The Grammatical Nature of Sino-Vietnamese "Verb-Object Compounds"

<p>This study investigates the grammatical nature of Sino-Vietnamese words borrowed from &ldquo;verb-object compounds&rdquo;. I selected 47 verb-object compounds borrowed into Vietnamese as target and investigated whether they maintain their dual identities (i.e., word and phrase) as in Chinese. The results show that functional words cannot be inserted between the constituents of the target words with one exception, and that a number of target words can be followed by an object. Based on the results, I argue that Sino-Vietnamese &ldquo;verb-object compounds&rdquo; have almost lost their phrasal identity and that some items have been reinterpreted as transitive verbs.</p>