Thai syntax and “national grammar”

Sciences, Volume 10, Number 2, pp. 273-312, 1988. Printed in Great Britain

bnguage

03884001/89 $3.00 + .OO (0 1989 Pergamon Press plc

Thai Syntax and “National Grammar”

Anthony V.N. Diller Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University

ABSTRACT

The status of current judgments of syntactic grammaticality in Thai is considered in the light of sociolinguistic history. A stage of pre-Western diglossia is described. Onto traditional diglossic high registers have been grafted certain Western-derived features of language standardization, including an institutionally-based (and rather academic) notion of the “grammatical sentence”. The latter suppresses certain ‘pragmatic-mode” features of the colloquial language, such as zeroanaphora and imposes SVO word order as a norm. At present, local Thai attitudes towards “grammaticality” of this imported, normative sort (and to Western linguistic influence in general) are mixed and shifting. These attitudes may relate to interests involving modern nationalism and the “Thai national identity”. Thus Thai “starring behavior” does not necessarily reflect innate bioprogram parameter-settings in a direct way and syntactic researchers would do well

to consider the discourse-contextual, social-historical and even political grounding of such grammaticality

judgments.

INTRODUCTION Ungrammaticality has become an important operational primitive in current syntactic research.’ The ability to star certain decontextualized strings and to admit others, perhaps minimally different, as “grammatical sentences*‘has become a methodological cornerstone on which much technical linguistic discussion depends. Further, Chomsky’s distinction between “grammatical competence” and “pragmatic competence” (1977:90), the latter subsuming much sociolinguistic variation, is an important precondition for developing theories of autonomous syntax, especially theories that take basic typological features of a language to be linked directly to an innate bioprogram. The main purpose of what follows is to present a critique of the notion “grammatical sentence” (pray&k wayyako’:n) as this concept has developed over

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the past century in the Thai social context. It is shown that grammaticality in this sense is located in an institutional framework relating to sociolinguistic history, especially to the development of nation-state language norms. The relationship of such “grammatical sentences” to an innate bioprogram should be considered problematic, as should any typological description of Thai based only on such evidence. Most of what follows is a setting of the stage for these more general considerations. Attention is first paid to some aspects of synchronic and diachronic syntactic elaboration in Thai, in particular to the establishment of a condition of preWestern diglossia. Planned and written styles of traditional discourse are”grafted” onto a pragmatic-mode base. In later sections a second grafting process is described. Into the traditional diglossic high registers are spliced normative forms and functions partly adapted from Western models. The result could be called Standard Thai, a modern version of Central Thai that has arisen along with the needs and institutions of a modern nation-state. A local interpretation of “grammatical sentence” is perhaps still a norm of Standard Thai, but in the final sections below the status of this particular norm is shown to be controversial. THE PRAGMATIC

BACKGROUND

Informal colloquial Thai has strong tendencies towards pragmatically organized syntax; this is especially so for everyday conversation among less educated speakers who know one another well. Important features include topic-first word orders, widespread zero anaphora (with the use of overt pronouns often for social coding rather than for grammatical place-holding), heavy use of verb serialization, rather sparing use of overt prepositions and conjunctions. In spoken discourse of this sort clauses may be chained through repetitive linking (often involving repair, correction or elaboration), parataxis, parallelism and iconic adjunction with no overt markers. Long clausal nominalizations and relativizations are infrequent. Recognizing complete sentences in discourse of this type is frequently problematic. Many of these “topic-prominent**, “pragmatic-mode” and “unplanned discourse” features are well-known in more general typological studies (Li and Thompson 1975; Given 1979:296; Tannen 1987). In the following sections some of these features are briefly illustrated for colloquial Thai. Later we suggest that certain features have been taken by local authorities as indicators of the lower end of an elaborated system of diglossic genres or registers which by now characterize Thai as a national language.* Basic Word Order Although Thai is usually described as a subject-verb-object

(SVO) language, in

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informal conversation other orders frequently occur. Several of these have been documented and discussed by Thai linguists (Panupong 1970; Bandumedha 1979; Ekniyom 1983; and others.) More theoretically, the status of subject(henceforth S) and object (0) as primitives is not without problems for colloquial Thai; we use them here merely as convenient labels. Topical noun phrases, either settings (outer topics) or predicate arguments(inner topics) or both, frequently precede verb(s). This produces orders like OSV (as in( 1) and (2)) and SOV (as in (3)). khl:w raw kin Pakphanang rice 1st person plural (1 PPL) eat (Speaking of simple vs. elaborate eating arrangements:) In Pakphanang we ate (our meals) simply.

(1) pa: kphanang

ngl:y. simple

ni: phitak y&ng m&z-khrua ph(lm this (dish-) with-rice sort cook(FEM-) 1P(MASC) group khb’: duay na yak-yb’ng khrap. praise ask too PARTICLE (PCL) POLITE-PCLfMASC) With food like this, I’d like to praise the cooks too.

(2) k&p-khl:w

(3)

d&k h8’ng ni: ka:n-bl: n khce:y tham m&y homework not this child room ever do The kids in this room have never once done their homework!

s&k thi:. even time

Multiple preverbal topical NP’s are possible. The 0 in (3) should be considered topical as well as S, given the conversation in which it occurred; both NP’s had been previously mentioned. Outer or oblique topics, like the town mentioned in (1), is topical but is not a core or lexically-specified argument. Also, topicality is not a binary ‘value” but can vary in strength and subtype (e.g. contrastive, generic, etc., to specify these, some optional informal marking is available). It is a matter of further definition whether or not to consider “canonical” preverbal S, say, with explicit topic-marking deictics or particles, etc., as ‘topical” or not; there are several good reasons to do so. Thus “topical” as the term is used here, is not limited to, and does not exclude, specific semantic case relations. Postposed S nominals are particularly frequent in informal conversation with varying degrees of preceding pause perceptible (including none). This gives rise to orders like VS (as in (4)), OVS (5), with topical preposed object, VOS (a), with preceding outer topic and VSO (7).’ To treat these constructions as “afterthought” right-dislocations would seem to be relegating them, without investigation or justification, to just the same marginal status that “afterthought” NP’s have in English grammar.4 In Thai conversation they seem to play a more important role.

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(4)

(5)

LanguageSciences,Volume mamuang

mu’ang

ni:.

expensive

mango

town

this

Expensive -

the mangos in this area.

phie:ng

khon

n&n

person

that

l&:w

ku:.

fed-up

already

I P (rude)

r&n nan

nd

may

pho’:-cay

a:ha:n

loe:y

phuak raw.

shop that

PCL

not

satisfied

food

at-all

group I PPL

That shop (7)

khbt

I’m fed up with him.

That person (6)

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we weren’t at all satisfied with the food there.

khuan

ca

should

IRREALIS

(IRLS)

sli’: kan

thuk khon

nlngsii’:

l&m

nan.

buy together

every person

book &tj?er

(CLF)

that

Everyone should buy one of those books. In any case, for Thai postverbal “subjects” there are pragmatic functions other than “afterthought” or self-repair. In Thai (as in other languages) for several presentative/existential constructions, VS order is normal, with no afterthought nuances at all, especially if S is new information ((8) and (9)). On the other hand, if S is topical in existential constructions it normally precedes the existential verb (( 10) and (11)). Thus for these constructions discourse dynamics alone, rather than lexically-based canonic patterns, appear to be the determinant of word order. For some existential-presentative verbs, if postverbal presentation order is used, another preverbal experiencer or locative noun phrase may occur, as in (12). (8)

mi:

na:m

nay

b:ng

n&n.

havef be

water

in

jar

yonder

There’s water in that jar over there. (9)

a:t

ca

k&:t

might

IRLS

arise

khwa:m-r6:sh’k feeiing

mu’s

a:n

set.

when

read

finish

There might arise some feelings after reading it. (IO)

nP:m

mi:

nay

o:ng

n6:n.

water

have/ be

in

jar

yonder

Water (e.g. that you have just asked about) is in that jar over there. (II)

khwa:m-ni:su’k

a:t

ca

k&z

mQ’a

8:n

set.

feeling

might

IRLS

arise

when

read

finish

The feelings might arise after reading (it). (12)

khun 2P

A:t

ca

kbe:t

might

IRLS

arise

khwa:m-rQ:sb’k

feeling You might have feelings after reading it.

mii’a

a:n

set.

when

read

finish

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When S contains an explicit new-information quantifier (especially exclusive quantifiers of the ‘just’ or ‘only’ sort) postverbal position is sometimes preferred in Thai, as in the second clause in (13); note that, given the context, this interpretation preempts the”canonical” one: (S)VO. Another Thai possibility is to split the quantified NP (whatever its function) with the head noun preverbal and the quantifier phrase floated postverbally. This quantifier postposing may apply in concert with existential and afterthought patterns discussed above, as in (14) and (15). (13)

l&k thfiwnin. khaw phu:t kha’: y-kh8': y con dlyyin t&: m&: until hear only mother child just speak softly 3P He spoke softer until only the mother and child could hear.5

(14)

phil’an ma: h&z s&m mi: come search three have/ be friend Three of your friends have come looking for you.

(15)

kin d&y kh’ap thuk chanit krat.&y. phak able almost every rabbit eat kind vegetable Vegetables - they can eat almost any kind - rabbits can.

khon. CLF

Representations like SVO, SOV, etc., have been used above as though the notions of subject and object were unproblematic for the type of Thai being described. Although these labels are useful on the level of practical description, in any rigorous theoretical sense it would be difficult to defend such notions as autonomous grammatical relations for Thai along the lines that such relations have been argued for in English. It would rather seem that there is a competition for surface syntax (as well as for control of binding, etc.) involving factors, some of which are semantic (transitivity patterns, agent and patient nominals, etc.) and others pragmatic (topicality, salient new information, etc.). Naturally, for decontextualized isolated sentences the semantic criteria predominate, but in actual spoken discourse pragmatic patterns frequently preempt semantic ones. Also, for non-agentive predicates like (9), (11) and (12) the specification of “subject” even in only the semantic sense is not uncontroversial.6 Zero Anaphora

and Free Pronominal

Binding

As in other nearby topic-prominent languages, colloquial Thai nominals or nominal referents which are either understood by interlocutors or else deemed by the speaker to be unimportant and unnecessary to specify, may be absent in surface syntax. That is, most nouns can be freely dropped. (Whether or not “deletion” occurs depends on theoretical assumptions and definitions.)’

