Irregular Tone Rule

[Richard W]

From another thread:

I think you might want to spell it อะโรย instead !

The อะโรย spelling would make a helluva more spelling sense to me than the construction อโรย which doesn't really make sense!

Still neither sounds more delicious than the real McCoy!Namely อร่อย itself!

The trouble is that if you stuck the extra vowel in, you'd have to spell the word อะหร่อย - อร่อย uses the 'irregular tone rule', i.e. it's a 'sesquisyllable', or in plain English, you make it two syllables after sorting out the vowel and tone class (H+L -> H+H, M+L->M+M). The prefix ประ in words such as ประวัติ (pronounced like the regularly spelt ประหวัด) is an exception, but the 'irregular tone rule' and the 'irregular vowel rule' don't apply to clusters of three consonants. I reckon such words entered Thai in their Pali forms (indeed, the RID only gives a Pali source, ปวตฺติ, for this word) and then the spelling, and then the pronunciation, was Sanskritised.

What is the origin of this irregular tone rule? Were (or are) sesquisyllables a part of Thai phonology, a Mon substrate or areal effect? Phonology doesn't explain the other groups of words, words like ตำรวจ (pronounced ตำ-หฺรวด), which I've always assumed to be a derivative of ตรวจ, but the RID only gives a Khmer etymology for the former word. On the other, I can see why Thais might never think of the Khmer loan เฉพาะ (pronounced ฉะ-เพาะ in Thai) as a single syllable for the purposes of tone development.

[snowleopard]

From another thread:

I think you might want to spell it อะโรย instead !

The อะโรย spelling would make a helluva more spelling sense to me than the construction อโรย which doesn't really make sense!

Still neither sounds more delicious than the real McCoy!Namely อร่อย itself!

The trouble is that if you stuck the extra vowel in, you'd have to spell the word อะหร่อย - อร่อย uses the 'irregular tone rule',

I think you missed the point of my post Richard!

I wasn't commenting on the tone but rather I pointed out the spelling and structure of the Thai vowels used in Sabaijai's combination which I think is wrong!

I think the spelling combo with the vowels อโ in that particular order is disallowed in Thai writing if the vowel is gonna be pronounced as the first syllable of the word!

Ignoring the tones for a while and also the fact that most are fictional words,I think you are allowed to spell Thai words like the following examples when your aim is to pronounce the initial vowel:

อร่อย,อะโรย,อะหร่อย,and even โอโรย or โอร๋อย and several more non-word combos!

But,I think the อโรย spelling which Sabaijai (คุณสบายใจ) used as an example is wrong because it violates the spelling rules of Thai writing!

The only Thai word I can think of with that vowel order and combo-structure is อโลหะ (a-lo-ha)=non-metal,but it's an unusual word!

I think it was probably constructed as an antonym to โลหะ(lo-ha)=metal!?

It might have been borrowed from the Greek "a,an" which means "not";or,"without";as in the English prefix,also originally from Greek,to show antonyms:e.g. moral-amoral;typical-atypical etc.

What does สบายใจ himself think about his อร่อย spelling?อร่อยไหมคุณสบายใจ จึงกำลังจะอิ่มและสบายใจด้วยหรือเปล่า

Get my point this time?

Cheers.

Snowleopard.

[Richard W]

While I did miss your original point, I think the two issues are related.

There are two conflicting patterns here – the one for 'sequisyllables', which are subject to the irregular tone rule (has it a nicer name?), and the one for Indic words. Indic words actually show some variability in whether the irregular tone rule applies; the best rule I could come up with is that the rule doesn't apply if the word feels Indic. Having many syllables suppresses the irregular tone rule very well.

I'm not sure when mai hanakat (ะ) is allowed within Indic words; the only places I've noticed it are in the prefix pra- (ประ) and word finally. The Indic prefix a- (อ-) (cognate with Greek a(n)-, Latin in-, English un-) notably does not have an explicit vowel in Thai. (Incidentally, the word โลหะ 'metal, esp. copper' is cognate with English 'red' as well as Thai โลหิต 'blood'). The positions of the vowel symbols in Indic words are fixed by the syllable structures of the source languages, which do not need the concept of sesquisyllables.

