Thai Syntax: An Outline [Reprint 2017 ed.] 9027920958, 9789027920959

Citation preview

T H A I SYNTAX: AN O U T L I N E

JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA M E M O R I A E N I C O L A I VAN W I J K DEDICATA edenda

curai

C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD INDIANA UNIVERSITY

SERIES PRACTICA 68

1972

MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS

THAI SYNTAX AN OUTLINE

by

UDOM

WAROTAMASIKKHADIT

1972 MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS

© Copyright 1972 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated microfilm,

or any other means,

or reproduced

without

in any form,

written permission

L I B R A R Y OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD N U M B E R :

Printed in Hungary

by print,

from the

photoprint,

publishers.

71-159472

To my wife, Nongnit, and my daughter, Udomnit

PREFACE

This book was written as a dissertation for a graduate degree at The University of Texas in 1963. Since then the transformational theory has advanced a great deal. I intended to revise this book accordingly but my present tasks prevent me from doing so. Those who follow the new development of the theory can do so without much difficulty. I would like to express my indebtedness to Professors Archibald A. Hill, Emmon Bach, Rudolph Troike, and Stanley Werbow of The University of Texas, Professor William J. Gedney of The University of Michigan, and Professor William F. Klatte of The University of Alberta. This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of Thailand. Ramkhamhaeng University Bangkok, Thailand March 17, 1971

Udom Warotamasikkhadit

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1. P H R A S E S T R U C T U R E

Sample Lexicon 2 . G E N E R A L I Z E D GRAMMATICAL T R A N S F O R M A T I O N S

Ellipsis of Subj Complex Verb Complex String Causative Passive Possessive Comparison Benefactive Instrumental Complement Conjunction Relative Pronoun Nominalization Noun Compounds 3 . O P T I O N A L GRAMMATICAL T R A N S F O R M A T I O N S

Prohibition Ordinal Number Question Reduplication Addition of mii Intensifier Personal Pronoun Deletion N 4S Deletion

11 13

29 35

36 37 37 38 39 39 40 41 42 42 43 48 48 49 55

55 55 56 56 57 57 58 59

10

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Possessive Deletion Conjunction Deletion Noun-classifier Deletion P L Deletion Deletion of Preverbs and Verb Phrase Deletion of Demonstrative Emphasis on Verb Negative Noun Inversion Pronoun or Proper Noun Inversion Locative Inversion Locative-temporal Inversion Numeral Emphasis on Subject Question Element Inversion Demonstrative Ordinal Number Question-Negative 4 . OBLIGATORY GRAMMATICAL TRANSFORMATIONS

Numeral Adva Determiner Reciprocal Numeral Question Reduction of Question Element Numeral Deletion Adv! Deletion Locative-temporal Deletion Locative Deletion Gay Deletion of a Negative Deletion of Dummy Elements

59 59 60 60 60 61 61 61 62 62 63 63 63 64 64 64 64 65 00

66 66 67 67 68 68 69 70 70 70 70 71 72 72

APPENDIX

73

BIBLIOGRAPHY

74

INDEX

76

INTRODUCTION

The linguistic study presented here is a syntactic analysis of Thai. The term " T h a i " is used here in its narrow sense, i.e. Standard Thai, the national language of Thailand and specifically the dialect of the Central Region including Bangkok, the capital. As a matter of fact, the various Thai dialects spoken in Thailand and the Kingdom of Laos have similar syntactic structures, although their phonology and morphology differ from each other. Many studies have been made of Thai phonology 1 b u t relatively few of morphology and syntax. 2 The Thai grammar taught in schools is very similar to the traditional English grammar. Neither Thai school teachers nor grammarians have ever drawn students' attention to intonation patterns, slots, trees of derivation, co-occurrences, or transformations. Recently Chaiyaratana 8 has written a dissertation dealing with Thai syntax based on modern linguistic theory. Her dissertation is an application of transformational grammars in the contrastive analysis of English and Thai. Her analysis of Thai syntax is somewhat limited, because it is based on five texts of which three are quite short. They consist of a conversation by a group of five native informants, and fables told by four different Thai speakers. Phrase structure rules, lexical rules, optional transformational rules, and obligatory transformational rules are not rigorously kept apart, e.g. rules 1—4 are phrase structure rules, rule 5 is an 1

