Vietnamese and Chinese syntax?

[roddy]

Incidentally, when did this happen . . .

中土之外自称中华的国度不止日本

[nnt]

Quote:

但是越南立国，基本上是趁唐末五代十国混乱之机，以边藩自立，大量上层人士来自中国内地，所以长期具有“南北朝”的心态，以现代语讲，就是持“两个中国”态度"

What is the source of this?

Perhaps from an advocate of "One country, two systems" applied to the past and extended to Vietnam

as opposed to "Two countries, two systems" from a Vietnamese point of view.

[Zhao Hanqing]

Ma cher wushijiao,

Chinese called their country Zhongguo thousands of years ago, but the term became China's official name only after 1911 revolution.

[Zhao Hanqing]

If you are proficient enough in Chinese you had better read histories of Vietnam in Chinese.Only by then you will know what I said is absolutely true.

The old version of Vietnam history 大越史记 is more convincing, for the Vietnamese government may have tampled with new ones. Unfortunately Vietnamese have developed an intense hatred for Chinese and turned a blind eye to facts and refuse to see facts. I as a Chinese hope Vietnam will remain independent until all countries become one family some day.

[Zhao Hanqing]

Although Vietnamese rulers hated and feared Ming dynasty they had to submit to and pay tributes to Ming emperors following Japanese who regarded Ming emperors as their emperors especially when they presented tributes to Ming rulers.

[Zhao Hanqing]

Vietnamese did call Ming rulers kuangming or zei in the beginning of Ming dynasty. But they had to sumbit by and by. All East Asian nations including Japan and Korea were forced to acknowledge Ming emperors as their common emperors and Vietnam had to follow suit. Otherwise how could they have survived? We have to respect history.

[Zhao Hanqing]

For a long time Vietnamese rulers regarded the independent Vietnam, namely the southern dynasties as the legitimate heir of Zhongguo instead of northern dynasties of China. Probably they must have considered people of real Zhongguo as babarians. Who knows? In a certain sense Vietnamese rulers were entitled to call their country Zhonguo. But in modern times Vietnamese ruler regretted their ancestors had called their country Zhongguo because they feared Vietnam would really become part of China. So they tried desperatey to ignore the irrefutable facts teeming in Vietnamese historical documents.

There is no need to worry. History is history. No one can change the status quo of Vietnam.

[Long Zhiren]

If you are refering to the word order in sentence structure, then according to Wikipedia, then yes, they do have the same order. Both languages (and many others, for that matter) share the Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order...For example...Though, I don't know Vietnamese so I can't really offer any more examples.

中文 happens to be my third language; and tiếng Việt is a very weak eighth.

The Vietnamese language has been in transformation in recent decades. The goal has been to make it less and less Chinese. Until the recent past, it borrowed a lot from Chinese.

Examples of changes (compare with : 中國/法國 and 中文/法文)

China/France was: Trung-quốc/Pháp-quốc is now: nước-đồ/nước-Pháp

Chinese/French was: Trung-tiếng/Pháp-tiếng is now: tiếng đồ/tiếng Pháp

Lots of adjective/noun order reversals and complete swap of words that were too Chinese.

Many tiếng Việt expressions are still very very 中文 (compare with: 博物館 and 小心):

museum nhà bảo tàng (older buildings in Việt nam have it "bảo nhà tàng")

Be careful! ghen đen! (spelling?)

Articles of measure that precede nouns are complicated like in 中文 but there's really no one-to-one correspondance:

cái, con, bài, cây, chiếc, tòa, etc vs 把, 班, 包, 杯, 本, etc.

tiếng Việt pronouns are far more complicated than the 中文 pronouns:

Ông, Bà, Bác, Cô, Chú, etc vs N/A

Addressing relatives of friends and family in 中文 is very complicated. I haven't yet learned it in tiếng Việt so don't know how it corresponds in this respect.

And yes. In the past, the writing was all 100% 中文.

If you were to visit the Temple of Literature in Hánoi, founded in 1070AD, you'll find nothing but 中文 characters on everything.

[bhchao]

Although Vietnamese rulers hated and feared Ming dynasty they had to submit to and pay tributes to Ming emperors following Japanese who regarded Ming emperors as their emperors especially when they presented tributes to Ming rulers....

