Luận Văn A study on the aspects of syntax and semantics of negation in English and the contrastive analysis i

Khóa luận tốt nghiệp
Đề tài: A study on the aspects of syntax and semantics of negation in English and the contrastive analysis in Vietnamese


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Contents
Part A. Introduction 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 1
3. Method of the study 2
4. Scope of the study 2
5. Design of the study 2
Part B. Development 4
Chapter I. Literature Review . 4
1. Syntax and semantics 4
1.1. An overview of syntax . 4
1.2. An overview of semantics . 5
1.3. Relation between semantics and syntax 6
2. Classification of negation in English and Vietnamese 7
2.1. Classification of negation 7
2.2. What is scope of negation 9
3. Contrastive analysis in learning a foreign language 9,10
4. Summary 10
Chapter II. Syntactic and semantic features of negation in English and
their equivalents in Vietnamese . 12
1. Comparison between English and Vietnamese negatives in terms of their
syntactic features 12
1.1 Negative word not and its contracted form n’t . 13
1.1.1. Auxiliary negation 13
1.1.2. Subject negation . 14
1.1.3. Object negation . 15
1.1.4. Adverbial negation 16
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1.1.5. Clausal ellipsis negation 17
1.2. No negation . 17
1.2.1. Subject negation . 18
1.2.2. Subject negation with indefinite pronoun . 18
1.2.3. Object negation with indefinite pronoun . 19
1.3. Never negation . 19
1.3.1. Adverb negation with never. 19
1.3.2. Prepositional negation . 20
1.4. Transferred negation . 21
1.5. Negative form with too + adj/adv + to V-inf 22
1.6. Negative form with affixation . 22
2. Comparison between English and Vietnamese negatives in terms of their
semantic features 24
2.1. Word negative in meaning but not in form 24
2.1.1. Implicit negation 24
2.1.2. Adverbs of frequency 25
2.1.3. Negation with few/little . 26
2.2. Double negation . 27
2.3. Question negation 27
2.3.1. Tag – question . 28
2.3.2. Wh- question 28
3. Summary 29
Chapter III. Application of syntactic and semantic features of negation
in the text of President Barack Obama’s inaugural address 30
1. In terms of its syntax . 31
1.1. Never negation . 31
1.2. Not negation 32
1.3. Affixation negation 32
1.4. No negation 32
1.5.Negation with structure too adj/adv + to V-inf . 33
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2. In terms of its semantics 33
2.1. Implicit negation . 34
2.2. Negation with few, little 34
2.3 Negation with adverbial of frequency 34
3.Summary 35
Part C. Conclusion 36
Abbreviation 38
References .39-40


INTRODUCTION
-----***-----1. Rationale
Grammar is a large and important category in learning language,
especially in studying English. In modern concepts, grammar may be defined
as a set of morphological and syntactic rule which may be treated together to
make it easier for the learners of language to master and apply to real
situations. Being an ESL student, one may find many difficulties as well as
ambiguity when learning negation, one of important aspect of English
grammar, which can be appeared in every form of texts of many fields as well
as in daily conversation. It is said to be a natural phenomena in linguistic.
However, there is a wide variety of morphological and syntactic rules that
linguists have studied on this category with different point of view for
decades.
In Vietnamese, negation is also considered as an essential category in
grammar. Many studies were pointed out to clear and complete this matter.
However, it is difficult for Vietnamese learners to study negation in English
because there was little contrast between two languages. That the reason why
the topic of negation is chosen for this graduation paper.
It is expected that the syntactic and semantic features of negation in
English and their Vietnamese equivalents found in this graduation paper will
be helpful for learners in their studying.
2. Aims of the study
With the rationale above, this graduation paper is aimed at:
- Making a brief preview of theory of syntax and semantics and giving
an overview of syntactic and semantic features of negation in both
English and Vietnamese.
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- Studying negation in terms of its structures and semantics and finding
out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese.
- Applying the findings of negation in a typical text, the text of President
Barack Obama’s inaugural address.
3. Scope of the study
Negation is a large category of English grammar, so it is difficult to
cover all of its aspects. Therefore, in the frame of the study, this graduation
paper only deals with the aspects of syntax and semantics of negation in
English and the contrastive analysis with their Vietnamese equivalents. Then,
applying to investigate the negation in the text of President Barack Obama’s
inaugural address to make clear the similarities and the differences between
English and Vietnamese negation.
4. Method of the study
Firstly, basing on the source materials of English grammatical books,
the writer gives the description of negative structures and expressions. Then,
basing on what have discussed, the writer systematized the syntactic and
semantic features of negation. Thirdly, the contrastive analysis was given for
the comparison between English negation and Vietnamese equivalents.
Finally, this graduation paper takes the statistic the time of using negation in
the text of President Barack Obama’s inaugural address to illustrate the theory
mentioned.
5. Design of the study
With the aims and the method mentioned above, this graduation paper
is designed in 3 parts:
Part A is the Introduction giving the reasons for choosing the topic, the
aims of the study, the scope of the study, the methods and the design of the
study.
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Part B is the Development including three chapters:
Chapter 1 gives an overview of syntax and semantics as well as the
syntactic and semantic features of negation in both English and
Vietnamese. It also attaches the preview of theory of contrastive analysis.
Chapter 2 is the major part in this graduation paper based on the theory
mentioned in chapter 1. It gives the forms of negative structures in English
and their equivalents in Vietnamese in terms of their syntax and semantics.
Chapter 3 is the study of negation in the text of President Barack
Obama’s inaugural address.
Part C is The Conclusion giving all the brief results of the thesis paper.
The references put an end to the study.