It was during World War I I that the Thai language was extensively studied by modern American linguists. Among those Mary R. Haas and William J. Gedney contributed a great deal in this field. Later Richard B. Noss, Edward M. Anthony, Arthur S. Abramson and others spent some time studying the language. Among the Thais who etkme to study linguistics in the United States and worked on Thai were F. Kruatrachue and C. Chandravekin. 1 Mary R. Haas, "Types of Reduplication in Thai", Studies in Linguistics, I, No. 2 (1942), 1 - 6 ; "The Use of Numeral Classifiers in Thai", Language, XVII (1942), 201—205; "Techniques of Intensifying in Thai", Word, I I (1946), 127 — 130; also Richard B. Noss, An Outline of Siamese Grammar, Unpublished Dissertation (Yale University, 1954). 3 Chalao Chaiyaratana, A Comparative Study of English and Thai Syntax, Dissertation (Indiana University, 1961).

12

INTRODUCTION

optional transformational rule, rule 6 is a lexical rule, rules 7 — 13 are again phrase structure rules, and so on. The analysis of the passive transformation differs from mine also. My treatment of the passive (see p. 39) makes use of a two-string transformation, a method used only for one rule in Chaiyaratana's grammar. I t is widely accepted that an ideal grammar should be "formal, explicit and as complete and simple as possible". 4 This study attempts to follow the above requirements as much as possible, but by no means claims to have succeeded completely. The transformational theory, as developed by Chomsky, will be mainly used in this study. 5 However, it should not be surprising that some basic concepts of different schools of American linguistics will be found also. The author may differ to some extent from Lees in the basic concept of common kernel. 6 Negatives and questions will be included in the phrase structure grammar because this treatment simplifies the over-all grammar. The author sees no point in adding extra optional transformational rules while the phrase structure rules including optional components (negatives and questions) satisfy the same purpose. At present the concept of kernel and non-kernel sentences seems to be disputed among transformationalists themselves. 7 For our purpose the usual definition of kernels as sentences whose derivational history includes no optional transformations will suffice. The grammar presented in this paper is not a complete grammar in the sense that it can generate all and only the sentences of Thai. The author realizes t h a t there must be some flaws in the present work, and it may possibly generate some nonsensical sentences. 8

* iimmon Bach, An Introduction to Transformational Grammars (New York, 19G4), p. 10. Many times Chomsky has given credit to Z. S. Harris for originating the basic idea of grammatical transformations. However, Harris' transformations are somewhat different from Chomsky's. Cf. Noam Chomsky, "A Transformational Approach to Syntax", Third Texas Conference on Problems of Linguistic Analysis in English (Austin, 1962), pp. 124— 158; "The Logical Basis of Linguistic Theory", H. Lunt (ed.). Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists (The Hague, 1964); also Zellig S. Harris, "Co-occurrence and Transformation in Linguistic Structure", Language, X X X I I I (1957), 283—340. 'Robert B. Lees, "Review of Syntactic Structures", Language, X X X I I I (1957), 405. Lees considered kernels always to be simple, active, indicative, and declarative statements. Later he included negatives in kernel sentences. See his The Grammar of English Nominalizations (Bloomington, 1960). 7 Paul Schachter, "Kernel and Non-Kernel Sentences in Transformational Grammar", H. Lunt (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists (The Hague, 1964). 8 Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures (The Hague, 1957); Archibald A. Hill, "Grammaticality", Word, X V I I (April, 1961), 1—10. 5

1

P H R A S E STRUCTURE

The term "Phrase Structure", introduced early in transformational theory, is used heie instead of the now widely adopted new term "Constituent Structure" for the same reason t h a t Bach gives: " . . . It preservesthe connection with the term 'phrase marker" (P-marker)." 1 The author will confine himself to the general restrictions in building up the phrase structure rules, i.e. t h a t they must be simple rewriting rules, expansion rules, non-permutative rules. 2 However, this analysis will not be based strictly on the so-called binary immediate constituent analysis. There may be three or more constituents in one string if the structure allows. 3 The initial string of a generative transformational grammar usually takes the form " # S # " , or " # S # S # S . . .", or " # S # # S # # S # . . .", b u t in this study it will be given as # s # # s # # s #

...

