SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate, within the framework of generative grammar, the role of accent in colloquial standard Thai. The result of this investigation has led one to conclude that accent in Thai is predictable by a series of phonological rules which have two functions in the language. One is the syntactic function since accent is used to distinguish utterances with identical phonological representations but with different syntactic structures; the other is the interpretative function in mapping the phonological representation of an utterance onto its phonetic representation. This thesis is divided into three parts :- Part One contains two chapters. Chapter One gives an account of the theoretical framework, followed by an outline of the aims and scope of the thesis. Chapter Two contains a review of previous works on accent or stress. Part Two consists of three chapters. Chapter Three gives an account and the results of a recognition test of the contrastive role of accent. Chapter Four illustrates the syntactic role in the analyses of utterances used in the recognition test. The predictability of accent is described in Chapter Five in a series of accent placement rules. The interpretative function of accent is described in Part Three which consists of three chapters. Chapter Six deals with the length assignment rules. Chapter Seven deals with the segmental feature assignment rules and Chapter Eight deals with the pitch feature assignment rules. The thesis is then concluded with a summary.