ศาลาชุมนุม

[Schnorchel]

Hi,

Not sure if this topic has been already discussed earlier, if so please let me know:

The word สนุก gets a vowel "a" and reads sa\ nuk\ .
Just for my personal understanding, I would like to know about the duration of spelling of the inserted "a". Is it always identical to สระ อะ? I heared that it is slightly shorter than อะ .

[Richard Wordingham]

Historically, the /a/ has always been there in this word - it derives from Khmer สฺรณุก, which already shows the Khmer equivalence of Thai tone transfer.

I've yet to see an authoritative statement that there is a difference - though quite a few Thais believe there is a difference. And if enough of them believe there is a difference, I expect some of them will actually make it - at least some of the time. If we get a debate, it could well be as messy as whether there is a 'sh' sound in English assume. If you could trust the pronunciation given in the RID, I would say there is no difference, but their scheme fails when you need both a maitaikhu and a mark above.

[pensive]

False clusters with "so suea" appear to be very common in Thai. Are they all Khmer in origin? So the same considerations apply as for สนุก?

[Pirin]

Please have a look at the following words.

a) one syllable
สลับ /slàp/
สรุป /srùp/

b) unstressed and stressed syllables
สนุก /sanùk/
สบาย /sabaai/
สกัด /sakàt/
สะบัด /sabàt/
สะดวก /saduàk/
สะระแหน่ /saranɛɛˋ/

c) two and three stressed syllables
สะสม /sàʔsŏm/
วิสาสะ /wísăasàʔ/

[David and Bui]

Another nomenclature used to describe the shorter /a/ sound in certain Thai consonant clusters is "กึ่งเสียง" or "half sound". At http://www.panyathai.or.th/wiki/index.p ... 9%E0%B8%B0 this notion is discussed:

> อ่านออกเสียงเป็น 2 พยางค์ โดยพยางค์แรกอ่านออกเสียงเหมือนมีสระ อะ ประสมอยู่กึ่งเสียง ส่วนพยางค์หลังอ่านตามสระที่ประสมอยู่ และอ่านออกเสียงวรรณยุกต์ตามพยัญชนะตัวแรก เช่น

[(One category of sounds) with two leading consonants is pronounced as follows: the first consonant is pronounced with an shortened or half-sound /a/; the second consonant is pronounced with the indicated vowel; and, the tone for the syllable as a who is determined by the class of the first consonant.]

ขยับ ขะ-หยับ ข อักษรสูง นำ ย อักษรต่ำ ออกเสียงวรรณยุกต์ตาม ห
ฉลาม ฉะ-หลาม ฉ อักษรสูง นำ ล อักษรต่ำ ออกเสียงวรรณยุกต์ตาม ห
ตลาด ตะ-หลาด ต อักษรกลาง นำ ล อักษรต่ำ ออกเสียงวรรณยุกต์ตาม ต
สนาม สะ-หนาม ส อักษรสูง นำ น อักษรต่ำ ออกเสียงวรรณยุกต์ตาม ส
ผลิต ผะ-หลิต ผ อักษรสูง นำ ล อักษรต่ำ ออกเสียงวรรณยุกต์ตาม ผ

Also กำชัย ทองหล่อ in "หลักภาษาไทย" the concept of "กึ่งเสียง" is discussed. I don't have my copy of the book with me now but perhaps one of the participants here can provide the page reference. Thanks.

[Richard Wordingham]

False clusters with "so suea" appear to be very common in Thai. Are they all Khmer in origin? So the same considerations apply as for สนุก?

The first problem in answering this question is how one distinguishes a false cluster from a syllable with implicit /a/. My identification rules depend on the spelling - so I would not be surprised to be told that I am wrong. I diagnose a false cluster if there is a preposed vowel applying to the whole cluster or if there is a transferred / irregular tone. The latter is suspect, for there are other cases where the tone of the second syllable is determined by the consonant of the previous syllable.

On this basis, the false clusters in so suea have four main origins:

Sanskrit sa-, e.g. สมุทร.
Sanskrit sv-, e.g. สวัสดิ์.
Khmer presyllables starting with s-, e.g. สนุก.
Khmer cluster starting with s-, e.g. สวาย.

Other Sanskrit clusters are rare, but not non-existent, e.g. เสน่ห์, โศลก.

[pensive]

[There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your (that is, my) philosophy.] So you say that there are false clusters but there are also implicit 'a' vowels. Could you please give me some examples of the latter class, so I can get a bit of perspective. And "s'daeng" hasn't been mentioned, but should be a false cluster from what you said above.

[David and Bui]

See Glenn Slayden's article on consonant clusters at http://www.thai-language.com/ref/double-consonants .

The "false cluster" is discussed in that article.

[Richard Wordingham]

Indeed, there are the false clusters as in แสดง and เฉพาะ, where the final tone is determined by the second syllable. The reason the second syllable determines the tone is that it is not a resonant, but an occlusive. These two words are borrowed from Khmer monosyllables.

I'm not sure how much agreement there is on what has an implicit /a/ as opposed to being a false cluster.

The easiest example would have been word-final vowels, but they are now almost always written explicitly. So, my starter is วจนะ 'saying', consisting of 3 syllables, each with the vowel /a/, explicit in the final syllable and implicit in the others.

The next securest example is the link vowel in compound words, e.g. รัฐมนตรี /ratH-thaL-monM-triiM/ 'minister'.

The example that always comes to mind for me is นคร /naH-khɔɔn/, where both vowels are implicit. Some claim that such words have a false cluster. A pair where I must appeal to spelling is the cognate pair ปริญญา /paL-rinM-yaaM/ 'degree' (a straightforward loan from Pali) v. เปรียญ /paL-rianM/ graduate (in theology) (also a loan from Pali, but with an unusual change in the vowel). The former has an implicit vowel; the second has an impure cluster. A pair where I must appeal to tone is ตนุ - (1) /taL-nuL/ 'turtle' - impure cluster v. (2) /taL-nuH/ 'I; body'.

[pensive]

I agree that รัฐมนตรี is an obvious implicit vowel, but isn't this because the first two syllables are the Sanskrit word รัฐะ, and so I would think it fits the case of a word-final vowel?

Thanks for the explanation.

BTW Do you have any comment on ปกติ? According to this dictionary, it has two implicit 'a's, although, with my limited Thai, I would have gone for an implicit 'o' followed by an implicit 'a'.