The above notation will represent an indefinite number of elements (in this analysis, sentences) as it is commonly used in mathematics. represents a sentence boundary, and S respresents a sentence. Two are inserted between 1 Eminon Bach, An Introduction to Transformational Grammars (New York, 1964), p. 35; hereafter cited as Bach, Introduction. 2 Bach, Introduction, pp. 35—36. Lees indicates in his "Review of Syntactic Structures", Language, X X X I I I (1957), that the phrase structure rules should be non-recursive as does Bach. Chomsky differs from both of them by including recursive rules in the phrase structure grammar. Rule 9 of (29) in "A Transformational Approach to Syntax", Third. Texas Conference on Problems of Linguistic Analysis in English (Austin, 1962), p. 139, and (76) of Syntactic Structures (The Hague, 1957), p. 73, show a recursive element, i.e. he writes Adj —> very -j- Adj. 3 Robert E. Longacre, "String Constituent Analysis", Language, X X X V I (1960), 63—88. 4 Noam Chomsky, "On the Notion 'Rule of Grammar'," Structure of Language and Its Mathematical Aspects (= Proceedings of Symposia in Applied Mathematics, XII), (Providence, 1961), p. 21.

14

PHRASE

STRUCTURE

the two S's because every sentence is bounded by one sentence boundary at the beginning and another at the end. Starting from the initial sentence-symbol, we can expand it into three parts. P S 1 S - > Nom + VP (P) PS stands for any phrase structure rule. The arrow —>• represents the basic operation of rewriting the symbols on the lefthand side as those on the righthand side; the arrow should be read "rewrite as". The use of the parentheses on the righthand side of the arrow indicates the presence of an optional element. In this case F (final particles) may not be chosen in the sentence. VP represents any verb phrase which will be further developed in PS 2. Since nominals can occur as predicate constituents embedded in the verbals, the VP must be developed first. There are two kinds of verb phrases — the one without negative, and the other with possible negative. We therefore have PS 2

VP

(AuxJ (Neg)

(Auxb)MY(E)

(Prt l } (Qu) (.Prt,À | fI( I )

Items in Italic type denote elements that do not undergo any further developments except in the sample lexicon. 5 In this case Neg (negatives), Aux b (verbal auxiliary type b), Prt 1 ( Prt 2 (particles type 1 and 2), Qu (question particle), and I (intentive particles signifying intention and politeness) are not being developed before the lexical replacements. The symbol Aux a represents the verbal auxiliary type a which will be expanded in PS 39. The negatives occupy various positions in sentences (see T [optional transformational rule] 14, and T 18). I t seems best to include them in the phrase structure rules as kernels for other derived negative sentence types and also to simplify the over-all grammar. MV denoting any main verb will be developed in the next rule. Kii -f Nom pen + Nom V.am PS 3 MV

vm vf

Nom (AdvY)

(Loc) (Tm)

V 0 (Nom) V, V c + COMP Kii,6 which means 'be' must be changed to Cay when may precedes. (See O s Baoh, Introduction, p. 61; Ann Oi Kan Yue, A Transformational Outline of Cantonese Grammar, Unpublished Thesis (The University of Texas, 1963); hereafter cited as: Yue, Transformational Outline. * Udom Warotamasikkhadit, "Verbless Sentences in Thai", Linguistics, 47 (April, 1969), pp. 74-79.

PHRASE STRUCTURE

15

[obligatory transformational rule] 17.) pen is another verb 'be', but differs from Kii in capability of taking a negative without changing the form. Y ajn signifies ambivalent verbs which will be treated in detail in PS 4; V m represents middle verbs which will be further developed in P S 5; V t denotes transitive verbs which will be expanded in P S 6 and P S 7; V 0 represents verbs with optional objects or pseudo-intransitive verbs. P S 8 will deal with V 0 in more detail. V; represents intransitive verbs which will be expanded in PS 9, PS 10, PS 11, PS 12, and P S 13. V c denoting causative verbs will be rewritten in P S 14. COMP is another dummy element introduced here to signify that the terminal strings which are generated with COMP in the phrase structure rules are not complete sentences as such, but have to combine with other terminal strings, as will be seen in GT 5, GT 6 for the deletion of COMP. Adverbial type 1 which is optional and occurs only with either Vm or V t is represented by Adv x . All sentences may take locative adverbials (Loc) and temporal adverbials (Tm) after the main verbs. Loc will be expanded in PS 16, P S 18, T 21, and T 22; Tm will be expanded in P S 15, PS 17, and T 22.