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Zero anaphora in colloquial Thai is found in contexts where languages with syntax like English would require overt pronouns. However many pronouns (and semi-pronominal epithets, titles, etc.) are available in Thai and nearly all of these forms are sociolinguistically sensitive. A particularly telling example is in women’s first-person self-reference forms, where there are many socially sensitive forms available, but no neutral or general all-purpose single form corresponding to ‘I’ at all. This may lead on occasions to avoidance of an explicit self-reference term, as none of the available forms is deemed appropriate. Similar avoidance phenomena apply to second-person pronominalization as well. Thus zero anaphora is not always simply a matter of textual, construal and understood information. In fact, there are many speech situations where information-wise a particular pronoun would seem redundant (and of course in any case would not be required by syntactic rules) but is nonetheless used by a speaker. This use may be just for the pronoun’s sociolinguistic or other semantic effects. Frequent examples include resumptive uses of third-person forms than (respectful), man (disrespectful, for human referent) and khiw (often connoting an “out-group” or indefinite plural). Not even so-called reflexive forms (ton and tue, often compounded with the adverbial reflexive e:ng) are as bound in syntax as their English counterparts are. The Thai forms may be subjects of their own clauses and while antecedents are usually immediately proximate subjects, for many Thai speakers this need not always be the case. For example, for many speakers an embedded reflexive object can be coreferential with the subject of a matrix clause rather than with that of its own clause. The selection of pronominal forms thus appears more sensitive to sociolinguistic factors than to syntax, although it would perhaps be rash to conclude that Thai therefore has no pronouns at all in the English sense of this term.8 Construing

When anaphora, common particular only the pervasive (16)

Transitivity

Relations

pragmatic pre-position and post-position principles interact with zero a vast array of additional orders arises, including one of the most strategies for achieving the functional equivalent of a passive in Thai. Of interest is (16), where a potentially transitive verbal notion appears with object/undergoer in preverbal position. This construction type is SO in natural discourse that a closer look is justified.

(NP V) to be interpreted a b

0 topical s topical

as:

eS Vtrans t0 v intrans

Should we take this surface collocation (NP V) to be some sort of analogue of “syntactic movement” and “deletion” and recognize a construction like topical 0

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(preposed from position to) with zero S (unstated agent-function nominal or “empty category”, represented here by es)? Or should we recognize a transitive/ intransitive lexical derivation process, consider the relationship “non-syntactic” and take the undergoer NP to be S, an intransitive subject? (17)

o’:, phQ:-cha:y

ko

si)‘:n . . .

oh men

also

teach

a b

In corrective-contrastive context, as phrase actually Oh, they teach men also. Favored decontextualized reading:

occurred:

Oh, men also teach. (18)

nangsn’:

ltm

nan

khian

ma:

lky

pi:

l&w.

book

CLF

that

write

come

many

year

already

That book (someone) wrote many years ago (= that book was written many years ago.) (19)

kay chicken

ni: this

th6’:t

con

may

sia

l&w.

fry

until

burn

spoil

already

This chicken has been fried so long it’s burnt. For Thai sentences like (17)-(19) the semantic type of the verb and its typically associated nominals need to be considered. One possibility is that the more the S and 0 nominals are, for a given verb, typically interacting willful rational beings (as in s6’:n ‘teach’, in (17)), then the more the (16)a “movement-deletion” analogue seems appropriate. One indication is that in this type there will be potential surface ambiguity, as indicated in (17), with a possible alternative reading S VeO; in fact, this reading is favored out of context for this example. (See discussion below of (20) for a similar case.) Another indication is that for this type there is usually at least some sort of explicit topic indicator (e.g. particles, deictics; note the presence of conjunctive particle k6’ in (17), which often occurs to mark asserted predicates when topics are present). For other cases (as with khian, ‘write’ (I 8); thb’:t ‘fry’ (19), etc.), where typically S is human, acting on or creating some 0 that is not human, for practical purposes there is no ambiguity. Often in these cases there is no explicit topic marking, and the general impression of a more lexically associated passive-like intransitive verb is often strong (see also (26)). Stative temporal adverbials, for example, are often a possibility. To be more exact, the stative-passive interpretation is one reading. The “movement” interpretation remains a possibility which can be forced by context (say, by a presupposed agent clearly in mind) or through adding explicit pronouns. In effect for constructions like these, voice or transitivity status would often be a matter of contextual interpretation (as is tense, etc., in any event).

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A somewhat different sort of contextual resolution of transitivity relations applies to (20)a and b if these sentences are spoken in a natural manner. For most Thai speakers the semantics of the verb in the relative clause restricting the nominal head (e.g. in this case whether it is phQ:t ‘say’ or hen ‘see’) sets up expectations which affect how the main clause with verb (chfk’r ‘believe’) is to be interpreted, For most Thai speakers, if phli:t ‘say’ is chosen in the relative clause, then interpretations like (16)a and (17)a apply in the main clause, i.e. O(S)V (with S probably interpreted as the speaker). On the other hand, if he’n‘see’ is chosen, then the interpretation is SV(0). Both interpretations are essentially transitive, but which specific relation (subject or object) is taken as overtly expressed and which is taken as a zero anaphor differs depending on semantic details of the associated nominal phrase.9 (20)

thi:

khon

REL

person

a b

(a. phu:t/b. (a. speak/b.

h&i)

ya:ng ni:

chQ’a

may

day 1ae:y.

see)

like

believe

not

able at-all

this

A person who talks that way I just couldn’t believe. A person who sees it that way just couldn’t believe it.

Verb Serialization Since Thai has no morphological distinction between finite and non-finite verb forms and since nominals are usually not required by syntactic rules, collocations of “bare” verbs are extremely common in colloquial Thai. Many of these strings have an iconic arrangement of some type, or have other sorts of fixed semantic organization. For example, events are often reported by placing several verbs in order according to what happened in a temporal sequence, as in (21). Another type of iconic coding (progressive commentary) is illustrated in (22), where a topical or thematic verbal activity is described by a manner verb and this collocation (now relatively thematic) is in turn described with an outer epistemic verb. (21)

khZiy

pay

aw

ma:

dat

plre:ng

kg:

go

take

come

bend

modifr

correct solve

tham

sia

may.

make

exhaust

be-new

(She) went and got it, changed it around, fixed it up, and made itjust likenew.

(22)

kin eat

lamb&k

IX%?:.

be-difficult

be-certain

(This will) definitely be difficult to eat! Serial-verb

collocations show different degrees of lexicalization. In (21) the and kC-khly are virtually lexicalized compounds, with occurring in fixed order. The items together form a four-unit “com-

sequences dht-plre:ng

components

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pound of compounds”, itself semi-lexicalized. Other sequences are freer or subject to broader semantic considerations. Semi-lexicalized serial-verb patterns can be thought of as coming with “inbuilt” characteristic equi-subject (EQUI) and switch-reference patterns. For example, a motion-purpose sequence pay rPp ‘go and pick up’ would have the actor of the verbal activities in common (cp. English varieties admitting EQUI purpose sentences like ‘go pick up’). For the serialization type seen in s&rg pay ‘send go’, the item (patient) sent goes, not the sender. In pha: pay ‘escort go’, i.e. to take someone somewhere, both nominal referents go. “Inbuilt” transitivity-construing conventions are sometimes inherent in semilexicalized serial constructions. A verb’s semantic content will specify which serial constructions it can be accommodated in and what sort of transitivity interpretations will be possible in a given serial construction, Clear patterns of coordination and subordination can easily be identified for some constructions, but for others, several different degrees and types of hypotactic/paratactic linkage need to be recognized. Also, subject to semantic constraints, one serial pattern can rather freely be incorporated into or juxtaposed with another. Serial-verb constructions are put to many different tasks in informal conversation. Apart from the passive-like construction illustrated above ((18) and (19)), the verbs thbk and do:n ‘undergo, be affected with’ occur serialized with hypotactic clauses to form another passive-like construction (see below for diachronic discussion). The verb mi:, essentially ‘have’, can be used in an existential/ presentative sense of ‘there is’, etc., either with just a noun phrase ((8) and (10)) or with a serialized clause (14). Some verbs used in serial constructions, such as sia ‘spoil, waste, spend’, may have a temporal-aspectual function(in this case, a loose sort of perfective-marking) or a more pragmatic emphatic function. Some of the semantic flavor of main-verb usage may be retained in more functional uses: loss, deterioration(as in( 19))- but not necessarily so (as in (21) where only a completed change-of-state is suggested). Potential ambiguity may arise over whether a serial verb is to be interpreted in a special functional sense or given its full semantic value, as in (23), from Bandhumedha (1970:3 1). Context would resolve most cases of this and perhaps lenition and destressing could be relevant as well. (23)

ya:ng ni: sia khlw khong bon n&:. chin ma: IPSG come (SIA) like this 3 P may complain sure(ly) i [The fact that] I’ve come like this - he’ll complain for sure. ii phe fact that] I’ve come and lost [at gambling] like this - he’ll complain for sure.

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Prepositions In casual speech overt true prepositions are rarer than in formal modern Thai. Relationships like location, goal, benefactive recipient, manner and instrument can be stated for many verbal predicates with directly adjoined noun phrases without explicit prepositions. This is true also for possessives in noun phrases. Thus Thai equivalents of ‘book teacher’, ‘stay library’, ‘go school’, ‘return house’, ‘offer monks’, ‘eat chopsticks’ and ‘sleep bird’ are all acceptable.*0 There are however a number of constraints on these constructions. Prepositional markers for all of these relationships are optionally available. Some are multi-functional: in colloquial Thai the preposition kPp can correspond to ‘with’ (accompaniment), ‘with’ (instrument), ‘to’ (benefactive) ‘on’ (e.g. ‘on the floor’, locative), etc. A few relationships regularly do require propositions, such as accompaniment and source (ablative). So do specialized locative notions like ‘in’, ‘into’; but even here specific verbs may be used instead: Spy ‘put in; insert’ and khaw ‘go into; enter’. Serial-verb constructions thus may take up some of the functional slack of “missing” prepositional phrases in conversation. Other examples: the verb chPy, ‘use’ occurs in serial constructions to introduce instrumental nominals; yii: ‘stay’ may introduce locations; pay ‘go’, ma: ‘come’, thii’ng ‘reach’, may introduce goals.” In a way similar to the forms above the verb hay ‘give’ may introduce benefactives, as in ‘buy sweets give children*. (The verb has several other important derived functions as well, including forming causative constructions and controlled complements, as a concessive marker, as a hortatory marker, e.g. (25) and other uses.)‘* Conjunctions and Clause Linking Overt conjunctions resemble prepositions in frequently being optional with their presence a style indicator in discourse. Utterances with appended clauses having no overt conjunctions are common in discourse, e.g. (23) and (24) (the latter from Na Nakhon (1970:37) who criticizes it; see below). Often iconic principles facilitate interpretation: clauses coming first in discourse may refer to prior actions in a reported event sequence, and there may also be related causal or conditional nuances, as in (24). More pragmatically, the first clause may be posed as relatively “given”, with the second clause relatively asserted, as in (23); note that that temporal iconicity also applies to this example. (24)

plti:k

ton-m&y

ta’ng

man

rot

n&m.

diligent water must pour plant tree(s) If you plant trees, you need to persevere in watering them.

