HANOI UNIVERSITY

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT  
 

 
 

 
ASSIGNMENT
 

TOPIC:  A contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese word

formation
 
Supervisor: Nguyen Thuy Duong 
Students:  
1. Vũ Thị Minh Hằng; Student’s ID: 1907010098
2. Nguyễn Phương Chi; Student’s ID: 1907010339
3. Phạm Minh Hiếu; Student’s ID: 1907010109

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Hà Nội, 2022
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY 
This is to certify that to the best of our knowledge, the content of this paper is our own
work. This paper has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. We certify that the
intellectual content of this paper is the product of our own work and that all the assistance
received in preparing this paper and sources have been acknowledged. 
 
Date: 20/04/2022
Group leader’s name: Pham Minh Hieu
Leader’s signature: ______________________ 

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 I. INTRODUCTION 

a. Rationale
The structure of language is called grammar and the free components are called
vocabulary and various rules apply to different languages. Each word, sound, or sentence
we say or write is guided by a rule, and English and Vietnamese both have their unique
ways of forming their lexicon. After reading and referring to several research articles, we
found that there were not many of them specific and detailed, so we wanted to summarize
the words of the research articles to analyze the word structure. Specifically, by
comparing word formations in English and Vietnamese languages. When it comes to
language families, English belongs to the Indo-European language family, whereas
Vietnamese relates to the Austro-Asian language family, which makes a significant
difference. Through the Cambridge dictionary’s definition of a word, which is a single
unit of language that has meaning and may be written or spoken, it appears that English
and Vietnamese have several similarities. Nevertheless, defining what a term signifies in a
language is challenging since it also depends on various factors on which individuals base
their decisions.  

b. Aim of the study 

Due to these factors, we concentrated our attention throughout the study mostly on the
similarities and differences of word formations in English and Vietnamese, ways to build
words in English and Vietnamese, and understanding of English and Vietnamese word-
formation.

c. Organization of the paper 

In this research paper, to help readers easily grasp the information, we decided to divide it
into four main parts:
Part 1: Introduction 
Part 2: Literature review 
Part 3: Finding & Discussion 

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 Part 4: Conclusion 

d. Research questions  
In addition, this research focuses on answering the following question: “What are the
differences between English and Vietnamese word-formation processes?”

II. LITERATURE REVIEW: FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS

To clarify the similarities and differences between word-formation processes in
Vietnamese and English, some essential terms need to be restated.

a. Noun
Ingo Plag (2002) summarized some characteristics of words as a part of speech
specification, syntactic atoms, and indivisible units. In terms of sound structure, a word is an
essential unit for the appearance and the distribution of the stress and every word can only have
one stress. Word is also an inseparable unit and it cannot be intervened by any elements inside it.
If some changes are made around a word, they must be done in the surroundings of a word.
Words are considered syntactic atoms as they are the smallest unit in a sentence.
  Nguyen Manh Hung (2014) indicated that  “A word is the smallest free form (an item that
may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content) in a language, in contrast to a
morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning” (p.14). He also showed many illustrations of
“word” from different perspectives such as a verbal signal, a verbal command or order, etc

b. Morpheme
Le Huy Truong, Dang Dinh Thien, and Tran Huy Phuong (2015) stated that morphemes
are the smallest meaningful units that can be analyzed. Furthermore, Le Huy Truong and his
colleagues also categorized morphemes into 2 types including free morpheme and bound
morpheme. Free morphemes are described as morphemes that can stand independently as they
have their semantic meaning. For example, free morphemes include words such as “dog”, “car”,
“house”, etc. In contrast, bound morphemes are morphemes that need to be accompanied by other
morphemes to form words like the morpheme “ful” in the word “careful”, and “ness” in the word
“happiness”.

