A Little Help On Thai Toning Rulez

[Tod Daniels]

Can one of the language pundits on here take a look at this document I made up concerning the thai tone rulez?

Thai Tone Rulez.doc

I tried to incorporate stuff from a couple books Ive got. Im trying my best to see if I can get my head around the toning of thai words. (I guess its about time, lol. )

One thing; in the document I made up, from the several books I perused I use the term non-short vowels which encompasses all the long vowels, plus the vowels อำ, ไอ, ใอ, เอา and also เอย.

I could be missing some of the ending consonants too, but that's all the book had listed. I know the terminology doesn't jive with other books, but at least so far I understand it.

I just wanna know if the toning rules under each class of consonants are correct. I tested it on some common single syllable words and it seemed to work, but on some compound words it didn't. Now whether I didn't know how to delineate the syllables or whether the words I tested it on were irregular pronunciation, I dunno.

The I think Im correct on a couple things;

*the second ANY thai word has a tone mark, both vowel length and final stop become irrelevant (unlike when theyre unmarked and either consonant-vowel constructs, or consonant-vowel-ending consonant constructs).

*low class consonants can NEVER carry a low or rising tone.

*middle class consonants can carry all 5 thai tones.

*high class consonants can NEVER carry a mid or high tone.

Are the above four things correct?

Again, Im trying as hard as I can to figure this stuff out after all this time studying thai. I could be making it more complicated than it is, but at least this way I'm starting to have it 'click' for me.

Any input is appreciated, and ALL corrections are welcome.

Thanx in advance (Sorry for the bother. .. )

Tod

Edited December 6, 2010 by tod-daniels

[coma]

ถูกต้องทั้งหมดนะครับ

Yes. That is all correct.

However low class consonants can carry rising or low tones by simply adding ห หีบ in front of the leading consonant with the low tone also requiring ไม้เอก. LIKE THIS หนาว rising tone cold

หมวก low tone hat or

หนึ่ง low tone number one

Edited December 6, 2010 by coma

[Tod Daniels]

I'll add one more thing to this empty thread.

I've studied thai for going on 3 years (a coupla hours a day at home and 180 hours of group lessons at a private thai school), can read/understand what I've read quite well. I also seem to converse pretty easily (at least with thais who already know my squirrelly foreign accent and my abysmal toning ). It's only been these last three days that I've attempted to 'get' the toning rules.

Before that I purposely blurred low, mid, hi tone words, and concentrated on only learning the hi-frequency falling or rising toned words which I'd use in daily conversation.

It has made me come to the realization that it's gonna be quite a tough frickin' row to hoe 'un-learning' my wrong pronunciation on words and then forcing myself to re-learn the words using the correct tone.

In hindsight, I think it'd have been far easier to learn the correct tone to start with . Then again I’ve got boxes of hindsight here at the apartment for things in my life which I learned after the fact. (I guess every one does too, to some extent).

When I first started learning I concentrated completely on learning thai words, meanings and its approximate sound totally by sight recognition and memorization of how the word was spelled in regards to similar sounding (to foreign ears) words which had different spelling and meaning. FWIW: It has given me an incredible vocabulary of written thai, but alas, a not so good one as far as spoken thai goes.

Un-learning is a tough process in and of itself.

Still, I feel there might be hope for me yet in actually being able to communicate with some semblance of fairly clear, coherently spoken thai. However it is all too apparent that will be some way down the proverbial road in language acquisition.

[Tod Daniels]

<SNIP>

However low class consonants can carry rising or low tones by simply adding ห หีบ in front of the leading consonant with the low tone also requiring ไม้เอก. LIKE THIS หนาว rising tone cold<SNIP>

Thanx for that info;

That was actually covered in a part of the book called “ห leads a word starting with a low class consonant”.

As for as myself; I took it to mean that the word actually starts with a silent but most definitely a ‘hi class consonant’; ห, compelling it to follow hi class toning rules.

I left it off the chart, much like the 4 ย words which อ 'leads' (อย่า, อยู่, อยาก & อย่าง) which again to my understanding means those words start with อ compelling them to follow middle class consonant toning rules.

If my understanding of it is off the mark lemme know.

And thanx again for the feedback!

Edited December 6, 2010 by tod-daniels

[LazyYogi]

<SNIP>

However low class consonants can carry rising or low tones by simply adding ห หีบ in front of the leading consonant with the low tone also requiring ไม้เอก. LIKE THIS หนาว rising tone cold<SNIP>

Thanx for that info;

That was actually covered in a part of the book called “ห leads a word starting with a low class consonant”.

As for as myself; I took it to mean that the word actually starts with a silent but most definitely a ‘hi class consonant’; ห, compelling it to follow hi class toning rules.

I left it off the chart, much like the 4 ย words which อ 'leads' (อย่า, อยู่, อยาก & อย่าง) which again to my understanding means those words start with อ compelling them to follow middle class consonant toning rules.

If my understanding of it is off the mark lemme know.

And thanx again for the feedback!

That's the exact same understanding I have, and your tone rules look good.

You can actually consolidate the rules a little by using the terms "live syllable" and "dead syllable".

"Live syllables" includes non-short vowels and sonorant finals.

"Dead syllables" includes short vowels and stop finals.

[Richard W]

Just a few niggles:

One thing; in the document I made up, from the several books I perused I use the term ‘non-short vowels’ which encompasses all the long vowels, plus the vowels อำ, ไอ, ใอ, เอา and also เอย.

I winced at their being counted as long vowels - it's better to think of them as vowel + sonorant.

ฤ (and ฦ) count as low consonants (+ vowel) for the tone rules.

If you are going to list obsolete ฃ as a high consonant, you might as well list obsolete ฅ as a low consonant.

One gotcha is that ฑ is sometimes a middle consonant pronounced ด, as in บัณฑิต.

You didn't complete the บ set of final consonants, e.g. บาป กรุงเทพ วัลลภ ลิฟต์

[Tod Daniels]

Thanx to all for the corrections.

I'm definitely getting more of a handle on toning thai words now than I've ever had before.

When I first attempted to learn the toning rules the terminology live and dead syllables (used in most learn thai as a foreigner books for the explanation of thai toning rules) was what got me ‘off script’ up as I couldn’t get my head around it. Looking back now, I was making it harder than it really is, but at least I understand the way I have this sheet formatted, even if it is more cumbersome.

I printed it on both sides of a 3X5 note card, which I laminated and carry for quick reference. I'll make the appropriate changes and use it until I can memorize everything. At least now when I see a thai word, (even the many, many thai words which I know solely by sight recognition) I'll try to tone it, then check my card to see how I've done.

I'm definitely getting better at recognizing the tone of a written thai word, (now I see why only thais who know my foreign accented and screwy toned spoken thai understand me right outta the gate when I talk to them ). I'll get there at some point in the future, just not today.

Again, thanx for the helpful feedback.

Edited December 11, 2010 by tod-daniels

[RickBradford]

One more little rule; a 'dead' syllable can never carry the mid-tone (also I think it very rarely carries the rising tone - it would need a mid-class consonant with the appropriate tone marker, and I can't recall having seen a word like that).

[Richard W]

One more little rule; a 'dead' syllable can never carry the mid-tone (also I think it very rarely carries the rising tone - it would need a mid-class consonant with the appropriate tone marker, and I can't recall having seen a word like that).

จ๋ะ is the only one I can recall in Siamese, and I'm not sure that it's properly a dead syllable - does it have a final glottal stop? In transliterations, I've seen mai chattawa used on dead syllables with both high and mid consonants.