Vietnamese did call Ming rulers kuangming or zei in the beginning of Ming dynasty. But they had to sumbit by and by. All East Asian nations including Japan and Korea were forced to acknowledge Ming emperors as their common emperors and Vietnam had to follow suit. Otherwise how could they have survived? We have to respect history.

Tributes were purely used for symbolic purposes and had no actual impact on the independent workings of an entity giving the tribute. They were used to give the false impression that another country was directly subservient to the "master" country, for the latter's face-saving purposes.

If I was the leader of a country/kingdom like Vietnam or Silla Korea, and defeated an invading country's forces, I would think of a tribute as an inexpensive way to give the other country face while still maintaining my independence and autonomy.

If Hideyoshi Toyotomi acknowledged Ming Wanli as his emperor, he would not launch the 1592 and 1597 invasions of Korea for the purpose of invading China.

[HashiriKata]

If I was the leader of a country/kingdom like Vietnam or Silla Korea, and defeated an invading country's forces, I would think of a tribute as an inexpensive way to give the other country face while still maintaining my independence and autonomy.

I think bhchao has hit the nail on the head!

[nnt]

As usual, the linguistic comparisions between Chinese and Vietnamese one can find in many places stress on vocabulary but never mention syntax ...

Concerning syntax, there are many basic differences between the two languages :

1/in vietnamese, adjectives come after nouns as already pointed out

2/Comparisions sentences are basically different.

A is adj-er than B :

A adj hơn B in vietnamese

A 比 B adj

Ex : A cao hơn B in vietnamese

A 比 B 高 (高 = "cao " in Hán/Việt)

3/ constructions involving relative pronouns in English :

The house in which I live is rather big

Nhà tôi ở khá to (similar to English, tôi = I 我, ở = live 住 , to = big 大)

我住的家比較大 (reverse order)

etc...

[Mugi]

Interestingly, the syntax of many southern sinitic languages is sometimes similar to Vietnamese though.

1/ Adjectives sometimes come after nouns in standard Cantonese, and even more so in Cantonese subdialects, southern Min and Hakka (although the most commonly cited examples are often thought of as having now become nouns in their own right: animal name + 公, etc).

2/ cf Cantonese: A adj 過 B (A 高過 B)

[Quest]

1/ Adjectives sometimes come after nouns in standard Cantonese,

Other than the often cited 公 and 乸, which are special suffices, is there any other examples to show adjectives would come after nouns in Cantonese? Also, in Cantonese 膽小 is 細膽... so what can one or two reversed order words prove? I don't understand why it needs to be stressed as a difference in grammar. Cantonese is not a noun-adj language, period.

2/ cf Cantonese: A adj 過 B (A 高過 B)

過 turns the adjective into a verb, in a sense like A 超過 B. I don't think using 過 this way is wrong in Mandarin, it's just that 比 is used more often in the north than in the south.

[nnt]

Quote:

2/ cf Cantonese: A adj 過 B (A 高過 B)

過 turns the adjective into a verb, in a sense like A 超過 B. I don't think using 過 this way is wrong in Mandarin, it's just that 比 is used more often in the north than in the south.

I don't know Cantonese, but searching on the web, I've found this page :

http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/youngwriter/members/resource/rsdb5/man_001.htm

For the author,

如不注意把這個特點帶進書面語，便會出現下面這樣的句子：

×60他高過我

×雞肉好吃過豬肉。

這在書面語裏也是不規範的。規範的說法還是得像例56和57那樣說。

56.他比我高

57.雞肉比豬肉好吃。

Interestingly enough, this page also contains a sentence pattern which I thought was a similarity between Vietnamese and Cantonese, but was not :

有＋verb usage in Cantonese

is not really (thanks Quest ! ) similar to

có + verb in Vietnamese ,

有 "hữu " in Hán/Việt , meaning "có " in Vietnamese because

. in Cantonese it is simply the past tense

. in Vietnamese, "có " has the same usage as "do", "did" before the verb , adding an insistence, a stress on the action.

但粵語中「有」還有一種特殊用法：用在動詞前，對已發生的動作或事態加以肯定。如：

＊×22.前日我都有去。

＊×23.(你有冇睇過呢套戲？)有睇過。

前日我都有去。

The previous day, I have gone too.

In Vietnamese, A word by word translation :

Hôm kia (前日)tôi(我) cũng (都)có (有) đi (去)

would mean :

The previous day, I did go there too.