M

M N + IN

P S 4 V„

NO

AN

" M"

amb

IN

NO Here again dummy elements, AN, IN, M, and NO are introduced as concordant devices to classify or subclassify the verbs according to the different classes of nominals with which they occur. AN stands for animate (except human), I N for inanimate which is further subclassified into M (mobile inanimate such as r6t 'car', cariiat 'missile'), and NO (non-mobile inanimate such as tia-q 'bed', ruup 'picture'). These devices save us a great number of subclassification and context-restricted rules. 7 These dummy elements will eventually be deleted by an obligatory grammatical transformational rule O 19. N representing any noun, will be rewritten in P S 29, P S 30, P S 31, and P S 32. The ambivalent verbs, V a m b , on the one hand, will show transitive potential, if they are preceded by human or animate nominals, and, on the other hand, will show intransitive potential, if they are preceded by inanimate nominals.

7

Emmon Bach, "Subcategories in Transformational Grammars", H. Lunt (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists; Yue, Transformational Outline.

16

PHRASE STRUCTURE

Kdw + Par] + baan he demolish house Caarj + PaV + baan elephant demolish house baan + Par] house demolish

'he demolished the house.' 'the elephant destroyed the house.' 'the house is demolished.' H

V,ml

PS 5

AN IN

' m2

M NO

H is another dummy element which stands for human. However, the middle verbs, V m , can be followed by objects as the transitive verbs, but V m undergoes different transformations from the transitive verbs V n i l will be treated in more detail in GT 7, and GT 24. H PS 6

Vf

AN IN

M NO

In this rule V t is rewritten according to the different classes of nominals it occurs with. V t r will be further subclassified in the next rule. [vtl] Vt2 V„ Vt4 Vt5 P S 7 V tr

H

Vt7' Vt8

H AN

iM kni

H AN IN-

vtla

H IN-

M NO M NO

PHRASE

17

STRUCTURE

Here, "in " is to be read "in the environment of (elements on the lefthand side of the arrow)." This kind of rule is called a context-restricted or contextsensitive rule. Square brackets are introduced here to indicate t h a t this rule is an abbreviation of two or more separate but very similar rules. I n this case V tr in the environment of + H must be rewritten as Y t l , ^t2> ^t3> V M , V«, or V t6 ; V t r in the environment of

| as V t7 , V t8 orV t9 ; V t r in the environment of

H

H

AN IN

M NO

as V,tl2-

as V t l 0 or V t l l ; V t r in the environment of

IN

{NO}

Subclassification of transitive verbs is not only based on the different kinds of subjects preceding them, but also objects following them. (See PS 21.) The different subclasses also undergo different transformations, as will be seen in GT 2, GT 6, GT 9, and GT 11.

VOM + H PS 8 V„

iv„ H

V.

AN

V om signifies a subclass of V 0 concerning mental activities, such as Kit 'think', law 'tell, narrate'. V om must be preceded by human nominals only. V oe represents a subclass of V 0 concerning emotional activities, such as Hua 'be afraid of', fan 'dream', rdk 'love'. Human and animate nominals may precede V oe . Voc also undergoes different nominalizing transformations which can be seen in GT 22. V o l and V o3 represent V 0 type 1 and 2 respectively. The difference of V o l and V o2 will be demonstrated in GT 2.

ps o v, ^[ir^l I V (Adv ) d

2

Vj can be analysed as V iu which is similar to the class of intransitive verbs in English, and V(1 which is similar to adjectives in English. Adv t may follow V in , and Adv 2 may follow V(|.