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A strong tendency toward binary parallelism also characterises much discourse of this type. The tendency is global, and extends from lexicon (with frequent synonym compounds) to clause types like XYXZ (where XYZ would seem “informationally adequate”) and on to longer paired segments of discourse having parallel structure. These longer binary constructions may be with or without overt conjunctions. In informal Thai conversation one particular overt conjunctive marker (k6’) occurs frequently before asserted main predicates, especially those preceded by explicit topics or by clauses that stand in conditional or cause-result relationships. In binary paratactic sequences this conjunction is especially common. Deictics and deictic phrases are also important in linking discourse, as are certain temporalaspectual markers, especially l&w ‘then, already’. A further organizational aspect of clause linking in informal unplanned conversation appears to be a tendency to control quantitatively the introduction or mention of nominal information in discourse. For some speakers or speech styles, the preferred normal rate may be in effect only one or two full nominals per clause. This naturally favors a serial-verb mode of presentation, as well as zero anaphora. Also, it may result in linking through repetitions, often with verbs providing a “repetitive core”. ‘All of us can go transplant - go this week - or maybe go next week - go transplant seedlings - transplant back at the village - go back to grandmother’s village - go back and transplant’ - the original Thai version of this would be representative of the unplanned speech genre. In interactive discourse, clausechaining along these lines may be practiced by different interlocutors. Issues of repair and correction - especially self-repair in Thai - become important in effecting conversational cohesion.tr INTERNAL

REANALYSIS:

VERBS AND OPERATORS

Prior to substantial linguistic contact with Western languages from the mid 19th century onwards, Central Thai had previously undergone what could be called more internal developments which affected syntax to some extent. One example has already been introduced: certain serial-verb constructions may undergo reanalysis as their verbs shift semantically in the direction of becoming functional operators. We turn here to diachronic aspects of this issue. The purpose here is to show that during the traditional period a certain amount of “internally motivated” syntactic and semantic shifting can be discerned that should not be written off as “Western influence”. Rather, prior to Western linguistic impact there were emerging construction types in which various temporal, aspectual, auxiliary-modal and transitivity relations could be coded more explicitly by verbs reanalyzed as functional operators than appears to have been the

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case formerly. Along with this was an increased specificity for the coding of certain oblique case-role functions for nominals. Some of these shifts were especially characteristic of traditional formal written genres (see next section). Diachronic Verb Derivations In modern Thai epistemic, alethic and deontic modalities (like English ‘might’, ‘must’, and ‘should’, respectively) may be expressed through conventionalized serial-verb patterns. So, in many cases, may tense- and even aspect-like distinctions. Verbs such as yip: ‘stay’, khPw ‘enter’, pay ‘go’, ma: ‘come’ (see (18)), etc., often figure in such constructions, where they occur postverbally to add information about the timing of a reported event. In other construction types such auxiliary-like elements are preverbal, and there may be a paired correlative collocation of both types. Above we observed that serialization can enter into common ways of expressing passive and existential notions. Have these verbal forms been used as functional operators from remote times, or is there evidence of more recent functional derivation? Comparative and philological evidence often allows us to conclude that certain functions have arisen diachronically specifically in Central Thai from earlier main-verb usages. Only a few specific verb-operator relationships appear to characterize the Tai language family as a whole. For some cases, the main-verb usage in modern Central Thai is now restricted or archaic, and the forms are mainly used at present in the derivative functions that have grown up over the past several centuries. It is interesting that similar (in some cases, virtually identical) functional derivations are widely attested in other language families with extensive verb serialization (e.g. Givbn 1979:222). Below we sample a few cases of probable functional derivation for Central Thai. The treatment here should be considered somewhat speculative and programmatic, pending fuller investigations. The form l&w, originally a verb ‘finish’, is now more frequently used to mark event completion and/or transition (compare ‘already’; ‘then’; see (5), (18) and (19)). The main-verb use is still possible, but now in Central Thai is semantically restricted. Both functions are found in the 14th century inscriptions, but not in all Tai languages. A Khmer loanword s&t now functions as a more general verb ‘finish’ in Central Thai (9) and (1 l), but now even this verb is coming to take on colloquial discourse-linking functions, e.g. in the formula sbt-ld:w-k8’ ‘and then after that . . .‘. The form kw$: was originally a verb meaning ‘go; pass beyond’ but in Central Thai it has been reduced to an adverbial form used (i) in comparative constructions X kw9: Y (cp. English ‘(more) X than Y’), and (ii) as a temporal conjunction meaning ‘before, prior to’. Both the main-verb meaning ‘pass, depart’ and the

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comparative usage(i) are documented for the 14thcentury. (In other Tai languages this verb has undergone different developments. In Shan varieties in Burma the cognate form ka: is either a main verb ‘go’ or a past tense marker. In the Nung language of Vietnam it is a main verb ‘to cross over’ and also a future marker; Saul et al. 1982: 16.) In Central Thai another verb of similar meaning, lce:y, is still occasionally used in restricted main-verb function (‘pass by’) but more frequently appears (i) as a sentence-final intensifier meaning ‘very; at all’ (20), often with a preceding negated clause or (ii) as a preverbal conjunctive form meaning ‘just, then, so’. Both these usages are attested on 14thcentury inscriptions. 14In other Tai languages the verb has had different developments: in White Tai the presumed cognate is used as an adverb meaning ‘too, excessively’.rs An older verb wli: ‘to say’ is found commonly as a main verb from the 14th to 17th centuries and can still be so used now. In present usage as a main verb however it has undergone some semantic shifting, including the addition of special connotations ((scold’, ‘raise objections’, etc.). On the other hand, in serial constructions as a complement marker (as in ‘[told her] that . . .‘) it has become less restricted now it occurs not only with verbs of expression but more widely with those of cognition, perception, fearing and the like. It also occurs in clause-linking formulae such as t&:-w& ‘but’, h&k-w& ‘if, m&:-w& ‘even though’, etc. It is probable that a functional evolution of some type had occurred prior to the 14th century, as both main-verb use and apparently derived functional uses for cognates of wP: are to be found in several other Tai languages. As noted above, serial-verb constructions may do some of the communicative work of prepositional phrases. If a verb comes to be used mainly in a secondary serial position to introduce nominals into discourse such a verb is on its way to becoming a preposition. Such a derivation characterises the form d:k ‘leave’, now used as a main verb only infrequently and usually in a sense of connoting a final farewell or leavetaking. In effect c&k more frequently functions as a locative preposition ‘from’. It is not always easy to determine whether such a form is “still” a verb in a given serial construction or has”become” a preposition. The possibility of zero anaphora is one plausible test: after ‘true positions’ like khp ‘with’, nouns may not be deleted or removed and placed in topical positions, etc., whereas this is possible after serial verbs, such as th(l’ng ‘reach’, used to introduce a goal. A related test depends on a common move in Thai conversation: the expression of (perhaps mock) disagreement by negating the previous speaker’s verb, perhaps followed by a speech-verb alone; but lone prepositions, with or without negation, are unusual in a conversational interchange of this type.16

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The Development of Preverbal Auxiliaries We turn to a special case of the process described above. In 14th-century Thai inscriptions preverbal auxiliaries occur infrequently and appear limited, at least in the surviving available materials, to relatively few forms, such as: c9k ‘will’, mPk and y8’m ‘apt to; usually’ and diy, marking accomplishment or achievement (but not necessarily past time). These also account for most of the preverbal auxiliary forms found in the 50 or so pages of travel notes made by the Thai ambassador to the court of Louis XIV (Kosapan 1685), although it is not entirely obvious what to include in this set. Another possible candidate would be kh8’i now meaning ‘gradually’, although the earlier meaning was clearly different; cognate forms are attested as future, auxiliaries in other Tai languages (e.g. Nung). Ciik and mhk were originally verbs meaning approximately ‘intend, consider’ and ‘like, love’, respectively. The surviving written materials suggest that for several hundred years c&k and rnhk were used in parallel main-verb and preverbal auxiliary senses, although with only written passages as evidence sometimes it seems arbitrary to distinguish these uses. In modern Thai, auxiliary usage is now normal for these forms, and as main verbs they are highly marked and mainly confined to formulaic expressions. (In other Tai languages such as White Tai and Nung, they survive as full main verbs, but have not become auxiliaries.) As an auxiliary, ca (from c8k) functions as an irrealis or future marker. Futuremarking use, with no nuances of wanting or intending, is attested from the mid 14th century: “. . . on the aforesaid day the Buddhist religion will (c8k) cease”(Inscription 3.1.53; Pruchum Silucaru’k I 197854). It also occurs as a marker in irrealis complements and is widely attached as an unstressed postclitic on various other preverbal modal auxiliaries. In a few cases it precedes. The sequences y8’m c8k kratham b&p-kam ‘will be inclined to do evil’ and c8k d8y kc&t than ‘will achieve rebirth in time (for the Buddha’s return)‘show that these patterns were in use by the 14th century (ibid: 3.1.55, 59). For the form d9y several syntactic patterns and uses are attested from the early inscriptions, most of which are familiar in modern Thai. It is found (i) as a main transitive verb meaning ‘acquire, get, obtain’; (ii) after another verb or verb phrase, as a deontic modal indicating ability (e.g. (20)) or (especially preceded by k6’) an epistemic indicating possibility; and (iii) before another verb in a quasiauxiliary function indicating a semantic notion associated with reception and accomplishment (not necessarily beneficial). In the traditional period this construction is certainly not used to mark past tense per se, and in fact is often found in future contexts, as in the curse in (25), from an inscription of 1572 (Curu’k nai Prathet Thai 1986:307).

