To Be Or Not To Be

[mangkorn]

I still need some help on the two main "to be" verbs: เป็น and คือ

What are the usage rules for distinguishing the two? I've not yet met a teacher who could explain clearly when I should use the latter, instead of the former. Help!

[Richard W]

It seems to me that คือ can always be glossed as 'i.e.'.

[aanon]

It seems to me that คือ can always be glossed as 'i.e.'.

hi richard,

if 'glossed' means 'interpreted as' or 'substituted with' then i'd argue that คือ will not always be able to be glossed as 'i.e.'. for example, เขาคือใคร won't work.

that said, i think that as a general guide, the parallels with 'i.e.' are useful. like 'i.e.', คือ will generally be used after something, some person or some state of affairs has been hinted at or described, then there will be a คือ word like นั้นคือ or คือว่า and then the thing, person or state of affairs will be named.

so,

เรามีเรื่องจะต้องรบกวนเธอ คือว่า ขาดคนทำอาหาร

i have a problem i need to bother you with. namely, we're short of a cook.

เธอหันไปมองคนที่มีค่าที่สุดในชีวิด นั้นคือ ลูกชายวัยห้าขวบ

she turned to look at the most valuable person in her life, her five year old son.

all the best.

Edited April 21, 2007 by aanon

[wasabi]

It seems to me that คือ can always be glossed as 'i.e.'.

hi richard,

if 'glossed' means 'interpreted as' or 'substituted with' then i'd argue that คือ will not always be able to be glossed as 'i.e.'. for example, เขาคือใคร won't work.

that said, i think that as a general guide, the parallels with 'i.e.' are useful. like 'i.e.', คือ will generally be used after something, some person or some state of affairs has been hinted at or described, then there will be a คือ word like นั้นคือ or คือว่า and then the thing, person or state of affairs will be named.

so,

เรามีเรื่องจะต้องรบกวนเธอ คือว่า ขาดคนทำอาหาร

i have a problem i need to bother you with. namely, we're short of a cook.

เธอหันไปมองคนที่มีค่าที่สุดในชีวิด นั้นคือ ลูกชายวัยห้าขวบ

she turned to look at the most valuable person in her life, her five year old son.

all the best.

I have yet to master the difference between คือ and เป็น I can use these correctly in contexts I've heard before but when a new use of to be pops up I'm usually not sure which to use, though เป็น seems to be the more common one.

[meadish_sweetball]

It's also worth pointing out that in a lot of cases, English 'be' corresponds to nothing in Thai. In yet other cases, it corresponds to 'mii' (to have).

Sorry about the lack of Thai text, still configuring this system.

[Rikker]

The fancy linguistic word for what คือ is is "equative copula." A copula is a word that serves to link the subject of a sentence with the predicate. And an equative copula equates the subject with something else. It's the grammatical equivalent of an = sign.

นี่คือแม่ผม This is my mother. (This person = my mother.)

อาหารจานโปรดของผมคือข้าวผัด My favorite dish is fried rice. (My favorite dish = fried rice)

Whereas เป็น defines the subject as part of a larger class.

เขาเป็นคนไม่ดี He's a bad person. (He is a subset of the class of bad people.)

หมาเป็นสัตว์เลี้ยงลูกด้วยนม Dogs are mammals. (Dogs are a subset of the class of things called mammals.)

That's why in Thai we might ask เขาคือใคร (Who is he?) versus เขาเป็นคนอย่างไร (What is he like?/What type of person is he?). One is equating him with some other piece of information (e.g. เขาคือ George Bush--not somebody else), the other is putting him in a class (e.g. เขาเป็นคนใจดีมาก--he's a generous people, of which there can be many).

Thai also has the "existential copula" มี, which notes that something exists. We use "be" in English for this sense, too.

ในน้ำมีปลา In the water there are fish.

มีข้าวอยู่ในจาน There is rice on the plate.

Thai also frequently uses a zero copula--such as with stative verbs requires no intermediary.

ผมเสียใจ I am sad.

รถคันนี้สีแดง This car is red.

[Rikker]

Another quick side note about the existential copula--มี. There are a large number of languages which use the same word as "to have" as an existential copula. The way these seem to historically develop is actually backwards from what we might think. These words start out as grammatical markers and come to mean "to have." The logic behind such a grammatical development is that "X exists at me," i.e. I have it.

[mangkorn]

Thanks, Rikker. That's the best explanation I've heard yet.

[mangkorn]

The fancy linguistic word for what คือ is is "equative copula." A copula is a word that serves to link the subject of a sentence with the predicate. And an equative copula equates the subject with something else. It's the grammatical equivalent of an = sign.