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c. Prefixes and Suffixes
Based on the compilation of Nguyen Manh Hung (2014), suffixes are morphemes that are
added after a word to form a new word. For instance, the suffix “ment” in the word
“development”, “employment” or “ness” in “happiness”. Prefixes are morphemes that stand
before a word to make a new word ( prefix “un” in “unfamiliar” or “ir” in “irregular”)

d. Word formation
Nguyen Manh Hung (2014) wrote that “Word formation or word building is the process
of creation of new words from the resources of a particular language” (p. 34). In word-
formation, there are different word formation processes (derivation, compounding, blending,
clipping, acronyms, back-formation, and conversion) to create new words. 

e. Research review 
In this research, we aim to consolidate previous research findings by reviewing the
definitions of word-formation processes in both languages and illustrating similarities and
differences in Vietnamese and English word formation through examples.
In the previous research paper by Pham Van Tac & Le Huynh Thanh Huy (2016), they
showed that Vietnamese and English are two languages with so many distinctive different
features but they still have some similar characteristics in word-formation. 

III. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

1. Similarities 
Words in every language can be created by using various methods such as adding affixes,
compounding, using acronyms, etc. In this part, similar word formations in English and
Vietnamese will be analyzed for a better understanding of both languages. These word
formations are affixation, compounding, conversion, clipping, blending, and reduplication.

a. Affixation 
Affixation can be understood as adding a prefix or suffix to a word to form a new
word. Vu Ngoc Can (1999) stated in his book entitled “An introduction to linguistics” that
“affixation is considered a common way to form new words in inflective languages like
Russian, German or English.” For instance, to make the noun “vibration” in English, the

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 suffix “ion” is added to the verb “vibrate”. Several suffixes can be used to change a verb
to a noun are “ment”, “ance”, “ence”, “ness'', “ity”. Moreover, the suffix “ing” turns verbs
into nouns, meaning the performing of an action denoted by the verbs. Some examples of
this case are “swim” - ”swimming”, “meet” - ”meeting”, “paint” - ”painting”. 
Vu Ngoc Can (1999) also claimed that although there are some opinions
proposing that affixation is not clear in non-transformative languages such as Vietnamese
or Chinese, it can still be used in these languages. In Vietnamese, by adding words such
as “cuộc”, “sự”, “cái” to a verb, a noun can be formed. They function as prefixes to turn
verbs into nouns, for example “họp” (to have a meeting) - “cuộc họp” (a meeting).

b. Compounding
According to Yule (2006), the process of combining two or more words to form a
new word is called compounding. Specifically, it is the process of putting words together
to create a new one that denotes only one thing but not two or more. 
Nguyen Manh Hung (2014) classified compounding in English into structural
criteria and semantic criteria. 
The three types of compounds in structural criteria are neutral compounds,
morphological compounds, and syntactic compounds. The first type, neutral compounds
are formed by combining two stems with no linking elements. For example, “white-
board” and “table-tennis” are neutral compounds. Secondly, morphological compounds
are words formed by combining two stems with the assistance of a linking vowel or
consonant. “salesgirl” and “handicraft” are examples of morphological compounds. The
last type is syntactic compounds, which are strings of words formed from segments of
speech. An example of syntactic compounds is “merry-go-round”. 
In semantic criterion, compounds are divided into non-idiomatic compounds and
idiomatic compounds. The first one, non-idiomatic compounds are words whose
meanings can be considered to be the sum of their components’ meanings. When looking
at these words, language users can immediately know their meanings. For example, “a
sleeping-car” and “an evening-gown” are non-idiomatic words. The other one is idiomatic
compounds, whose meanings do not correlate with the meanings of their components