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287

aba:y-thuk thang si:. dly pay mly phu:-n&n hby four burn Apaya-hell all give/let person-that DAY go (Anyone seizing this monastic property -) let him go burn in the four Apaya-hells. ...

Other derivational relationships connect former verbs with preverbal epistemic and alethic auxiliaries. A verb khong ‘uphold, endure, maintain’, now mainly in compounds, has given rise to a common epistemic preverbal modal auxiliary ‘may, probably’ (23). The irrealis clitic ca can attach to this form as well. It also attaches to several verbs of perception and feeling to derive “quasi-auxiliary” expressions such as hen-ca ‘seem to, may’, from hen ‘see’, which is otherwise (without the irrealis clitic) still a common main verb. Similarly: klPy ‘near’; kl&y-ca ‘just about to’; b’:k ‘exit, go out’; i)):k-ca ‘becoming rather, tending to be’, etc. The dating of these developments remains elusive, but it would appear they are more recent than the derivations discussed above. (The alethic modal Wng ‘must’ is mentioned below.) Similarly yang, a verb originally meaning ‘to be, to be left’is used now in Central Thai as a preverbal auxiliary element meaning ‘still’ or ‘(not) yet’, but the mainverb use survives in other varieties (e.g. in Southern Thai). Auxiliary usage is attested from the 17th century. Perhaps a trace of former main-verb status lives on in the form’s ability to stand as an acceptable one-word utterance in a short answer to a question. The examples above indicate that a few auxiliaries were in use from the earliest period of attested written Thai. From the 14th century to the mid 19th, certain main verbs were virtually “demoted” to preverbal auxiliaries, while other verbs retained main-verb status while developing a parallel auxiliary-like usage. In the latter cases, the auxiliary-like usage developed from a reanalyzed complement construction along with the leading element undergoing a semantic shift from a relatively independent verbal notion to a modal-aspectual notion, or the like. Parallel processes are characteristic of other Tai languages, but there is considerable difference in the specific verbs involved and how they have developed. Finally, in modern Central Thai the process appears to be continuing in a limited fashion. The Development

of Passive Expressions

In traditional Thai the main strategy to communicate the functional equivalent of a Western-language passive was to use the construction illustrated in examples (16~( 19): a leading noun phrase is associated with a potentially transitive verb, and through a combination of pragmatic and semantic construing strategies, the nominal is taken as a patient-undergoer type of argument (rather than as actor-agent, which is understood or unexpressed as irrelevent - i.e. through zero anaphora). There is no obligatory overt marking to show this relationship; it is not dependent LsC10:2-D

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on autonomous grammatical principles (if these are taken as distinct from semantic/ pragmatic ones). Examples in earlier texts are frequent: (26) is from Ambassador Kosapan’s travel notes of 1685 (198557); (27) is from the Thai version of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms of about 1800 (Sum Kok 1963:2.616). (26)

(27)

fa: la: phe:da:n th’k nan khian 1a:y bencarong . . . building that and ceiling draw line wall multi-colored The walls and ceilings of that building are painted in multi-colored designs. i

ii

ma:-chiiy ma: bb’:k wfi: nan khana messenger come tell that that time thahkn ma: l&w. &ma:-i: yak soldier come raise a Iready Suma-i Then a messenger came and reported that Suma-i was already approaching with his troops. n&n k6’ dang c&: ng tbk-cay. khong-beng inform like that then astonished Khongbeng Khongbeng was informed of this and was astonished.

In (26) (which is acceptable in modern Thai as well) the verb clearly has a passive sense with respect to the preceding (subject?) nominals; note that it has a following object-like noun phrase as well. The agent is irrelevant and not expressed. In (27), the second sentence calls either for a passive construing of the verb c&q “inform” (hence “was informed”) or else perhaps the sort of “topical/passive” construction illustrated in (16)a-( 17)a. Note that in (27) if ii is decontextualized and presented to modern readers for their reactions they are apt to switch interpretation and favor Sagent VeO.... *“Khongbeng informed (himi) of this and (hei) was astonished.” In context however there is no practical ambiguity and the passive interpretation indicated above is unanimously accepted, although many consider this usage archaic. Verb serialization also figures in the development of passive-like constructions in the period prior to 1850. Several verbal forms are involved, including the forms thd:k and tb’ng, both of which originally appear to have been main verbs meaning ‘strike, touch’. The verbs developed several polysemous uses. Sometimes the verbs occur in tandem as in thl:k-tb’ng ‘correct’, a compound which survives into modern Thai. (28) is a tandem usage from a 14th-century text in which the genesis of a passive-marking function can perhaps be seen.” (28)

ru’ang thh:k s&n to’ng phra:y nga:m . . . scatter touch glitter gleam beautiful strike ray The rays struck (the chedi) and were reflected off, glittering and gleaming beautifully. rasami:

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By 1800 the form t6’ng was used as an auxiliary-like item with two distinct functions: (i) it came to be used as a preverbal modal meaning ‘must’ - a usage surviving into modern Thai (e.g. (24)) and (ii) it came to be used as a serialized adversative passive marker (as though: ‘to be struck with’), a usage which has not survived to the present save in a few fossilized expressions.18 The agent could optionally be introduced directly between 16’ng and the following verb (as though: ‘to be struck with, to undergo, X doing Y to one’). (29) illustrates this construction in the Law of the Three Seals (1 805).19 (29)

lae:

ton...

tB’ng

co:n

plan

and

3P-RFLX

undergo

robber

plunder

And (if) he himself is plundered or beaten by robbers..

co:n

ti:....

robber

hit

.

The form thil:k developed parallel adversative passive-marking usage. An early example is in an epic romance of about 1820 where there are clauses like NP,thfi:k rip NP2 NP,-undergo-dispossess-NP,; in the text: ‘I was dispossessed of all my property’.20 Several further quasi-passive constructions are based on conventionalized extensions of other verbs, such as do:n ‘(be) hit’(similar in usage to thb:k above) and r8p ‘receive’, mi: ‘have’ and occasionally pen ‘be’, k&:t ‘arise’, etc. For the latter three the effect of a passive is achieved by using a nominaljzation in direct object position; the verb (phrase) to be passivized is preceded by a nominalizing affix or compounding head ka:n- or khwa:m-. In this usage the first (i.e. “passive marking”) verb may be preceded by day functioning as accomplishment marker (3.2). Thus d8y r4p ka:n-si)‘:n teach,

(ACCOMPLISHMENT)

receive (NOMINALIZATION)-

i.e. ‘has received teaching’, i.e. ‘has been taught’. It is interesting that in a 1796 translation of a catechism by French priests into Thai, the Latin phrase qui autem docti fuerint . . . (Daniel 12:3; ‘and those who will be taught . . .‘) is translated into Thai as banda day r8p khwa:m sb’:n (similar to the above, but with the khwa:m nominalizer; Garnault 1796:1).21 Prasithrathsint (1985) in an impressive and detailed study has documented the subsequent development of the passive-like constructions through the 19th and 20th centuries, based on a large sample of written sources. She also discusses in detail various subtypes not mentioned above. From her study it would appear that, prior to the widespread study of Western languages in Thailand or by Thais overseas, several passive-like usages had evolved “naturally” and were in place and used with some frequency. But none of these would really qualify as an across-theboard passive construction proper; rather each construction was constrained by certain particular semantic and pragmatic factors. The type O(S)V (e.g. (16), (17), (26) and (27)) is clearly the least marked construction, as well as the most frequent in text counts from all periods for prose originally composed in Thai (Prasithrathsint

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1985:126-128). Probably this construction was even less constrained in the past, especially in terms of discourse pragmatic% than it is today (to wit, the current questionable status of discourse sequences from earlier Thai like (27)).

TRADITIONAL

DIGLOSSIA

There can be little question as to the diglossic evolution of Thai into an arrangement of registers or styles that by 1850 were perceived as essentially polarized. At about that time King Rama IV (Mongkut) expressed displeasure with new Bangkok printing presses, mainly run by missionaries, that had just begun to print Thai prose. In a strongly-worded language edict he condemned these presses for “not taking as their standard the speech of the aristocracy and the literate but rather printing that of the base and illiterate commoner/serfs”. The King’s phraseology implies that for him, at least, Thai speech was diglossic and was organized along class lines: phti: di:, the aristocracy and phriy le:w, the base commoner/serfs (Sophawong 1973:7). The king expected the new print medium to represent the linguistic usage of the aristocratic class, which was in fact at that time the normal locus of literate persons. High Lexical Selections

For King Rama IV and others of the aristocracy the most salient feature of the traditional diglossic high code would undoubtedly have been lexical selections, in particular, the use of vocabulary that was etymologically non-Tai. In the earliest 14th-century Thai inscriptions, limited Khmer and Indic vocabulary can be found, but at first used only to denote borrowed cultural concepts, especially those relating to Buddhism, to Brahmanical lore or to Khmer-style administration. Soon thereafter non-Tai vocabulary came to be incorporated in a set of special registers, culminating in ‘royal language’ or ra:cha:sAp, characterized by Gedney (1961) as “highly conventionalized euphemisms”. That is, vocabulary items of Khmer or Indic provenance were to be substituted for (or sometimes added to) original Tai lexical items in various courtly linguistic genres. For titles and address-reference forms, Tai vocabulary was combined, often along with Khmero-Indic, in new formulaic patterns. By Gedney’s count there are some 250 specifically ra:cha:sAp items surviving in current use for normatively correct speech pertaining to royal persons. There would however be many more similar lexical items, probably several thousand, characteristic of associated “polite vocabulary’* (kham suphkp). In earlier times these words would have been used at court and by the aristocracy for polite speech among themselves. Perhaps, to judge from traditional Thai literature, such forms were

