) * To make the past tense, use "đã" Tôi đã ăn tối – I had dinner * To make the future tense, use "sẽ" Tôi sẽ ăn tối – I will have dinner * To say that you just did something (eg. I just ate), use "vừa mới". However it is possible to remove either "vừa" or "mới" and keep the same meaning, however removing "vừa" is more common. Tôi vừa mới ăn tối – I just had dinner * To say that you are about to do something (eg. I am about to eat), use "sắp". Tôi sắp ăn tối – I am about to have dinner * To say that you already did something (eg. I already ate), use "rồi". It is often used with "đã" Tôi (đã) ăn tối rồi – I already had dinner * To make a verb continuous (eg. I am eating), use "đang". It can be combined with most of the tense markers, however this isn't common usage. Tôi đang ăn tối – I am having dinner Tôi đã đang ăn tối – I was having dinner * "Có" is also used as a past tense of the verb very similar to "đã". It has other uses outside of this.

Passivization

The active voice can be changed to passive voice by adding the following words: ''"được"'' if the verb describing the action implies beneficial effects for the agent and ''"bị"'' if the verb describing the action implies negative effects. The words ''"được"'' and ''"bị"'' must stand in front of the main verb. :''Trà được trồng ở Nhật Bản'' :Tea is grown in Japan. An agent, if there is one, is often placed in between the passive particle and the main verb: When used with intransitive verbs (and adjectives), these two particles imply the subject is a passive participant to the action described by the verb, as in following example: :''Anh ta bị chóng mặt'' :He is feeling dizzy

Topic–comment structure

The topic–comment structure is an important sentence type in Vietnamese. Therefore, Vietnamese has often been claimed to be a

topic-prominent language A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N. Li and Sandra Thompson, who distinguished topic-promin ...

(Thompson 1991). As an example the sentence "Tôi đọc sách này rồi." ("I've already read this book.") can be transformed into the following topic prominent equivalent. :''Sách này thì tôi đọc rồi'' :This book (TOPICMARKER) I read already

Lexicon

Kinship terms

Kinship term Kinship terminology is the system used in languages to refer to the persons to whom an individual is related through kinship. Different societies classify kinship relations differently and therefore use different systems of kinship terminology; ...

s in Vietnamese have become grammaticalized to a large extent and thus have developed grammatical functions similar to pronouns and other classifiers. In these cases, they are used as

honorific An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an honorary academic title. It ...

s or pejoratives. Kinship terms may also, of course, be used with a lexical meaning like other nouns.

Pronominal function

When used with a pronominal function, kinship terms primarily indicate the social status between referents in a discourse, such as between the speaker and the hearer, between speaker and another referent, etc. Included within the notion of social status are classifications of age, sex, relative social position, and the speaker's attitude. For example, one can express the meaning of ''I love you'' in Vietnamese using many different pronouns. *''Anh yêu em'' (male to female r younger malelover) *''Em yêu anh'' (female r younger maleto male lover) *''Mẹ yêu con'' (mother to child) *''Con yêu mẹ'' (child to mother) The most common terms of reference are kinship terms, which might differ slightly in different regions. When addressing an audience, the speaker must carefully assess the social relationship between him/her and the audience, difference in age, and sex of the audience to choose an appropriate form of address. The following are some kinship terms of address that can be used in the second-person sense (''you''). They all can also be used in the first-person sense (''I''), but if they're not marked by (S) the usage is limited to the literal meaning: *''Ông'': grandfather, used as a term of respect for a man senior to the speaker and who is late middle age or older *''Bà'': grandmother, used as a term of respect for a (usually married) woman senior to the speaker and who is late middle age or older *''Bá'': parent's older sister, used to address a woman slightly older than one's parents or wife of father's older brother or wife of mother's older brother. *''Bác'': parent's older brother or sister, used to address a man/woman slightly older than one's parents or husband of father's older sister or husband of mother's older sister. *''Cô'': father's sister, used to address a younger woman or a woman as old as one's father; also used to address a female teacher regardless of relative age *''Cậu'': mother's brother, used to address a younger man or a man as old as one's mother *''Dì'': mother's sister, used to address a younger woman or a woman as old as one's mother; also used to address one's stepmother *''Chú'': father's younger brother, used to address a man slightly younger than one's father or husband of father's younger sister. *''Thím'': wife of father's younger brother. *''Mợ'': wife of mother's younger brother. *''Dượng'': husband of father's older sister; also used to address one's stepfather *''Anh'': older brother, for a slightly older man, or for the man in a romantic relationship. (S) *''Chị'': older sister, for a slightly older woman. (S) *''Em'': younger sibling, for a slightly younger person, or for the woman r younger manin a romantic relationship. (S) *''Bố/Ba/Cha'': father *''Mẹ/Má/Mợ'': mother *''Con'': child; also used in some regions to address a person as old as one's child *''Cháu'': nephew/niece, grandson/granddaughter; used to address a young person of around such relative age Using a person's name to refer to oneself or to address another is considered more personal and informal than using pronouns. It can be found among close friends or children.

