ศาลาชุมนุม

[Chris Thomson]

I thought a live syllable ends with a long vowel or something ending in a m, n, ng sound.

A book I'm going through includes "ไ◌" in the vowels that, if ended with, make up a live syllable. I thought this vowel was a short "ai" and should create a "dead" syllable. Is the book wrong or did they forget to explain something (or did I miss something...).

Cheers!

[kairi_key]

Dead syllable
- if there's no ending consonant, and the vowel used in a word is short vowel => Dead syllable
- if there is an ending consonant(s), and it ends in k/g,b/p,t/d sound => Dead syllable

Live syllable
- if there's no ending consonant, and the vowel used in a word is long vowel => Live syllable
- if there's no ending consonant, and the vowel used in a word is special vowel(ำ,ไ,ใ,เ า) => Live syllable
- if there is an ending consonant(s), and it ends in n,m,ng,i,w sound => Live syllable....

for example of i and w ending...
เคย => i
เกลียว => w
=w=...


We have this saying for remembering sake...
กบด(for แม่กด แม่กบ แม่กก) and นมยวง(for แม่กน แม่กม แม่เกย แม่เกอว แม่กง)
ใครเป็นกบฏ(กบด)มันต้องตาย = Who ever is a rebellion, he/she must die.... or something like that...

[Chris Thomson]

That's great! Thanks a lot for that!! Much clearer.

[pensive]

The vowel is a short vowel and therefore the syllable should be dead. However, the tone rules have a specific exception for ai mai malai and ai mai muan, for which the vowel is assumed to be long. This doesn't make it long, it's just that the tone rules treat it as long.

This may have something to do with the discussion between Richard Wordingham and qwert on the origin of these two vowels. They apparently were once compound vowels and this would make them "long".

[Tgeezer]

The vowel is a short vowel and therefore the syllable should be dead. However, the tone rules have a specific exception for ai mai malai and ai mai muan, for which the vowel is assumed to be long. This doesn't make it long, it's just that the tone rules treat it as long.

This may have something to do with the discussion between Richard Wordingham and qwert on the origin of these two vowels. They apparently were once compound vowels and this would make them "long".

They say that the vowel in ไ and ใ is อัย and ย is a closing consonant. This would make sense with อำ= อัม เอา= อัว too. (not to be confused with อัว pronounced อูวา or is it อูวะ? )

[kairi_key]

อุวา
since อุวะ is อัวะ

[Tgeezer]

อุวา
since อุวะ is อัวะ

Thanks that is not explained in my books, the short and long is the วะ วา part, so always อุ .

[kairi_key]

not sure about always อุ or always อู... but it's either one...

and it's actually +อะ and +อา
but it's still the same anyway... u+a always produce "w" sound, that is the natural law.

[Richard Wordingham]

This may have something to do with the discussion between Richard Wordingham and qwert on the origin of these two vowels. They apparently were once compound vowels and this would make them "long".

That was a description of the symbol. The phonetic length associated with ไ is largely to do with Sanskrit and has nothing to do with Thai.

They say that the vowel in ไ and ใ is อัย and ย is a closing consonant. This would make sense with อำ= อัม เอา= อัว too.

This is the greater part of the truth and is the simplest way to remember things. Tgeezer's explanation would look better in phonetic symbols, though - he's stretching the use of Thai characters for phonetic explanation to their breaking point.

(not to be confused with อัว pronounced อูวา or is it อูวะ? )

/i:a/ and its friends are a nasty complication. If you believe in final glottal stops you can just say that diphthongs are long except before glottal stops; before glottal stops they are short. You can make things even simpler by saying that ไ is not a diphthong but instead is vowel plus consonant. If you don't believe in final glottal stops as fundamental, you are left with a peculiar length contrast between /i:a/ and /ia/, that in Standard Thai only appears in open vowels.

As for length, it is probably better to say that ไ has a short nucleus and าย has a long nucleus. (Using the term nucleus seems to imply that you think of ไ as representing /aj/ rather than /ai/.) In terms of length the phonetic contrast is [ai:] v. [a:i] - the total length is pretty much the same, unlike in some languages that contrast 'short' and 'long' diphthongs. There is the same pattern of length in ำ v. าม - [am:] v. [a:m]. For this and other reasons, it is easier to remember Thai syllable structure if you think of ไ as /aj/ rather than /ai/.

[pensive]

"In terms of length the phonetic contrast is [ai:] v. [a:i]"

This is great, thank you Richard. Often ไม่ sounds like มิ่ and ตาย sounds like ตา+ย.