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18/03/2024 03:58:00 PM

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SYSTEM OF TENSE AND ASPECT TO EXPRESS TIME RELATIONS

1. The system of tense

1.1. The Present.

In English, the Present is sub-divided into two categories: non-progressive and progressive.

The non-progressive depends to great extent on whether the verb is stative, such as be, feel, seem, etc, or dynamic, such as eat, drink, red, etc. More exactly, we should say that the meaning depends on whether the verb is being used stativel or dynamically, as many verbs lend themselves to both interpretations. For example:

  • The house stands on a hill à expresses a state.
  • All the children stand up.     à is used dynamically

With stative meaning the Present can express timeless statements, the statements which apply to all time. These include scientific, mathematical and description statements, as the examples below:

  • One and one are two.
  • The mixture of oxygen and hydrogen makes up water.
  • Flowers are colourful.
  • The sun rises in the east.

Human affairs often involve states whose time span is not endless, e.g. know, seem, belong, etc. They are nevertheless states, in which no change or limitation into the past or future is implied:

  • Vietnam belongs to the Asia.
  • The flowers look fresh.

With dynamic verbs the Present expresses a series of events which cover an unspecified time. Such statements are valid at speech time:

  • Trees lose their leaves in the fall.
  • She works in a secondary school.

In Vietnamese, to express timeless state or repeated events, the verbs (if present) in the sentences take neither changes, nor extra words:

  • Một với một là hai.
  • Nước sôi ở 1000C.
  • Cây (thường) rụng lá vào mùa thu.

1.2. The Past

The meaning of the Past tense in English may be said to be “remoteness”, or distancing from the moment of speaking, whether in time, towards the past, or with regard to potential or hypothetical events which have not yet occurred in the present or the future.

When used to refer to a past event or state, the Past in English contains two semantic features:

  1. The speaker visualizes the event as having occurred at some specific time in the past.
  2. The event was completed in the past, and a gap in time separates its completion from the present.

For example:

  • I watered the flowers yesterday.
  • James Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882.
  • He lived in Ireland until 1904 and spent the rest of his life abroad.

 Vietnamese used “phó từ” to express the past: đã, từng, vừa, mới, vừa mới. There’s a distinction between the near-past (vừa, vừa mới, mới) with the far-past (đã từng, từng):

  • Tôi đã đi Hà Nội (I went to Ha Noi long time ago)
  • Tôi mới đi Hà Nội (I have just come to Ha Noi)

2. The system of aspect

2.1. The Progressive

English has a Progressive aspect realized by verbal periphrasis: some form of be and the –ing participle. It combines with both Present and Past tenses:

  • He is writing          (Progressive + Present)
  • He was writing       (Progressive + Past)

The basic function of the English Progressive aspect is to indicate a dynamic action in the process of happening. Attention is focused on the middle of process, which is seen as essentially dynamic:

  • We are writing out the invitations.
  • She is growing up into a beautiful girl.

The progressive aspect in Vietnamese can be recognized by the use of progressive adverbs (phó từ tiếp diễn): đang, mãi, nữa, còn, vẫn, etc.

For example:

  • Họ vẫn còn trẻ.
  • Tôi nghĩ mãi về em.
  • Nó đang ăn cơm.

However, it is not an important category in grammar.

2.2. The non-progressive

English makes a grammatical contrast with the non-progressive

What are you doing?
  • What do you do?

That is to say, there is an obligatory choice between viewing the action as in the progress of happening, and not viewing in this way.

The contrast in Vietnamese is not so strict:

  • Tôi đang ăn cơm
  • Tôi ăn cơm.
  • Bạn đang làm gì đó?
  • Bạn làm gì đó?

 


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