Thai English as a Variety

abstract: This study is about Thai English (ThaiE), a variety of World Englishes that is presently spoken in Thailand, as the result of the spread of English and the recent Thai government policies towards English communication in Thailand. In the study, I examined the linguistic data of spoken ThaiE, collected from multiple sources both in the U.S.A. and Thailand. The study made use of a qualitative approach in examining the data, which were from (i) English interviews and questionnaires with 12 highly educated Thai speakers of English during my fieldwork in the Southwestern U.S.A., Central Thailand, and Northeastern Thailand, (ii) English speech samples from the media in Thailand, i.e. television programs, a news report, and a talk radio program, and (iii) the research articles on English used by Thai speakers of English. This study describes the typology of ThaiE in terms of its morpho-syntax, phonology, and sociolinguistics, with the main focus being placed on the structural characteristics of ThaiE. Based on the data, the results show that some of the ThaiE features are similar to the World Englishes features, but some are unique to ThaiE. Therefore, I argue that ThaiE is structurally considered a new variety of World Englishes at the present time. The findings also showed an interesting result, regarding the notion of ThaiE by the fieldwork interview participants. The majority of these participants (n=6) denied the existence of ThaiE, while the minority of the participants (n=5) believed ThaiE existed, and one participant was reluctant to give the answer. The study suggested that the participants' academic backgrounds, the unfamiliar notion of ThaiE, and the level of the participants' social interaction with everyday persons may have influenced their answers to the main research question.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. English 201

Studying Tonal Complexity, with a special reference to Mande languages

Linguists tend to believe that total complexity of human languages is invariable. In order to test this hypothesis empirically, we need to calculate the complexity in different domains of language structure: phonology, morphology, syntax, etc. In this paper I provide some guidelines for documenting tonal systems and evaluating their complexity. I then apply my methodology to the Mande languages of West Africa and test a tonal equi-complexity hypothesis which says that languages with more tonal contrasts tend to have fewer tonal rules and vice versa. The data presented do not support such a concept of tonal equi-complexity in the domain of phonology, but there is a strong positive correlation between the number of tonal contrasts and the number of tonal morphemes. My explanation is that tonal contrasts and tonal morphemes tend to appear as a result of segmental loss, so the two phenomena are likely to co-occur. *This paper is in the series How to Study a Tone Language, edited by Steven Bird and Larry HymanNational Foreign Language Resource Cente

A grammatical description of Kamsá, a language isolate of Colombia

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018

Serial Verb Constructions in Dangme

Verb serialization in Dangme is an area which has not been studied. This paper seeks to examine the syntactic and the semantic properties of serial verb constructions in Dangme, a language that belongs to the Kwa group of family of languages. The paper describes the nature of serial verb constructions in Dangme in the Role and Reference Grammar framework (RRG) proposed by Foley and Van Valin (1984) and their associates.  The properties of the expressions to be examined are in consonance with some of the characteristics proposed in the literature, i.e argument sharing, shared aspect, mood and negation, switch-function of serial verb constructions and multiple object SVCs. In addition, the paper examines different functional types of serial verb constructions such as causatives (instrumental serial verb constructions, benefactive serial verb constructions and cause and effect serial verb constructions), comparative SVC, directional SVC and question and focus SVC. Data for the study were drawn from primary sources. Keywords: shared arguments, single event, preposed arguments, causatives, adverbial

Perspectives on Creole Genesis and Language Acquisition

Creolists tend to view the genesis of creole languages as more complicated than do other linguists.While most linguists define creoles as those languages which originate as pidgins and then acquire native speakers, creolists have long questioned the plausibility of this claim and debated alternate theories of genesis among themselves. Universalism (Bickerton, 1981; Bickerton, 1984), posits Chomskyan language universals to account for creole formation within a second-language acquisition (SLA) framework. Substratism (Lefebvre, 1998; Lumsden, 1999) acknowledges the SLA framework set forth by universalism but goes farther in allowing for the influence of the first languages of the creolizing community on the emerging language. This paper examines these two theories, and findings from SLA research are used to critique their respective positions. Additionally, an apparent dichotomy presented by these theories is explored. The complementary hypothesis (Mufwene, 1996; Mufwene, 1999; Mufwene, 2001), which retains an SLA-oriented approach to the theory of creole language origins, is presented as a viable alternative to the question of genetics. Since creoles do not appear to form along strictly first-language acquisition lines, SLA researchers would benefit from exploring the vast body of creolist literature which assumes and proves an SLA framework in the formation of these languages

The Grammar of Nouns and Verbs in Whitesands, an Oceanic Language of Southern Vanuatu

Whitesands is an under-described language of southern Vanuatu, and this thesis presents Whitesands-specific data based on primary in-situ field research. The thesis addresses the distinction of noun and verb word classes in the language. It claims that current linguistic syntax theory cannot account for the argument structure of canonical object-denoting roots. It is shown that there are distinct lexical noun and verb classes in Whitesands but this is only a weak dichotomy. Stronger is the NP and VP distinction, and this is achieved by employing a new theoretical approach that proposes functional categories and their selection of complements as crucial tests of distinction. This approach contrasts with previous analyses of parts of speech in Oceanic languages and cross-linguistically. It ultimately explains many of the syntactic phenomena seen in the language family, including the above argument assignment dilemma, the alienable possession of nouns with classifiers and also the nominalisation processes.John Connell, Department of Geography Australian Linguistic Society (Gerhardt Laves Scholarship

The Fijian Language

Humanities Open Book Program, a joint initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon FoundationThis work is directed to those who want to learn more about the Fijian language. It is intended as a reference work, treating in detail such tropics as verb and noun classification, transitivity, the phonological hierarchy, orthography, specification, possession, subordination, and the definite article (among others). In addition, it is an attempt to fit these pieces together into a unified picture of the structure of the language

Advances in the study of Siouan languages and linguistics

" The Siouan family comprises some twenty languages, historically spoken across a broad swath of the central North American plains and woodlands, as well as in parts of the southeastern United States. In spite of its geographical extent and diversity, and the size and importance of several Siouan-speaking tribes, this family has received relatively little attention in the linguistic literature and many of the individual Siouan languages are severely understudied. This volume aims to make work on Siouan languages more broadly available and to encourage deeper investigation of the myriad typological, theoretical, descriptive, and pedagogical issues they raise. The 17 chapters in this volume present a broad range of current Siouan research, focusing on various Siouan languages, from a variety of linguistic perspectives: historical-genetic, philological, applied, descriptive, formal/generative, and comparative/typological. The editors' preface summarizes characteristic features of the Siouan family, including head-final and ""verb-centered"" syntax, a complex system of verbal affixes including applicatives and subject-possessives, head-internal relative clauses, gendered speech markers, stop-systems including ejectives, and a preference for certain prosodic and phonotactic patterns. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Professor Robert L. Rankin, a towering figure in Siouan linguistics throughout his long career, who passed away in February of 2014.