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Index

• Lexical ambiguity in the English language
by Nguyen Thi Van Lam, Vinh University (Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam), Vietnam
for TIL (Tun Institute of Learning, Yangon, Myanmar), July 2007

Lexical ambiguity is thought to be one of the linguistic phenomena that may give rise to misunderstanding or failure in communication. Aware of this fact, the author makes efforts to study words, the phenomenon of lexical ambiguity in the English language with a view to clarifying this phenomenon; its different sources including homonymy, polysemy, obscure reference, intension and extension; and some ways of disambiguating. The study is expected to bring in good results to learners or communicators of English in their communication. 

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• Word-meaning in the English language
by Nguyen Thi Van Lam, for TIL (Tun Institute of Learning, Yangon, Myanmar), July 2004

Semantically, English words are interesting, but complicated, to study. This article discusses word-meaning in English including grammatical and lexical meaning of the word (lexeme). Categorial meaning of a lexeme is part of its grammatical meaning while its lexical meaning is made up of denotation and sense as descriptive meaning, connotation as non-descriptive meaning. The author also deals with polysemy of English words in the article.

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• English Words, Word-classes and Word-formation
  by Nguyen Thi Van Lam, for TIL (Tun Institute of Learning, Yangon, Myanmar), June 2004

The importance of English vocabulary in communication and language teaching and learning has stimulated the author in the study on English words. In this article, the author discusses different definitions of words first and then the two classes of words: closed- and open-classes. The syntactic functions of English words belonging to the open-classes are also dealt with. In addition, the study is concerned with morphemes, types of morphemes and the formation of words.

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• Structure of English Noun phrases
  by Nguyen Thi Van Lam, for TIL (Tun Institute of Learning, Yangon, Myanmar), May 2004

Noun phrases play an important role in the construction of a sentence. Without knowledge of noun phrases in English, learners could not produce comprehensible sentences. This article, therefore, aims to discuss the structure of noun phrases, both basic and complex. Basic noun phrases can be pronouns, numerals or head nouns with different determiners while complex ones include pre-modification, head noun and post-modification.

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• Grammatical and semantic features of the word denoting happiness 'happy'
   by Nguyen Thi Van Lam, for TIL (Tun Institute of Learning, Yangon, Myanmar), May 2004

Happiness is a popular daily topic and may be expressed in different ways of which no less important than others is utilizing linguistics items. In English, there are a lot of words and idioms denoting happiness which draw the author's attention. In this article, she discusses the most widely used English word denoting happiness - 'happy' in terms of grammar first and semantics later. Its grammatical features include syntactic functions and morphological features, and the semantics includes lexical meaning, synonyms, antonyms, collocations and idioms of which ‘happy’ is a component. Some suggestions in teaching and learning the word are finally provided in the article.

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• Grammatical and semantic features of some adjectives denoting happiness – the feeling of pleasure
   by Nguyen Thi Van Lam, for TIL (Tun Institute of Learning, Yangon, Myanmar), May 2004

The topic of happiness draws a lot of attention from different types of people. The question is how to express our happiness. In fact, there are so many ways, one of which is employing words and idioms denoting happiness. In English, apart from 'happy', many words and idioms can be used. In this article, the author discusses five adjectives denoting happiness – the feeling of pleasure: ‘cheerful’, ‘gay’, ‘glad’, ‘merry’ and ‘pleased’ in terms of grammar and semantics. Their grammatical features include syntactic functions and morphological features, and the semantics includes lexical meaning, synonyms, antonyms, collocations and idioms of which these words are a component.  The author finally provides some suggestions in the teaching and learning of as well as in the translation concerned with the words.

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Nguyen Thi Van Lam is an English teacher (Giao vien Anh van), at Foreign Languages Department (Khoa Ngoai Ngu), Vinh University (Truong Dai Hoc Vinh), 182 Le Duan Road (Duong Le Duan), Vinh City (Thanh pho Vinh ),Nghe An Province (Tinh Nghe An), Vietnam