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used to some extent by slaves or serfs in addressing aristocrats. For purposes at hand the existence of this upper stratum of mainly non-Tai vocabulary serves to establish “traditional Thai diglossia” as a documented entity which must have been a salient part of the language experience of earlier Thais, whatever their social position.** Elaboration of Preverbel Auxiliaries Exactly how the diachronic derivational issues discussed above relate to the evolution of traditional diglossia requires more study. It does seem safe to conclude that certain non-Tai forms were grafted into patterns originally established through more-or-less “Tai-internal” diachronic processes. For example, these forms elaborated and codified the preverbal auxiliary as a well-defined paradigmatic class, making possible the modification of basic predicates through various fine shades of modal-aspectual meaning. One could speculate that this may have represented a quantitative shift in clausal “packaging”; the tendency in earlier Thai, as well as in current rural dialects, seems to favor the expression of modal modification through postverbal serialization or adverbs rather than through multiple preverbal auxiliaries. Some auxiliary forms of non-Tai provenance may still retain diglossic high flavor, while others do not. Thus the Khmer-derived verb A:t ‘to have the strength to’ was borrowed and subsequently developed first as a preverbal deontic modal ‘can, be able’ and then, in a related function, came to be used as an epistemic ‘might, may’, admitting the irrealis clitic -ca as g:t-ca. It therefore fell into the syntactic form class of the Tai-provenance preverbal auxiliary item khong. By now in the latter (epistemic) usage &t(-ca) has lost most of the diglossic associations it may once have had; however the former (deontic) use now seems rather literary. Indic vocabulary has also been incorporated into deontic serial-verb constructions: si:m3:t, ‘able’, from Pali ‘competent’, etc. Similarly, kamlang, a Khmer-provenance noun meaning ‘might, strength’, came to be used in mid-19th century writing as a preverbal auxiliary marking progressive or continuous aspect. The usage was either in addition to, or instead of, postverbal serialized yb: ‘stay’. The latter form alone is found in older Thai sources and in current rural dialects. A Khmer verb tong, originally ‘wish, desire’, through serialization has come to function as a preverbal hortative and imperative marker; it retains a connotation of formality that probably reflects its diglossic ancestry. Elaboration of Other Functional Classes To judge from historical and comparative data, earlier Thai had modest systems of personal pronouns and numeral classifiers. Kinship terms were undoubtedly

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used in a quasi-pronominal function as well. As court life came to emphasize complex grades of status and deference, for aristocratic communication many additional personal reference terms supplemented or supplanted the earlier simple pronouns. Many originally title-like epithets came to be used more and more in the manner of pronouns, sometimes undergoing phonetic attrition. Similarly, classifiers and speech-act particles proliferated in courtly speech.23 Explicit level-sensitive prepositions were introduced; e.g. by the 17th century the locative preposition nB (from Old Khmer) was used as a high counterpart to original Tai (now common) locatives thE: ‘at’ and nay ‘in’. Dense Overtly-marked

Subordination

and Coordination

A degree of marked subordination is evident in the 14th century inscriptional texts. Relative clauses (headed by the marker an) occur quite frequently from the earliest period. By the time of the Law of the Three Seals (1805) it is clear that there had evolved a cluster of essentially written prose styles quite distinct in syntactic character from ordinary (even polite) speech. Traditional legalese, for example, was replete with marked clauses of condition, concession, circumstance, cause, purpose, comparison and the like, often piled up together, as the translated passage in (30) suggests. Some of the explicit markers were derived from verbs, as with th8: ‘if, from a verb meaning ‘wait’; others were borrowed from Khmer, as with do:y, indicating circumstance, from Indic, as with h&:t (wa), indicating reason, or came from other sources. These constructions were freely mixed with binary parataxic linkage and looser unmarked coordinations which one presumes were more characteristic of spoken registers; similarly, zero anaphora, verb serialization and topic-prominent word order were not avoided, but coexisted with the tighter explicit subordination constructions. (30)

“If(th9:) anyone conceals property [that has been dug up], not presenting it to the king and(he:) this is reported, let him be punished for (do:y) withholding the king’s property, since (h&t-w9) all things which (sil’ng) have fallen to the earth and their owner cannot be found are the king’s property, because (phrb’) the king is the sustainer of the earth, his boundless power being a defence against all perils, US rhough (dhg) being the pillar of the universe which (an) spreading out over the world prevents chaos from (mi hily) arising.” (Low of the Three Seals 1805:4 # 107).

Abstract Nominals

and Noun Clauses

Also contributing to dense sentential complexity in traditional written sources like the legal text cited above are certain nominalizations and noun clauses. The noun khwa:m ‘meaning, message’ by the 17th century was coming to

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function, as a nominalizing prefix through regular patterns of compound formation. Phrases such as mi: khwa:m-yindi: ‘to have gratification, gladness’, are found in diplomatic correspondence (31). Such nominals also occur in Buddhist literature, e.g. to translate abstract theological nouns in Pali texts. The form sii’ng, which presently functions as a relative marker, is found in 17-19th century writing also to mark the opening of topical noun clauses (usually closed by the deictic nin ‘that, the’). These may be long and rather loose in terms of syntactic linkage to the main clause, as the translated example (3 1) indicates. This particular construction is so common in the correspondence of Ambassador Kosapan that one suspects it may have been a hallmark of diplomatic language of the period. Note that the “pragmatic” topic-comment arrangement here is not to be simply equated with an unplanned informal colloquial register. The impression from the rather long involved sentences is more of a planned, non-colloquial formal discourse style. (31)

rhar (sii’ng . . . n9n) you have favorable intentions of promoting the alliance between both of our monarchs and having it endure gloriously into the future, I

"(As for) rhefucr

have great gladness(mk

khwa:m-yin-dk nik-ni:) on your account.

THE RISE OF NORMATIVE

. .“(Kosapan

1685:43).

SYNTAX

The preceding section has proposed that prior to substantial Western cultural contact beginning in the mid 19th century Thai had developed into differentiated registers. Although relevant data are scanty, one assumes on the basis of comparative evidence that lower-class colloquial speech (that of the phr&y le:w, following King Rama IV’s appellation) at that time was conducted mainly with etymologitally Tai vocabulary and was characterized by topic-prominent or pragmatic-mode features, perhaps having undergone some “internal” derivational reanalysis. Built on this foundation, but growing away from it lexically and to some extent syntactically in certain quantitative respects, was a collection of traditional diglossic high registers. These styles served the various literary and administrative needs of the court (the aristocracy or phfi: di:), and also in effect distanced its speech from that of the lower classes. As Thai polity developed along nation-state lines in the second half of the 19th century, modern institutionalized bureaucratic, legal, educational and literary needs, etc., led to further enrichments of the system of traditional Thai linguistic registers. Considering that in the first instance it was the traditional aristocratic elite that led these aspects of national development, it is natural that the traditional diglossic high styles served as the basis for the new “national” linguistic registers.

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In particular, the traditional high registers had been lexically characterized by Indic and Khmer vocabulary. In the reign of King Rama V (1868-1910) English loans came to be grafted into the Thai of these high registers. Later, there was a reaction against these items and most of this early English vocabulary was superseded by neo-Sanskritic coinings. In texts, a neo-Sanskrit form was frequently glossed: it was followed by its English “progenitor” in parentheses (a practice enduring to the present). In a partially similar way, traditional legalese (e.g. (30)) and other high registers, although “pragmatic-mode” in having topic-first word order and frequent zero anaphora, nonetheless departed from unplanned spoken discourse, e.g. in density of marked subordinate clauses, long clausal nominalizations, etc. Constructions or syntactic characteristics which may originally have been motivated by English prototypes were subsequently grafted into Thai of this general type. Some of these features, such as English-inspired noun clauses and other types of subordination, have been assimilated quite directly into the traditional high register. Other syntactic innovations have failed to gain popularity and dropped out of usage. Print technology crucially affected these developments, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries translations and adaptations from English accounted for a significant amount of what was printed. Translationese types of Thai were frequently seen in the early journals and newspapers, including especially the importation of English paragraph organization. This emerging new style of Thai was variously imitated and condemned. King Rama VI (r. 1910-1925), who was himself fluent in English and a prolific writer in Thai, complained that translations from English into Thai were producing un-Thai sounding sentences. In an edict of 1914 he wrote that “those who do translation often translate only trashy stories from foreign languages. Moreover, they are likely to change the Thai grammatical structures in accordance with the foreign ones. They do this from their ignorance and misunderstanding that such a style is beautiful and suitable for modernity. They do not realize that by so doing, they destroy their own language.‘*24 On the other hand, how were these writers or speakers to know the formal limits of “their own language”? Paradoxically, to the extent that norms had been explicitly formulated, most of these also had an un-Thai provenance. The First Thai Grammars

During the period of traditional diglossia, high-register norms were apparently acquired implicitly through example. The earliest explicit indigenous treatment of Thai linguistic material (the treatise cinda:mani:, traditionally dated to the 17th century) is concerned with orthography and principles of versification, not directly with lexicon, let alone syntax.

Thai Syntax and “National

The first lengthy descriptive treatments of Thai grammarper

Grammar”

295

se are those of Low

(1828) and Pallegoix (1850). Low, whose grammar of Thai also represents the first

use of moveable type to print the language, had little syntactic interest beyond sorting lexical items into familiar Western word classes. To his credit, he recognized classifiers as a separate category. He was of the opinion that the language had “no grammatical rules” (1828:21), by which he perhaps meant that there was no inflectional morphology. Even so, he was able to discern in Thai Latin-like cases (dative, ablative, etc.) marked by prepositions. Bishop Pallegoix gave Thai syntax a fuller treatment that was even more firmly based on the model of Latin. As was common practice for European grammars of “exotic” languages at that time, Pallegoix”conjugated”, for example, theThai verb rPk ‘love’ paradigmatically answering to Latin amo, amabam, amavi, amaveram, etc., with the use of various combinations of periphrastic auxiliaries as shown in (32). Tense

Voice, mood

Latin prototype

Thai periphrastic marker(s)

present present present

active indicative passive indicative active subjunctive

am0 amor amem

(zero or optional V + yti:)

future present perfect present perfect future perfect

active active active active

amabo amavi amaverim amavero

ca + V d&y + V hay + NP + d&y V

(32)

indicative indicative subjunctive indicative

t8’ng + V +y&: h&y + NP + V

ca d9y -I- V (etc.)

