Abstract:
The objectives of this research are to compare tonal realizations in Yong in citation form and connected speech and between 2 age-groups as well as to prove whether there is tone sandhi in Yong as proposed by Ruengdet Pankhuenkhat (1978). Six female informants who live in Tambon Pasang, Pasang district, Lamphun province were interviewed. They belong to 2 age-groups - 13-18 years old and over 60 years old. The wordlist was constructed based on A checklist for determining tones in Tai dialects by William J. Gedney (1972). Some words not in that list were added. The connected speech was recorded during conversation between the informants and the researcher. The contexts analyzed are the middle and the end of non-emphatic affirmative utterances.The results of the analysis show that there are 6 tones in the Lamphun Yong tone system. Pitch range in citation form is wider than in connected speech. The range in mid utterance speech is narrower than at utterance ending. The realizations of the level tones, i.e. tone 2 mid level, tone 3 low level, and tone 4 higher-mid level in citation form is the same as in connected speech whereas the realizations of the contour tones, i.e. tone 1 mid-rising, tone 5 mid-falling, and tone 6 high-falling in connected speech show less rising and falling than those in citation form especially in mid utterance. A comparison between the two age groups shows that every tone has the same number of allotones. A comparison between Lamphun Yong and Yong in Muang Yong shows that tone 3 in Lamphun Yong is low level while in Yong Muang Yong it is low-rising. Moreover, it is found that tone 2 and tone 4 in some words in the teenage group have the same realizations as in the Lamphun variety of Northern Thai. It shows that the Lamphun variety of Northern Thai is exerting influence on Lamphun Yong. Tone sandhi in two syllabic words is found only when the second syllable is tone 2 and the first is tone 3. Tonal variation found in this research shows that Lamphun Yong is different from Yong Muang Yong and that its tonal characteristics may become similar to those of the Lamphun variety of Northern Thai.