Acknowledgements I could not complete my graduation thesis without the great help and useful advice from my teachers, my family as well as my friends. Fristly, I would like to express the great thanks to my supervisor: Ph. D Le Cong Thin for his enthusiastic help. Then, I would like to express a deep thank to all of the teachers in Foreign Languages Department for giving me a good chance to express my ability especially M.A Nguyen Thi Tuong who contributed more ideas to my thesis. Furthermore, my thanks are also sent to all of my friends from 41A 1 for their encouragement and help. Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my parents who provided me many good conditions, the great consolation from beginning to end. Many thanks to all of them. Vinh, May 2004. Truong Thi Hai 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 PART I: INTRODUCTION 4 1. Reasons for choosing the study 4 2. Aims of the study 4 3. Methods of the study 5 4. Scope of the study 5 5. Design of the study 6 PART II: CONTENTS 6 Chapter I: Overview on English verbs 6 The general matters 1. Verb classifications 6 1.1. Auxiliary verbs 6 1.2. Ordinary verbs 7 2. Verb forms 8 2.1. Forms of auxiliary verbs 8 2.2. Forms of ordinary verbs 9 3. The grammatical catergories of the verbs 10 3.1. Tense 10 3.2. Aspect 11 3.3. Voice 12 3.4. Mood 13 Chapter II – “Have” as an ordinarY VERB 14 I. “Have” with the meaning “possess” 14 1. In the sense of “own” or “possess” 14 2. Possession of physical characteristics 15 3. Possession of mental and emotional qualities 15 4. Family relationships 16 2 5. Illnesses 17 6. Contacts with other people 18 II. “Have” with other meanings 19 1. “Have” in the sense of “ receive” 19 2. “Have” in the sense of “eat”, “drink” 19 3. “Have” in the sense of “organize” 20 4. “Have” in the sense of “experience” 21 5. “Have” in the sense of “encounter” 22 III. “Have” as an Empty verb 23 IV. “Have” in Imperative 26 Chapter III - Using "have" in some constructionS 29 I. “Have”in the structure: Have + Object +Past participle 29 II. “Have”in the structure : Have + Object 1 + Verb + Object 2 31 III. “Have” in the structure : Have + Object + Present participle 33 IV. “Have” in some other structures 34 1. Denoting orders, duties, rules, obligation 34 2. Expressing the advice 37 Chapter IV - Findings and discussion 41 1. Common mistakes 41 2. Some measures to leave out the mistakes 45 PART III - CONCLUSION 48 REFERENCES 49 3 PART I - INTRODUCTION 1 - Reasons for choosing the study Nowadays English has become one of the most important international languages in the world. The number of people who communicate and use it as the first language has been increasing day by day. In Vietnam, everyone is aware of the roles of English in their life – jobs, so the need of learning English has been popular all areas. To meet that need, many English teaching - learning centres are opened, the quality of training courses is quite good. This is one of the good signals the government should care about. English is used in many fields: polictics, economics, art especially in the system of international education, but… to learn English well is not easy for Vietnamese learners. One verb may have a lot of different meanings, depending on context that verb has its own meaning, and this itself makes troubles to learners. However, besides the diffculties, we find it so interesting thus researching the English verb is one of the themes done in students’graduation thesises and they achieved the deserved results. According to Ph.D. Do Thi Kim Lien (1999: 90), she states that: “Verb is the complicated word - class, it is used widely and takes a leading -position in the lexical stock, the verb plays a nuclear role in forming the sentence”, Nguyen Kim Than(1999: 92) also states: “The number of sentences that the predicate is verb is 86%; predicate is adjective is 4%; predicate is noun only is 8% .” That are the reasons why the verb is very useful and important both in English and in Vietnamese. When learning English, we find the problems of learners in approaching the verb, we take the great consideration on comparing verb between languages. That interests and encourages us to choose the topic: The verb "to have" in English and its equivalents in Vietnamese. 2 - Aims of the study - Helping Vietnamese learners understand the usages of the verb “to have” when it is used as an ordinary verb and its equivalents in Vietnamese. 4 - Helping them know and apply the verb “to have” in some constructions and its equivalents in Vietnamese. - By means of teaching suggestions of the verb “to have”, we hope that our small thesis will give some contributions to help learners leave out their errors in the process of learning English. 3 - Methods of the study - Analysis and presenting method We analysise the usage of the verb “to have” and present it. - Contrastive and comparision method. We use this method to find out the similarities and differences between using the verb “to have” in English and in Vietnamese. 4 - Scope of the study - Studying the verb “to have” in some constructions and as an ordinary verb as well as its equivalents in Vietnamese. 