Demonstratives

Vietnamese

s (markers of

deixis In linguistics, deixis (, ) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words ''tomorrow'', ''there'', and ''they''. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their d ...

) all have the function of identifying a referent with respect to another contextual point or position. For example, the demonstrative ''này'' "this" as in the noun phrase ''người này'' "this person" indicates that the person referred to is relatively close to the speaker (in a context where this noun phrase is uttered by a speaker to an addressee) while the demonstrative ''đó'' "that" as in the noun phrase ''người đó'' "that person" indicates that the person referred to is further from the speaker. The demonstratives have a basic three-term deictic system — proximal (close – "this, here"), medial (far – "that, there"), distal (very far – "yonder, over there") — plus an indefinite (or interrogative) term ("which, where"). In addition to their deictic function, different Vietnamese demonstratives can function variously as noun modifiers, as noun phrases (i.e., a (pro-) nominal function), or as

adverbial In English grammar, an adverbial ( abbreviated ) is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an adverbial clause or adverbial phrase) that modifies or more closely defines the sentence or the verb. (The word ''adverbial'' itself is also used as an ...

s. : The form ''này'' tends to be used in Northern Vietnamese while ''nầy'' is the Southern form and ''ni'' is the North-central and Central form. In North-central and Central Vietnamese, the form ''nớ'' is used instead of ''nọ'', ''mô'' instead of ''nào'' and ''đâu'', ''rứa'' instead of ''vậy'', and ''răng'' instead of ''sao''. In Hanoi, the form ''thế'' or ''như thế'' "(like) so, (like) this way" is used instead of ''vầy''. Other forms mentioned in Thompson (1965) are ''nay'' "this", ''nây'' "this (temporal)", ''nãy'' or ''nẫy'' "that (just past)", and ''nao'' "which". The basic formal pattern of the demonstratives is that the initial consonant and ending vowel nucleus indicate their function and position in the deictic system. Some linguists have analyzed demonstratives as consisting of two (sub-syllabic) morphemes. Following this, the initial ''đ-'' indicates a nominal, ''n-'' a noun modifier, ''b-'' proportion, ''v-~s-'' manner, and the vowels ''-ây''~''-ay'' proximal/medial, ''-âu''~''-ao'' indefinite, and ''-o'' medial/distal. However, the form ''kia'' is analyzed as consisting of only one morpheme. Overlaid on these elements are tones, which indicate contrastive distances increasingly further from the contextual position: ''ngang'' tone (closest), ''huyền'' tone (further), ''sắc'' or ''nặng'' tone (even further). Thus, ''đấy'' is more remote than ''đây'', ''kìa'' more remote than ''kia'', ''vậy'' more remote than ''vầy''. There is an

idiomatic Idiom, also called idiomaticness or idiomaticity, is the syntactical, grammatical, or structural form peculiar to a language. Idiom is the realized structure of a language, as opposed to possible but unrealized structures that could have develop ...