(Pallegoix 1850:47-48.) Nouns were declined for case with prepositions as in Low (1828), except that nominative and accusative cases were defined by position: nouns with these two cases were said to precede and follow verbs, respectively (Pallegoix 1850:39). Language

Edicts of King Rama IV

The purpose of the Latinate scheme of Bishop Pallegoix was to instruct foreigners in Thai, and there is no evidence that it was ever explicitly taught to Thai native speakers. On the other hand, King Rama IV, as a Buddhist monk before he ascended to the throne in 185 1, studied Latin with Pallegoix and in exchange taught him Pali. According to Sulak Sivarak (1986:34) the king “had studied foreign languages and learned grammatical rules of languages with ‘fixed structures’ which he thought had developed and flourished more than Thai, such as Pali, Sanskrit, Latin and English.” Undoubtedly the Thai project of Pallegoix would have been known to, if not heavily influenced by, the king-to-be.

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In any case, after Rama IV had become king he showed a remarkable interest in specifying details of linguistic usage and normative reforms, especially for official communications. Many language edicts were issued. Most were lexical in nature (proscribed words, new titles or toponyms to be used, etc.), but in several cases semantico-syntactic issues were involved, such as for specific compounds whether Thai modificational order (head -I- modifier) or Sanskritic order (modifier+ head) was appropriate. In one astonishing decree, for anyone reversing the prescribed order of a particular Indic compound, the death penalty is threatened (injest? Edict 312, Rama IV 1862: 352). Otherwise, less drastic penalties for linguistic misdemeanours included scrubbing betel spittle from the royal courtyards. As noted above, in colloquial Thai prepositions like k8p are (and undoubtedly formerly were) used to mark more than a single Latin-like case relation. Also, for several semantic relations overt marking with prepositions is syntactically optional. Perhaps sensing this as a linguistic weakness, the king issued an edict specifying, in effect, case-marking relations for specific prepositions; this was indicated through extensive listing of verbs and verb phrases which could admit specific prepositions. The effect is close to a codification of the Latinate case-marking approach of Low and Pallegoix, as in (33). As Khanittanan (1987b:55) notes, not all of the king’s prescribed norms regarding prepositions were followed after his reign. (33) Preposition kb

k&: td?:

Case relation

Example

comitative dative ablative

pay k8p ‘go with hily k$: ‘give to’ ~6’: td: ‘buy from’ (etc.)

(Edict 311; Rama IV 1862:350.) Other edicts specified, arbitrarily, as it would seem, the semantic nature of direct objects that were to be used with certain verbs: the verb s&y ‘to put’, for example, was to cooccur only with abstract or shapeless objects, not with concrete nouns denoting rigid items (Edict 314). Classifier constructions were also specified. Apart from specific language edicts, the king’s own written Thai usage was influential in codifying new practices and norms for formal styles. For example, his writing made frequent use of long sentential nominalizations, introduced now by ka:n thi: . . . (cp. the earlier formula in (31)); he often used the form diy as a preverbal marker to indicate past-tense, etc. Other aspects of his style were more pragmatic-mode, including topic-first word order, heavy zero anaphora, paratactic linkage, etc.25 King Rama IV’s interest in prescribing linguistic usage can be seen as the beginning of a normative approach to Thai in which linguistic standards are considered important for political purposes, especially, in the ensuing period, for effecting national cohesion. Language seems to have been part of the king’s more

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general interests in establishing national standards; for example, he constructed an enormous clocktower in the royal compound to display the Thai equivalent of Greenwich mean time. Language with established rules and norms came to be seen as an important token in emerging conceptions of nationhood which stressed centralized uniformity and control. Thai School Grammars

King Rama IV’s edicts on prepositional usage, etc., wereincorporated into some of the first textbooks for Thai language study (Acharayangkun 1871:203), to be studied at first in the court school and later used more widely. By the last two decades of the 19th century Thai language study (as distinct from merely learning the rudiments of the writing system) had become a proper academic subject in Thai schools, complete with examinations to be passed. A step toward codifying Thai usage, including syntax, was the Thai grammar for pedagogical purposes of the newly-organized Department of Education (krom sb’ksa’:thika:n, later becoming the Ministry of Education). For the development of syntactic norms, in the Department’s 1891 Grammar (wayya:ko’:n) a crucially significant amalgamation process involving three factors can be discerned. (i) Inform, the presentation of “Thai grammar” is obviously based on traditional English school grammars of the period, which in turn pointed back to the GraecoRoman grammatical tradition. (Whether or not Pallegoix’s Latin grammar ofThai was of influence remains unclear.) Thus words are sorted into the classical (Latin) parts of speech; categories like person, number, tense, etc., are illustrated, and verbs are “conjugated” periphrastically (as in (32), although details differ). (ii) The content consists OfThaiillustrations ofcategories orprinciples of(i), along with a few additional more indigenous issues, such as the correct social usage of level-sensitive vocabulary. Occasionally sentences seem contrived or odd, at least to the modern reader, and some were perhaps directly translated from English sources. (iii) The grammatical nomenclurure, on the other hand, is mostly Sanskritic, and is of two subtypes: (a) more authentic terminology of the PHninian tradition (e.g. ka:rbk, Skt. kZraka, ‘case relation*); and (b) Indic neologisms, calques and redefinitions to translate English (or Classical) textbook terminology. Thus pratha:n, from a Sanskrit form meaning ‘chief or ‘principal’, is used to mean ‘grammatical subject’; nithe:tsama:la: is calqued using literal Sanskrit equivalents for ‘indicative mood’; phay&lre:ka:ne:k8tthipray&k for ‘disjunctive sentence’, etc. The effect is the imposition

of the main lines of traditional

English school

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grammar on Thai, but localized through the terminological legitimation of an extensive polysyllabic quasi-Sanskritic vocabulary. In a few cases (e.g. Paninian kiiraka theory) more substantive features of the Indic grammatical tradition are blended in; also some attempt is made to treat more Thai-internal questions of sociolinguistic usage. The main task for the student would seem to have been a rather arcane and arbitrary classification exercise that had occasional consequences for deciding whether specific usages were to be counted “correct” or “incorrect”. Sometimes “rules for the sake of rules” appears to have been the policy. The third-person form man was prescribed as correct only with animal antecedents: its use with inanimate objects was labelled incorrect, a piece of linguistic engineering that has not succeeded (Department of Education 1891:95). It is interesting that in Grammar the divergence of the presented rules from normal colloquial speech is frankly admitted, e.g. zero anaphora is noted as a characteristic of casual speech (1891:71). A thorough revision and expansion of Grammar and similar early texts was made by a preeminent Thai educator, Upakit-Silapasan, during the period 1918-1939. His four major grammatical works were later collected and reprinted as Principles of the Thai Language (lhk pha:si: thay, henceforth Principles). More than any other single work, this one deserves the sobriquet of the “Thai National Grammar”. All Thai secondary or tertiary students of the 192Os, 1930s or 1940s would have had at least a brush with this officially-sanctioned grammar in their required Thai language courses; those studying Thai thereafter would still have been laboring directly under its influence.26 Derivative texts have followed in the tradition of Principles, several even with the same title. A minor reworking of Principles, retaining the same internal divisions, was produced by the Ministry of Education in 1953 and was the official schoolThai grammar text into the 1970~.~’ Actually, however, Upakit-Silapasan’s work differs from the earlier Grammar more in degree and refinement than in kind, as the author himself acknowledges. Principles offers a far more extensive treatment of Thai syntax and at least its latter sections assume an advanced readership of prospective secondary-school teachers. They would have needed to study closely its dense grammatical terminology and rules for their all-important teacher’s examinations. The first two chapters of Principles (written during 1918-1922) continue in the Grammar tradition of applying, often with considerable ingenuity, English-derived grammatical concepts which are then assigned Sanskritic names and illustrated with Thai examples, Nor does this work completely avoid awkward translationesesounding examples. Sometimes principles which today might be referred to as English movement rules in transformational approaches were applied across the

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board to form Thai constructions. (34) from Principles (Upakit-Silapasan (1922) 1979:151), illustrates the Thai equivalent of an English passive with promoted prepositional or indirect object (somewhat marked even for English). The sentence is clearly a created artefact and for Thai speakers today it tends to sound odd. Note also (35), from an influential work updating Principles (bearing the same title; Thonglo (1952) 1982:308). Here the usual paradigm arrangement of verbal conjugations in traditional Western grammar has led to the invention of a new Thai “tense”, apparently inspired by the future perfect continuous and referred to by the unwieldy Thai-neo-Sanskritic term: pAtcubanka:nGmbu:n nay adi:t h&q ana:kh& (lit. ‘completed present time in the past of the future’). Contemporary Thai speakers tend to find (35) as bizarre as the name of the “tense” it presumably exemplifies. Note that by now d&y is routinely being considered a past-tense or perhaps perfect-tense element in “grammatical” sentences (cp (25)). khian thin thtik than 3 PPL write I PSG undergo I was written a message (to) by him.28

(34)

(?)

(35)

(?)

ca chgn d&y IRLS ACCOMP IPGS I shall already have been working.

ngngst’: book Jmessage

kamlang PROG

tham-nga:n work

thii’ng. reach/ to l&w. already

Upakit-Silapasan, as well as being head of the textbook division in the Ministry of Education, was a member of the Thai Royal Institute(ra:tchabanditayasathi:n). This was set up in the second decade of the present century along the lines of the French Academy, especially in its colonial manifestations in Hanoi and Pnom Penh.29 One of the Royal Institute’s key projects was the creation of aThai national dictionary, which, inter alia, would specify syntactic categories for each word. “Grammatical

Sentences”

and Pragmatic

Syntax

The Western-based phrase-structure principles enunciated in Grammar, Principles and successive texts may come into conflict with the pragmatic-mode or topic-prominent characteristics introduced earlier. Some authorities have proscribed as ungrammatical or unacceptable in formal writing any “exotic” syntax which departs from the underlying (covert English) model. Until quite recently the ability to recognize what the grammatical textbooks called a ‘grammatical sentence’ (pray&k wayya:ko’:n) has been an important conception for leading Thai educational authorities, including those responsible for school curricula and for conducting important career-related examinations. Zero anaphora, clauses linked without explicit conjunctions, word order deviating

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from SVO, etc., apparently (sometimes?) debar a sentence from being considered “grammatical” for the purposes of passing official examinations. One educator of great influence cites the conditional sentence quoted above as (24) - which we have characterized as having “pragmatic-mode” features, and condemns it to the spoken language, debarring it from the status of “grammatical sentence”(Na Nakhon 1970:37). This educator gently ridicules sentence (24) for its zero anaphora by rhetorically inquiring whether or not the grammatical subject of the sentence can be found. Of course it cannot, and so he goes on to provide his corrected “grammatical” version of (24) in which zero anaphors (in this case, with generalized non-specific reference) are filled in with the overt pronoun thin ‘you’ (respectful; normally specific), a “missing” conditional conjunction thi: ‘if is added, and the irrealis marker ca is inserted to mark overtly the hypothetical generalization. The resulting (English-like) Thai sentence is shown in (36). (36)

thl:

than

ca

plu:k

ton-m&y

than

to’ng

man

rot

n&m.