18

PHRASE STRUCTURE

pldaw

-F

I N

'empty' r

M NO ÎH AN

y k u

'stay, be' mian

IN

'resemble'

M ' NO

V ,seel 7

sec2

H AN

PS 10 v„

IN{M

COMP

{NO

H AN IN + M H AN IN M NO

v„

v.

is the only intransitive verb with which Adv x cannot co-occur, also Adv x is deleted in 0 14 in order to generate acceptable sentences.

plaaw

Kiiat

+

bottle

bay

nii

classifier

+

this

plaaw

empty

'this bottle is empty.'

The Adv x following yiiu 'stay, be' will be shifted after Loc by O 2, if the terminal string contains Loc. V sccl is used as a secondary verb (see PS 19 and GT 1). Vsec2 can take a negative (see PS 19, GT 1, T 21, and 0 18) but V secl cannot. Vlc signifies a subclass of Vin which needs a complement (see GT 12 for further developments). ?5ot

+

tadpole ?6ot

tadpole

8

ch

+

will +

caP

will

+ COMP

klaay

become +

pen

be

=> is used instead of III, and IV.)

, ?6ot - f -

hop

+

ca't>

+

klaay

+

pen

+

kop

'A tadpole will become a frog.'

frog

in the transformational part of grammar. (See chapters II,

19

PHRASE STRUCTURE

Nonmobile inanimate nominals never co-occur with motion verbs (Vmo). GT12 will especially deal with Vmo. The rest of the intransitive verbs are rewritten as V,-„

H AN IN

M I NO]

Vcol + IN (Man,) H Vdir

AN IN

PS 11 VH

v.„

M NÒ

H AN IN

(NU 2 +

M

CJ

NO

Vdis + IN (NU2 + Cdis) H

AN des

IN + M ) IN + NO

(Man2)

F d is expanded into five subclasses, Vcol (verbs signifying colors), Vdir (verbs signifying directions), Vw (verbs signifying weight), Vdis (verbs signifying distance), and Vdes (general descriptive verbs). Manx denoting manner adverbial type 1 can follow YcoI, but no others. Man2 can follow Vdeg only when it does not co-occur with nonmobile inanimate subject. The numerals type 2, NU2, will be dealt with in PS 37. Cw signifies classifier of weight, and Cdis classifier of distance, as will be seen in PS 28. Kaw + + + rwy + poon he weigh two hundred pound

'he weighs 200 pounds.'

Tànôn + yaaw -f sip + may road long ten mile

'the road is ten miles long.'

PS 12 V,des

desi

in

H AN

des2

^de8 in the preceding rule is rewritten as Vde9l or Vdes2 in the environment of [H • , because V deg2 undergoes different transformations from VdC8l (see IAN

GT 3 and O 16).

20

PHRASE STRUCTURE

P S 13 V,des

V,desi

V des is rewritten as Vfl( ,al in the other environments. desi

PS 14

H AN H AN

V, V„,

IN,

M ' NO

Causative verbs are subclassified into V ca and V cp . The V ca can co-occur with human or animate nominals only, such as

paa + Tam + COMP aunt

cause

'(my) aunt causes COMP.'

maa + Tam + COMP cause dog

'the dog causes COMP.'

COMP will eventually be eliminated in GT 5. The V cp will undergo the passive transformation in GT 6. I n the following four rules the adverbials of time and place will be given a more detailed analysis. P S 15

T„

P S 16 Loc

j (Pt)

\Advt

Nom,

(P £ )Nom £

PS 17 Nom t — ^(NuaJC, + D PS 18 Nom L

N + IN

M NO

(Det)

Both prepositions of time (P t ) and place (P L ) are optional elements. Adv t signifying adverbials of time can be chosen as one of the two alternatives for Tm. N t stands for temporal nouns, C t for temporal classifiers, D for demonstratives, Det for determiners. NP PP PS 19

Nom

N

pr

SUBJ

in

seel

V,uec2

PHRASE STRUCTURE

21

Nom will develop into one of the four alternatives: N P (noun phrase), P P (personal pronoun), N p r (proper noun), or SUBJ, a dummy element, in the environment of V 8eol or Vgec2 following.