The pattern of *อโรย may well be restricted to Indic words. Compare โสร่ง 'sarong', a loanword from Malay, which is written as a sesquisyllable and therefore also exhibits the 'irregular tone rule'.

[sabaijai]

sabaijai replies: i was just being expedient and creating a fake (Indic) word ... but i take your point snow.

[Jay_Jay]

Where did the Consonant Classes Come From?

I've been following these postings for a while, but today I thought I'd put my two cents worth in.

The whole 'อร่อย' /อะหร่อย/ pronunciation is easier to understand if you understand why it's spelled that way.

For people who understand the consonant class system in Thai, you'll know that there are High, Middle and Low class letters. Many people just learn them by rote, not realising where these classes actually came from.

I often say in my classes that "Thai is a language with and identity crisis". Before some people start swinging punches, let me explain. 'Traditional Thai Words' (whose definition is another can of worms in itself) are made up of monosyllabic units just like Chinese. These syllables have tones that evolved over them because of what's happening in the mouth and throat when they're pronounced. Positions of sounds in the mouth change over geography and time as a result of how filters have affected the way one person hears and reproduces a sound that someone else produces.

The Thai written alphabet is based on the Indic script / sound system. Even though ancient Vedic Sanskrit was actually recited with tones, the script in itself doesn't have a 'tonal system' built into it. This 'identity crisis' that I referred to is that Thai uses a non-tonally based writing system to write a tonal language.

(See the excerpt that I attached from a chart I use in my book that shows the relationship between the Indic sound system and Thai. You'll see how many of the original sounds from the Indic sound system were filtered, merged, fused and divided.)

The original sounds in Ancient Thai were a little different to the way we hear them today. If you have a look in the second column of the Indic 5 x 5 table of consonants, you'll see that they all had a big 'h' - puff of air (aspiration) over the top of them. All letters that from this column (having this 'heavily aspirated' characteristic) were put in a group and now known as อักษรสูง (High Class). This heavy aspiration opened the throat up at the beginning of a syllable, affecting the 'tone' or 'pitch' .. or just 'quality' of the following vowel. The high class is represented by 'ห' - 'h', and by attaching one of these babies to a low class will turn it into a high class. Before the aspiration was present, but nowadays it's been lost.

The Middle class is taken from the first column of the Indic 5 x 5 consonant table. By the time these were filtered by Thai ears, these were all pronounced with the glottis (back of the throat) closed at the beginning of the sound. This closing or 'clipping' of the back of the throat is a natural thing that happens with native Thai speakers and native speakers of many southern Chinese dialects like Cantonese.

SO WHAT THE HECK DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

Just like we can make High Class letters by putting a ห in front of non-high-class letters, middle class sounds (sounds that have the glottis closed at the beginning of the syllable) were written by placing an อ in front of the non-middle class letter. The word อร่อย would have probably orignally sounded like 'roy', though with a detectable throaty kind of stop at the beginning cause by the glottis going from a hard closed position then opening for the vowel. As the language changed over time and distance, the glottis closed at the beginning of a middle class sound turned into a 'อะ' sound for ease of pronunciation. This doesn't happen over words like อยู่ - 與, อย่าง - 樣, อยาก and อย่า because of the nature of the relationship between semi vowel ย and the closed glottis.

SUMMARY

These 'anomaly' of the 'a' being pronounced and not written in อร่อย came about from อร่อย being a traditional Thai word in the Middle Class. You can tell that อร่อย is a Thai word and not Sanskrit / Pali based word by 1. It is only 1 syllable (but there are monosyllabic Sanskrit words), and 2. There is a tone marker used. Sanskrit words won't use tone-markers.