นี่คือà¹à¸¡à¹ˆà¸œà¸¡ This is my mother. (This person = my mother.)

อาหารจานโปรดของผมคือข้าวผัà¸

My favorite dish is fried rice. (My favorite dish = fried rice)

Whereas เป็น defines the subject as part of a larger class.

เขาเป็นคนไม่ดี He's a bad person. (He is a subset of the class of bad people.)

หมาเป็นสัตว์เลี้ยงลูà¸à¸”้วยนà¸

Dogs are mammals. (Dogs are a subset of the class of things called mammals.)

That's why in Thai we might ask เขาคือใคร (Who is he?) versus เขาเป็นคนอย่างไร (What is he like?/What type of person is he?). One is equating him with some other piece of information (e.g. เขาคือ George Bush--not somebody else), the other is putting him in a class (e.g. เขาเป็นคนใจดีมาà¸--he's a generous people, of which there can be many).

Thai also has the "existential copula" มี, which notes that something exists. We use "be" in English for this sense, too.

ในน้ำมีปลา In the water there are fish.

มีข้าวอยู่ในจาน There is rice on the plate.

Thai also frequently uses a zero copula--such as with stative verbs requires no intermediary.

ผมเสียใจ I am sad.

รถคันนี้สีà¹à¸”ง This car is red.

So, does that mean it is incorrect to ask: เขาเป็นใคร

I say that, and of course am understood, but is it grammatically wrong?

[Rikker]

It's not that it's ungrammatical, but I think it can have a subtly different meaning. That said, I think it's also true that in the phrases เป็นใคร/คือใคร people often (but not always) use เป็น and คือ interchangeably.

My thoughts aren't fully formed on this point, but if I wanted to say something like, "Who does he think he talking to me like that?" I'd use เป็น:

เขาเป็นใครเล่า ที่จะพูดกับผมอย่างนั้นได้

Or, the idea of "he's a nobody," I might express as:

เขาไม่เป็นใครเลย

Can anybody help me sort this out? It's the idea that you're not looking to know their identity, but something about them that is not unique to them. How would others translate the phrase เขาเป็นใคร?

I fed the two phrases "เป็นใคร" and "คือใคร" into the sealang corpus. เป็นใคร is more common, though I didn't look carefully at the results to see if there's an ascertainable reason why.

One other thing: you can say ไม่เป็น or ไม่มี, but you can't say ไม่คือ. The proper negation of the equative copula is ไม่ใช่, which brings to mind the fact that you can use ใช่ in a copula-like way, usually in questions: คนนั้นใช่แม่คุณไหม "Is that person your mom?"

One other other thing: I'm a Bangkok Thai speaker through and through, but I've listened to the Lao for Beginners CDs several times in the car, and I remember the phrase that was pronounced ยินดี๊พบเจ้าคื้อกั๋น, meaning ยินดีพบคุณเช่นกัน. I'm thinking these could etymologically be the same คือ, meaning to be the same. Makes semantic sense to me, anyway. Or am I misremembering?

Edited April 26, 2007 by Rikker

[Richard W]

Another quick side note about the existential copula--มี. There are a large number of languages which use the same word as "to have" as an existential copula. The way these seem to historically develop is actually backwards from what we might think. These words start out as grammatical markers and come to mean "to have." The logic behind such a grammatical development is that "X exists at me," i.e. I have it.

That does not apply to French il y a - Latin habēre is definitely connected with possession rather than existence.

One other other thing: I'm a Bangkok Thai speaker through and through, but I've listened to the Lao for Beginners CDs several times in the car, and I remember the phrase that was pronounced ยินดี๊พบเจ้าคื้อกั๋น, meaning ยินดีพบคุณเช่นกัน. I'm thinking these could etymologically be the same คือ, meaning to be the same. Makes semantic sense to me, anyway. Or am I misremembering?

It makes sense. Lao dictionaries give a wide range of meanings including 'similar, be something, namely'. Rungrueangsi's Northern Thai dictionary gives the same range of meaning, with the comment that this is really a Khmer word. I haven't looked it up yet in a Khmer-English dictionary, but the main Khmer meaning seems to be 'as follows'.

[Johpa]

So who is going to try to translate Hamlet's existential questioning of self into Thai?

[Rikker]

เป็นหรือไม่เป็นดีหนอ นี่คือคำถามข้อสำคัญ

ในใจนั้นมีเกียรติกว่า ที่จะทนรับสายเหวี่ยงและลูกธนูแห่งโชคชตาอันร้ายเหลือพรรณนา

หรือที่จะคว้าอาวุธต่อต้านทุกขเวทนากว้างใหญ่ไพศาลดุจดังทะเล

และในการต่อต้อนนั้นกำจัดทุกข์เสีย

Yeah, it's crap, but someone had to take the bait, right?

