The Vietnamese people's perception of the world as reflected in the nominations of hypotactic compound words
Đỗ Việt Hùng
Abstract
The nomination of things and phenomena in a language clearly reflects the thought and thecutural characteristics of the community using it. The analysis of the structures of hypotactic compound words shows that the features of individualization have been selected depending on each group of things. There is not a common list of features for all categories of things. Besides, the role and frequency of characteristics used to individualize various things differ for different categories. The differences in distinctive elements in nomination occur not only among languages but also within each language, among categories of things. Each category of things has its own list of distinctive elements. Vietnamese dataalso show that metaphor occurs not only at the level of phonemes which play a differentiating role of things and phenomena but also at the level of words. This fact indicates that metaphor cannot only change the meaning of given sounds but also transform phrases into words in nominations.