Characteristics of the Vietnamese language in AX Semantics
Fundamentals
In Vietnamese, you need to know the number of nouns to form some accompanying determiners and pronouns correctly. Vietnamese has two numbers: singular and plural. However, Vietnamese has neither grammatical case nor grammatical gender, although gender distinction exists for 3rd person possessive determiners/pronouns.
| grammatical name | values | examples |
|---|---|---|
| number | singular | con chim (the bird) |
| plural | những con chim (the birds) | |
| gender (3rd possessive) | male | con chim của anh ấy (his bird) |
| female | con chim của cô ấy (her bird) | |
| adjectives (noun) | after noun | ngôi nhà màu đỏ (red house) |
| verb tenses | present | Anh ấy ăn. (He eats.) |
| past | Anh ấy đã ăn. (He ate.) | |
| future | Anh ấy sẽ ăn. (He will eat.) |
The standard order of a noun phrase in Vietnamese is the following: preposition + numeral + noun + adjective +determiner. For example:
về ba cuốn sách mới này
about three books new those
PREP NUM NOUN ADJ DET-behind
"about these three new books"
Nouns
Nouns do not inflect, as the below table shows. Still, lexicon entries including the gender of a noun may also be necessary for inflecting a few determiners and pronouns correctly. They are omitted, if a lexicon entry is required, but missing.
Examples
The basic lexicon entry for ông (grandfather) contains:
- gender: masculine
- lexicon table for case and number:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | ông | ông |
Adjectives
In Vietnamese, adjectives do not inflect. The default position for an adjective is "after noun".
Verbs
Vietnamese verbs only inflect for tense. Tenses are marked with the help of particles, but can also be shown via adverbs. See for example:
Tôi ăn tối.
(I have dinner.)
vs.
Tôi sắp ăn tối. ('sắp' is the adverb to express the concept of tense)
(I am about to have dinner.)
The most common verbs are encoded in our software. If a verb inflects incorrectly, you should add it to the lexicon.
Container settings
Determiner
The AX NLG platform supports the following determiners for Vietnamese: definite (only for plural), demonstratives (medial + proximal), and possessives. Demonstrative and possessive determiners are placed behind the noun. Take the 1st person singular possessive determiner for example:
cái căn nhà của tôi
DET NOUN DET-behind
(my house)
Vietnamese determiners might get an additional marker for number before the noun. As the below example shows, những is the plural marker for determiner. And này is the demonstrative determiner.
những ngày này
DET-plural NOUN DET-demonstrative
(these days)
Pronoun
The AX NLG platform supports the following pronouns for Vietnamese: demonstrative (medial + proximal), personal, personal animate, and possessive 3rd.
Numerals
Four types of numerals are possible on the AX NLG platform: cardinal, cardinal as digit, ordinal, and ordinal as digit. Take ghế (chair) for example:
| cardinal | ordinal | |
|---|---|---|
| text | chín cái ghế [num classifier noun] (nine chairs) | ghế thứ chín [ noun marker num] (the ninth chair) |
| digit | 9 ghế (9 chairs) | ghế thứ 9 (the 9th chair) |
As the above example shows, the cardinal numerals stay before the noun and get a classifier in between. The AX NLG platform automatically adds the classifier cái when setting the numeral in the container. However, no classifier is added for the following "non-classified nouns":
1) "time units" such as "phút" (minute)
2) geographical and administrative units such as "tỉnh" (province)
3) polysyllabic Sino-Vietnamese compound nouns
On the other hand, ordinal numerals stay after nouns and ordinal markers which proceed numerals. On the AX NLG platform, you will get the ordinal marker thứ proceeding with the ordinal numeral.
For Vietnamese, both cardinal and ordinal numerals are written out until 10 on the platform, otherwise (above 10) the output is in digit form. Take cardinal numerals for example:
mười con chó
(ten dogs)
vs.
11 chó
(eleven dogs)