Abstract:
This study aims to investigate 1) the semantic relations between heads and dependents in nominal constructions with the possessive marker khɔ̌ɔŋ in Thai 2) the semantic network that reflects different degrees of prototypicality of the relations and 3) the conditions on alternations between the construction with khɔ̌ɔŋ [Xhead khɔ̌ɔŋ Ydependent] and the construction without khɔ̌ɔŋ [Xhead Ydependent] to express the relations. The study is based on the cognitive linguistic approach. The 2,700 data are collected from the Thai National Corpus. The study shows that the semantic relations expressed by the marker khɔ̌ɔŋ can be divided into at least 7 types: 1) OWNERSHIP 2) BODY PART RELATIONSHIPS 3) INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS 4) PART-WHOLE 5) ATTRIBUTES-ATTRIBUTE HOLDERS 6) PREDICATION-PARTICIPANT and 7) WHOLE-CONTENT. According to the semantic network, 1) OWNERSHIP is most center to the prototype as it exhibits a maximal degree of prototypicality. 2) BODY PART RELATIONSHIPS and 3) INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS are close to 1) OWNERSHIP. With a minimal degree of prototypicality, 7) WHOLE-CONTENT is a peripheral member subsumed under linguistic possession expressed by the marker khɔ̌ɔŋ. The conditions on alternations between the construction with khɔ̌ɔŋ and the construction without khɔ̌ɔŋ are lexical attribute of nouns in the constructions, heaviness of noun phrase in the constructions, and idiomaticness of the constructions.