Prologue: The Onion Parable (Shrek and Donkey)

Sometimes, spending time watching DVDs with the kids can be good for linguistic theorizing. So today, on the train to work, I realised that Shrek and Donkey's discussion of onions offers a perfect parable for understanding the significance of Vietnamese syntax, one of my two main theoretical concerns. Here are the excerpts that matter, the exegesis follows:

 

Shrek: For your information, there's a lot more to ogres than people think.

Donkey: Example?

Shrek: Example... uh... ogres are like onions! [holds up an onion, which Donkey sniffs].

Donkey: They stink?

Shrek: Yes... No!

Donkey: Oh, they make you cry?

Shrek: No!

Donkey: Oh, you leave 'em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin' little white hairs...

Shrek: [peels an onion] NO! Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.

[walks off]

Donkey: Oh, you both have LAYERS. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions. What about cake? Everybody loves cake!

LATER

Donkey: Shrek, remember when you said that ogres have layers?

Shrek: Oh, aye?

Donkey: Well, I have a bit of a confession to make. Donkeys don't have layers. We wear our fear right there on our sleeves.

Shrek: Wait a second, donkeys don't have sleeves.

Donkey: You know what I mean.

Shrek: Oh, you can't tell me you're afraid of heights?

Donkey: No, I'm just uncomfortable about being on a rickety bridge over a BOILING LAKE OF LAVA!

Explaining the parable. Vietnamese syntax resembles both Shrek and Donkey. Like Shrek, it is layered like an onion, each level of hierarchical structure separate from the next, each revealing a different aspect of sentential meaning. Like Donkey however, it wears its meanings ‘right on its sleeve’. Like Donkey too, it has no sleeves: Vietnamese syntax is a transparent onion. 

PS. It should be clear that the boiling lake of lava does no work, though.