How Vietnamese packages meaning
Vietnamese grammar at a glance
At a glance
| Information type | Plain question | How Vietnamese encodes it |
|---|---|---|
| Actor | Who does the action? | SEPARATE WORDCONTEXT |
| Recipient | Who or what receives the action? | WORD ORDERSEPARATE WORD |
| Time | When does the action happen? | CONTEXTSEPARATE WORD |
| Aspect | Finished or still happening? | SEPARATE WORD |
| Certainty / mood | Real fact, or desired / possible / hypothetical? | SEPARATE WORD |
| Negation | Did it not happen? | SEPARATE WORD |
| Voice | Is the subject doing, being done to, or causing? | SEPARATE WORD |
| Evidentiality | How does the speaker know this? | CONTEXT |
| Specificity | This particular one, or any one? | CONTEXTSEPARATE WORD |
| Quantity | How many? | CONTEXTSEPARATE WORD |
| Possession | Whose is it? | SEPARATE WORD |
| Location / Space | Where? In which direction? | SEPARATE WORDSERIAL VERB |
| Information structure | What is this sentence about? What is new? | WORD ORDERSEPARATE WORD |
| Register | What social relationship does the speaker encode? | SEPARATE WORD |
In detail
Actor in Vietnamese — Who does the action?
A pronoun identifies who acts — but Vietnamese "pronouns" are actually kinship terms that encode the social relationship between speaker and listener. The verb never changes.
The verb "nói" is identical in all three sentences — no suffix, no prefix, no change of any kind. The pronoun alone distinguishes who acts.
Vietnamese "pronouns" are actually kinship terms repurposed as personal reference. "Anh" literally means "older brother" but is used as "you" when speaking to an older male, and as "I" when an older male speaks to someone younger. The same word shifts person based on who is speaking to whom.
Common address terms functioning as pronouns: anh (older brother → you/I for older male), chị (older sister → you/I for older female), em (younger sibling → you/I for younger person), ông (grandfather → you for elderly man), bà (grandmother → you for elderly woman), cô (aunt → you for woman, also "teacher"), chú (uncle → you for man slightly younger than parents).
Pronouns are frequently dropped when the identity of the actor is clear from context. "Nói tiếng Việt không?" (Speak Vietnamese?) is a perfectly natural question — no pronoun at all.
Vietnamese distinguishes inclusive vs. exclusive "we": chúng ta (we, including you) vs. chúng tôi (we, excluding you).
Compare: Mandarin also uses an unchanging verb with a separate pronoun, but Mandarin pronouns are simple words (我, 你, 他). Vietnamese pronouns are kinship terms that encode age, gender, and social status — choosing the wrong one is a serious social error, not just a grammatical mistake.
Recipient in Vietnamese — Who or what receives the action?
Word order: the object follows the verb in the default SVO pattern. Prepositions like "cho" (for/to) mark indirect objects. There are no case markers on nouns.
Vietnamese has no case markers on nouns — position alone determines who does what to whom. The object always follows the verb.
"Cho" functions both as a verb (give) and as a preposition (to/for). As a verb: "Tôi cho anh ấy sách" (I give him a book). As a benefactive preposition: "Tôi mua sách cho em" (I buy a book for you). This dual function is common in Vietnamese — many prepositions originate from verbs.
Double-object constructions follow the pattern: Verb + Indirect Object + Direct Object. "Tôi dạy em tiếng Việt" (I teach you Vietnamese — literally: I teach you Vietnamese).
In topic-comment constructions, the object can be fronted: "Sách này thì tôi đọc rồi" (This book — I already read it). The fronted noun gains a topic reading.
Compare: Russian marks the recipient with dative case suffixes — word order is flexible because the suffix identifies the role. Vietnamese relies on strict word order and serial-verb prepositions like "cho" instead.
Time in Vietnamese — When does the action happen?
The verb has no tense forms — it never changes for past, present, or future. Time words (hôm qua "yesterday," ngày mai "tomorrow") or aspect particles (đã, sẽ) indicate when, but even these are optional when context is clear.
The verb "đọc" is absolutely identical in all three sentences. No suffix, no auxiliary, no tone change — nothing on the verb signals time.
Time words typically appear after the subject and before the verb: "Tôi hôm qua đọc sách" (I yesterday read books). They can also appear at the beginning or end of the sentence for emphasis.