N PP,

H AN

PP* PP3

NP PS 20 PP

IN

1

M 32

IN 2

H AN IN

H AN

Npr

Vrb

NO

2

Npr

1

(Det)

in

M NO 32

Kii

M

pen

NO 32

Since there are many pairs of square brackets in this rule, numerals are placed under corresponding pairs of brackets. Vrb represents V 0 , V am , Vj, V t , V c , or V m . The derivation of N p r differs from the one of N P or P P , because Det derives from the N P and P P only. PP X signifies the first personal pronoun, P P 2 the second personal pronoun, P P 3 the third personal pronoun. PP X will be developed later in P S 24.

22

PHRASE

STRUCTURE

For the sake of simplicity of the next rule, it seems best to H H F (AN

IN

Vt2

+ +

H

vt.

+

H

Vtl M NO

H

H AN M ' NO IN + M 'AN M IN NO H AN H AN IN

DUM be

IN

{NO} H AN IN + M H AN IN + M H AN M IN NO IN + NO

PS 21

NP PP N

pr

F« + H Va + H.

m-

Man} T7

[

=

«(AN

9

{AN}

Vao Vtu

H AN IN + M

KU pen

^tii

N + DUM(Det) PPi PP2 DUM(Det) PP N prn + DUM

PHRASE

23

STRUCTURE

PS 21 deals with NP, P P , and N pr functioning as objects or predicates following Kii 'be', or pen 'be'. Here again the derivation of the N p r differs from the one of N P or P P as the preceding rule. PS 22

N_

- (Ti)2\U

PS 23

N,pm

•N u i

in

in + IN

H AN M NO

The above rules are context-restricted rules for rewriting N in restricted environments. The animate proper nouns (N pan ) can be preceded by titles (Ti), but the inanimate proper nouns can not.

PS 24

PP PP PP PP

PP X

In this rule P P l m stands for the first person singular pronoun for male speakers, P P l f for the first person singular pronoun for female speakers, PP l K for the first person singular pronoun for both male and female speakers, P P i p for the first person plural pronoun.

PS 25

T,

Ti„ Tif T

\ TL

in

N,pan

H AN

The Ti is rewritten as Ti m (titles for men), Ti f (titles for women), Ti g (titles for both men and women), and Ti a (titles for animals). PS 26

Det

(CI) D

The determiners which appear in P S 18, PS 20, and PS 21 are developed by this rule. D signifies demonstratives as appeared in P S 17. PS 27

CI

(Num)C

Everyone agrees t h a t classifiers are a problem in Thai grammar. Sometimes native speakers themselves are not sure which classifier is to be used in agreement with a certain noun. Most of the time they will substitute C s l (see PS 33) for any uncertain classifier. There has not been anyone who has attempted to compile the complete list of classifiers in Thai. Accordingly, it should be noted

24

PHRASE

STRUCTURE

that the analysis of classifiers found here is very tentative, and many classifiers are not included. c ss Ccc PS 28

C -V

w dis

t 0,

H AN IN

M .

C is further classified into Cs (specific classifiers), Cc (collective classifiers), Cw (classifiers of weight), Cdis (classifiers of distance), C t (classifiers for time), C r (reduplicative classifiers). The N which appears in P S 20 and PS 21 has to be expanded before expanding the different classes of classifiers, because the N has to agree with the different subclasses of classifiers.

P S 29

N

N,

in

_ + H

N,

In the environment of + H , the N is rewritten as N 1 ; N2, N 3 , N 4 , or N48" P S 30

N

N2

in

- f AN

In the environment of + A N , the N is rewritten as N 1 ; N>, N 3 , or N,.

P S 31

N

in

+ IN + M

In the environment of + I N + M, the N is rewritten as N x , N 2 , N 3 , N 4 or N 5 .

P S 32

N

N9 N, 48

At the present stage of analysis the N is tentatively analysed into 48 classes.

PHRASE

25

STRUCTURE

Subscript numerals are used to signify different class of nouns. The notation ; is used to represent omitted noun classes, that is, from N 3 to N47. In the next two rules Cs and Cc will be subclassified. __

PS 33 C.

1 2 3

+ H

N

1 2 3

H

C.

1 2

+ AN

N

1 2

AN

C.

1 2 3

+ IN -f M

N

1 2 3

+ Kuan -f- maa he also should come

'he also should arrive.'

Kaw -f ko? -f Kuan + ca? -{-maa 'he should come also, he also should will come (but he did not).' Kaw + k5P + r