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

‘The child like to return walking to eat rice’
etc.
David Filbeck (1975: 118) gave an ingenious example of a sentence having 12
verbs in a series (at least in its surface form). In actual usage, such a feat is rare. But a
series of 4-5 verbs is common in present-day Thai.
David Filbeck (1975: 113) also mentioned that verb serialization needs not be
confined to sequences of verbs alone. Oftentimes there is a mixture of transitive and
intransitive verbs, along with objects and locational nouns, occurring in a series. Another
tour de force example was heard by the present writer in an actual conversation :
(6) khâw tâŋcay dəən pay càt hǎa sǘü
Pronoun Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb
He intend walk go arrange search buy
maa kèp wáy cháy hây sanùk
Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb
come keep to put use causative having fun
in place
verb
‘He intended to go searching for (that item) in order to keep (it) for usage that will
bring enjoyment (to him)’.
As verb serialization has no place (except two-verb sentences) in English, it can
readily be seen that the English rendering of this example is a somersault feat of
translation. Such examples are, however, rare but a sentence with 3-4 verbs is quite
common in present-day Tai languages.
g. Final particles This phenomenon of having final particles has attracted almost
no attention from linguists as well as laymen until very recently. However, Tai speakers
use them extensively to indicate significant grammatical functions. The reason for this
lack of concern about final particles may be due to the fact that most of the final particles
occur in spoken language more than in the written form. The other reason for lack of
concern may be that there is no literal meaning or translation of any kind for these final
particles. Final particles cannot be categorized as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs or any
other categorization in classical grammar. To give an idea about final particles to an
English speaking audience, examples are necessary. The following examples are from an
actual conversation between husband and wife:
husband- nɔ́ɔŋ 55 yàa pay sǘü maa ?ìik ná?
younger don’t go buy come again final
sister
particle
55 It is quite common in Thai that husband and wife call each other elder brother (wife to
husband) and younger sister (husband to wife).
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