In Thai, there are at least seventeen aspectual `markers', or words that mark aspect on the verb. These words can have multiple functions: some can act as a verb themselves, some cannot. These markers can also occur together but have a number of restrictions on how that can occur. Some can license or block others from occuring; some scope from left to right, and some scope from right to left. Some can appear before the verb, and some afterwards.
In this project, I will present preliminary data to introduce the Thai aspectual system and give a general idea of how the aspectual markers appear in the language. Current analyses are incompatible based on their assumptions of homynymy: when an aspectual marker has two different functions in Thai, should it be considered the same word or two semantically or syntactically distinct words that are pronounced the same?
I discuss the work in Chiravate (2002) and the case for unified definitions of these aspectual markers despite their different functions. Past analyses invoke cross-linguistic patterns for aspectual markers, so I present my own data from consultants in Arabic, Chinese, Thai, and Spanish, and discuss how my data compares to Chiravate’s analysis. I then contrast this analysis of the aspectual system with the work in Koenig and Muansuwan (2005) and discuss how this analysis provides a partitioning of the markers into three different groups in order to justify a syntax and semantics that accounts for the scoping relations of these words, but relies on multiple definitions of some aspectual markers. You can read the full paper here. Please email me for corrections, questions, or comments!