IRLS

plant

trees(s)

2P

must

diligent

pour

water

if 2P If you would plant trees, you need to persevere in watering them.

Although (36) is somewhat stilted in Thai, it is presumably just what is required in the official examinations, which in fact this particular authority has had a preeminent role in arranging. The passage cited comes from his handbook explicitly marketed to prepare examinees for the “Thai composition” section in official examinations. (Some Thai readers of the “grammatical” (36) report that they find the inserted pronoun thin, indicating high deference and specificity, or any other overt pronoun, decidedly odd given the didactic message. For them it is natural in Thai to use a zero anaphora generic subject in such instructional contexts.) Perhaps enforced attitudes of this sort have been partially effective over the years in combating the density of zero anaphora in written Thai. A comparison of the writing styles over the past century appears to bear out this trend.30 The author of (36) makes no bones about the English source for his notion of grammaticality. As he writes: “. . . you must understand sentences according to the academic study of grammar or language principles. Do not suppose that Thai has no grammar

or that Thai does not have the same sentence constructions

as English.

If you suppose that, the day will never come that you will write weN.” (Na Nakhon 1970:38; emphasis added. Incidentally, in this passage I have translated the author’s three zero anaphor generic subjects as ‘you’!) This authority goes on to extol typical Western textbook rhetorical standards: be clear, be concise, etc.31 This notion of formal “grammaticality” and “grammatical sentences” perhaps accounts for the near-universal distaste for ‘grammar’ (wayya:ko’:n) as an academic subject on the part of educated Thais, even of Thai language teachers and professors. For many, “grammar” is a complex and difficult scholastic feat of

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arbitrary categorization, at best a means of increasing intellectual acumen. As one Thai language authority explained, it is 1ike”bitter medicine which must be taken to strengthen (bamrung) the system.” In the current edition of the official Royal Institute Dictionary (1985) one can see reflections of such an attitude: that Thai “grammar” is essentially an unconnected academic abstraction. In the entry for the form d8y for example (discussed above), meanings like ‘be able; obtain’ are defined and illustrated in the normal dictionary manner, and there is also a subentry dealing with this form as an “auxiliary verb expressing past tense”. This latter subentry only is tagged with a preceding abbreviation as a specific item pertaining to “grammar”, presumably meaning that it is expounded in some normative rule explicitly in Grammar, Principles or in similar grammatical treatises. The exact status intended for these “grammatical” entries, as apart from other more normal ones, is not made clear in the Dictionary, although parallel treatment applies to various specialized terminologies, e.g. to vocabulary considered to be pertaining to bookkeeping, geometry, astrology, etc. (1985:9-10). It would thus seem that for the official Dictionary the past-tense marking function of day is somehow “grammatical” only, but not specified for general usage. Syntactic

Typology and Thai National

Identity

It would be unfair to portray theThai educational establishment as unanimously in favor of the approach to Thai grammar that has been exemplified above. Fromat least early in the present century in another vein rather antithetical sentiments have been expressed, as seen in the passage of King Rama VI quoted above. By the 193Os,parallel to the normative, prescriptive study of grammar there had grown up a more descriptive-comparative approach, available at least on the tertiary level. Anuman Rajadhon was the first eminent Thai scholar in this area. His work emphasizes ways in which Thai differs from Western (including Indic) languages typologically and brings to mind the writings of Sapir, with which he was acquainted. Upakit-Silapasan, in his last major work, syntax (wa:kay&imphan, 1937), vacillates between a similar view and a more rigid categorical approach to Thai grammaticality. In this later treatise (which is edited into Principles alongside the earlier work), the type of grammatical prescription, verging on syntactic engineering, that he had been engaged in for most of his career is now occasionally open to some question. Counter-examples to rules are admitted for discussion. Alternate analyses are sometimes considered. The former word-class division between “adverb” and “adjective” is now admitted to be problematic. (In line with this revision of the earlier word classes, the two categories have been collapsed into the single class wi&:t in the current official dictionary.)32 One wonders whether a deeper

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acquaintance with Phraya Anuman’s approach to language study may have contributed to this shift; both men taught at Chulalongkorn University in the 1930s. With bewildering candor, Upakit-Silapasan notes the typologicalgap separating colloquial Thai on one side from Pali-Sanskrit and English on the other ((19181937) I979 : 297-298). In discussing the very transitivity issues illustrated above in (16)-(19), he observes that basic spoken Thai departs from “grammatical” Thai, where case relations and logical connections are to be marked explicitly, e.g. by prepositions, conjunctions, etc. He frankly observes that “grammatical” sentences ((pray8:k wayya:ko’:n) of the latter type have their origin in the models ‘of Pali, Sanskrit and English sentence structure somewhat alien to Thai. “As for authentic linguistic structure, we must follow that of our own Thai language itself. We cannot take (the syntactic principles) of other languages for use(ibid). This opinion differs sharply from the conception and institutional implementation of his earlier work. Perhaps significantly, these sentiments were articulated just when an especially chauvinistic style of Thai nationalism was on the rise. This was during the ascendancy of ‘the leader’ (phbnam) Field Marshal Pibun Songkhram and his entourage, who for their models looked to Hitler and Mussolini. Pibun’s regime was interested in fostering “Tai-ness” in its various perceived aspects, and related language planning and reforms were carried out. Some of these were nationalistic in purpose: the strict enforcement of Central Thai as the medium of instruction in all schools; “Siam” renamed as “Thailand”; the requiring of local Chinese to take Thai names (cp. Hitler’s banning of “Hebrew” names), etc. Other reforms went in the direction of perceived “civilized” modernity (spelling reforms, attempted simplification of pronominal reference forms, etc.). It seems likely that the mood of the time was to accentuate the “Thai” (or original Tai) element in the language. This strand of awareness of and reaction against foreign (in particular, English) influence in the Thai language has continued to the present day. At present in fact there is a particularly keen interest in fostering the Thai national identity (b:kaUk thay) on the part of Thai politicians, educators, bureaucrats, etc. English loanwords, being so obviously alien, come in for the most frequent expressions of opprobrium (they are usually taken care of through Sanskritic neologisms), but presumed syntactic contamination receives some attention as well. In fact in contemporary Thai language texts one frequently encounters a stock set of objectionable English features, including those in (37). Of these, the objection to compound-complex sentences, (37) i, is one of the most frequent complaints. To see this as English influence seems odd in view of the density of compound-complex sentences in traditional diglossic-high sources. One possibility is that in criticism of this type the terms “compound” and “complex” sentence (ani?:kathAprayiXk;

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are not intended in their technical syntactic senses, but rather in a loose way meaning approximately complicated, difficult to understand.33

singko’:rdprayb:k)

(37)

of heavy compound-complex tions, including embeddings in: ment of.. .);

i

use

ii

use

. ..

111

of the third-person pronominal man ‘it’ non-anaphorically empty expletive subject (it is time to.. .);

as an

extension of the thti:k adversative passive construction to non-adversative passive contexts (the motion was passed);

iv the dispensing enumeration; V

and nominalizing sentence constructham ka:n-VP (to effect the establish

with classifiers

in (mainly journalistic)

phrases

of

too-literal calque-translation of English lexicalized phrases or compounds into Thai (e.g. clit-yu’:n ‘standpoint’; klin sa’A:t ‘a clean smell’).

Current Perspectives

There appears then to be a certain tension, if not contradiction, in current normative-prescriptive attitudes relating to Thai grammar. One normative traditionfosters the regulation of Thai syntax according to covert Western (mainly English) models. The enjiint terrible of this approach seems to be the notion of a Thai “grammatical sentence” (pray&k wayya:ko’:n) whose lineage is clearly unThai and which may give rise to peculiar-sounding Thai expressions. (Perhaps even to sentences one might not want to consider “grammatical” in certain current linguistic senses.) On the other hand, another just-as-normative tradition seeks to protect the “purity” of Thai syntax by condemning what is perceived as English syntactic contamination. Opposed to both of these positions are academics and educators with a more descriptive or laissez-faire attitude toward current syntactic change. A further set of normative concerns, closely related to the ones above, involves the use of the Thai orthographic system to represent a register approximating actual speech. For King Rama IV it may have been objectionable to use Thai writing to show the conversational speech of the common people, but since his day this has been more and more the trend. Although modern written formal registers are still sharply differentiated from colloquial speech, in the last decade samples of the latter are increasingly seen in written form. Taped interviews are transcribed and printed “as is” with minimal editing. Dialogue in popular fiction and cartoons now abounds with unliterary particles, pragmatic-mode unplanned (including “ungrammatical”) construction LSC 10:2-e

