Abstract

This paper presents a contrastive study of complement subordinate clauses in French and their equivalent expressions in Vietnamese, drawing on bilingual literary data from Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Le Rouge et le Noir by Stendhal, together with their Vietnamese translations. Using a descriptive approach combined with contrastive analysis, the study identifies and examines approximately 50 complement subordinate clauses, classified into three main types: conjunctive complement clauses, infinitival complement clauses, and interrogative complement clauses. The findings show that French complement clauses display a high degree of formal grammatical marking, whereas Vietnamese typically expresses complement functions through clauses with little or no morphological marking. The study clarifies syntactic characteristics of complement subordinate clauses in the two languages and offers practical implications for French language teaching, contrastive syntax, and French–Vietnamese translation training.

Keywords: Complement subordinate clauses, contrastive linguistics, French–Vietnamese, grammar, syntax