expression where demonstratives with an even increasing distance modify the noun ''ngày'' "day(time)": : ''ngày kia, ngày kìa, ngày kía, ngày kịa, ngày kĩa'' "on and on into the future" Syntactically, the demonstratives ''đó'' and ''kia'' may function as either nouns or as noun modifiers: : : The nominals ''đây'', ''đấy'', and ''đâu'' are only used as nouns typically denoting a space or time and cannot function as noun modifiers. Although they usually refer to position situated in time/space, the nominal deictics can be used to metaphorically refer to people, as in: In the sentence above (which would translate more literally as "This is going to the market, is that going or not?"), proximal ''đây'' is used to refer (metaphorically) to the speaker (as "I") while medial ''đấy'' is used to refer to the addressee (as "you"). The demonstrative noun modifiers ''này'', ''(n)ấy'', ''nọ'', and ''nào'' can only modify nouns and cannot stand alone as nouns. When referring to time, the distal demonstratives ''kia'' and ''nọ'' differ in directionality. ''Kia'' specifies a point remote either in the past or the future while ''nọ'' specifies only a remote point in the past: * ''ngày kia'' "some day to come, the other day" * ''ngày nọ'' "the other day" The proportion demonstratives (''bây'', ''bấy'', ''bao'') refer to the extent of measurement of time or space. They precede the words they modify, such as ''giờ'' "time", ''nhiêu'' "(to have) much/many", ''lâu'' "(to be) long, (take a) long time": * ''bây giờ'' "now, this time" * ''bấy giờ'' "then, that time" * ''bao giờ'' "when, what time" * ''bây nhiêu'' "this much/many" * ''bấy nhiêu'' "that much/many" * ''bao nhiêu'' "how much/many" * ''bấy lâu'' "all that long period, for that length of time" * ''bao lâu'' "how long" * ''bao ngày'' "how many days" * ''bao lớn'' "how big" * ''bấy xa'' "that far"

Numerals

Numerals (or numbers) consist of two types: cardinal numerals and ordinal numerals. When occurring in noun phrases, cardinal and ordinal numerals occur in different syntactic positions with respect to the head noun. The article below only shows the native Vietnamese numerals, remember that Sino-Vietnamese numerals will be used in certain cases.

Cardinal

Vietnamese numerals are a

decimal The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers of the Hindu–Arabic numeral ...

system. "Zero" lacks a dedicated numeral with ''số không'' "empty number" (< ''số'' "number", ''không'' "empty") being used. ;Numbers 1-99 Numerals are generally analytic, with multiples of ten following a regular pattern. : Additive compounds are formed by with ''mười-'' "10" initially and another numeral following: ''mười tám'' ("10" + "8" = "18"). Multiplicative compounds are formed with an order that is the reverse of the additive compounds, i.e. ''-mươi'' is preceded by another numeral: ''tám mươi'' ("8" x "10" = "80"). Consonantal and tonal alternations occur in some compound numerals. The numeral ''mười'' "10" in multiplicative compounds has a tonal change (''huyền'' tone > ''ngang'' tone) to ''-mươi'' "times 10", as in: : ''bốn mươi'' "40" (instead of ''*bốn mười'') The numeral ''một'' "1" undergoes a tonal alternation (''nặng'' tone > ''sắc'' tone) to ''mốt'' when it occurs after ''mươi'' (with ''ngang'' tone) in multiples of 10, as in: : ''bốn mươi mốt'' "41" (instead of ''*bốn mươi một'') The numeral ''năm'' "5" undergoes an initial consonant alternation (''n'' > ''l'') to ''lăm'' as the final element in additive compounds, as in: : ''mười lăm'' "15" (instead of ''*mười năm'') : ''bốn mươi lăm'' "45" (instead of ''*bốn mươi năm'') ;Numbers 100-999 The Vietnamese word for 100 is ''trăm''. Number formation generally follows the same logic as before, with the same consonantal and tonal shifts. However, with the numbers 101–109, 201–209 and so on, a placeholder ''lẻ'' ("odd") or ''linh'' is inserted to represent "zero tens." : * "Lẻ" is more in the south of Vietnam, while "linh" is more common in the north of Vietnam. ;Numbers 1,000–999,999 The Vietnamese word for 1,000 is ''ngàn'' or ''nghìn''. With the numbers 1,001–1,099, 2,001–2,099 and so on, the empty hundreds place must be specified with ''không trăm'' ("zero hundreds"). : * "Ngàn" is more in the south of Vietnam, while "nghìn" is more common in the north of Vietnam. ;Numbers 1,000,000 and Above The word for 10⁶ ("million") is ''triệu''. The word for 10⁹ ( short-scale "billion" or long-scale "milliard") is ''tỉ''. Above this, combinations of ''ngàn/nghìn'', ''triệu'' and ''tỉ'' must be used.

