Adversative conjunction mà in the synonymic relationship with nhưng

Abstract

According to Anscombre & Ducrot(1977), the adversative “but” in French has two main functions: (1) the “but” that can be called “corrective” is used to correct a previous statement, (2) the other is “argumentative”. Following these functional criteria of an adversative conjunction, this paper attempts to showthat in Vietnamese, the adversatives “nhưng”and “mà” are not interchangeable in all linguistic contexts although they are related synonyms. This is due to semantic and syntactic properties peculiar to each, hence the difference of functional degree:“mà” is taken as an inversion operator more or less  subjective, while “nhưng” is a simple operator of incompatibility.