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Article published In:
Studies in Language
Vol. 46:3 (2022) ► pp.517–558

Creating versatility in Thai demonstratives

ORCID logo | UCLA
| Maejo University , Thailand

Beyond their basic function to index exophoric and endophoric referents, Thai demonstratives have a host of pragmatic functions to encode concerns regarding discourse organization, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity. Based on a detailed analysis of demonstratives used in conversation, we attempt to uncover the pattern of grammaticalization for this class of words in Thai, and to propose a mechanism that allows them to develop multiple functions. Since demonstratives are indexical signs and are qualitatively distinct from content words, we must view the grammaticalization process of demonstratives differently from that of content words. In this paper, we use the model of the joint attention triangle based on Diessel’s earlier work and the functional utterance frame based on the “attractor position” analysis for grammaticalization of nouns and verbs advanced by Bisang (1996) to analyze how exactly demonstratives come to acquire pragmatic functions.

Keywords: demonstratives, Thai, pragmatic uses, grammaticalization, indexical sign, joint attention triangle, functional utterance frame, Salient Information Marking, Topic Marking, Conditional Marking, Stance Marking, Discourse Attention Marking, Hedge Marking, Reactive Response Marking
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Semantic, syntactic, and functional characteristics of Thai demonstratives in their basic uses
  • 3.The data: Lunchbreak Conversation
  • 4.Basic uses in the data
  • 5.Pragmatic uses in the data
    • 5.1Salient Information Marking (SI)
    • 5.2Topic Marking (TOP)
    • 5.3Conditional Marking (COND)
    • 5.4Stance Marking (STC)
    • 5.5Hedge Marking (HDG)
    • 5.6Discourse Attention Marking (DA)
    • 5.7Reactive Response Marking (RR)
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.20083.iwa
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