Ordinal

Ordinal numerals are formed by adding the ''thứ-'' ordinal prefix to cardinal numerals: ''thứ-'' + ''mười'' "ten" = ''thứ mười'' "tenth".Note that the affixal status of morphemes will be indicated with a hyphen in descriptions of the morphological structure of these words, but current Vietnamese orthographic practice does not use hyphens or write multisyllabic words without orthographic spaces. Other examples include: ''thứ nhất'' "first", ''thứ hai'' (or ''thứ nhì'') "second", ''thứ ba'' "third", and ''thứ bốn'' (or ''thứ tư'') "fourth".

Notes

Bibliography

* Beatty, Mark Stanton. (1990). ''Vietnamese phrase structure: An x-bar approach''. (Master's thesis, University of Texas at Arlington). * Behrens, Leila. (2003)
Classifiers, metonymies, and genericity: A study of Vietnamese
In C. Zelinsky-Wibbelt (Ed.), ''Text, context, concepts'' (pp. 65–125). Text, translation, computational processing (No. 4). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. * Cao Xuân Hạo. (1988). The count/mass distinction in Vietnamese and the concept of ‘classifier’. ''Zeischrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung'', ''1'' (41), 38–47. * Daley, Karen Ann. (1998). ''Vietnamese classifiers in narrative texts''. Arlington, TX: The Summer Institute of Linguistics and The University of Texas at Arlington. * Emeneau, M. B. (1951). ''Studies in Vietnamese (Annamese) grammar''. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 8). Berkeley: University of California Press. * Löbel, Elisabeth. (1999). Classifiers vs. genders and noun classes: A case study in Vietnamese. In B. Unterbeck & M. Rissanen (Eds.), ''Gender in grammar and cognition, I (approaches to gender)'' (pp. 259–319). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. * Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1957). Classifiers in Vietnamese. ''Word'', ''13'' (1), 124–152. * Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1997). ''Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt không son phấn''. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. * Nguyễn, Phú Phong. (1992). Vietnamese demonstratives revisited. ''The Mon–Khmer Studies Journal'', ''20'', 127–136. * Nguyễn Tài Cẩn. (1975). ''Từ loại danh từ trong tiếng Việt hiện đại'' he word class of nouns in modern Vietnamese Hanoi: Khoa học Xã hội. * Nguyễn, Hùng Tưởng. (2004). ''The structure of the Vietnamese noun phrase''. (Doctoral dissertation, Boston University, Boston, MA). * Pham, Hoa. (2002). Gender in addressing and self-reference in Vietnamese: Variation and change. In M. Hellinger & H. Bußmann (Eds.), ''Gender across languages: The linguistic representation of women and men'' (Vol. 2, pp. 281–312). IMPACT: Studies in language society (No. 10). John Benjamins. * Shum, Shu-ying. (1965). ''A transformational study of Vietnamese syntax''. (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University). * Thompson, Laurence C. (1963). The problem of the word in Vietnamese. ''Word'', ''19'' (1), 39–52. * Thompson, Laurence C. (1965). Nuclear models in Vietnamese immediate-constituent analysis. ''Language'', ''41'' (4), 610–618. * Thompson, Laurence C. (1991). ''A Vietnamese reference grammar''. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Original work published 1965). * Uỷ ban Khoa học Xã hội Việt Nam. (1983). ''Ngữ-pháp tiếng Việt'' ietnamese grammar Hanoi: Khoa học Xã hội.

External links

Vietnamese/Cambodian references
(Linguist List)
Additional Vietnamese references
(Linguist List) {{DEFAULTSORT:Vietnamese Syntax