5 - Design of the study This thesis consists of three parts: Introduction, contents and conclusion. Part I: Introduction - Reasons for choosing the study - Aims of the study - Methods of the study - Scope of the study - Design of the study Part II - Contents Chapter I : Overview on English verbs Chapter II : “Have” as an ordinary verb Chapter III : “Have” in some constructions Chapter IV: Findings and Discussion Part III - Conclusion 5 PART II: CONTENTS CHAPTER I OVERVIEW ON ENGLISH VERBS– The general matters In every language, the verb (V) plays the most imfortant role among the units: S, V, O, C and A in forming the construction of sentences. The verb is considered as a part of speech denoting an action, a process, a state or expressing an idea or emotion, the being of person or thing in the universe. You will be able to get familiar with any other aspects of grammar, you should have a comprehensive understanding of verb. It is necessary to research . 1. Verb classification According to A.J.Thomson and A.V. Martinet, verbs can be classified into: Auxiliary verbs and Ordinary verbs. 1.1. Auxiliary verbs Auxiliary verbs are verbs that have grammatical function in the verb phrases, help complete the meaning of the verb phrases. There are two kinds of auxiliary verb: - Primary auxiliaries : be, do, have. - Modal auxiliaries : must, should, can, need, ought to, etc. 1.2. Ordinary verbs Ordinary verbs are those that denote action or state and they themselves carry full dictionary meanings. There are many categories to classify ordinary verb: ∗ According to the ability, to be used in progressive form, verbs are classified into: Stative and Dynamic verbs. - Stative verbs: are verbs that can not be used in continuous form. They express state, experience, condition, ect. Eg. 6 Like, respect, mind, think, forget, want, wish, see, taste, perceive… - Dynamic verbs: are verbs with continuous form, they express action. Eg. Ask, work, write, change, grow, feel, fall, lose, jump, kick… ∗ According to the relationship between the verb elements in the clause, we classify verb into: Intensive and Extensive verbs. - Intensive verbs: are verbs that take subject complement (C s ) or obligatory adverb (A ob ). Eg. I am a student → S . V . C S V C s I am at home → S . V . A ob S V A ob - Extensive verbs: are verbs that do not take any object. Eg. It rains → S . V S V I go to school → S . V . A S V A Transitive verbs are verbs that take one or more than one object. There are three kinds of transitive verb . Monotransitive verbs : are verbs that take one object(O d ). Eg. He loves me → S . V. O S V O d . Ditransitive verbs: are verbs that take two objects. Eg. Nam offers me a red rose → S . V . O . O. 7 S V O i O d . Complextransitive verbs have two subtypes + They take object and object complement Eg. They call him Mr Bean → S . V . O . C S V O C o + They take object and obligatory adverbial Eg. She puts her hat on the table → S . V . O . A S V O A ob This classification may be summarized as follow: Intensive + C s / A Stative Extensive + O d V Intensive C s Dynamic Intransitive Extentive A Monotransitive Transitive Ditransitive Complextransitive 2. Verb forms 2.1. Ordinary verbs Ordinary verbs often have five forms: the base form, the -s form, the past, the-ing participle and the – ed participle. Regular ordinary verbs have 4 actual forms because they have the same – ed inflection for both the past and the past participle : V, V-s, V-ed 1 =V- ed 2 , V- ing. Irregular ordinary verbs have from 3 to 8 forms. • Verbs with 3 forms. V = V – ed 1 = V – ed 2 V-s V-ing Eg. Cut Cuts Cutting. Some other verbs : put, run , cost, hurt, etc. 8 • Verbs with 4 forms. V= V- ed 2 V-s V- ed 1 V-ing Eg. come comes came coming Other verbs : become, overcome, run,… • Verb with 5 forms (Most of the ordinany verb). V V- S V-ed 1 V-ed 2 V- ing. Take takes took taken taking. • Verbs with 8 forms : There is only one verb “be”. Be, am, is , are, were, was, being, been. 2.2. Auxiliary verbs - Primary auxiliaries Forms Finite Non- finite Present Past Be /being / been Be Is /am/are Was /were Have Has /have Had Have / having Do Does / do Did - Modal auxiliaries Modal auxiliaries have only one form which is used for all persons and numbers. They are followed by the base forms whether they are in negative or not. Their forms are the following. Positive Contracted negative Present Past 9 Can May Shall Will Could Might Should Would Can’t Couldn’t Mayn’t Mightn’t Shan’t Shouldn’t Won’t Wouldn’t Must Ought to Used to Need Dare 3. The grammatical categories of the English verbs 3.1. Tense Parallel with the notion of tense, English refers to the time. Time is a universal, non - linguistic of concept of the verb phrase with three divisions : past, present and future. We understand tense as the correspondence between the form of the verb and our concept of time. English has two tenses : Present and Past. • Simple present. - The timeless present : expressed with the simple present form. It expresses the habitual action as well the universal statements. Eg. My mother goes to work everyday. Spiders have eight legs. - The limited present : expressed with the present progressive. Eg. Normally, he lives in Ha Noi but now he is living in Vinh city. - The instantaneous present, expressed with either the simple or the progressive form. Eg. I write with a speccial pen. 10