Common time words: hôm qua (yesterday), hôm nay (today), ngày mai (tomorrow), bây giờ (now), trước đây (before / in the past), sau này (later / in the future), lúc nãy (a moment ago).
When no time word or aspect particle is present, the time frame is inferred entirely from context — the conversation, the situation, or shared knowledge. A bare verb can refer to past, present, or future.
Compare: Spanish has distinct verb endings for past (hablé), present (hablo), and future (hablaré) — the verb shape alone tells you when. Vietnamese verbs are timeless; an external time word or aspect particle supplies the "when," and even those are optional.
Aspect in Vietnamese — Finished or still happening?
Pre-verbal particles mark aspect: đã (anterior/past), đang (in progress), sẽ (future), sắp (imminent). Post-verbal "rồi" marks completion. All are separate words — the verb itself never changes.
Vietnamese aspect particles are placed before the verb as separate words. They never fuse with the verb.
"Đã" and "rồi" can co-occur for emphasis: "Tôi đã ăn rồi" (I have already eaten) — đã before the verb marks anterior aspect, rồi at the end reinforces completion.
Additional aspect markers: "vừa" or "vừa mới" (just happened — "Tôi vừa ăn" = I just ate), "từng" (experiential, at some point — "Tôi từng đến Việt Nam" = I have been to Vietnam at some point).
These particles are all optional. "Tôi ăn" (I eat/ate) with no marker at all is perfectly grammatical — context determines whether it refers to a completed or habitual action. The system is more aspect-oriented than tense-oriented.
"Sắp" (imminent) vs. "sẽ" (future) is a meaningful distinction: "sắp" implies something is about to happen very soon ("Trời sắp mưa" = It's about to rain), while "sẽ" is a more general future ("Tôi sẽ đi ngày mai" = I will go tomorrow).
Compare: Spanish uses two entirely different past-tense suffix sets — preterite "-é" (completed: "hablé" = I spoke, done) vs. imperfect "-aba" (ongoing: "hablaba" = I was speaking). Vietnamese uses separate, stackable particles before an unchanging verb.
Certainty / mood in Vietnamese — Real fact, or desired / possible / hypothetical?
Modal verbs (có thể, phải, nên, cần) express ability, obligation, and necessity. Sentence-final particles (nhé, nhỉ, à, ạ) color the speaker's attitude. There is no subjunctive mood.
Vietnamese has no subjunctive mood — there is no verb-form change for desire, doubt, or hypotheticals. Conditional sentences use "nếu...thì..." (if...then...) with the verb shape unchanged: "Nếu tôi có tiền, tôi sẽ mua" (If I had money, I would buy).
Key modal verbs: có thể (can — ability or possibility), phải (must — strong obligation), nên (should — advice), cần (need to), muốn (want to). They are placed before the main verb.
Sentence-final particles carry nuances that English expresses through intonation: nhé (seeking agreement, "OK?"), nhỉ (seeking confirmation, "right?"), à (mild surprise or question), ạ (polite/deferential), đấy/đó (emphasis, "you know"), thôi (limiting, "that's all/enough").
The particle "ạ" is particularly important — adding it to any sentence makes it polite/deferential: "Cảm ơn" (thanks) → "Cảm ơn ạ" (thank you, respectfully). It is used when speaking to elders or superiors.
Compare: Spanish has an entire parallel verb paradigm (subjunctive) with different endings for desire, doubt, and emotion — "quiero que hables" (I want you to speak — subjunctive ending). Vietnamese simply uses modal verbs and sentence-final particles with no verb change at all.
Negation in Vietnamese — Did it not happen?
The main negator "không" is placed before the verb. "Chưa" negates completion (not yet). "Chẳng/chả" are emphatic variants. The verb itself never changes.
"Không" is the general negator, placed immediately before the verb: "Tôi không nói tiếng Việt" (I don't speak Vietnamese). It negates both actions and states.
"Chưa" (not yet) is the negative counterpart of "rồi" (already). "Ăn rồi" (already ate) vs. "Chưa ăn" (haven't eaten yet). "Chưa" implies the action is expected to happen eventually — it is temporally bounded negation.
