Initial survey of the phenomenon of focalization of subject-predicate structure of Vietnamese sentences

HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

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DAO THI MINH NGOC

INITIAL SURVEY ON THE PHENOMENON OF FOCUSING THE SUBJECT-PRECURRENT STRUCTURE OF VIETNAMESE SENTENCES

Major: LINGUISTICS Code: 60.22.01

MASTER'S THESIS IN LINGUISTICS

Scientific supervisor: Associate Professor, Dr. NGUYEN HONG CON

INDEX

INTRODUCTION 1

1. Reason for choosing topic 1

2. Research object and scope 2

3. Research purpose and tasks 3

4. Meaning of thesis 3

5. Research methods and materials 4

5.1. Research method 4

5.2. Survey materials 4

6. Structure of the thesis 5

CHAPTER 1. RESEARCH SITUATION AND THEORETICAL BASIS 6

1.1. Research situation 6

1.1.1.Situation of research on information structure in linguistics 6

1.1.1.1. Reality Segmentation Theory 6

1.1.1.2. Information structure according to functional grammar 6

1.1.2. The situation of information structure research in Vietnamese linguistics 9

1.1.2.1. About the syntax structure 9

1.1.2.2. About information structure 12

1.2. Concepts related to topic 14

1.2.1. Information structure 14

1.2.2.Elements of information structure 15

1.2.2.1. Information base 15

1.2.2.2. Information focus 17

1.2.3. Focalization and focalization methods 20

1.2.3.1. Concept of focalization 20

1.2.3.2. Focus Marking Method 21

1.2.4. Marking theory 26

1.2.4.1. Jakobson's theory of marking 26

1.2.4.2. Application of marking theory in functional grammar 27

1.3. Summary 29

CHAPTER 2. METHODS OF FOCUSING 30

2.1. Basis for determining information focus 30

2.1.1. Context 30

2.1.2. Presupposition 33

2.1.3. Omission 34

2.2. Methods of focalizing the subject-predicate structure of Vietnamese sentences 35

2.2.1. Focusing by stress 35

2.2.2. Focusing by omitting the information base 36

2.2.2.1. Omitted subject utterance 37

2.2.2.2. Omitted predicate utterance 38

2.2.2.3. Subject-predicate omission 38

2.2.3. Focusing with the function word 39

2.2.3.1. Focus Particle 39

2.2.3.2. Particle 40

2.2.3.3. Combination of auxiliary verbs…particles 40

2.2.4. Focusing by changing word order 41

2.2.4.1. Island money 41

2.2.4.2. Post-island 44

2.2.4.3. Passive voice 48

2.3. Types of information focus 51

2.3.1. Affirmative focus 51

2.3.1.1. The answer includes the base and focus 51

2.3.1.2. Answers with only focus 57

2.3.2. Focus question 59

2.3.2.1. Questions include both the basic and focus questions 60

2.3.2.2. Questions with only focus on question 62

2.3.2.3. Questions with only basic part 62

2.3.3. Contrast focus 64

2.3.3.1. Alternative TĐTP: 65

2.3.3.2. Expanded TĐTP 66

2.3.3.3. Limited time limit: 66

2.3.3.4. Selected candidates: 66

2.3.3.5. Parallel TĐTP: 66

2.4. Summary 67

CHAPTER 3: SCOPE OF FOCUS ON SUBJECT-PRESENTATION STRUCTURE 68

3.1. Subject-predicate structure with the information focus being the predicate 68

3.1.1. The condition for the appearance of the information focus is the predicate 68

3.1.1.1. For questions 69

3.1.1.2. For statements that are not questions 70

3.1.2. The means of expressing the information focus is the predicate 71

3.1.2.1. Functionality of predicate focus 71

3.1.2.2. The means of expression of the information focus is the predicate 75

3.2. Subject-predicate structure with information focus as argument 79

3.2.1. The condition for the appearance of the information focus is parameter 79

3.2.1.1. For questions that seek information 79

3.2.1.2. For questions aimed at confirming the authenticity of information. 79

3.2.2. The means of expressing the information focus is the parameter 80.

3.2.2.1. Operational capability of the 80 parameter focus

3.2.2.2. Means of expression of the parameter information focus 84

3.3. Information structure with information focus on sentence 91

3.3.1. The condition for the appearance of the information focus is sentence 91

3.3.1.1. Sentences with 91 tenses

3.3.1.2. Sentences with 91 terms

3.3.1.3. Sentences with TĐTP 92

3.3.2. The means of expression of the information focus is sentence 92

3.3.2.1. The ability of the information focus to operate is question 92.

3.3.2.2. The means of expression of the information focus is sentence 93

3.3. Summary 95

CONCLUSION 96

REFERENCES 99

APPENDIX 103

SUBJECT-PRECONSTRUCTION WITH INFORMATION FOCUS AS PRECEPTOR 103

REFERENCES 123

INTRODUCTION

1. Reason for choosing the topic

In actual language use, we often encounter cases where the same utterance content in different contexts will create different information values (expressed through asking questions). For example:

(1) Lan bought two books. ( Who bought two books?)

(2) Lan bought two books . ( What did Lan buy ?)

(3) Lan bought two books . ( What did Lan do ?)

(4) Lan bought two books . ( What's the matter ?)

