một con mèo = one cat
những con mèo = many cats
con mèo = one cat
đàn mèo = many cats (more than one cats)
In (a) the numeral “một” (one) precedes a singular noun while in (b), the plural marker “những” (many) signals the appearance of a plural noun. In (c) and (d), the classifier “con” and “đàn” also give us a hint about plurality.
The second distinct property of Vietnamese noun phrases is the participation of the focus marker “cái”. From the two tables above, we can see that there is no element called focus marker “cái” in the English language. However, the focus marker “cái” of Vietnamese language is commonly attached to demonstratives ấy, nọ, kia, này, ấy which have the equivalent in English (this, that, these, those)
This brings me to the next point. The difference between English and Vietnamese noun phrases also lies in the order of the constituents of noun phrases, i.e. demonstratives and adjectives. In an English noun phrase, the demonstrative and adjective(s) usually occur to the left of the head noun (a). Meanwhile, in a Vietnamese noun phrase, adjective(s) and the demonstrative occur to the right of the head noun (b) as in the following examples:
this black cat
this
|
black
|
cat
|
demonstrative
|
adjective
|
head
|
con mèo đen này
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