Q/Clf in Thai

[Peter Jenks]

Chol--
Thanks so much for your reply--I've been looking for a Thai linguist for
a while, and one who's worked in LFG is especially exciting. The
Warotamasikkhadit paper you pointed out is definitely an important
one, but I'm not quite sure about him calling this topicalization, which
was why I was hesitant to name it that myself. The problem is that
while all of the elements can float (e.g. his (i.a) below), the floating of
the Q+Clf is not necessarily topicalization in the same sense whether
it's being done from the subject or the object. That is, in terms of my
own intuition (I was raised in Thailand) and the three consultants I'm
using, the "dek dek thuk khon paj rong rian" and "dek dek pai rong rian
thuk khon" readings don't really put any more stress on the quantifier
than "The kids are all going to school" does relative to "All the kids are
going to school." I think there are definitely pragmatic motivations,
though, e.g. the quantifier scope reading with the modality particle in
my first post. If you really think that there is definite or atypical
emphasis on the Q+Clf in the "floated" construction, please let me
know as that would be quite interesting to me.

As for your point about the Thai data,
>(v) dek dek     pay   roong rian   thung  sii   khon  nii
>     children     go    school       all    four   CL   this
it looks like this is a floated version of the partitive reading in Thai, that
is,

(1) a. dek dek thung sii khon nii (partitive) versus
      b. dek dek nii thung sii khon (cardinal).

To be honest, I didn't know that the demonstrative could float with the
particle in the partitive reading (your sentence), but that certainly is an
elucidating fact in some ways.
Also, just to check, the following sentence is ill-formed, correct?

(2) *dek dek pay roong rian nii thung sii khon

All that said, to get back to more LFGish topics—while I know that not
a whole lot has been done with SPEC in LFG, would anyone know
how to organize a seemingly heirarchical relationship like this in the c-
structure? I was leaning towards the Q-Clf being in right-branching
SPEC of NP in (1a) and right-branching SPEC of DP in (1b), although,
to be honest I haven't seen that degree of heirarchical organization of
DP/NP in any LFG literature I've read so far. Any help would be much
appreciated, and and for all that has already been offered, thanks a
million.

Best-
Peter


>Dear Peter,
>
>I found the discussion about the Thai construction that is similar to
the
>one that you are working on in Warotamasikkhadit's paper
>in 1995. He says that Thai has the phenomenon called 'Backward
>Topicalization' as in (i).
>(i) a. phoo   sie   kaangkeeng  soong  tau    maa     hay     phom
>            father   buy  pants                two      CL    come   give     I
>         'Father bought two pairs of pants and gave them to me.'
>    b. phoo    sie    maa      hay     phom  kaangkeeng  soong  tau
>       father buy  come   give     I      pants        two   CL
>   'Father bought for me, two pairs of pants.'
>
>Warotamasikkhadit indicates that when an argument is emphasized
or
>attention-centered, it can be moved to the end of a
>sentence. As in (ib), the NP kaangkeeng  soong  tau   'two pairs of
pants"
>is moved to the end of a sentence.
>The numeral and the classifier modifying the noun, but not the whole
NP,
>can be topicalized by moving them to the end of
>the sentence too, as in (ii).
>(ii) phoo   sie   kaangkeeng maa  hay  phom  soong  tau
>           father  buy   pants             come give  I          two        CL
>         'Father bought two pairs of pants for me.'
>
>The sentence (ii) is similar to the sentences in 1) that you are
working on
>except that the whole NP (NP + number + classifier)
>  is in the object position.
>[ Your sentences are:
>1)  a.  dek   ni      (thuk/sii) khon pai rong rian
>          child DX:near (all/four) CLF  go  school ('khon' must refer to
>humans)
>          "(all) these (four) children are going to school"
>
>        b. dek    ni   pai    rong rian  (thuk/sii) khon
>           "these children are (all/*four) going to school"   ]
>
>Moreover, the numeral and the classifier modifying the noun can also
be
>moved to the middle of the sentence to show
>the lesser degree of topicalization because the primary emphasis is
on hay
>phom 'giving me' as in (iii).
>(iii) phoo   sie   kaangkeeng  maa    soong  tau  hay   phom
>    father   buy  pants         come    two   CL   give  I
>    'Father bought two pairs of pants and gave them to me.'
>
>This discussion is in Warotamasikkhadit 's paper in 1995:
>Warotamasikkhadit, Udom. 1995. Fronting and backing topicalization
in Thai.
>Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on
>Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics at the University of Virginia,
>Charlottesville, VA.
>
>I also have more information about your sentences in 1). The
demonstrative
>adjective nii  'this' in 1a. should be after the whole NP
>like dek dek thung sii khon nii  'all these four children' and it can stick
>with the number and classifier at the end of the sentence too, as in
(iv).
>(v) dek dek     pay   roong rian   thung  sii   khon  nii
>     children     go    school       all    four   CL   this
>
>I hope that these informations might be helpful for your analysis.
>Best,
>Chol
>
>Cholthicha  Sudmuk
>----------------------------------
>Department of Linguistics
>University of Texas at Austin
>
>