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 either partially or completely. “lady-bird” can be taken as an example of the idiomatic
compound as it refers to a small, red beetle that is round and has black spots. 
In Vietnamese, there are two kinds of compounds, which are coordinate
compounds and subordinate compounds. Coordinate compounds are formed by two
morphemes and none of the morphemes modifies the other. For example, the two separate
morphemes “áo” (shirts) and  “quần” (pants) form “quần áo” (clothes) or “mua” (buy) and
“bán" (sell) form “mua bán"(trade). They are both used to indicate general things or
activities. Subordinate compounds, on the other hand, are formed by two morphemes and
one of which modifies the other. The morphemes “xe" (vehicles) and “đạp" (cycle) form
the word “xe đạp" (bicycle) and in order to form “xe đạp", both morphemes are needed.

c. Conversion 
Conversion is defined as the formation of new words by changing the
categorization of existing words’ class with no change in their morphemic shape by
Nguyen Manh Hung (2014). In other words, conversion is changing a word’s class
without any change in its form. Conversion can be applied to all types of parts of speech
such as turning conjunctions and verbs into nouns and adjectives and nouns into verbs in
English. For example, the word “cry” can be understood as either the action of shedding
tears or a scream expressing a powerful feeling in these sentences: “The baby cried all
night” (verb) and “Sometimes one just needs a good cry.” (noun). 
To Minh Thanh (2003) implied that there are two types of conversion including
complete conversion and approximate conversion by defining both kinds. “Complete
conversion is the process of adjusting a word from one word class to another without
adding an affix” (p. 97) while approximate conversion is “the process by which a word, in
course of changing its grammatical function, may undergo a slight change of
pronunciation or spelling” (p. 102).
In Vietnamese, similar to conversion in English, new words can be formed
without changing their forms such as “bài thơ” (poem) and “thơ lắm” (beautiful). It is also
used to enlarge or narrow the meaning of a word, or it can be used as a metaphor and
metonymy (Nguyen Thien Giap, 2013). For the first purpose of conversion in
Vietnamese, enlarging or narrowing the meaning of the word, the noun “ốc” can be taken

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 as an example. It can mean “snail” (a kind of animal) or “screw” (a metal pin used to join
things together). Another purpose of conversion in Vietnamese, where words function as
metaphor and metonymy, can be illustrated respectively by the word “Thị Nở” (the name
of a character in a literary work) used to call an ugly girl and “Nhà có bốn miệng ăn”
(There are four mouths in the house to serve), in which the word “miệng” can be
understood as “person”.

d. Clipping
According to Suzanne Kemmer, clipping is one kind of abbreviation process in
which one component of a word is 'clipped' from the remainder, leaving the remaining
words to have the same thing as the original word.  For instance, the word “cello” is the
shortened form of “violoncello” or “gas” for “gasoline”. Likewise, in Vietnamese, the
word “ki lô” can replace the word “ki-lô-gram” and “Đảng” instead of “Đảng Cộng Sản
Việt Nam”.

e. Blending
Blending, much the same as compounding, includes the combination of two or
more words to form a new term. Nevertheless, Yule (2006) (as cited in Hosseinzadeh,
2014) stated that blending is customarily conducted by taking only the initial part of one
word and joining it to the end of the other word. Blending in English is categorized into
morphotactic criterion, morphological criterion, and morphosemantic criterion. 
Total blends and partial blends are the two types of words in the morphotactic
criterion. Total blends are created when all source words are reduced to splinters. For
example, “breakfast” and “lunch” are blended creating “brunch”. Partial blends have only
one source word reduced and the other remains unchanged. “Fanzine”, which is created
from “fan” and “magazine”, is an example of partial blends. 
In morphological criteria, words are divided into overlapping blends and non-
overlapping blends. Overlapping blends have a phonological overlap of speech sounds or
syllables in constituents while non-overlapping ones do not disclose phonological or
graphic overlap among splinters. “Pictionary” (picture + dictionary) and “beaulicious”