"Không" also appears in yes/no questions at the sentence end: "Anh đi không?" (Are you going?). The expected answers are "có" (yes, literally "have") or "không" (no). "Chưa" works the same way: "Anh ăn chưa?" (Have you eaten yet?) — answers: "rồi" (already) or "chưa" (not yet).
"Chẳng" and "chả" are emphatic negators conveying stronger denial or frustration. "Tôi chẳng biết gì" (I don't know anything at all). They are more colloquial and emotionally charged than "không."
Compare: Mandarin has a similar two-way negation split — 不 bù (general/habitual) vs. 没 méi (completed events) — based on aspect. Vietnamese's không/chưa split is parallel: không negates general states and actions, chưa negates completion.
Voice in Vietnamese — Is the subject doing, being done to, or causing?
Three pre-verbal markers create passive-like structures: "bị" (undesirable outcome) and "được" (beneficial outcome) mark the speaker's evaluation of an event affecting the subject, while "do" is neutral and obligatorily expresses the agent. The verb form never changes.
The bị/được distinction is one of Vietnamese's most distinctive features. It encodes the speaker's evaluation: bị marks something bad happening to the subject ("Tôi bị mất tiền" = I lost money — unfortunate), while được marks something good ("Tôi được thăng chức" = I got promoted — fortunate).
The verb itself never changes. The structure is: Subject + bị/được + (Agent) + Verb. The agent is optional: "Nhà bị phá" (The house was destroyed — by whom is unspecified).
Bị and được are best analyzed as evaluative predicates, not true passive markers (Bruening & Tran 2015). They can appear in both passive-like and active constructions: "Tôi được ăn" can mean "I was allowed to eat" (an active reading, positive) — not "I was eaten." The evaluative meaning (good/bad for the subject) is their core function.
A third marker, "do", carries no evaluative load — it is used to emphasize the agent, who must be expressed (Ngo 2020 §2.12, p.105). Compare "Quyển tiểu thuyết này do một nhà văn nổi tiếng dịch ra tiếng Việt" (This novel was translated into Vietnamese by a well-known author) — the agent cannot be dropped. Unlike bị/được, "do" is not part of Bruening & Tran 2015's evaluative-predicate analysis and behaves more like a canonical passive marker.
Causative constructions use "cho" (let/have someone do) or "bắt" (force someone to do): "Mẹ cho tôi đi" (Mom let me go), "Mẹ bắt tôi học" (Mom made me study).
Compare: Spanish passive uses the auxiliary "ser" + past participle with gender agreement: "la carta fue escrita" (the letter was written — feminine -a). Vietnamese uses bị, được, or do with no verb change and no agreement — and the choice between them adds an evaluative layer (bị/được) or an agent-emphasis layer (do) that Spanish passive lacks entirely.
Evidentiality in Vietnamese — How does the speaker know this?
Not grammatically encoded — optional expressions like "nghe nói" (I heard that) or "hình như" (it seems) can signal the source of information, but nothing is obligatory.
Vietnamese has no grammatical evidentiality system — speakers are never required to mark how they know something.
Optional expressions for source of information: nghe nói (I heard that / reportedly), hình như (it seems like), có vẻ (it appears), chắc / chắc là (probably, I guess — inference), có lẽ (perhaps — weaker inference).
Sentence-final particles can soften assertions: "Anh ấy là người Việt đấy" (He's Vietnamese, you know — đấy marks shared or asserted knowledge) vs. "Anh ấy là người Việt à?" (He's Vietnamese? — à marks mild surprise/question about information).
Compare: Turkish grammatically requires one of two past-tense suffixes — "-di" for events the speaker directly witnessed vs. "-miş" for events the speaker inferred or heard secondhand. Vietnamese, like English and Mandarin, treats this information as optional.
Specificity in Vietnamese — This particular one, or any one?
No articles — bare nouns are ambiguous between "a book" and "the book." Demonstratives (này "this," kia/đó "that") + classifier provide specificity when needed.
Vietnamese has no equivalent of English "the" or "a." The bare noun "sách" can mean a book, the book, or books depending on context.
Demonstratives follow the noun (head-initial pattern): "quyển sách này" (this book), "quyển sách đó/kia" (that book). Note the order: classifier + noun + demonstrative — the demonstrative comes last.
A numeral + classifier phrase ("một quyển sách" = one-CL-book) functions somewhat like the English indefinite article "a."
