proto-southwestern-tai revised: a new reconstruction - seals 22

244 Songgot Paanchiangwong
Note, however, that neither the reduplication nor the hơi constructions convey the sense of
intensification to the same extent as the VnU reduplication with rising tone on the first
iteration. In Standard Vietnamese the senses of very X or X very much are typically
handled by constructions with intensifiers rất and lắm. For example:
(11) SVn: Anh ấy sửa chữa đồng hồ của tôi rất tốt.
Eng: He repairs my watch very well.
(12) SVn: Mẹ mua áo rất đẹp cho con.
Eng: Mother! Buy me a very beautiful shirt.
(13) SVn: Anh ấy sửa chữa đồng hồ của tôi tốt lắm.
Eng: He repairs my watch very well.
(14) SVn: Mẹ mua áo đẹp lắm cho con.
Eng: Mother! Buy me a very beautiful shirt.
Yet in Standard Thai senses of very X or X very much are typically handled by complete
reduplication with the first iteration given a rising tone regardless of its original tone value
(i.e. oo 36 + oo n ). For example:
(15) ST: k�aw 323 t�am 33 ��k 32 ma 33 di 36 di 33 n� 35
Eng: S/he does very well, doesn’t s/he?
(16) ST: na� 33 saw 323 t�aj 33 pi 33 ni 35 suaj 36 suaj 323 n� 35
Eng: Miss Thailand this year is very beautiful, isn’t she?
(17) ST: mua 352 wan 33 t�an 323 hen 323 luk 35 c�aj 33 t�� 33 k�ap 33 rot 35 �ew 36 �ew 33
Eng: Yesterday I saw your son; he was driving very fast.
(18) ST: lu� 33 ho 33 pen 33 p�u� 354 nam 33 naj 33 kan 33 rop 354 t� 32 tan 354 fa �33 ra� 32
set 32 c�aw 33 viet 354 nam 33 rak 36 rak 33 lu� 33 ho 33
Eng: The president Ho Chi Minh is a leader of fighting against France so
Vietnamese people love him very much.
Thus it is clear that there is structural equivalence in reduplication between
Standard Thai and Vietnamese spoken by immigrant Vietnamese in Udon Thani. The
result of the study shows that a pattern of complete reduplication of Thai (with the first
iteration given a rising tone, regardless of the original tone) is used by the Vietnamese
speakers in Udon Thani with effectively the same semantic impact as equivalent Thai
constructions, despite having access to Standard Vietnamese strategies of using rất and
lắm constructions..
6. Conclusion
Complete reduplication is widely used in spoken Thai to signal intensification, of the sort
translated here as very, very much and so forth. Typically the same kinds of verbal and