Standard Thai classifiers have never been studied exclusively and comprehensively. That is, they have been included in grammars of the entire language and are usually discussed by giving a few examples. Specific papers usally deal with some particular aspect of classifiers exclusively. The criteria of classification by a given classifier are a puzzle in many cases. Often there are obvious semantic criteria of classification, and obvious syntactic criteria as well. The relation between semantic and syntactic criteria of classification is unclear. Equally unclear is the relation between headword and classifier, a relation which is the basis of the criteria of classification. In this study, a near-complete list of Thai classifiers is drawn from the Thai-English Student's Dictionary by M.R. Haas (1965). A semantic definition of classifiers is provided and various categories are described. The first category is Repeaters. Members of this category are found to be one-place predicates. A second category is Partial Repeaters and these are found to have a relationship of hyponymy with the headword. Measures are another important category, divided into Standard Measures (exact non-entities) and Temporary Measures (inexact units used as measures according to the intention of the speaker). The remaining category is found to contain non-compoundable classifiers of two types: those with very general referents (size, shape, etc.) and those classifiers in various stages of decreasing semantic equivalence with the sense of the same form as full substantive noun. The former type is labelled "General Units", the latter "Extended classifiers". Extended Classifiers are seen to be of two types: those with a single sense (or apparently "meaningless") and those with several senses, only some of which qualify as Extended Classifiers. The apparently meaningless classifiers /lem/ and /an/ do not occur as substantive nouns at all. The complete collection of nouns classified by each of these two classifiers (according to Haas 1965) is made and each class is examined for common semantic features. On the basis of comparative information from neighbouring and related languages, various possible criteria of extension are established for /lem/, and a basic sense equivalent to "sickle" is indicated by the data. The case with /an/ is rather different since its extensions are much wider and a larger number of nouns is classified. Based on prominent compounds classified by /an/, a basic sense of "stick" is hypothesized for /an/ and the possible paths of semantic extension are suggested. Finally, a "meaningful" Extended Classifier (/tua/, "body") is examined. The sense attributed to this form by native speakers when it functions as a full substantive noun becomes a factor in choosing the sense "body-shape" as the basic sense with classifier function. In concluding remarks, suggestions are made about the applications of the method and results of this paper to lexi cography and semantic reconstruction in Thai and languages of the area. The necessity of further phonological, histori cal and ethnographic information is stressed. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

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The study of body part metaphors provides a convenient way to examine human conceptual structuring because we start from what we as humans share. This study collected and compared Thai and English body part metaphors: one hundred and eighty-four English body part expressions and four hundred and eighty-eight Thai body part expressions were considered.The data are discussed in terms of the body part involved, the underlying conceptual metaphors, and syntactic and morphological form. The data show that basically, Thai and English share many conceptual metaphors, and there are a number of equivalent expressions in both languages, such as hua-hoog [head-spear] `spearhead', and waan-caj [sweet-heart] `sweetheart.' Furthermore, it was found that most body part metaphors are built on three different aspects of body parts: physical constitution, location and nature of involvement. In some contexts, more than one of these bases is involved in the same expression.Other similarities include sharing some of the same morphological and syntactic forms, using the same body parts; relative frequency of individual body parts; having completely equivalent expressions, and having pairs of opposite expressions. Differences involve having some different morphological and syntactic forms; the number of conventional body part metaphors found in translation-equivalent texts, with Thai having many more than English; a difference between the two languages in distribution across written vs. spoken texts; having similarly glossed expressions with different metaphorical meanings; level of markedness for an otherwise equivalent expression; and degree of explicitness in the components of an expression.Finally, applications of the findings to the teaching of English to Thai speakers and vice versa are discussed. I conclude that systematic attention to the bases of metaphorical expressions to facilitate learning is to follow the time-proven practice of linking the old to the new. / Department of English

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1982. / Bibliography: leaves 156-160. / Microfiche. / ix, 160 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Linguistics & Psychology, Department of Linguistics, 2006. / Bibliography: p. 742-762. / Systemic functional linguistics as a framework for description -- An overview of the grammar of Thai -- Textual clause grammar: the system of THEME -- Interpersonal clause grammar: the system of MOOD -- Experiential grammar at clause rank: the system of TRANSITIVITY -- Thai narrative register: context, semantics and lexicogrammatical profiles -- Conclusions. / This research is a text-based study of the grammar of standard Thai, based on systemic functional linguistics. It is the first attempt to explore Thai in systemic functional terms, that is with the account of the grammar of Thai being interpreted as resource for making meaning that is part of language as a higher-order semiotic system. This account utilizes a corpus-based methodology and explores extensive evidence from natural narrative texts, specifically fourteen Thai folk tales. This systemic functional interpretation of Thai is also supported by an investigation of other text types (See Chapter 2). The research has both intermediate and long term implications. The description itself will be a resource for the Thai community and it will also contribute to the growing area of linguistic typology based on systemic descriptions. The long term implication of the research is that the description will be used as a model for text-based research into minority languages in Thailand. -- There are two introductory chapters to the study. The first chapter discusses some general issues concerned with systemic functional theory and data used in the development of the description of the grammar of Thai. The second chapter is a preview chapter which provides an overview of the grammar of Thai in terms of three strands of meaning: textual, interpersonal, and the experiential mode of ideational meanings. The systemic functional interpretation is based on an exploration of a number of texts with a wide generic spread (e.g. news reports, topographic texts, encyclopedia, and television interview). -- Chapter 3 to Chapter 7 constitute the main body of the thesis. Chapter 3 deals with the textual metafunction: it explores the THEME system as the enabling resource for the clause grammar for presenting interpersonal and experiential meanings as a flow of information in context. Chapter 4 is concerned with the interpersonal metafunction. It is focused on exploring the MOOD system, that is, the resource of clause grammar for enacting social roles and relationships in an exchange. Chapter 5 is concerned with the experiential mode of the ideational metafunction: it investigates the TRANSITIVITY system, which is the resource of the clause grammar for construing our experience of the world around and inside us. As this thesis is based mainly on narrative discourse, Chapter 6 profiles Thai narratives in terms of context, semantics, and lexicogrammar. Firstly, at the context stratum, the chapter describes the generic structure potential of Thai folk tales. Secondly, the chapter describes the realization of this generic structure by semantic properties. Finally, the chapter is concerned with quantitatively exploring the narratives on the basis of clause-rank systems, at the stratum of lexicogrammar, across the metafunctional spectrum midway up the cline of instantiation. In the final chapter, the study concludes by summarizing the preceding chapters, pointing out research implications and limitations, and suggesting some areas for further studies. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / xxxv, 762 ill. +