Bare classifiers without numerals can imply definiteness: "quyển sách" (the book — a specific, known book) vs. "sách" (book/books — generic). This is a subtle but important distinction in Vietnamese noun phrases.
Compare: Spanish has a full article system — "el libro" (the book, definite), "un libro" (a book, indefinite), and each article carries gender and number. Vietnamese has none of this; the bare noun stands alone, and demonstratives or bare classifiers optionally mark specificity.
Quantity in Vietnamese — How many?
No plural suffix on nouns — number is inferred from context or expressed with a numeral + classifier. Each type of noun requires its own classifier, and the system is extensive.
Classifiers are required between a numeral and a noun. You cannot say "ba sách" (three book) — it must be "ba quyển sách" (three-CL.VOLUME-book). The classifier categorizes the noun by its physical or conceptual properties.
Common classifiers: cái (general inanimate — the default for objects), con (animals + things with motion: knife, street, river), quyển/cuốn (bound volumes: books), tờ (flat sheets: paper, newspapers), chiếc (individual worn/moved items: chairs, shoes, cars), cây (stick-like/plant-like objects), bài (compositions: songs, poems), quả/trái (round/globular objects: fruits), bộ (sets, composite items), bức (flat objects: paintings, walls).
"Cái" is the most general classifier and can extend other classifiers for emphasis or specificity: "cái con mèo" (that cat — cái + con adds a deictic/emphatic nuance).
Optional plural markers "những" and "các" precede classifiers. The contrast is totality vs. partitive subset, not definite vs. indefinite: "các quyển sách" = all of a (usually known) set of books; "những quyển sách" = a subset / certain ones of a set. Both can occur in definite contexts ("những người Mĩ kia" = "those Americans"); definiteness in Vietnamese is signaled by classifier presence and context, not by these markers (Thompson 1965 §8.2 pp.179–180; Ngo 2020 §1.3.2.1 p.26).
Compare: Spanish marks plural on every word in the noun phrase — "los tres libros rojos" (the three red books) has four words all carrying plural markers. Vietnamese marks none of them; the numeral and classifier alone signal quantity.
Possession in Vietnamese — Whose is it?
The particle "của" links possessor to possessed: "sách của tôi" (book of I = my book). For close relationships, "của" is often dropped.
"Của" is a possessive linker placed between the possessed and the possessor — the possessed comes first (head-initial): "sách của tôi" (book of I = my book). This is the opposite word order from English ("my book") but similar to Spanish ("el libro de...", though Vietnamese has no article).
For close personal relationships, "của" is typically dropped: "mẹ tôi" (my mom), "nhà tôi" (my home/my family), "bạn tôi" (my friend). Adding "của" in these cases sounds formal or distancing.
Vietnamese has no possessive pronouns — "my" is just "của tôi" (of I), "your" is "của anh/chị/em" (of you), "their" is "của họ" (of them). The kinship-pronoun system applies here too: "sách của em" (your book — said to a younger person).
"Của" can also function as a verb meaning "to belong to": "Quyển sách này là của tôi" (This book belongs to me / This book is mine).
Compare: Mandarin's 的 (de) works almost identically — it links possessor to possessed and can be dropped for close relationships. Vietnamese "của" parallels this closely. Turkish, by contrast, marks both the possessor and the possessed with suffixes.
Location / Space in Vietnamese — Where? In which direction?
Prepositions (ở "at," đến "to," từ "from") mark static location, destination, and origin. Serial verb constructions chain motion verbs to encode path and direction.
Vietnamese prepositions often originate from verbs (a pattern called "coverbs"): "ở" (be at/in — also a verb meaning "to stay"), "đến" (to/arrive at — also a verb meaning "to arrive"), "từ" (from — also means "since"). This verb-to-preposition gradient is characteristic of Southeast Asian languages.
Serial verb constructions encode path and direction by chaining motion verbs: "đi vào" (go in), "đi ra" (go out), "đi lên" (go up), "đi xuống" (go down), "đi qua" (go past/across). The directional verb follows the main verb.
Locative nouns specify position relative to a reference point: trên (on/above), dưới (under/below), trong (inside), ngoài (outside), trước (in front of), sau (behind), bên cạnh (beside). These follow the reference noun: "trên bàn" (on the table), "trong nhà" (inside the house).