Edited April 27, 2007 by Rikker

[yoot]

One other other thing: I'm a Bangkok Thai speaker through and through, but I've listened to the Lao for Beginners CDs several times in the car, and I remember the phrase that was pronounced ยินดี๊พบเจ้าคื้อกั๋น, meaning ยินดีพบคุณเช่นกัน. I'm thinking these could etymologically be the same คือ, meaning to be the same. Makes semantic sense to me, anyway. Or am I misremembering?

ยินดี๊พบเจ้าคื้อกั๋น the word คื้อกั๋น is from ครือกัน means to be just the same

ครือ (ว). definition : ไม่คับไม่หลวม(neither too large nor too small), พอๆ กัน(equally, likely, equably).

[Richard W]

One other other thing: I'm a Bangkok Thai speaker through and through, but I've listened to the Lao for Beginners CDs several times in the car, and I remember the phrase that was pronounced ยินดี๊พบเจ้าคื้อกั๋น, meaning ยินดีพบคุณเช่นกัน. I'm thinking these could etymologically be the same คือ, meaning to be the same.

ยินดี๊พบเจ้าคื้อกั๋น the word คื้อกั๋น is from ครือกัน means to be just the same

ครือ (ว). definition : ไม่คับไม่หลวม(neither too large nor too small), พอๆ กัน(equally, likely, equably).

Northern Thai has this word also, with the same meaning. While they would be pronounced the same in Lao, the two words are pronounced differently in Northern Thai - Siamese คือ = N. Thai กือ (transcription) คือ (transliteration), Siamese ครือ = N. Thai คือ (transcription) ครือ/ฅือ (transliteration). Finally, my wife, a country girl from Chiangmai, translates Lao คื้อกั๋น in Rikker's phrase into Siamese เช่นกัน and N. Thai กือกั๋น (transcription) rather than คือกั๋น (transcription).

[mangkorn]

One other other thing: I'm a Bangkok Thai speaker through and through, but I've listened to the Lao for Beginners CDs several times in the car, and I remember the phrase that was pronounced ยินดี๊พบเจ้าคื้อà¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™, meaning ยินดีพบคุณเช่นà¸à¸±à¸™. I'm thinking these could etymologically be the same คือ, meaning to be the same.

ยินดี๊พบเจ้าคื้อà¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™ the word คื้อà¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™ is from ครือà¸à¸±à¸™ means to be just the same

ครือ (ว). definition : ไม่คับไม่หลวม(neither too large nor too small), พอๆ à¸à¸±à¸™(equally, likely, equably).

Northern Thai has this word also, with the same meaning. While they would be pronounced the same in Lao, the two words are pronounced differently in Northern Thai - Siamese คือ = N. Thai à¸à¸·à¸­ (transcription) คือ (transliteration), Siamese ครือ = N. Thai คือ (transcription) ครือ/ฅือ (transliteration). Finally, my wife, a country girl from Chiangmai, translates Lao คื้อà¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™ in Rikker's phrase into Siamese เช่นà¸à¸±à¸™ and N. Thai à¸à¸·à¸­à¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™ (transcription) rather than คือà¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™ (transcription).

What does "= N" mean?

[mangkorn]

One other other thing: I'm a Bangkok Thai speaker through and through, but I've listened to the Lao for Beginners CDs several times in the car, and I remember the phrase that was pronounced ยินดี๊พบเจ้าคื้อà¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™, meaning ยินดีพบคุณเช่นà¸à¸±à¸™. I'm thinking these could etymologically be the same คือ, meaning to be the same.

ยินดี๊พบเจ้าคื้อà¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™ the word คื้อà¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™ is from ครือà¸à¸±à¸™ means to be just the same

ครือ (ว). definition : ไม่คับไม่หลวม(neither too large nor too small), พอๆ à¸à¸±à¸™(equally, likely, equably).

Northern Thai has this word also, with the same meaning. While they would be pronounced the same in Lao, the two words are pronounced differently in Northern Thai - Siamese คือ = N. Thai à¸à¸·à¸­ (transcription) คือ (transliteration), Siamese ครือ = N. Thai คือ (transcription) ครือ/ฅือ (transliteration). Finally, my wife, a country girl from Chiangmai, translates Lao คื้อà¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™ in Rikker's phrase into Siamese เช่นà¸à¸±à¸™ and N. Thai à¸à¸·à¸­à¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™ (transcription) rather than คือà¸à¸±à¹‹à¸™ (transcription).

What does "= N" mean?

[Richard W]

What does "= N" mean?

'= N.' means 'corresponds to Northern'.