ศาลาชุมนุม

[Rick Bradford]

It's interesting that in the horse-racing world, a trainer would refer to having 'a string of horses' -- I believe that cowboys use the same expression.

I guess in English we have as almost as many collective nouns of this type as Thai has classifiers, and in the same way, your average person doesn't know half of them and falls back on the generic collective noun "group". I mean, why we call it a "school" of fish or a "litter" of kittens, I have no idea.

[Aulok]

No, you can't. The classifier 'ช้าง' is only used for 'royal elephant'.

But surely it's only a criminal offence (or a lie), not a grammatical offence!

Hahahaha

What if I choose to say so? Would it be offensive? What people would react when hearing this?

[Aulok]

i think is ตัว

เขามีช้าว 3 ตัว ตัว is for all animal and for all that got 2 arm and or 2 leg but not
human (คน)

ตัว for animals shorts and shirts, tables, chairs
but for monks is not คน better use รูป

but think you allready know by your own

Hi, you mentioned:
เขามีช้าว 3 ตัว ตัว is for all animal and for all that got 2 arm and or 2 leg but not
human (คน)
---Are you sure? Never used fot human? Not even for two little naughty and noisy kids running about? I doubt about it.

What about เด็กชาย2ตัวนี่คึกมาก? Is it grammatical? Is it absolutely unacceptable in Thai?

[Nan]

No, you can't. The classifier 'ช้าง' is only used for 'royal elephant'.

But surely it's only a criminal offence (or a lie), not a grammatical offence!

Hahahaha

What if I choose to say so? Would it be offensive? What people would react when hearing this?

Oh, Okay, my bad.

You can say that. Anyway, there is only few people know about this classifier for elephant, so, people will not even blink when hearing that.

[Nan]

What about เด็กชาย2ตัวนี่คึกมาก? Is it grammatical? Is it absolutely unacceptable in Thai?

เด็กชาย2ตัวนี่คึกมาก - It depends on when you say this sentence and to whom. Normally we don't use the classifer "ตัว" for human, but it can be used if you know how to use it properly.

I used to say "ไอ้เด็กสองตัวนี้มันคึกจริง ๆ ", but the listener would know from my tone of voice when I said that that I didn't mean anything bad about the kids. I can use it to refer to my own kids too.

[Aulok]

What about เด็กชาย2ตัวนี่คึกมาก? Is it grammatical? Is it absolutely unacceptable in Thai?

เด็กชาย2ตัวนี่คึกมาก - It depends on when you say this sentence and to whom. Normally we don't use the classifer "ตัว" for human, but it can be used if you know how to use it properly.

I used to say "ไอ้เด็กสองตัวนี้มันคึกจริง ๆ ", but the listener would know from my tone of voice when I said that that I didn't mean anything bad about the kids. I can use it to refer to my own kids too.

As far as grammaticality is concerned, I think truth is evaluated by percentage:
There are no beelines, i.e. straight lines, in the real world . The straight lines we deal with in geometry are ‘theoretical beelines’ which do not exist in our physical world. When we say a line is 100% straight it is because our present-day measuring instruments are still not 100% accurate (e.g. only 99.99999%). With the development of even more accurate measuring instruments, we will find what we think is 100% straight still have errors. By the same token, grammar is a set of approximate rules, it is also governed by approximation. So I guess the following shows the acceptability of the English classifier ‘school’:

a school of fish (acceptability: 100%)
a school of children (acceptability: 60%)
a school of snakes (acceptability: 30%)
a school of mountains (acceptability: 0%)

Similarly, the scenario in Thai would be:

ช้าง3เชือก (acceptability: 100%) said of a tamed elephant
ช้าง3ตัว (acceptability: 100%) said of a just captured wild elephant
ช้าง3ช้าง (acceptability: 100%) said of a royal elephant
ผมมีช้าง3เชือก (acceptability: 100%) when I am a logger
ผมมีช้าง3ตัว (acceptability: 90%) when I am a wild animal dealer
ผมมีช้าง3ช้าง (acceptability: 80%) when I am a damned criminal who just stole an elephant from the palace.

Do you agree with me, Nan?

[Aulok]

What about เด็กชาย2ตัวนี่คึกมาก? Is it grammatical? Is it absolutely unacceptable in Thai?

เด็กชาย2ตัวนี่คึกมาก - It depends on when you say this sentence and to whom. Normally we don't use the classifer "ตัว" for human, but it can be used if you know how to use it properly.

I used to say "ไอ้เด็กสองตัวนี้มันคึกจริง ๆ ", but the listener would know from my tone of voice when I said that that I didn't mean anything bad about the kids. I can use it to refer to my own kids too.

It is interesting that the word ไอ้ is a derogatory classifier for human. In Maonan (spoken in the south of Guizhou province and north of Guangxi province in China), the classifier is a normal term for human being, e.g. /ai laak man/ ‘his child’, alternatively /do laak man/ ‘his child’. Here, /do/ is an equivalent to the Thai /tua/, normally used for animals but also for a child, a woman, a not-so-respectful person. Therefore, /ai laakmbaan/ ‘a man’; /do laakbjek/ ‘a woman’, etc. The word /ai/ is also used as a derogatory term in Zhuang in Guangxi: /ai sak nei/ ‘the (this) thief’, /saam ai leuk-nge/ ‘three kids’. Zhuang normally uses /pu/ ปู or /pou/ โปว as a classifier for human.

[Rick Bradford]

^^
How is that word /do/ pronounced? Is it "doh" or "doo"?

I ask, (sliding off-topic), because a Vietnamese classifier/prefix for animals is pronounced "doh", and the word as regarded as very derogatory if spoken to a human, much like 'ไอ้' in Thai.

[Aulok]

^^
How is that word /do/ pronounced? Is it "doh" or "doo"?

I ask, (sliding off-topic), because a Vietnamese classifier/prefix for animals is pronounced "doh", and the word as regarded as very derogatory if spoken to a human, much like 'ไอ้' in Thai.

It is pronounced as /dor/ in enlgish, the initial is a voiced dental plosive with slightly aspiration and the vowel is pronounced like the english word 'or' in british accent (But traditionally it is transcribed as the rightside-left letter 'c'). It is used to count animal, children, women, etc. As for children, you can only use /do/ never /ai/ which is for human being in general, e.g. /man me saam do muu/ 'He has three pigs' and /man me saam do nung/ 'He has 3 younger siblings'. You just cannot use other classifiers for /nung/, only one choice. It would be a good topic to analyze why children and women are not treated as human beings in Maonan. But if it is for a 'woman teacher' you use /ai/ rather than /do/.

Yes. It is derogatory to use 'doh' to refer to humans. But if something is taboo then it means that it is applicable in some sepcific occassions. BTW, does the vietnamese 'doh' occur before or after the main noun? In Thai /tua/ only occur on the right and almost never on the left. /muu saam tua/ 'three pigs'. In Zhuang or Maonan it occurs before the noun: /saam tu mou/ 'three pigs' (Zhuang); /saam do muu/ 'three pigs' (Maonan). But, note that it follows the noun when the number is 'one'! /tu mou deu/ 'a pig' (Zhuang); /do muu deu/ 'a pig' (Maonan). Alternatively you can also say when you are doing statistics: /mou saam tu/ 'three pigs' (Zhuang); /muu saam do/ 'three pigs' (Maonan); /mou tu deu/ 'a pig' (Zhuang); /muu do deu/ 'a pig' (Maonan). I hope this would be useful to you.

[Rick Bradford]

The structure in Vietnamese is same as your Zhuang example: number+classifier+noun, thus: ba dồ chó, Three (animal) dogs.