"Đâu" (where) is used in questions: "Ở đâu?" (Where?), "Đi đâu?" (Where are you going?). "Đi đâu đấy?" (Where are you going?) is one of the most common greetings in Vietnamese.
Compare: Mandarin uses a very similar system of coverbs (在 at, 从 from, 到 to) plus directional complements after the verb. Vietnamese works almost identically — both languages use serial-verb chains for path encoding, reflecting their shared areal features in mainland Southeast Asia.
Information structure in Vietnamese — What is this sentence about? What is new?
Vietnamese is a "topic-prominent" language: the topic comes first and the rest of the sentence comments on it. The marker "thì" optionally separates topic from comment.
The topic-comment structure is fundamental to Vietnamese sentence formation. "Con voi thì cái mũi nó dài" (Elephants — their noses are long) is grammatically natural: the topic (elephant) sets the frame, and the comment (noses are long) says something about it. The topic does not need to be the grammatical subject.
"Thì" is an optional topic marker placed between the topic and the comment. It is not always required — "Sách này tôi đọc rồi" (This book I already read) is equally natural without it. "Thì" makes the topic boundary explicit, especially when the sentence might otherwise be ambiguous.
Focus constructions use "chính" (precisely, exactly) or "là" (to be) to highlight a specific element: "Chính anh ấy đã làm" (It was precisely HE who did it). These correspond to English cleft sentences.
"Là" functions as a copula but also as a focus marker: "Tôi là sinh viên" (I am a student — identification), "Tôi mua là vì cần" (The reason I bought it was because I needed it — focusing the reason).
Compare: Japanese uses a dedicated topic particle は (wa) to explicitly mark what the sentence is about. Vietnamese uses "thì" in a similar role, but it is optional — sentence-initial position alone can mark the topic. Mandarin also relies purely on initial position, with no topic particle.
Register in Vietnamese — What social relationship does the speaker encode?
The entire pronoun system is built on kinship terms that encode age, gender, and social status. Choosing the right pronoun is the primary way Vietnamese marks register — the verb and grammar never change.
Vietnamese register is encoded almost entirely in the choice of pronoun — the verb and the rest of the grammar never change. This makes pronoun choice one of the most socially loaded decisions in the language.
The system works in pairs: the word you use for "I" depends on the word you use for "you." If you call someone "anh" (older brother), you become "em" (younger sibling). If you call someone "ông" (grandfather), you become "cháu" (grandchild). The relationship is always reciprocal.
Key pairs: em↔anh/chị (younger↔older), cháu↔ông/bà (grandchild↔grandparent), con↔cô/chú (child↔aunt/uncle-aged). "Tôi" (I) and "bạn" (friend/you) are neutral but can sound distant or overly formal in many contexts.
The particle "ạ" at the end of any sentence adds politeness/deference: "Dạ, em hiểu ạ" (Yes, I understand [respectfully]). "Dạ" (yes, deferential) replaces the neutral "vâng" (yes) when speaking to superiors.
"Tao" (I) and "mày" (you) are the most intimate/rude pair — used between very close friends (affectionate), in arguments (confrontational), or by adults to children (familiar). Using them with strangers is deeply offensive.
Northern Vietnam tends to be more formal with pronoun usage; Southern Vietnam is more relaxed, with "anh/chị/em" used more broadly and casually.
Compare: Japanese has 5+ register levels that change verb endings, vocabulary, and sentence-final forms. Korean has 7 speech levels encoded in verb suffixes. Vietnamese encodes register purely in pronoun choice — the verb is always identical. The system is less grammatically complex than Japanese/Korean but just as socially demanding, because the pronoun you choose defines the entire relationship.
Common questions about Vietnamese
How do Vietnamese pronouns work?
What are Vietnamese tones?
Does Vietnamese have past, present, and future?
Is Vietnamese SVO?
Why do Vietnamese sentences sound 'choppy' to English ears?
