Vietnamese grammar

Lexical categories

Vietnamese lexical categories (or "parts of speech") consist of nouns, demonstrative noun modifiers, articles, classifiers, numerals, quantifiers, the focus marker particle, verbs, 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.

Nouns and noun phrases

Nouns 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.

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 sentence. In contrast, verbs do not co-occur with the copula.

Mai cao. "Mai is tall."

The verb 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 phrases. 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.

Quantifier position

Quantifiers (also known as numerators) are words that can 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 that head noun is of a noun type that does not require an obligatory classifier:

When a classifier co-occurs with a following head noun, the quantifier word precedes the classifier:

Mass (such as, thịt "meat", đất "earth, soil") and collective nouns (such as, trâu bò "cattle", ruộng nương "(rice) fields") cannot be directly modified with a quantifier. For example, the following are ungrammatical noun phrases:

However, mass nouns can be preceded by a unit noun (such as cân "kilogram", lạng "tael", nắm "handful", chén "cupful") that indicates a measurement of the mass noun, which can, then, be modified with a quantifier. For example, the ungrammatical *ba thịt "three meats" and *một con thịt "one meat" (above) can be rendered as grammatical phrases with unit nouns present:

Focus marker position

The optional particle cái is identified as a focus 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 must always co-occur 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, 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 in red font):

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 words (often considered a subset of the classifiers) to introduce or stand in for count and mass nouns, respectively. This feature of Vietnamese is similar to the system of classifiers in Chinese.

The most common classifiers typically do not translate to English: cái introduces most inanimate objects, while con generally introduces animate objects, especially animals. In the following dialogue, the classifier con initially introduces "chicken":

Nouns may require the animate classifier even if they do not refer to living organisms. For instance, dao (knife), đường (road), mắt (eye), sông (river), and vít (screw) all take the con classifier to convey motion.

More specific classifiers typically indicate the shape of objects, such as quả for round objects like balls or pieces of fruit, or tấm 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 cái for inanimate objects has increased at the expense of some of the rarer classifiers.

Among the most common classifiers are:

cái : used for most inanimate objects

chiếc: almost similar to cái, usually more connotative (e.g. when referring to a cute object, chiếc might be more suitable than cái)

con: usually for animals and children, but can be used to describe some non-living objects that are associated with motion

bài: used for compositions like songs, drawings, poems, essays, etc.

câu: sentential constructs (verses, lyrics, statements, quotes, etc.)

cây: used for stick-like objects (plants, guns, canes, etc.)

chuyện: a general topic, matter, or business

lá: smaller sheets of paper (letters, playing cards)

tòa: buildings of authority: courts, halls, "ivory towers".

quả/trái: used for globular objects (the Earth, fruits)

quyển/cuốn: used for book-like objects (books, journals, etc.)

tờ: sheets and other thin objects made of paper (newspapers, papers, calendars, etc.)

việc: an event or an ongoing process

Classifiers are required in the presence of a quantifier, except for "non-classified nouns": "time units" such as phút (minute), geographical and administrative units such as tỉnh (province), and polysyllabic Sino-Vietnamese compound nouns.

The classifier cái has a special role in that it can introduce any other classifier, e.g. cái con, cái chiếc, but Nguyễn Hùng Tường (2013) considers this to be a non-classifier use of cái.

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 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 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

specific vs. generic reference generic mood & generic antecedents

definiteness (identifiability of referent)

count noun vs. mass noun

interaction with classifiers (presence and absence thereof)

see Behrens (2003)

Pronouns

Vietnamese pronouns act as substitutions for noun phrases.

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 categoried 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 and number. 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, 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).

Kinship terms

Kinship terms 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 honorifics 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, to say I love you in Vietnamese, one can use one of many translations:

Anh yêu em. (male to female [or younger male] lover)

Em yêu anh. (female [or younger male] to 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 [or younger man] in 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 demonstratives (markers of deixis) 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 adverbials.

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 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.

Cardinal

Vietnamese numerals are a decimal 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."

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").

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, 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". Other examples include: thứ nhất "first", thứ hai (or thứ nhì) "second", thứ ba "third", and thứ bốn (or thứ tư) "fourth".

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 syntactic criteria.

Stative verbs

Stative verbs (also known as verbs of quality, extended state verbs, adjectival verbs or adjectives) can be distinguished from functive verbs by two syntactic tests:

1. stative verbs can be preceded by a degree modifier such as rất "very"
2. stative verbs cannot be preceded by the exhortative 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:

1. functive verbs cannot be preceded by a degree modifier such as rất "very"
2. 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!"

Tense markers

Although it is not usually required, past tense is indicated by adding the particle đã, present progressive tense by the particle đang, and future tense is indicated by the particle sẽ in front of the verb. Of course, "đã" and "đang" or "đang" and "sẽ" can be used together. In Vietnamese, the present perfect tense, past perfect tense are used as past tense, future perfect are used as future tense.

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 eventual agent 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 (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