A Reference Grammar of Thai

A Reference Grammar of Thai provides a clear, detailed and comprehensive guide to Thai grammar, designed for intermediate to advanced learners. Written by two leading experts on Thai, it places a special emphasis on functional accounts of its grammatical phenomena: the use of demonstratives, personal reference terms, the modality system, the aspectual system, pragmatic particles, verb serialisation, relative clauses, question formation, passive and causative constructions, topic marking and many more. Unlike any other book on Thai grammar, it draws on data from everyday spoken discourses such as informal conversation, group discussions, interviews and narratives, as well as non-technical written texts such as folk tales, short stories and newspaper articles, to discuss grammatical phenomena at both sentence and discourse level. An extensive index is provided and examples are given in both Thai orthography and IPA symbols, making this an invaluable resource for linguists as well as students and teachers of Thai.

1. Introduction; 2. The structure of words; 3. Personal reference terms; 4. The structure of noun phrases; 5. Numeral classifiers; 6. Demonstratives; 7. Adjectives; 8. Adverbs and adverbial phrases; 9. Verbs and transitivity; 10. Challengeability marker: /cå/; 11. Modality; 12. Aspect; 13. Linking particle: /kç›/; 14. Speech level particles; 15. Pragmatic particles; 16. Body-part expressions; 17. Copulative sentences; 18. Serial verb construction; 19. Relative clauses; 20. Complementation; 21. Quotation and complementizer /wâa/; 22. Adverbial clauses; 23. 'Yes/No' and tag questions; 24. Interrogative and indefinite expressions; 25. Reciprocal, distributive, and collective: /kan/; 26. Passive; 27. Causative; 28. Benefactive and purposive; 29. Potential; 30. Discourse.

A Reference Grammar of Thai provides a clear and comprehensive guide to Thai grammar, designed for intermediate to advanced learners. Unlike any other book on Thai grammar, it examines data from everyday spoken discourses as well as non-technical written texts. An invaluable resource for linguists, students and teachers of Thai.

Shoichi Iwasaki is Professor of Asian languages and cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Preeya Ingkaphirom is formerly Professor of the International Students Exchange Center, Tokyo Gakugei University.