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 (beautiful + delicious) are the two examples of overlapping and non-overlapping blends
respectively. 
Morphosemantic criterion attributive blends and coordinate blends. Attributive
blends have one splinter function as a semantic head and the other as a modifier. The
word “light” in “porta-light” functions as the head and it means a portable light.
Contrarily, coordinate blends have their splinters remain the same semantic status. For
example, when “gigantic” and “ enormous” are combined, “ginormous” is created and
both splinters are the head. 
Similarly, blends in Vietnamese are created by combining the beginning of a word
and the end of another word. Some examples of Vietnamese blends are “công danh”
(position and fame), created from “thành công” (success) and “danh tiếng” (reputation)
and “tham vấn” (consult) from “tham gia” (join) and “tư vấn” (advise). 

f. Reduplication 
Nguyen Manh Hung (2014) defined reduplication as the process of repeating the
whole root or stem of a word or part of it to form a word. This type of formation either
requires no phonetic changes or includes a variation of the root-vowel or consonant. In
both English and Vietnamese, there are three ways of reduplication, which are exact
reduplication, rhyming reduplication, and ablaut reduplication. 
Exact reduplication also called full reduplication is the repetition of a base word,
word stem, which is the root with one or more affixes, or roots (Rubino, 2013). Common
exact reduplicated words are “night-night”, “bye-bye”, “khăng khăng” and “đùng đùng”. 
Rhyming reduplication is the process where the root word is duplicated and the
consonant is changed while the vowel remains the same (Piechnik, 2015 as cited in Aziz
& Nolikasari, 2020). For instance, “hokey-pokey” and “thoang thoảng” are words formed
by duplicating “hokey” and “thoảng qua”. 
Wang (2005, as cited in Aziz & Nolikasari, 2020) concluded that reduplicated
words are produced through copying the syllable and changing the vowel for the second
syllable. Some ablaut reduplicated words in English and Vietnamese are “chit-chat”,
“ding-dong”, “bập bẹ” and “chan chát”. 

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 2. Differences
Apart from the similarities in Vietnamese and English word-formation processes, some
notable differences can be identified in certain processes.

a. Affixation
In English, basic words can be attached to elements such as a prefix at the beginning (e.g.,
“un-” in “unhappy”) or a suffix at the end of a word (e.g., “-ment” in “employment”). Based on
the research of Nguyen Dinh Hoa (1997), Vietnamese people also use prefixes and suffixes, but
instead of being connected to the original word, prefixes and suffixes appear as independent
words. The main difference between Vietnamese and English affixation is the position of affixes
in both languages.
-học: ngôn ngữ học, kinh tế học,… -er: reader, provider,...
tiền-: tiền đề, tiền kiếp,… in-: insufficient, inappropriate,...

b. Compounding
Referring to compound words made from adjectives and nouns, the Vietnamese
compounding process is contrasting to that in the English language. Ho Thanh An (2010) stated
that the position of the adjectives in Vietnamese is different from English adjectives when they
are combined with a noun. In a Vietnamese sentence, it is normal for an adjective to come after a
noun while in English, it is unusual for some adjectives to be added after a verb. Here are two
tables that illustrate the position of adjectives in English and Vietnamese when they combine
with nouns to form a compound word.
 

Adjectives Noun Compound

public property public property

exotic food exotic food

Nouns Adjectives Compounds

áo cũ áo cũ

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 năm Mới năm mới

 
From the second table, we can see that the adjective must stand after the noun in a
Vietnamese compound word. If the adjective is placed before the noun, the whole word will be
meaningless. For example, “Ấm áo” is inappropriate in Vietnamese as it does not convey any
specific meaning.

c. Conversion
As mentioned above, the words in English created by approximate conversion may
undergo changes in pronunciation or spelling. Bartolomé & Cabrera (2005) described these
changes in two points.
Change in pronunciation: some nouns created from verbs through conversion contain
stresses which are different from their original verbs (usually the stress is switched from second
to the first syllable): 
/Pəˈmɪt/ - /ˈpɜː.mɪt/ (permit)
/ˈkɒn.flɪkt /  - /kənˈflɪkt/ (conflict)