It is easy to see that this is a common linguistic phenomenon and plays an important role in the practical activities of Vietnamese. Linguistic researchers have paid attention to this phenomenon and called it by the term "reality segmentation". However, the concept of reality segmentation did not begin to receive much attention until 1939, originating from Mathesius and scholars of the Prague school. After that, the ideas of this linguistic group were absorbed and developed in many different directions by researchers such as MAK Halliday, S.Dik, J.Firbas, R.Dooley, Li & Thompson....

In Vietnam, in recent years, with the strong development of semantics and pragmatics, the problem of sentence research has made great strides. People are deeply interested in the human factor in language, considering language communication as a form of human activity, in which people use language as a conscious subject to serve their own interests. Following such an approach, linguists have shifted the research focus from analyzing sentences according to syntactic structure to analyzing sentences according to their information structure. The theory of information structure has therefore developed in a series of research works by authors (Tran Ngoc Them, Ly Toan Thang, Diep Quang Ban, Cao Xuan Hao, Nguyen Hong Con...). Referring to and absorbing the works and articles of predecessors, we find that most authors have more or less suggested to readers to visualize the information structure of sentences. However, most of them only take the information structure itself as the research object, not directly and deeply research it. Issues surrounding a structure

Information such as elements of information structure, types of information structure... are briefly mentioned and somewhat simplified. To understand comprehensively and with the necessary depth, we must mention the collection of articles by Associate Professor Nguyen Hong Con in his research work.

The theory of information structure raises an important issue in the study of linguistic communication phenomena: what does the speaker want to pay attention to and what part of information is considered important for the listener to pay attention to and receive? It is easy to see that the speaker's different evaluation and selection of information in different cognitive situations can make an event expressed by the same propositional content, the same syntactic structure but expressed by different information structures. From there, it has opened up a rather interesting research topic for us: how do Vietnamese people use available language units to convey information and especially the emphasized information? In the information structure, there is a part that contains the most important information and is called the information focus. With the same utterance content, the focused information falls into different syntactic elements to create different information values. We find that the most important thing when analyzing the information structure of an utterance is to identify the information value in which part of the utterance (identify the focal point of information). Therefore, the problem of the information structure of the sentence in general and the focal information of the sentence in particular has posed questions for us such as: How is the focal point of information identified? What means highlight the information considered important? What is the relationship between the information structure and the syntactic structure of the sentence? Based on the above questions, we want to delve into the phenomenon of focalization of the subject-predicate structure - a method of expressing the concentration of information in order to hope that the results of the thesis will be somewhat useful in using language to create certain communicative effects.

2. Research object and scope

Our main research object is the phenomenon of focalization of Vietnamese subject-predicate structures, focusing on the following issues:

- Concept of information structure in general; focalization and information focalization in particular in linguistics and in Vietnamese linguistics.

- Marking methods and focalization models in the information structure of Vietnamese sentences.

- The position of the information focus of Vietnamese sentences is based on the subject-predicate structure. However, due to the limited scope and level of a master's thesis, the topic is limited to single-part utterances (simple sentences) and is not capable enough to consider the issue of focus in Vietnamese compound utterances (compound sentences).

3. Research purpose and tasks

When carrying out the topic, we hope to achieve the following goals:

- Confirm that the focal phenomenon plays an important role in information structure when using sentences as a unit of information in communication.

- The topic contributes to describing and analyzing the focalization models of Vietnamese sentence structures to draw out the characteristics of information structures besides the subject-predicate and topic-argument structures.

From there we need to address the following issues:

- Review opinions on information structure and focus of research works in the world and Vietnam.

- Survey and describe the focal phenomena of Vietnamese sentences.

- Classify the types of sentence focus structures to see the richness of Vietnamese information structure.

4. Meaning of the thesis

In terms of theory , the thesis has delved into a relatively meticulous and systematic study of the focal issue. With such a systematic description, we hope to have certain contributions to the theory of information structure in particular and Vietnamese sentence structure in general.

In practice , in fact, as everyone knows, the current linguistic context is requiring a more in-depth, comprehensive and systematic study of issues related to the information structure of Vietnamese sentences. Through a survey of specific corpus on the phenomenon of focalization, we have drawn some observations on the actual communication of Vietnamese people. In addition, as a direct participant in teaching language to students of the Faculty of Literature at Hai Phong University, during the teaching process, we have noticed many

Students' questions are related to identifying which part of a subject-predicate structure is marked as informationally prominent. At that time, learners encountered difficulties in analyzing and describing the semantics and pragmatics of the utterance. Moreover, pointing out the formal, semantic, and functional characteristics of the types of focal structures also serves a number of fields related to informational focal structures such as journalism, literature, etc. to contribute to the high efficiency of those fields. Based on the above reasons, we see this as an area that needs further research to have a comprehensive view of this phenomenon.

5. Research methods and materials

5.1. Research method

To find out the phenomenon of information focalization, this thesis has chosen the scientific approach: induction combined with deduction.

Besides the main descriptive research method, we also apply the following methods:

- Sentence analysis method based on functional theory.

- Method of analyzing the information structure of a sentence from the theoretical perspective of information structure.

From the above methods, we have taken the following steps:

- Record and collect statements containing focal phenomena in 20 literary works as well as daily communications.

- Statistics, establish a list of focal phenomena obtained.

- Analyze, describe and classify the obtained list into groups with common characteristics. Then we draw out common structural models for each group.

In addition, we also use research methods such as: adaptation, comparison, statistics... when necessary to confirm the accuracy of the classified focal types.

5.2. Survey materials

The materials we base our survey on are single utterances (single sentences) in literary works of both the realistic and modern literary periods.