Word Formation of Personal Meaning in Vietnamese

Abstract

This research article aims to investigate the word-formation processes and structural patterns involved in the creation of lexical items denoting human referents in Vietnamese. The data were collected from online Vietnamese language corpora, online dictionaries, and printed dictionaries, as well as through consultations with Vietnamese linguists and specialists in Chinese linguistics. The results of the study indicate that lexical items referring to persons in Vietnamese are formed through two primary word-formation processes: (1) Borrowing from Chinese, which includes the borrowing of lexical forms, morphemes, and word-formation patterns that are subsequently adapted to the Vietnamese linguistic system; and (2) Compounding, which encompasses structural combinations of free morphemes with free morphemes, free morphemes with semi-free morphemes, and semi-free morphemes with semi-free morphemes. In most cases, free morphemes are native Vietnamese morphemes; however, some free morphemes originated from Chinese roots that have undergone a process of vietnamization and now function as independent morphemes in Vietnamese. Semi-free morphemes, by contrast, are derived from Chinese-origin morphemes. The formation of person-denoting expressions in Vietnamese thus involves the incorporation of both morphemic elements and word-formation mechanisms of Chinese origin, which are adapted to conform to Vietnamese morphological and structural conventions. This process is not restricted to personal nouns but extends to expanded constructions, resulting in phrases or lexical groupings that encode reference to human entities.