Syntactic Word-Compounding in Tai Khrang

Abstract

In this article, we claim that most word compounds in Tai Khrang are relatively transparent in the way that they can display both grammatical and semantic roles/relations in a complex and sophisticated manner, rather than arbitrary grammatical/semantic associations. Also, the term idiosyncratic or transparent is best accounted for in continuum. In this essay, we investigate the structures, grammatical relations and semantic roles/relations of word compounds in Tai Khrang with data collected from two Tai Khrang villages, Ban Nong Moet, Kamphaeng Phet, and Ban Sa Yai Chi, Phichit, in the lower northern part of Thailand. Another type of corpus is one composed of naturally occurring texts such as narratives. The results show that syntactic word compounding in Tai Khrang is complex and sophisticated, performed in three categories i.e. synthetic, verb-verb and noun-noun compounds. The synthetic strategy involves the imitation of simple clauses, non-simple clauses, nominalization, and phrases. The verbverb strategy is observed in certain serial verb constructions. The noun-noun strategy displays three semantic aspects, gradually differing from more to less transparent, which reveal various patterns of semantic relations.