VIETNAMESE COMPLEX NOUN PHRASES AND THE PROBLEMS IN TRANSLATING IT INTO FRENCH

Abstract

In the complete form, Vietnamese noun structure consists of core noun and determinative words standing before and after it. The distribution and position of these determinative words in Vietnamese noun phrase has been studied by many researchers. In this paper, we are interested in complex noun phrase which consists of many determinative words standing after core noun. It is an interesting linguistic phenomenon which poses many questions. Complex noun phrase is a “ space noun” in which determinative words have its own function. Applying the syntax-semantic approach in order to highlight these functions will contribute to clearly indicate the specialty of Vietnamese and deal with translation problems. Firstly, we analyze the syntax -semantic characteristics of complex noun phrase, based on authentic corpus. After that we will discuss the translation problems.