Vietnamese morphology

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

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 together 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 word English gloss Phonological form Morphological form
cơm "cooked rice" monosyllabic monomorphemic
cù lao [4] "island" disyllabic monomorphemic
dưa chuột/dưa leo [5] "cucumber" disyllabic bimorphemic
vội vội vàng vàng [6] "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).[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]

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 "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 learned part of the lexicon. Some examples (not an exhaustive list) follow.

Prefixes
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 "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
Suffix Gloss Examples
-gia"profession"chính trị gia "politician" (chính trị "politics" + -gia),
khoa học gia "scientist" (khoa học "science" + -gia)
-giảagentivetác 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
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  • Nguyễn, Phú Phong. (1992). Vietnamese demonstratives revisited. The Mon-Khmer Studies Journal, 20, 127-136.
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  • Thompson, Laurence E. (1965). Nuclear models in Vietnamese immediate-constituent analysis. Language, 41 (4), 610-618.
  • Thompson, Laurence E. (1991). A Vietnamese reference grammar. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Original work published 1965).
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