i. 
                                 TIME  AND  MODALITY  IN  VIETNAMESE : 
                        A  CONTRASTIVE  STUDY  OF   VIETNAMESE  AND  ENGLISH 
                                         By:  Nguyen  Hong  Ha 
                     A  Field Study Report  submitted in Partial Fulfilment 
                     of the requirements  for the  Degree  of Master of Arts 
                     (TESOL)  in the  Canberra  College of Advanced Education. 
                                          October 1985. 
                                                                                              iv 
                                                                                   ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 
                                      On  the  completion of this work  I  would  like to express 
                                      my  deepest gratitude to my  supervisor,  Dr.  John  Murray 
                                      Penhallurick,  who  suggested the topic,  provided constructive 
                                      ideas,  made  valuable  suggestions and  comments  on  various 
                                      parts of the  study,  and devoted many  hours  to precious 
                                      discussions of matters related to my  work  on the report. 
                                      Contact with a  personality like his was  a  true inspiration. 
                                      I   am  also indebted to  Dr.  Patricia Denham,  Dr.Elizabeth 
                                      Patz and Mrs.  Leonie  Cottrill who  have  taught me  a  great 
                                     deal of the linguistics that serves as the basis for this 
                                     work. 
                                     In describing Vietnamese  grammar,  I  have had the benefit 
                                     of many  discussions of the  Vietnamese  verb-phrase in 
                                     Thompson  (1965),  Nguyen  Tai  Can  (1975)  and Dai  Xuan  Ninh 
                                      (1978).  I  have  also benefited from  the  description  of 
                                     modality markers  in Vietnamese in Truong  Van  Chinh  (1970). 
                                     For all their keen  insi ghts  into t he  workings  of t he 
                                     Vietnamese  language  I  am  greatly indebted. 
                                     My  sincere thanks  are  furthermore  due  to a  number of 
                                     friends  who  read the  manuscript of the study and whose 
                                     suggestions were  almost always  found  to be  an  improve-
                                     ment  on  the  original. 
                                     Needless  t o  say,  none  of  t he  above  can  be  held responsible 
                                                  V 
                     for  any  of the  inadequacies of the  report, which,  of 
                     course,  are my  own  mistakes. 
                         ABSTRACT 
           The  present study is an attempt  to give a  description of 
           how  temporal and modal meanings  are expressed in Vietnamese, 
           and  to relate the  description to English by way  of tran-
           slation correspondence.  The  study is, therefore,  a 
           contrastive work on Time  and Modality in Vietnamese  and 
           English. 
           It is hoped that Vietnamese students might find in this 
           work  some  kind of help that may  facilitate their study 
           of English grammar as regards time and mood. 
           In chapter 1, the author presents a  brief history of 
           foreign language teaching in Vietnam,  and the role of 
           English as  a  foreign language  in the country at present. 
           He  also discusses  problems  confronting Vietnamese teachers 
           and  students in teaching and learning English and states 
           the aims  of the  study.  Next,  the  structure of the Viet-
           namese  verb-phrase is discussed,  with a  view to giving 
           the reader some  idea of how  auxiliaries operate in 
           Vietnamese. 
           In  chapter 2,  a  description of temporal expression in 
           Vietnamese  is presented, with emphasis on the uses of the 
           so-called "time auxiliaries". Also,  time adverbs,  time 
           clauses and questions with time in Vietnamese are 
           discussed. 
           Chapter  3  deals with modal  expression in Vietnamese.  In