Change in spelling: some nouns end with voiceless fricative consonants /-s/, /-f/, and /-θ/
and when they are converted into verbs, the ending consonants become voicing consonants /-z/, /-
v/ and /-δ/:
advice → advise
breath → breathe

However, in the Vietnamese conversion process, the transformed words still have the
same spelling and pronunciation as the original words.
Cậu ta làm việc rất năng suất ( “năng suất” as an adjective )
Năng suất làm việc của chiếc máy rất tốt ( “năng suất” as a noun )

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Here, we can see that although the word class of the word “năng suất” has been changed from an
adjective to a noun, the spelling and the pronunciation of it remain the same.

IV. CONCLUSION
In this research paper, we have shown the similarities and differences between word
formation in English and Vietnamese by comparing specifically the classifications of word
formation in both these languages. In general, word formations in English and Vietnamese have
similarities in affixation, compounding, conversion, clipping, blending, and reduplication.
Specifically, they are similar in using prefixes and suffixes, combining words in terms of
structural criterion and semantic criterion in English, and coordinating compounds and
subordinate compounds in Vietnamese. Moreover, the similarities are also analyzed through
verbal, abbreviated, morphotactic criterion analysis including morphological criterion and
morphosemantic criterion, and the process of repetition of the root word and the repetition of
rhyme. Although primarily word formations in English and Vietnamese have similarities in
affixation, compounding, and conversion, there are still some exceptions.  In conclusion, based
on research articles, we have summarized some of the main and most prominent ideas to help
readers better understand and distinguish between the similarities and differences in word
formations in English and Vietnamese. As a result, learners may learn how to construct word
formations and use them in practice.
 
 (2954 words)
 

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 REFERENCES

Aziz, Z. A., & Nolikasari, V. (2020). Reduplication is a word-formation process in the

Jamee Language: A variety of Minang spoken in South Aceh. Studies in English Language and
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Bartolomé, A. I. H. & Cabrera, G. M.  (2005). Grammatical Conversion in English: Some
new trends in lexical evolution. University of Valladolid
Giap, N. T. (2013). Dẫn luận ngôn ngữ học. Vietnam Education Publishing House
Hosseinzadeh, N. M. (2014). New blends in the English language. International Journal
of English Language and Linguistics Research, 2(2), 15-26.
Ho, T. A. (2010). Functions of English adjectives and their equivalents in the Vietnamese
language. HCMC University of Education, Department of English.
Kemmer, S. (n.d.). Words in English: Types of Word Formation. Rice
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Le, H. T., Dang, D. T., & Tran, H. P. (2009). A grammar of the English language.
Vietnam National University - Hanoi Publishing House.
Nguyen, D. H. (1997). Vietnamese.  John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Nguyen, H. M. (2014). English Lexicology. Vietnam Education Publishing
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Pham, V. T., & Le, H. T. H. (2016). Similarities in word-formation of English and
Vietnamese. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Academic Research, 4(5), 52–62.
Plag, I. (2018). Word-Formation in English (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics) (2nd
ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Rubino, C. (2013). Reduplication. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,
Leipzig.
To, M. T. (2003). English Morphology. Vietnam National University - Ho Chi Minh City
Publishing House
Vu, N. C. (1999). An Introduction to linguistics.  Hanoi University of Foreign Studies
Yule, George. 2006. The Study of Language (3rd edition). Cambridge University Press.

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 GROUPWORK CONTRIBUTION ASSESSMENT PAPER 

Class: Grammar 1 (3)    Group: 9

Assignment topic: A contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese word formation
Group leader’s name: Pham Minh Hieu
HANU email: [email protected]   Tel. No.: 0853242001
  
  Name  Contribution Special comments 
(…/100%) 
 
1 Vũ Thị Minh Hằng 100%  

1.

2 Nguyễn Phương Chi 100%  

3 Phạm Minh Hiếu 100%  

Group leader 
 

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