If it was a Sanskrit based word, it would be easier to understand. All Sanskrit consonants have an inherent vowel sound. In Sanskrit it was the short /a/ sound อะ - but was actually pronounced more like เออะ. By the time this came across to Thai, this inherent vowel sound became อ and in between letters, โอะ. The original pronunciation of Sanskrit words is retained however as is their spelling, so words like อนาคต /anakhot/ (future) are pronounced with the 'a' in front.

J.

A_comparative_sound_and_letter_chart_between_Sanskrit.doc

[Jay_Jay]

Here's the attachment from my last post with a couple of corrections (Sanskrit --> Thai Conversion Chart)

A_comparative_sound_and_letter_chart_between_Sanskrit.doc

[Richard W]

This 'identity crisis' that I referred to is that Thai uses a non-tonally based writing system to write a tonal language.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Whoa! Don't forget that Thai has always had the two tone marks mai ek and mai tho (or at least, since Sukhothai times). Any crisis would have arisen with the 'tone-split' by type of initial consonant - a phenomenon that has also affected many other tone languages in the region.

The original sounds in Ancient Thai were a little different to the way we hear them today.  If you have a look in the second column of the Indic 5 x 5 table of consonants, you'll see that they all had a big 'h' - puff of air (aspiration) over the top of them.  All letters that from this column (having this 'heavily aspirated' characteristic) were put in a group and now known as อักษรสูง (High Class).  This heavy aspiration opened the throat up at the beginning of a syllable, affecting the 'tone' or 'pitch' .. or just 'quality' of the following vowel.  The high class is represented by 'ห' - 'h', and by attaching one of these babies to a low class will turn it into a high class.  Before the aspiration was present, but nowadays it's been lost.

Don't forget that the development of words with tone marks or final stop consonants, nor that different developments happened in different parts of Thailand. (Thailand shows most of the different developments - for example, the tone development most typical of Chinese Tai languages can also be found in the Tak Bai dialects.)

The Middle class is taken from the first column of the Indic 5 x 5 consonant table.  By the time these were filtered by Thai ears, these were all pronounced with the glottis (back of the throat) closed at the beginning of the sound.  This closing or 'clipping' of the back of the throat is a natural thing that happens with native Thai speakers and native speakers of many southern Chinese dialects like Cantonese.

The pre-glottalised sounds, which you are describing, are those now written with บ ด ฎ. A fair bit of this filtering was done be Cambodian, which didn't have the sounds of ป and ต immediately before vowels. (It does now.) The oldest Indic loans in Thai start with บ or ด; more recent or re-fashioned loans start with ป or ต. Thai has always distinguished the sounds of initial บ and ด from initial ป and ต.

SO WHAT THE HECK DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

Just like we can make High Class letters by putting a ห in front of non-high-class letters, middle class sounds (sounds that have the glottis closed at the beginning of the syllable) were written by placing an อ in front of the non-middle class letter.  The word อร่อย would have probably orignally sounded like 'roy', though with a detectable throaty kind of stop at the beginning cause by the glottis going from a hard closed position then opening for the vowel.  As the language changed over time and distance, the glottis closed at the beginning of a middle class sound turned into a 'อะ' sound for ease of pronunciation. This doesn't happen over words like อยู่  - 與, อย่าง  - 樣, อยาก and อย่า because of the nature of the relationship between semi vowel ย and the closed glottis.

Do you have any evidence for this? While there is pretty good evidence for a preglottalised cluster อย, and a few linguists suggest อว, there's no evidence for the likes of preglottalised อร or อม in the Tai languages. These clusters may exist in more distantly related languages, such as the Kam-Sui group, but I think you will find that pre-glottalised sonorants merged with pre-aspirated sonorants.

อย is a different matter. I have wondered if that comes from a pre-glottalised จ, but I don't have any evidence either way. (Pre-glottalised ก seems to have merged with plain ก, but the history of the velar consonants seems very messy.)

I notice you didn't put ฮ in your chart. Is that because you can't decide whether to derive if from อ or ร? Do you want to add the Pali ฬ? (It corresponds to Sanskrit ฑ, as in the Sanskrit/Pali doublet กรีฑา/กีฬา 'sport'.)