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(Continued)

VI) CASE STUDY WORKSHEET:

Below is a "Case study worksheet" for you to practice in exploring those Vietnamese words of possible candidates of Chinese origin. This is how I usually visualize in my mind when I attempt to find words cognate to plausible Chinese equivalents. For you, assumably still at loss or unfamiliar with all the complication of abstract concepts such as lexicographical dissyllabics and etymological analogy, it is nice to have something concrete to start with after all theories and arguments as well as hypotheses discussed so far.

Below are some helpful suggestive guidelines, yet you should keep in mind that this worksheet is just one of many possible organized ways to do on paper following my dissyllabic and analogical methodologies as have been disscussed throughout this paper. By all means what appears in the worksheet is much of brainstorming techniques more than rigid principles since you can always add something else relevant to the etymological work you are working on. Later on once you get used to the actual process you may be able to work out mentally just like you second habit.

To start working you may want to examine some of the provided examples just right before some blank rows and columns in this worksheet where you can write down candidate words of possible Chinese origin in the first column (1) in both monosyllabic ("đơnâmtiết") and dissyllabic ("songâmtiết") sub-columns. In Vietnamese there exist many words that are homonymous, which will give you more ideas to explore further.

In the 2nd column (2) called "sandhi" (chuyểnâm), sub-divided into smaller columns named "association" (liêntưởng) and "assimilation" (đồnghoá), respectively, you should try to ask yourself the question why the word is said that way, but not something else? What has caused it to become such vocalization and what are the possiblities of its relation to other similar words in both Chinese and Vietnamese? Have they all been evolved from the same roots?

In the 3rd column (3) called "analogy" (sosánh) you will have a chance to classify the word into the "categorical" (thểloại) groups and then you can try to apply the princple of "corollary" (quynạp) as mentioned in this paper. That is, you should know which words ought to be in the same category as those under examination and then from there you should continue to use the principle of analogy to explore further possible leads for even more words that can appear differently in several, not just only one, Chinese equivalents.

There is a very good chance that the word your are examining is of a product of local development (chữmới) (column 4) where new innovation ("Vietnamized" or Việthoá) has been rendered. You may find that in many cases all the original Chinese traces inside that word have disapppeared completely. Therefore, in the sub-column called "sound changes" (biếnâm), do not expect to find systematic patterns of sound change which certainly do not fit into plausible phonological rules as we used to see in the shifting phonetic patterns that have resulted in the existing Sino-Vietnamese glosses.

Also, keep in mind that all sound changes are possible, though, when you attempt to relate the word under scrutiny to other "possible sources" (nhậndạng chữgốc) (colum 5), especially when dissyllabic formation of both words in both Chinese and Vietnamese are taken into consideration. In other words, you should not examine only single Chinese character and assume that it is the only channel, or the only way, that such character can give rise monosyllabically to only another word in Vietnamese. That is, the words under discussion are also possible results of sound changes from several different words of Chinese origin; that is what sub-column "Word-character" or "tự" and sub-column "Word" or "từ" are for.

In all possibilities, try your best to fill out in all the provided blanks as many as possible and do not worry much about the exact columns they should belong to. If you cannot do so, just leave them blank for a while. Later on, hopefully, when you return to review the whole things you may discover something new in the process.

In other words, the purpose of this worksheet is to give give you a concrete tool to explore more Vietnamese words of Chinese origin in addition to what you have already known and accepted them as the only plausible Chinese cognates.

Case study worksheet

Alternatively, you can also tabulate your findings in a table. Do you still remember the metaphorical sentence in the first paragraph in section D about the monosyllabic tree and dissyllabic leaves? That is what a stems and leaves type plot comes into this picture. This tabulation is good for establishing a firm rapport for those dissyllabic words evolved from the same etymological stem, though. By doing so you can have a concrete overview of how we have been able to derive supposedly previous unknown elements from those dissyllabic words assumably of Chinese origin :

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