Thai Question Particles An Intercultural Study

Abstract

It is common that in most of the languages that have Question Particle there is little concerned for how these words function in the language. There are several possible reasons for this lack of concern. Firstly, most of the particles occur more in spoken language but in the written language most of them are not grammatically necessary, although native speakers of Thai use them extensively. Secondly, there is no lateral meaning or translation of any kind for these words. Thirdly, these words do not fit any category in traditional grammar, such as, noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun etc. Thai is one of these typical cases. The traditional grammars written in Thai and for Thai speakers do not give much attention to question particles. Such books, many of which are known as /râ:k pha:sand#462;: thai/ (principle of the Thai language) or /waiya:kand#596;:n thai/ (Thai Grammar), are written by well-educated and knowledgeable Thai scholars, and most are designed for use in schools. Such works do discuss question particles, which have rather significant grammatical functions. However, there is little explanation for each different question word, probably due to the fact that the students for whom the texts are designed for native speaker of the language. These texts generally simply list the particles and define their function in a sentence. Polite particles are also sometimes mentioned along with an admonition that children should use them properly, but with no analyses of what constitutes proper use. Perhaps it is not necessary to discuss the use of particle for native speaker of Thai just as it is not necessary to explain the use of intonation for English speakers. newline