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types along with “misspelling” to represent nuances of colloquial pronunciation. Predictably, authorities are divided on this subnormative use of the Thai writing system. For some, to use the writing system in this new way is unpatriotic and undermines the Thai national identity. For others, it is proof of the flexible potential of the system to represent the wide range of Thai registers and hence of its coming of age, a sort of diglossic maturing. CONCLUSION Sections above have proposed some ways in which Thai syntax has shifted, more quantitatively than qualitatively, from the 14th century to the present. Important in this are three related processes. (i) More-or-less “natural” diachronic developments, such as shifts of main verbs to functional operators of various sorts, have resulted in the cohesion and expansion of certain form classes, e.g. verbal auxiliaries. (ii) A type of “traditional diglossia” arose in the centuries prior to substantial Western language contact. Although this was most transparently a matter of a diglossic lexicon, certain syntactic differences, mainly of a quantitative nature, also arose between spontaneous unplanned speech and formal written prose of the traditional era as well. Both types however were essentially “pragmatic” in typological organization. (iii) From the mid-19th century onwards there has been a growing Thai linguistic prescriptivism which has matured along with the construction of a modern nation state, in particular with the rise of public education and official examinations. This prescriptivism, which includes some attention to syntax, is rooted in the high level of a traditional Thai diglossic communication system. Onto this has been grafted late-19th century Western prescriptivist ideas as to the form and function of a”nationa1 language”, along with some limited contribution made by early Englishto-Thai translationese models. Somewhat assimilated Western grammatical categories and norms (given Sanskrit names) have been used with varying efficacy to prescribe Thai word classes and syntactic structures. Specific constructions have been taken to be “grammatical sentences” in terms of national standards, e.g. as enforced in the statecontrolled education system and in examinations. Zero anaphora is particularly unwelcome in this conception of “grammaticality”. With respect to seeing contemporary Thai syntax as therefore overly “Anglicized”, two simplifications are rejected here. It seems neither that direct syntactic borrowing from English has occurred on a massive scale to the point of totally displacing earlier indigenous patterns, especially on the level of natural speech. Nor

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of English on the syntax of certain formal genres of modern Thai minimal and merely superficial. Rather, English syntactic borrowing has been grafted onto - incorporated into - the high registers of a traditional but shifting diglossic base. This shifting has been away from rather polar diglossic-high genres associated with the court aristocracy and traditional literature to new high genres associated with modern institutions. Particularly important are genres, registers or language subforms associated with the civil-service bureaucracy, formal education and the mass media. From the earliest instances of a direct English syntactic impact onThai there has been considerable division of local opinion and ambivalence about how the resulting Thai structures are to be received. In some cases the normative tradition has extolled for general “correct” usage what was clearly awkward translationese. But there has also been reaction to this. By now certain Thai syntactic usages are perceived as stereotypical examples of “English influence”. For some authorities, perhaps with special interests in linguistic purity and the Thai national identity, these stereotypical constructions or usages are to be purged from the language. Others are more tolerant or take a position of objective description. Local debate on these issues continues to the present day. A closing word of caution for syntactic researchers. For educated Thai speakers, “grammaticality” should be considered carefully in the larger context of historical sociolinguistics. It is ironic that even the technical term for “grammatical sentence” once used by the traditional Thai grammarians - pray&k wayya:ko’:n (clearly a translational equivalent based on English) - may itself now be rather alien or even “ungrammatical* to the current generation of Thai language scholars. Similarly, the “starring” or not of sentences (the precise status of elicited grammaticality judgments for isolated decontextualized sentences) could scarcely suspend reactions relating to the normative questions mentioned above. These are deeply embedded in social history, class, formal education and conventional practice. Thus for Thai it would be quite precipitous to assume that sentence starring behaviour necessarily refers directly to a bioprogram with set parametric values. is the impact

NOTES 1. The Thai National Research Council has kindly facilitated fieldwork reported here. An abbreviated earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference, “The Role of Theory in Language Description” (Ocho Rios, Jamaica, November 1987) sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. It was chaired by William A. Foley, whose work has contributed much to the perspectives here. Conference participants provided

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valuable suggestions. If there are ideas of merit relating to Thai in this study, they have developed from, and been refined in, discussions with Wilaiwan Khanittanan, Banyat Ruangsri, Sutira Wacharaboworn and Preecha Juntanamalaga. See also the latter’s paper, this volume, for a related study. 2. As we see below, it is important not to conflate “pragmatic syntax” and “unplanned discourse”. This section is indebted to the Thai Discourse Analysis Project, Cornell University, 1972-1973, led by Robert B. Jonesand sponsored by the Office of Economic Opportunity, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. 3. Panupong (1970: 15-16), one of the first to treat these constructions, described them as having the verbs “anteposed” instead. Heath (1985) has argued this point forcefully for another language. 4. 5. Messenger (1980) has discussed sentences like this one along different lines. 6. That is, in (9) and (I I) the nominal meaning ‘feeling’ seems to have subject properties, but in (12), the one meaning ‘you’ has. See discussion above for another problem in subject definition. Bandhumedha (1979: 118-134) discusses this problem in some detail. For an argument that “grammatical subject” is not a universal category, see Foley and Van Valin (1984:ch. 4). 7. See Grima (I 986) for a convincing discussion of extensive zero anaphora in a passage of King Rama V. 8. Most speakers are uneasy about “left-dislocated” or topicalized “bare” true pronouns (as distinct from quasi-pronouns) which “jump over” other nominals, e.g. in sequences like * (?) kh4w phdm khZ:ybk-yb’ng (3P IPMASC ask praise) ‘them I’d like to praise’; compare (2). Also, khPw, man, etc., frequently occur resumptively in positions where full nominals do not. But these may not be categorical constraints. (1985) for more treatment of similar con9. See Clark and Prasithrathsint structions. 10. See Warotamasikkhadit (1986) for further discussion of instrumentals of this sort. Filbeck (1975) illustrates this point convincingly. II. 12. Hermann (1979) summarizes the main uses. 13. See Moerman (1977), who brings out Thai-English similarities in repair sequences. 14. Inscription 3.1.36, 55; Prachum Silacaru’k (1978: 63-64). 15. However the tone correspondence is irregular; Donaldson and Dieu (1970: 199). Note Southern Thai lae:y (tone category AI) ‘more’, cp. 1ae:y (A2) ‘beyond’. 16. Thus one could respond m9y thii’ng ‘(we) didn’t get there’, but not * miiy kAp. The fact that kbp occurs alone as a noun (probably a shortened form of the expression in (2)) does not appear to be relevant to this proposed test. More troublesome is dQay ‘with, too’, which can occur clause-finally without an accompanying nominal and perhaps admits topic-shifting of an

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accompaniment-type object (but not a manner-instrumental one). It does not normally negate nor occur as a one-word utterance. 17. Inscription 2.2.79; Prachum Silacaru’k (1978:52). phG:td’ng-hi: (person-TCYNG-seek) ‘the person sought’, i.e. 18. Probably: ‘suspect* (and not: ‘the person (who) must seek’). 19. (1805: Vol. 4,72). Note that t&q was used to translate the Latin passive by Pallegoix in 1850; see (32). See also Prasithrathsint (1985:76), who documents the decline of this passage usage. For tb’ng, in effect the modal ‘must’ function won out, with the adversative passive function taken over by thb:k and a different main verb t& used normally for ‘touch’. 20. Khun Chung Khun Phaen (1965: 157). 21. In fact, Garnault’s Romanization is inconsistent and perhaps represents kham ‘word’. 22. See also Diller (1985). Aeosrivongse (1984) treats a number of issues raised here from a somewhat different viewpoint. 23. For classifiers, see Juntanamalaga (1989). 24. Wibha Senanan (1975:73). For a similar quotation attributed to King Rama V, see Sivarak (1986:32). In 1907 Rama V set up an Etymological Commission (nirtikkatisiimtxkhom), but it remained inactive (Vella 1978:239, q.v. for more detail on early institutions concerned with standardization). It might be remarked that King Rama VI’s written Thai was far from conservative, especially in comparison to his father’s. 25. See Khanittanan (1987a and b) for detailed discussion of the syntax of this style and of other styles closely following it. 26. He is also responsible for establishing sawPtdi: as the ‘national greeting*, promulgated first through courses at Chulalongkorn University and then on radio programs. 27. This work was done by Suphachai Ratanakomut. See Sukkhasem (1971: 10). 28. Actually ambiguous. The other reading is: ‘I was written a book about by him’, perhaps slightly more plausible, if context makes clear that the book was unwelcome. 29. This at least is the opinion of Sivarak (1986:35). See also Note 24. 30. See Khanittanan (1987 a and b). 31. For an interesting evaluation of conciseness, repetition and zero anaphora in Thai prose, see Posakrisana (1978: 66). See also her examples of “correct”and direct-object placement, “incorrect” complementizer placement, etc. (1978:70). 32. Haas (1964) and others have more plausibly collapsed verbs and adjectives into a single super-class, but with a subclassification maintained. The wisL:t category leads to perplexity in the current edition of the Royal Institute

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Dictionary (I 985), where, e.g. dam ‘black’ and khiaw ‘green’ are classed only as wis&:t ‘adverb/adjectives’ but dae:ng ‘red’ is not (rather, it is classed as

33.

either a ‘noun’ or a ‘verb’). Although Thai color terms have somewhat special syntax, these particular primary terms seem syntactically identical in Thai (spoken or written) and it is difficult to surmise what norms of usage the Dictionary is prescribing for ‘red’ as opposed to ‘green’ or ‘black’. For example, Sivarak (1986:31), whose own prose is rife with multipleembedded compound-complex sentences as technically defined (Khanittanan, 1987a), makes this stock plea for “authentic Thai” simple sentence structure.

REFERENCES Acharayakun, Noi 1871 Munlabotbanphakit (Elementary Primer), Bangkok: Rungwattana Press (I 973). Aeosrivongse, Nidhi 1984 “Phasa Thai Matrathan Kap Kanmu’ang (Standard Thai and Politics),” Phasa ICZNangsu’ 17, 1 I-37. Bandhumedha, Navavan 1979 Wayyako’n Thai (Thai Grammar), Bangkok: Rungru’angsan Kanphim. Caru’k nai Prathet Thai (Inscriptions in Thailand) 1986 Vol. 4, Bangkok: Fine Arts Department.

Chomsky, Noam 1977 Rules and Representations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Clark, Marybeth and Amara Prasithrathsint 1985 “Synchronic Lexical Derivation in Southeast Asian languages,” in Southeast Asian Linguistic Studies Presented to Andre-G. Haudricourt, pp. 34-81, Suriya Ratanakul, David Thomas and Suwilai

Premsrirat (eds.), Bangkok: Mahidol University Press. Department of Education (Krom Su’ksathikan) 1891 Wuyyako’n (Grammar), Bangkok: Bamrung Nukunkit Press. Diller, Anthony V.N. 1985 “High and Low Thai: Views from Within,” in Language Policy, Language Planning andSociolinguistics in South-East Asia, pp. 5 l-76, David Bradley (ed.), Canberra: Pacific Linguistics A-67 (Papers in South-East Asian Linguistics No. 9). Diller, Anthony V.N. and Preecha Juntanamalaga “Deictic Derivation in Tai.” Forthcoming

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