TTLA: Research on Antonyms in Vietnamese

INFORMATION ABOUT THE DOCTORAL THESIS

1. Full name of the doctoral candidate:Pham Van Lam 

2. Gender: Male

3. Date of birth: February 21, 1981

4. Place of birth: Hai Duong

5. Decision No. 2999, dated December 30, 2013, of the Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, recognizing the doctoral student.

6. Changes in the training process:

7. Thesis title:Research on antonyms in Vietnamese

8. Major: Vietnamese Language Code: 62.22.01.02

9. Scientific supervisor:Prof. Dr. Le Quang Thiem

10. Summary of the new findings of the thesis:

The thesis has provided an overview of different approaches to antonyms in general and Vietnamese antonyms in particular. The thesis has focused on studying the system of lexical antonyms from grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic perspectives.

Antonyms are distinguished from other semantic relationships (inclusion, generalization, case, synonymy, role, causality, attribute, polysemy) based on a series of important attributes such as hierarchy, substitutability, transition, concurrency, isomorphism, etc.

Vietnamese antonyms can be identified using a series of indicators belonging to groups such as logic, phonetics, semantics, grammar, and pragmatics.

Vietnamese antonyms are lexical units in which, structurally, both extremes usually maintain a correlation with each other in terms of word categories, number of constituent elements, grammatical properties, grammatical order, and origin.

The semantic structure of the Vietnamese antonym system can be visualized through important conceptual tools such as antonyms, antonym pairs, antonym clusters, and antonym chains.

Vietnamese antonyms can coexist in practical usage contexts associated with specific grammatical patterns. This thesis also experimentally studied the coexistence of Vietnamese antonyms in proverbs and idioms, and in The Tale of Kieu. The thesis proposed a new classification of antonyms based on their discursive function, considering these coexistence contexts.

11. Practical applications:

Based on the research results of this dissertation, it is possible to compile a Vietnamese dictionary of antonyms quickly and efficiently; contributing to improving the quality of existing Vietnamese dictionaries by revising the explanations of antonyms and synonyms.

The dissertation also contributes a linguistic perspective to the work of interdisciplinary and modern applied language research departments, such as the construction of Vietnamese vocabulary corpora (Vietnamese word networks, etc.), automatic word detection and retrieval, language education, etc.

12. Future research directions:

This study investigates Vietnamese antonyms using a quantitative, comparative approach.

13. Published works related to the dissertation:

- Pham Van Lam (2014), “Word order in coordinate disyllabic word combinations constructed from antonyms”, Vietnamese Linguistics in the Context of Innovation and Integration, Social Sciences Publishing House, Hanoi, pp. 1123-1137

- Pham Van Lam (2015), “Semantic structure of the Vietnamese antonym system”, Do Huu Chau: journey and continuation, Hanoi National University Publishing House, Hanoi, pp. 400-418.

- Pham Van Lam (2015), “Overview of causal relationships in Vietnamese”, Faculty of Foreign Languages ​​(Hanoi University) (45), pp. 21-34.

- Pham Van Lam (2016), "Formal criteria used to identify pairs of antonyms in Vietnamese", Research and teaching of foreign languages, international languages ​​in Vietnam, Publishing HouseVietnam National University, Hanoi, pp. 171-181.

- Pham Van Lam (2016), “An overview of word networks and Vietnamese word networks”, Journal of Science (Hanoi Open University) (20), pp. 6-14.

INFORMATION ON DOCTORAL THESIS

1. Full name: Pham Van Lam 2. Sex: Male

3. Date of birth: February 21, 1981 4. Place of birth: Haiduong

5. Admission decision number: 2999, Dated: December 30, 2013, of the Rector of University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University.

6. Changes in academic process:

7. Official thesis title: The study of Vietnamese Antonyms

8. Major: Linguistics Code: 62.22.01.02

9. Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Le Quang Thiem

10. Summary of the new findings of the thesis:

Thesis reviewed different approaches to antonyms in general and Vietnamese antonyms in particular. The thesis focused on researching the system of the Vietnamese antonyms in terms of morphology, semantics, and pragmatics.

The Vietnamese antonymy was distinguished from other semantic relationships (hyponymy, meronymy, troponymy, semantic role, causonymy, polysemy, and synonymy) through important properties such as substitutability, transitivity, hierarchy, co-occurrence, and homomorphism, etc.

The Vietnamese antonyms were identified by a variety of criteria belonging to groups like logical, phonetics, semantics, grammar and pragmatics.

The Vietnamese antonyms are lexical units whose parts of speech, the number of constituents, the mechanics of morphology, the word order, and the origin of words are similar.

The semantic structure of the Vietnamese antonym system can be visualized through the important tool of concepts such as antonyms, antonymous word pairs, antonymous pairs, antonymous clusters, and antonymous chains.

Vietnamese antonyms can co-occur in the context of actual usage called lexicogrammar patterns. These lexicogrammar patterns in which antonyms co-occurred were fully and deeply tested in Vietnamese idioms and proverbs, and Truyen Kieu. We also suggested a new taxonomy of Vietnamese antonyms in terms of the discourse functions based on the co-occurrence contexts.

11. Practical applicability, if any:

The Thesis helps lexicographer compile a Vietnamese antonym dictionary quickly and efficiently; improve Vietnamese dictionaries by adding up semantic relationships.

The Thesis also provides a solution from the linguistic perspective for interdisciplinary and modern research of language, such as the building of the Vietnamese corpus (Vietnamese WordNet...), detecting words automatically, language education, etc.

12. Further research directions, if any:

To study Vietnamese antonyms in quantitative and comparative approaches.

13. Thesis-related publications:

Pham Van Lam (2014), “The order of the coordinated disyllable words derived from the monosyllable antonyms”, The Linguistics of Vietnam in the context of renovation and integration, Social Sciences Publishing House, Hanoi, pp.1123-1137.

Pham Van Lam (2015), “The semantic structure of Vietnamese Antonyms”, Do Huu Chau: journey and continuation,Hanoi National University Publisher, Hanoi, pp. 400-418.

Pham Van Lam (2015), “An overview of Vietnamese Causonymy”, Journal of foreign language studies, (Hanoi University) (45), pp. 21-34.

Pham Van Lam (2016), “Formal criteria used for identifying antonymous pairs in Vietnamese”, Studying and Teaching foreign languages, linguistics, and international studies in Vietnam, Hanoi National University Publisher, Hanoi, pp.171-181.

Pham Van Lam (2016), “An Overview of WordNets and Vietnamese WordNet”, Journal of Science (Hanoi Open University) (20), pp. 6-14.