Lam Quang Dong: The structure of the expressive meaning of the sentence

Developed from his doctoral thesis, "Lin Guangdong's book titledThe semantic structure of sentences with the group of giving predicates (in English and Vietnamese)has focused on studying the semantic structure of sentences with a type of predicate that is typical of its value, so the book has created a "voice" - unique, elaborate and very useful - in deepening the semantic structure of sentences.

Introduction by Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Van Tinh

Linguist B. Whorf once said: "The essence of linguistics is to understand meaning". The semantic essence of language is the expressive aspect of speech in communicative reality. Over the past years, Vietnamese linguists have been focusing on studying the mechanisms of expressing Vietnamese language on the level of semantic structures. The book The Structure of Expressive Meaning of Sentences with the Group of Predicates Giving/Giving (in English and Vietnamese) by Dr. Lam Quang Dong, a lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, is also in that general trend. From a theoretical starting point, the author bases on the main theses of L. Tesnière on the argument structure of sentences (1959) - theses that Ch. J. Fillmore continued to supplement and perfect in his theory of Grammatical Cases (1970), and new perspectives on the study of sentence semantic structures of world linguists in recent years. L. Tesnière's viewpoint is a turning point in establishing semantic roles in the semantic structure of a sentence, which he believes "is the core of the message (not the clause structure)". Of course, that is one approach among many approaches that each scientist has the right to choose. Lam Quang Dong's topic is a unique, useful and very interesting choice. The author knows how to choose the problem by examining this predicate-participant relationship in a typical object scope: the verbs to give/to give in English and Vietnamese. Although it is only a few verbs in English and Vietnamese (give, present, donate, give, give, donate, give, send,...), this group of verbs (belonging to an action) fully and vividly demonstrates the possibilities of combining predicates, semantic roles and semantic layers expressed in the semantic structure of a sentence. As the author wrote: “The verb meaning to give/give is one of the basic vocabulary groups of the language. They are among the linguistic elements that are acquired and used earliest in children, and are considered one of the first “bricks” to build other semantic units” (Introduction). Although this special relational behavior is universal in many languages, its expression in each language is different - different in terms of valence, different in word order and combination rules, different in terms of structural adhesive “material”… The above issues reflect the significantly different ways of thinking, cognitive capacity and expressive capacity of each nation. All of these issues have been addressed in great detail by the author in the book.

As an English lecturer for many years, Lam Quang Dong has the advantage of having both native knowledge and a solid understanding of English to be able to "stand from the other side" to look at Vietnamese. The differences in linguistic systems and typologies between the two languages ​​allow the author the opportunity to delve deeper into the direction of exploitation. The important thing - playing a decisive role - is that the author has the perspective of a true linguist, sophisticated and sharp. The updated knowledge on the semantic research of sentences is not only contained in the opening chapter but is explained by the author in a convincing and effective "integrated" manner in 5 chapters of more than 230 pages of the book. Here, readers will see clearly the typical models of the expressive semantic structure of sentences with the group of verbs giving/giving with different numbers of actants (a = 3, a < 3 and a > 3). With only 3 “actors” in a “play” and a few supporting “actors” (as Tesnière said), they have “played” countless roles with “ever-changing” forms of expression. From an example (§ 3.3.1 chapter 3): The soldier / came / home / to give / me / courage, we can “split” and find a series of factors that contribute to the overall semantic structure of this utterance. From there, we also continue the development of meaning through a series of subsequent utterances (The teacher gives lessons, loves the village passionately… Gives me everything, She gives me a new life, bright and full of dreams. The one who gives me everything is Uncle Ho Chi Minh.) has created a very good and concise discourse message. Thus, from the semantic structure of the sentence, we can look further to the semantic structure of the text.

It can be said that the study of the meaning of sentences is one of the new directions that go into the depth of language in post-structuralist linguistics. In Vietnam, after Nguyen Thi Quy (with Vietnamese Action Verbs and Their Arguments, 1995) and Nguyen Van Loc (with Verb Valence in Vietnamese Verbs, 1995), Lam Quang Dong's book titled The Structure of Expressive Sentences with the Group of Verbs Giving/Giving (in English and Vietnamese) focused on studying the structure of expressive sentences with a type of verb that is typical of valence, so the book has created a "voice" - unique, elaborate and very useful - in delving into the semantic structure of sentences. The problem is quite difficult but has been presented by the author very clearly and coherently in simple, scientific and pure Vietnamese. This book will certainly be very meaningful to Vietnamese linguists and, more closely, to those interested in teaching and learning Vietnamese and foreign languages ​​in general.