Vietnamese morphology
Encyclopedia
Vietnamese
, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (or isolating) language. Vietnamese lacks morphological
marking of case
, gender
, number
, and tense
(and, as a result, has no finite
/nonfinite distinction).
s may consist of one or more syllables. There is a tendency for words to have two syllables (disyllabic) with perhaps 80% of the lexicon
being disyllabic. Some words have three or four syllables — many polysyllabic words are formed by 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.
Most Vietnamese morphemes consist of only one syllable. Polysyllabic morphemes tend to be borrowings from other languages. Examples follow:
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). However, the prevailing practice (although considered careless to some) is to omit hyphens and write all polysyllabic words with a space between each syllable.
, 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.
Examples of reduplication increasing intensity:
Examples of reduplication decreasing intensity:
known as tonal harmony is involved in Vietnamese reduplication. The six tones are categorized into two registers:
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 both 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).
Total reduplication involves copying the entire word base:
Partial reduplication involves copying only certain segments of the word base. Partial reduplication typically involves the affixation of non-reduplicated segments.
Vietnamese also has other instances of alternations, such as consonant mutation
s and vowel ablaut. Different regional varieties of Vietnamese may have different types of alternations.
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (or isolating) language. Vietnamese lacks morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
marking of case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
, gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, and tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
(and, as a result, has no finite
Finite verb
A finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clauses, which can stand on their own as complete sentences....
/nonfinite distinction).
Overview
Vietnamese is often erroneously considered to be a "monosyllabic" language. Vietnamese wordWord
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
s may consist of one or more syllables. There is a tendency for words to have two syllables (disyllabic) with perhaps 80% of the lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
being disyllabic. Some words have three or four syllables — many polysyllabic words are formed by reduplicative derivation
Derivation (linguistics)
In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
.
Additionally, a Vietnamese word may consist of a single morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
or more than one morpheme. Polymorphemic words are either compound words or words consisting of stems plus affixes or reduplicants.
Most Vietnamese morphemes consist of only one syllable. Polysyllabic morphemes tend to be borrowings from other languages. Examples follow:
| Vietnamese word | English gloss | Phonological form | Morphological form |
|---|---|---|---|
| cơm | "cooked rice" | monosyllabic | monomorphemic |
| cù lao | "island" | disyllabic | monomorphemic |
| dưa chuột | "cucumber" | disyllabic | bimorphemic |
| vội vội vàng vàng | "hurry-scurry" | polysyllabic | polymorphemic (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). However, the prevailing practice (although considered careless to some) is to omit hyphens and write all polysyllabic words with a space between each syllable.
Reduplication
ReduplicationReduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
, the process of creating a new word by repeating either a whole word or part of a word, is very productive
Productivity (linguistics)
In linguistics, productivity is the degree to which native speakers use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation. Since use to produce novel structures is the clearest proof of usage of a grammatical process, the evidence most often appealed to as establishing productivity is...
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 assimilationAssimilation (linguistics)
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
known as tonal harmony is involved in Vietnamese reduplication. The six tones are categorized into two registers:
| Register | Tones |
|---|---|
| Upper | ngang, sắc, and hỏi |
| Lower | huyền, 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 both 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 "be big" > bứ bự "be very big" (base: bự, initial reduplicant: bứ-)
- khẳn "fetid" > khăn khẳn "smelly" (base: khẳn, initial reduplicant/affix: khăn-)
- 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"
Partial reduplication involves copying only certain segments of the word base. Partial reduplication typically involves the affixation of non-reduplicated segments.
Affixation
Vietnamese has very limited affixation. Only prefixation and suffixation are attested. A few affixes are used along with reduplication. Many affixes come from the Sino-Vietnamese and learned part of the lexicon. Some examples (not an exhaustive list) follow.| Prefix | Gloss | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 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 "hypercalcernia" (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") |
| Suffix | Gloss | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| -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) |
| -hóa | forms causative Causative In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event.... verb |
a 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) |
| -viên | agentive | quan 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 mutation
Consonant mutation
Consonant mutation is when a consonant in a word changes according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.Mutation phenomena occur in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages...
s and vowel ablaut. Different regional varieties of Vietnamese may have different types of alternations.
External links
- Vietnamese Online Grammar Project
- Vietnamese/Cambodian references (Linguist List)
- Additional Vietnamese references (Linguist List)