1. Family: Tai-Kadai
  2. Genus: Kam-Tai

Thai

WALS coordinates: 16° N, 101° E

spoken in Thailand

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Thai
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Siamese,
    • Thai, Standard
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Average
    Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /g/
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone Complex tone system
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Isolating/concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 2-3 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause No marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
    Nominal Categories
    Number of Genders None
    Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
    Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    The Associative Plural No associative plural
    Definite Articles No definite, but indefinite article
    Indefinite Articles Indefinite word distinct from 'one'
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns 'We' the same as 'I'
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Pronouns avoided for politeness
    Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
    Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
    Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
    Ordinal Numerals First/one-th, two-th, three-th
    Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
    Numeral Classifiers Obligatory
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, with interrogative
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Moderately differentiated in other ways
    Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
    Action Nominal Constructions Mixed
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
    The Past Tense No past tense
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect From 'finish', 'already'
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
    The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for both possibility and necessity
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
    Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
    Position of Polar Question Particles Final
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Optional pronouns in subject position
    Verbal Person Marking No person marking
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
    Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Both
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Neither
    Negative Morphemes Negative auxiliary verb
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Possession Topic
    Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
    Comparative Constructions Exceed
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Gap
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Different
    Finger and Hand Different
    Numeral Bases Decimal
    Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha
    Other
    Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings