Word Order, Topic-Comment & Grammatical Relations

Không có hệ thống cách (case) nào cả

Vietnamese has no case system at all

No word endings ever change to show grammatical role

Trật tự Chủ-Động-Tân thể hiện quan hệ ngữ pháp

Subject-Verb-Object order shows grammatical relations

Word order alone does the job that case endings do elsewhere

Tôi ăn cơm.

I eat rice.

toy an kuhm

Straightforward subject-verb-object sentence

của

of (shows possession, replaces genitive case)

koo-ah

Functions where German/Greek would use a genitive ending

sách của tôi

my book

sak koo-ah toy

Literally "book of me"

cho

to/for (marks a recipient)

chaw

Fills the role dative case plays in other languages

Tôi cho bạn cuốn sách.

I give you the book.

toy chaw ban kuon sak

Recipient placed right after the verb, before the object

Trật tự từ đánh dấu chủ ngữ vs tân ngữ

Word order alone marks subject vs object

There are no case endings to fall back on if word order is unclear

ở, đến, từ

at, to, from (prepositions instead of case)

uh, den, tuh

Location and direction are shown with these small words

Gọi tên trực tiếp (không có cách gọi)

Direct address (no vocative case)

Just use the person's name or pronoun directly