Abstract:
This dissertation aims to study the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties of the two negative forms, /mâj / and /plàaw/ in Thai. The data was collected from Thai National Corpus under the Patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Mahachakri Sirindorn by the Department of Linguistics, the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University; novels; the Internet media; and daily life conversations of the researcher. However, /mâj / and /plàaw/ which are part of question particles such as /rɨ̌ mâj/ and /rɨ̌ plàaw /; and part of fixed expressions such as /mâj pen raj/ and /rɨ̌ kɔ̂ plàaw/ are not included in this study. It is found that /mâj/ can occur in 5 syntactic patterns as follows: 1) occur solely or with final particle(s) 2) precede verb phrase 3) occur with auxiliary 4) precede adverbial phrase and 5) occur in serial verb construction while /plàaw/ can occur in 2 patterns as follows: 1) occur solely or with final particle and 2) before verb phrase. The two negative forms in the first pattern are used to negate the utterance in the previous turn, but when they are in other patterns, they are used to negate the following word or phrase. The result also shows that although /plàaw/ can be used with verbs that are action verbs, stative verbs, and copula /pen/, it cannot precede adjectival verbs, which are a subset of stative verbs. According to their semantic properties, these two negative forms have different meanings i.e. /mâj/ means no and can be used to negate questions or doubts; declaratives; orders; requests; and persuasion while /plàaw/ has more specific meaning as it is used to negate thoughts, beliefs, or presupposition which reside in questions and declarives of other speakers. Moreover, it can be seen that /mâj/ has more pragmatic functions than /plàaw/ does. /mâj/ has 4 marked pragmatic functions which are concealing feelings, interrupting, cutting short while talking, and forbidding; and 3 extra pragmatic functions which are self-repairing, confirming, and repudiating something. And /plàaw/ has only 4 marked pragmatic functions which are concealing feelings, cutting short while talking, making excuses, and expressing that something stated is not important.