Plurals

[Chanchao]

A few days ago I corrected someone on another list who though you could create plurals in Thai by repeating the noun. I said Indonesians do that, but Thais don't.

Then someone else asked the following:

RW> Isn't it true that when speaking of children, "dek-dek" is used, as opposed to

RW> just "dek" which could be either "child" or "children"? That's how it was

RW> explained to me once by a Thai...

To which I replied the following, but I feel there is more to it but can't put my finger on it. Thoughts?

Yes I guess so.. Good point..! but you can't do that with every noun. I've heard the same thing you mention for example with saow+ (saow-saow+) when talking about young ladies in general rather than a specific young lady.

Perhaps this indicates a usage similar to the English 'the people' or 'the police' which indicates there's a bunch of them ithout being a typical plural form.. But it also seems more spoken language than written. I think I've heard 'Chinese' (as in something/someone looking very Chinese) as

jiin-jiin instead of just 'jiin'. Or if you want to emphasize how white someone is (spoken language again) you can repeat it /khaaaow-khaaow+/ for emphasis.

However, for sure you can't do this with just any noun to make it plural; you can't say maa+ maa+ if you want to say 'dogs'. Or any other noun (table, tree, cup, hand, chilly, ......) I can think of.

Interesting!

Cheers,

Chanchao

[Lamock Chokaprret]

Not sure I'm properly qualified to reply to this since I've only been learning the language for about 8 months but here's what I know about plurals.

To create a plural form you generally need to specify a count (2, 3, etc.). For example, the plural form would appear as:

noun [adjective] count classifier

where the adjective is optional, for example,

ma lek song dtoo-ah = two small dogs

poo-ying sii kohn = four girls

There are cases where the classifier is the same as the noun for example,

dawk my saam dawk = three flowers

I don't think this case can be shortened to simply 'dawk my dawk' or 'dawk dawk' but it wouldn't surprise me if some shorthand is allowed, particularly in colloquial, everyday speech, particularly where euphonics of the sentence would be improved. Specifically, there are a fair number of classifiers (especially parts of the body and geographical features) where the classifier is the same as the noun.

An interesting, seemingly exception is when using the number one:

nung sawm = one fork (definite case)

sawm nung = a fork (indefinite case)

I am unclear as to whether a classifier needs to be used on the definite case, but my guess is not since the count does not follow the noun. But I do know there are 80 or so classifiers, few of which I know. Where I've forgotten the classifier, I tend to fall back on 'ahn' which I'm told can be used as a catch-all but that advice doesn't seem to hold entirely true. Sometimes it's better to drop the classifier entirely than to use 'ahn' as you risk not being understood.

Please take my 2 baht with a grain of salt as I am a novice.

[ November 02, 2001: Message edited by: Lamock Chokaprret ]

[Chanchao]

Sorry, I should have rephrased the question, which is not how to make things plural, but what the story is with the nouns people do double up. Like for what words would they do it, and in what way does it affect the meaning. It could be just a spoken-language thingy.

Cheers,

Chanchao

[Crash999]

I agree with you that I think it's used for emphasis rather than plurality. I would understand dek-dek as little kids. Pew khao khao would be very very white skin.

Cheers!

[Guest]

There are instances when this doubling-up of nouns do make plurals, though I'm not really sure where this rule stops or starts. 'Sao-sao', as stated, is one example that becomes plural to mean girls rather than girl. The same as 'dek-dek' is children rather than child and 'peuan-peuan' refers to friends rather than a friend. This occurs not only in speech but in writing also. The pattern here with these examples seems to be only with people and not objects, yeah? I can't think of too many other examples. Perhaps someone else can offer some.

However, the doubling-up of adjectives is different. Doubled-up adjectives are often effectively turned into to adverbs. eg.,

'tum dee dee' (do well)

'kian suway suway' (write beautifully)

'poot cha cha' (speak slowly)

'rew rew' (quickly), or even 'rew rew nee' (soon)

The example given with 'white' is true also in describing someone's skin colour, but it isn't just to give emphasis but is often done just to make words sound nicer for the sake of euphony. However, colours are often doubled to give the meaning of a colour that is 'close to' eg. 'kao kao' will mean creme or a colour very near to white, and 'see fah fah' will mean a more than light blue etc.

[Lamock Chokaprret]

quote:

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I've heard the same thing you mention for example with saow+ (saow-saow+) when talking about young ladies in general rather than a specific young lady.

...

However, for sure you can't do this with just any noun to make it plural; you can't say maa+ maa+ if you want to say 'dogs'.

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A quick check with some Thai friends indicates that this is an informal mode of speech. Not supported in written Thai. No discernable rules covering it although most of the examples mentioned above seem to work OK. Oddly, my friend indicated some people might say 'maa-maa' to mean 'dogs' but I got the impression it might be considered uneducated.

What I've said only applies to nouns. Still trying to sort out the adjectives and adverbs.

[Guest]

My Thai is pretty terrible -- half Issan, too -- but I think I can help on this one. You can double the noun to pluralize when the noun works sort of like an adjective to describe the nature of people. Okay, that attempt at a rule sucks but maybe you get the point. In the examples already in this thread, you could conceptualize that Chineseness, childliness and young-ladyliness are all states of being for a person. It's wierd and probably I've muddled it even worse. Sorry.

[Guest]

These doubled words are called "kham sam "

which means repeated word. They have a definite place in thai grammer, all kids learn about this in grammer studies.

They have many different effects depending on how they are used. e.g.

used with nouns, pronouns have the effect of pluralising .

with adjectives and adverbs can add emphasis or also can be used to soften effect depending on how used. etc etc

This is formal correct thai and used very often in written thai.

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamock Chokaprret:

A quick check with some Thai friends indicates that this is an informal mode of speech. Not supported in written Thai. .

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Only talking from personal experience, I read enough Thai on a daily basis to disagree with this. These plural nouns occur in poetry, story books (for children), newspapers, etc. Perhaps in academic writing it isn't prevalent. I wouldn't know.

[Pescator]

quote:

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Originally posted by Dan:

However, the doubling-up of adjectives is different. Doubled-up adjectives are often effectively turned into to adverbs. eg.,

'tum dee dee' (do well)

'kian suway suway' (write beautifully)

'poot cha cha' (speak slowly)

'rew rew' (quickly), or even 'rew rew nee' (soon)

The example given with 'white' is true also in describing someone's skin colour, but it isn't just to give emphasis but is often done just to make words sound nicer for the sake of euphony. However, colours are often doubled to give the meaning of a colour that is 'close to' eg. 'kao kao' will mean creme or a colour very near to white, and 'see fah fah' will mean a more than light blue etc.

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I`ve found that there are several ways of using double adjectives.

The form you describe in the above and an additional form where the vowel in the initial adjective is pronounced with a very long duration in a high pitched voice thus emphasizing the meaning.

Suaaaay suay = *very* beautiful.

When referring to people there are a couple of other words thais tend to double although they are neither nouns nor adverbs such as:

Tuk Tuk Khon: meaning everybody and

Krai krai: meaning everybody