Review of "A reference grammar of Thai"

Abstract

The volume under review is a landmark in Tai linguistics. Although exceeded in terms of scope and depth of analysis by Enfield’s (2007) A Grammar of Lao, A Reference Grammar of Thai (henceforth RGT)—first published in 2005 and reissued in paperback in 2009—is the first comprehensive grammar of a Tai language written from a functional perspective. It makes extensive and effective use of well-transcribed interactional data, as well as of the manifold insights and decades of experience of its two authors, one of whom is a native speaker of Thai. As its title suggests, RGT is conceived somewhat differently from most grammars being written by descriptive linguists nowadays. Namely, as a “reference grammar”, RGT is explicitly designed to be of equal use-value to linguists and to students and teachers of the Thai language. This is no simple task. To satisfy the needs of the first group, the authors must provide sufficient and theoretically well grounded information regarding the distribution, semantics, and grammatical status of every form and construction which is identified. To satisfy the needs of the second group, the authors must provide accessible, well-exemplified descriptions of use which can be readily built-on in practice, with a minimum of jargon and theoretical or typological discussion. Added to this is the seemingly simple matter of representation of data, which must be both accurate and, in a sense, normalized, if it is to provide both the level of detail regarding variation and reliability to satisfy the needs of both groups. In this reviewer’s opinion, the authors achieve their desired balance about as effectively as anyone could. Nonetheless, by the very nature of the enterprise, there are likely to be areas in which description and analysis are insufficient for the purposes of some linguists, and, there are indeed several. Thus, while RGT is and will almost certainly remain the leading “first stop” reference work on Thai grammar for many years to come, it is far from the last word on the topic. Below, I provide a summary of RGT’s presentation in section 2, followed by a brief general evaluation in section 3.