Tai Peoples and Theirs Languages: A Preliminary ... - Khamkoo

c. Devoid of Morphology The Tai languages can be viewed as real monosyllableisolating
languages in that they do not make use of the process of derivation at all. Prefix,
suffix and infix have no place in Tai grammar. A few prefixes and suffixes that are
borrowed from Pali and Sanskrit are used only with loan words from those languages. If
some Pali prefixes and suffixes are used with proper Tai words, this is generally regarded
as incorrect or as the user’s wish to create a special effect (such as a joke or sarcasm). The
fact that the Tai languages lack the process of derivation places the Tai language family
outside the Sino-Tibetan language family. Sino-Tibetan languages have traces of ancient
prefixes and suffixes. The fact that the Tai languages do not make use of infix (except in
Khmer loan words) places Tai also outside the Austroasiatic language family.
d. Simple syntax Since the Tai languages do not make use of the morphological
process, their most important syntactic device is positioning. The three simple syntactic
rules are : 1) in the noun phrase Modified + Modifier (shirt + red, not red shirt), 2) in the
verb phrase also Modified + Modifier (run + fast, not fast run), and 3) in the sentence, the
syntactic positioning is Subject + Verb + Object. This last rule puts the Tai languages far
apart from the Tibeto-Burman (in the Sino-Tibetan language family) in that in Tibeto-
Burman the syntactic rule is Subject + Object + Verb.
e. Numeral Classifier Some Westerners say jokingly that Tai speaking people
cannot count without mentioning the numeral classifier. This joke is due to the fact that in
Thai numeral classifiers abound. Some linguists such as R.B. Jones (1970) suggest that
the numeral classifier might have originated in the Tai language family, from whence it
was spread to other language families of Southeast Asia that had come into contact with
the Tai language family. It is speculated that during the first step in its evolution, the
numeral classifier was conceived as another noun or another verb that was juxtaposed
after the numerals in a noun phrase. This serves to individuate or to bring sharper
meaning to the noun that is being counted or pointed to. Numeral classifiers help to
entities and describe qualities such as the shape or the texture of the head noun (the noun
that is being counted or pointed to).
As there is no such class of numeral classifiers in English, it is difficult to
describe a numeral classifier to an English speaking audience. Loosely speaking, in the
English use of ‘a cake of soap’ or ‘a hand of bananas’, ‘cake’ and ‘hand’ come close to
the usage of Thai numeral classifiers. Numeral classifiers are, however, an important
feature of many other languages, regardless of their affinity with the Tai language family.
For example, in Chinese, Vietnamese and Hopi (all of them outside the Tai language
family) numeral classifiers exist. Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family,
Vietnamese belongs to the Austroasiatic language family and Hopi is an American Indian
language. Numeral classifiers are used in these languages to describe the shape, size,
color, movability, animacy, status, etc. of the head noun. In all the Tai languages that
have been described, numeral classifiers abound and their presence can be considered an
important characteristic of the noun phrase in the Tai language family.
f. Verb serialization Verb serialization or, to use another name, verb concatenation
is another characteristic that is found in many language families in Southeast Asia. We do
not know whether it was originated in the Tai language family or not, but it is an
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Tai Peoples and Their Languages: A Preliminary Observation