Abstract:
The objectives of this study are to analyze syntactic, semantic and phonological properties of coordinate compounds in Thai. Syntactically, coordinate compounds are found to consist of two free morphemes of the same parts of speech both functioning as heads. Coordinate compounds have the same syntactic categories as those of their constituents, i.e. nouns, verbs, and adjectives. It is not possible to insert any elements between the two components. They cannot switch the order either. Semantically, coordinate compounds should be viewed as a continuum. Coordinate compounds can be classified into 3 main groups according to the degree of compositional meaning present in the coordinate compounds, namely, compounds with high-compositional meaning, compounds with mid-compositional meaning and compounds with low-compositional meaning. Compounds with high-compositional meaning express similar meanings as those of their components. They often represent superordinate terms. In this case, the meanings of coordinate compounds emerge by means of metonymy. Compounds with mid-compositional meaning express both similar and different meanings from those of their components. They are likely to become compounds with low-compositional meanings in the near future. Compounds with low-compositional meaning have different meanings from those of their components. Compounds with low-compositional meanings arises by means of metaphtonymy. Phonologically, it is found that both initial and final syllables can be live or dead. However, the dead syllable appears less finally. Most coordinate compounds have the [live+live] syllable structure. In terms of stress, most coordinate compounds consist of the [unstressed+stressed] syllable structure. In case of tone, the pattern [falling-tone+mid-tone] structure appears the most frequently. On the other hand, the [mid-high], the [rising-high] and the [mid-low] tone patterns are not found in coordinate compounds.