Sources for Vietnamese
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Thompson, Laurence C. (1965). "A Vietnamese Grammar." University of Washington Press. — No inflection, isolating typology: §3.1, pp. 50–53. — SVO and adjective-after-noun order: pp. 197–199, 233–235. — Pronoun/kinship system: §6.16–6.30, pp. 246–256. — Classifiers (loại-từ): §8.41, pp. 192–197. — Aspect/time particles đã, đang, sẽ, chưa: §11.1–11.5, pp. 209–215. — Post-verbal completive/resultative xong, hết, ra, được: §9.54–9.66, pp. 215–225. — Negation với không and chưa: §11.4, pp. 213–215. — Question particle không and in-situ wh-words: §10.2, pp. 239–250. — Possessive của (optional): §6.21, pp. 250–251. — Modals có thể, muốn, phải, nên: pp. 217–220. — Serial verb constructions: §10.4, pp. 250–254. — Topic-comment / focal complex order MANNER→TIME→PLACE→TOPIC→PREDICATE: Ch. 10, pp. 239–255. — Relative clauses with mà: pp. 254–256. — Six Northern tones (ngang, huyền, hỏi, sắc, ngã, nặng): §3.42, pp. 19–22. — Reduplication (từ láy): Ch. 7 in full, pp. 139–178 — total reduplication for attenuation (đẹp đẹp, nhỏ nhỏ, trắng trắng) p. 152; tonal-prefix attenuative pattern (kha khá, nho nhỏ) §7.61 p. 172; alliterative emphatic suffixes (sạch sẽ, sạch nhách, sạch sành sanh) §7.55–7.56 pp. 159–168; ironic -iếc suffix (sách siếc) §7.62 p. 173.
- Nguyễn, Đình-Hòa (1997). "Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt không son phấn." John Benjamins. — Kinship pronoun system: pp. 123–131. — Classifier loại-từ syntax: p. 95. — Negation chưa: p. 108. — Existential/possessive có (six functions): pp. 113–114. — Comparison constructions: pp. 122–123. — Final pragmatic particles: pp. 165–168. — Topic-comment, fronting, focus: pp. 209–228. — Negation system: pp. 233–235. — Reduplication (§3.7, pp. 44–57) — total reduplication for distribution (nhà nhà, ngày ngày) p. 45; tone-register harmony rule p. 46; back/front vowel alternation in alliteratives p. 47; /l-/ dominance in rhyming forms p. 49; emphatic alliterative suffixes (nhỏ nhắn, nhỏ nhặt, nhỏ nhẹ, nhỏ nhen) p. 51; ironic -iếc suffix (sách siếc, áo iếc, học hiếc) §3.7.6, p. 53.
- Ngo, Binh Nhu (2020). "Vietnamese: An Essential Grammar." Routledge. — Pre-verbal aspect markers and ordering: §4.3. — bị/được as evaluative predicates: §2.12. — Question formation (yes/no with không, hả, à and wh-in-situ): §6.2. — Reduplication (§4.2.3, pp. 130–137) — total reduplication for attenuation (đẹp đẹp, nhỏ nhỏ, trắng trắng) p. 130; tone-changed attenuative copies (âm ấm, kha khá, nho nhỏ) p. 131; coda-changed attenuatives with stop↔nasal alternation (đềm đẹp, tôn tốt, chằng chắc) p. 131; productive ironic -iếc suffix §4.2.3.6, p. 135; semantically opaque pseudo-redups (bâng khuâng, dửng dưng, mênh mông) p. 135.
- Phan, Trang (2024). "The Syntax of Vietnamese Tense, Aspect, and Negation." Routledge. — TAM hierarchy and pre-verbal marker ordering: Ch. 2. — Post-verbal markers as completive/resultative: Ch. 4, pp. 91–95. — Tense vs. adverb distinction (sẽ/đã/đang are heads; từng/vừa/sắp are adverbs): Ch. 5, p. 155.
- Hole, Daniel & Löbel, Elisabeth (eds.) (2013). "Linguistics of Vietnamese: An International Survey." De Gruyter Mouton (TiLSM 253). — Article system (một, những, các): Ch. 3 (Nguyễn Hùng Tưởng). — Focus particles chỉ, thậm chí, cả: Ch. 10 (Hole). — Passive reanalysis (bị/được as evaluative): Ch. 6 (Simpson & Hồ).
- Tran, Tri C. (2024). "Essential Vietnamese Grammar." Tuttle. — Adjective + meaningless intensifier syllable (nặng trịch, nhẹ hều, đắng nghét, ốm nhách): §7.3, p. 118.