ก็ Why Is It A Long Falling Sound ?

[Ericx_25]

Hi,

(I am new to the thai language , so far I only know the 44 consonants)

In the first vocabulary lesson of "Thai for beginners" ( Benjawan Becker) I see that the word ก็ ("also") is long and falling.

That little mark above the letter should indicate a short sound and I thought that without a tone mark the rule for middle consonants was

- sonorant final or long vowel--> mid tone

- short vowel or stop final --> low tone

How can it be a falling sound ?

Is my rule incorrect or is it one exception to the rule ?

Thanks for reading my post,

Eric

็

[meadish_sweetball]

Your tone rules for middle consonants are all correct.

It's an exception. I am no expert on the exact etymology, but the most probable explanation would be that the word once was pronounced with a short vowel sound, and has since changed to a long vowel sound in the spoken language.

[yoot]

ก็ is a reduced form of เก้าะ - short vowel + falling tone.

Actually the correct pronunciation of this word in spoken language is short but sometimes people pronounced it long just for soften the meaning or pleading. And then used to with it. But if you have to do a Thai exam, you can't answer that it's a long vowel at all.

Edited May 21, 2006 by yoot

[sabaijai]

ก็ is a reduced form of เก้าะ - short vowel + falling tone.

Actually the correct pronunciation of this word in spoken language is short but sometimes people pronounced it long just for soften the meaning or pleading. And then used to with it. But if you have to do a Thai exam, you can't answer that it's a long vowel at all.

Thanks for the explanation, yoot, I never knew that.

Isn't เก้าะ itself an exception to Thai tone/spelling rules, since it's a short vowel without a final stop, an environment which usually can't take a falling tone? Similar to ค่ะ, which is also an exception (or so I was taught). Or was my professor wrong?

[Rikker]

I'm not sure, but I think yoot means that เก้าะ is a phonetic transcription of the standard proper pronunciation of ก็. So ก็ is a sort of special case spelling, but I've never seen anything which would indicate that this word was every actually spelled เก้าะ, or anything other than ก็. The oldest known surviving Thai-English dictionary, Jones 1846 (handwritten), has ก็, but no เก้าะ.

Maybe yoot or others can weigh in, and ideally propose some explanation or evidence one way or the other on historic spelling. A very common modern slang variant is ก้อ, which would seem to indicate a long vowel.

Edited May 22, 2006 by Rikker

[yoot]

Sabaijai and Rikker,

Since both of you can read and understand Thai very well, I think it would be easier for both of you to google this word 'เก้าะ' from google.com. You will get better explanation than I do it myself. It's an exception of course.

Isn't เก้าะ itself an exception to Thai tone/spelling rules, since it's a short vowel without a final stop, an environment which usually can't take a falling tone? Similar to ค่ะ, which is also an exception (or so I was taught). Or was my professor wrong?

I've never heard that a short vowel without a final stop can't take a falling tone before. It's possible but just rare. Another word I can think out is จ้ะ. According to tone rules, word which started with mid class or high class consonant with short vowel without final stop can take a falling tone.

I've never been taught that ค่ะ is an exception. It's simply according to tone rules, why should it be an exception? It's just rarely in used.

[Richard W]

Isn't เก้าะ itself an exception to Thai tone/spelling rules, since it's a short vowel without a final stop, an environment which usually can't take a falling tone? Similar to ค่ะ, which is also an exception (or so I was taught). Or was my professor wrong?

It's an exception in that it isn't a regularly developed form from the 13th century. For a particle it is not, of course, unusual, though in the general scheme it is unusual. But the tone of dead syllables is no longer constrained by vowel length, even though non-form words like this are rare. Pointing out some of them can simply result in being heaped with abuse, as for example in citing พรุ่กนี้, the still extant precursor of พรุ่งนี้ 'tomorrow'. I don't know what to make of Ratchabandit's พรุก - it looks like a spelling mistake to me. But then, Thais find พรุ่กนี้ hard to spell, simply because there are so few similar words.

[Rikker]

My earlier reply was regarding spelling, not pronunciation. I agree with yoot here that it's rare but possible. As for spelling, am I correct that เก้าะ is simply a phonetic transcription of ก็, but has never been the actual spelling? Can anyone cite an example of เก้าะ in print, prior to the advent of the internet? Or can yoot make clear what was meant by ก็ being a "reduced form" of เก้าะ? Abbreviated spelling?

Edited May 22, 2006 by Rikker

[yoot]

My earlier reply was regarding spelling, not pronunciation. I agree with yoot here that it's rare but possible. As for spelling, am I correct that เก้าะ is simply a phonetic transcription of ก็, but has never been the actual spelling? Can anyone cite an example of เก้าะ in print, prior to the advent of the internet? Or can yoot make clear what was meant by ก็ being a "reduced form" of เก้าะ? Abbreviated spelling?

I don't know whether it was used before or not. But in the vowel reduced form rules, it said " สระ 'เ-าะ' ถ้าประสมกับตัว 'ก' และไม้วรรณยุกต์โท แต่ไม่มีตัวสะกด ให้ลดรูปทั้งหมด แล้วใช้ไม้ไต่คู้แทน เป็น 'ก็' อ่านว่า 'เก้าะ' มีใช้อยู่ในภาษาไทยปัจจุบันเพียงคำเดียวเท่านั้น ' So, it seems to me that there was the word 'เก้าะ ' before 'ก็' which is the reduced form.

[Rikker]

Interesting. Where did it say this?