Thai : An Essential Grammar

Concise and user-friendly,Thai: An Essential Grammaris the ideal guide to the basic structures of the language for both students on taught courses and independent learners. Grammatical forms are explained in clear, jargon-free style and illustrated by examples, given in both Thai script and romanization. As well as grammar, it includes guidance on pronunciation, speech conventions and the beautiful Thai writing system.

Preface

xiii

Introduction

1

(1)

Thai and its speakers

1

(1)

Romanisation

2

(1)

Learning Thai

2

(1)

Dictionaries

3

(1)

Linguistic literature on Thai

3

(2)

Pronunciation

5

(6)

Consonants

5

(2)

Vowels and diphthongs

7

(2)

Tones

9

(1)

Stress

10

(1)

The writing system

11

(12)

Consonants

11

(3)

Consonants by class

14

(1)

Vowels

14

(1)

Live syllables and dead syllables

15

(1)

Tone rules

16

(3)

Miscellaneous

19

(4)

Nouns, classifiers and noun phrases

23

(16)

Proper nouns

23

(1)

Common nouns

24

(1)

Making new nouns

25

(6)

Noun phrases and classifiers

31

(2)

Word order in noun phrases

33

(6)

Pronouns

39

(17)

Personal pronouns: basics

39

(8)

Reflexive pronouns

47

(1)

Emphatic pronoun

48

(1)

Reciprocal: `each other'

49

(1)

Possessive pronouns

50

(1)

Demonstrative pronouns

50

(1)

Interrogative pronouns

51

(1)

Indefinite pronouns

51

(3)

Relative pronouns

54

(2)

Verbs

56

(27)

The verb `to be'

56

(3)

Stative verbs

59

(1)

Verb compounds

59

(1)

Resultative verbs

60

(1)

Directional verbs

61

(2)

Modal verbs

63

(4)

Time and aspect

67

(7)

Passives

74

(2)

Verbs of utterance, mental activity and perception with waa

76

(1)

Verbs of emotion with thii

77

(1)

Causatives

77

(3)

`To give': direct and indirect objects

80

(1)

Verb serialization

81

(2)

Adjectives (stative verbs) and adjectival constructions

83

(13)

Compound adjectives

84

(1)

Modification of adjectives

85

(2)

Special intensifiers

87

(2)

Reduplication

89

(2)

Comparison of adjectives

91

(5)

Adverbs and adverbial constructions

96

(12)

Adverbs of manner

96

(4)

Modification of adverbs

100

(1)

Comparison of adverbs

101

(2)

Adverbs of time

103

(1)

Adverbs of frequency

104

(1)

Adverbs of degree

105

(3)

Location markers and other prepositions

108

(8)

Location: thii and yuu

108

(3)

`To'

111

(1)

`For'

111

(2)

`By'

113

(1)

`With'

114

(1)

`From'

115

(1)

Clauses and sentences

116

(10)

Word order and topicalisation

116

(2)

Subordinate clauses

118

(5)

Direct and indirect speech

123

(1)

Imperatives

123

(1)

Exemplification

124

(1)

Exclamatory particles

125

(1)

Sentence particles

126

(12)

Question particles

126

(1)

Polite particles

126

(3)

Mood particles

129

(9)

Negation

138

(15)

Negating main verbs

138

(1)

Negating resultative verbs

139

(1)

Negating auxiliary verbs

140

(2)

may day + VERB (PHRASE)

142

(1)

may chay + NOUN

143

(1)

may mii

144

(1)

Modifying negatives: intensifying and softening

144

(1)

Negative imperatives

145

(1)

Negative causatives

146

(2)

Negative questions

148

(1)

Negative conditional clauses

149

(1)

Saying `no'

150

(1)

Useful negative expressions

151

(1)

Two further negatives: mi and haa...may

151

(2)

Questions

153

(18)

Yes/no questions

153

(6)

Wh- questions

159

(10)

Alternative questions

169

(1)

Indirect questions

170

(1)

Numbers, measurement and quantification

171

(18)

Cardinal numbers

172

(2)

Cardinal numbers with sak and tan

174

(1)

Ordinal numbers

175

(1)

Sanskrit numbers

176

(1)

Once, twice...

177

(1)

Fractions, decimals, percentages, multiples

177

(2)

Collective numbers

179

(1)

Some idiomatic expressions involving numbers

180

(1)

Measurements

181

(1)

Distances

181

(1)

Distribution: `per'

182

(1)

Quantifiers

182

(2)

Negative quantification

184

(1)

Approximation: `about'

184

(1)

Restriction: `only'

185

(1)

`More than'

186

(2)

`Less than'

188

(1)

`As many as'

188

(1)

Time

189

(11)

Days

189

(1)

Parts of the day

189

(1)

Months

190

(1)

Years

191

(1)

Dates

192

(1)

Seasons

192

(1)

Useful expressions of time

193

(3)

Telling the time

196

(4)

Thai speech conventions

200

(15)

Politeness

200

(1)

Thanks

200

(1)

Apologies

201

(1)

Polite requests

202

(4)

Misunderstandings

206

(2)

Socialising

208

(7)

Appendix 1 Romanisation systems

215

(3)

Appendix 2 The verbs hay, day/daay and pen: a summary

218

(5)

Glossary

223

(4)

Bibliography and further reading

227

(4)

Index

231

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