有睇過。

= Yes, I have seen it .

In Vietnamese, a word by word translation :

có (有 )xem (睇) qua(過).

would not have the same meaning :

= I did see it .

[Quest]

Interestingly enough, this page also contains a sentence pattern which gives a similarity between Vietnamese and Cantonese :

有＋verb usage in Cantonese

is similar to

có + verb in Vietnamese ,

有 "hữu " in Hán/Việt , meaning "có " in Vietnamese :

That's a universal usage, isn't it? "have" before verbs....? 有沒有看過？有[看過]。

有冇睇過？有[睇過]。Have you seen it? Yes I have [seen it].

I agree 比 is the usual construction in Mandarin, maybe that's the standard now? sooner or later they are going to say "將" and "講" are nonstandard usages and are unsinitic. The adj+過 usage is often used as well, and not just in Cantonese speaking areas. 地大，大得過天嗎？那是再好不過了。過's usage is similar to 於，高於， 大於. 今年收入高於上年。今年收入高過上一年。

That site also brought up some examples of noun+adj usages in Mandarin:

他人很好 in Mandarin

他好好人 in Cantonese

人多 in Mandarin

多人 in Cantonese

[nnt]

Quote:

Interestingly enough, this page also contains a sentence pattern which gives a similarity between Vietnamese and Cantonese :

有＋verb usage in Cantonese

is similar to

có + verb in Vietnamese ,

有 "hữu " in Hán/Việt , meaning "có " in Vietnamese :

That's a universal usage, isn't it? "have" before verbs....? 有沒有看過？有[看過]。

有冇睇過？有[睇過]。Have you seen it? Yes I have [seen it].

I thought Cantonese usage was similar to Vietnamese, but as it simply means the past tense, I was wrong (previous post edited accordingly, history rewritten ).

In Vietnamese, the past is indicated by :

(đã) + verb + rồi

rồi is similar to 了 in Mandarin

The sentence pattern

có + (đã) + verb + rồi

adds emphasis to the action , as "do" , "did" in English.

Tôi (đã) xem rồi = I have seen it .

Tôi có xem rồi = Yes, I did see it.

More generally, the sentence pattern

có + verb in Vietnamese in affirmative sentences (not only in the past) is similar to

do/did + verb in English

Tôi biết = I know

Tôi có biết = I do know .

[Zhao Hanqing]

The granting title and paying tributes system is more than face-saving matter. The country paying tributes was protected by the country receiving tributes. True, Japan did invade Korea. But who helped Koreans drive away Japanese? China, the tributes-receiver. You have given me proof that paying tributes is more than saving others' face. Ming emperor Yongle was acknowledged as Japan's emperor by the general 大足义利满. Don't you know that?

[nnt]

他人很好 in Mandarin

他好好人 in Cantonese

人多 in Mandarin

多人 in Cantonese

That reminds me of the famous opera 东方红 。

东方红 The Orient is red

In this case the adjective is used as predicate . This usage does not contradict the rule that basically the adjective goes before the noun, simply it's another usage , just as in English :

"The Orient is red" is not the same pattern as

"The red Orient" , and even more in French (differences between "épithète" and "attribut" )

人多 in Mandarin : IMHO, does not convey the same meaning as 多人, it's just another construction : adjectives used as predicates.

In Vietnamese too, there are cases in which adjectives go before the noun , if you get more advanced...

For example, just as in English there are adjectives like :

quick-tempered, light-hearted , swift-handed etc...

with Adj + noun as body or personality part + ed suffix,

in Vietnamese there are similar constructions :

Một người nóng tính = a quick-tempered person

"nóng tính " as a whole is an adjective, but is composed of "nóng" = hot , quick which is basically an adjective,

and "tính" = characteristic, feature , which is basically a noun.

The association would break if there is a comparision :

Một người tính nóng như (as) lửa (fire) (= a person with a temper as quick as fire ) , in which "tính" is here a noun, "nóng" an adjective .

There are many adjectives like that :

nhanh mắt = quick-eyed

lớn tuổi = (high + age ) aged

etc...

[skylee]

Plenty of video clips of the series "War and Beauty" dubbed in Vietnamese (with English subtitles) -> Tham Cung Quy Phi

[Quest]

I heard 老爷。