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Downloaded from Brill.Com09/30/2021 08:31:41AM Via Free Access Multiple Meanings of the Pronoun /Haw/ in Tai Lue MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF of Tai Lue, namely Tai Lue Chiang Mai THE PRONOUN /HAW/ IN (TLC), Tai Lue Luangphrabang (TLL), and Tai Lue Xishuangbanna (TLX). The 1 TAI LUE data were collected through Labovian sociolinguistic interviews (1984), by which Kittinata Rhekhalilit2 27 informants were asked to narrate a story on controlled topics, and through Abstract participant observation. The analysis shows that the three selected dialects of Tai Lue concur in their use of the pronoun In many languages, personal pronouns are /haw/ as first person plural pronoun. used to imply characteristics of speakers However, it is found that each dialect uses and social relationships between pronoun the /haw/ with different shades of participants (Agha 2007). This is meaning when being used by individual particularly true of members of the Tai speakers. Two dialects, TLC and TLL, tend language family, such as Zhuang to use the pronoun /haw/ to index intimacy (Kullavanijaya 2009), Standard Thai while talking to addressees of younger age (Cooke 1968; Palakornkul 1972; Simpson or lower social status. In TLX, pronoun 1997), Standard Lao (Enfield 1966; /haw/ seems to be different in that it is Compton 2002), Kham Mueang and Tai exclusively used by monks. In conclusion, Lue (Rhekhalilit 2010). A number of this study describes sociolinguistic use of studies of Southwestern Tai languages the pronoun /haw/ in Tai Lue. It can be have found that the first person plural used either with unmarked first person pronoun /haw/ or /raw/ can be used in plural meaning or first person singular several contexts, apart from referring to a meaning with some social indicates such group of speakers. For example, the as intimacy between participants and the pronoun /raw/ in Standard Thai indexes status of monkhood. intimacy between participants when being used by particular individual speakers. Introduction The current paper investigates the Tai Lue first person plural pronoun and how it can A large body of research generally agrees be used in wider contexts. Adopting a that the use of personal pronouns in qualitative approach, it aims at analyzing several languages is a primary method the pronoun /haw/ spoken in three dialects used to encode the relationships between the participants of the conversation (such 1 as Agha 2007). According to Brown and The first version of this paper was presented in The 4th FLL International Postgraduate Gilman (1960), European second person Conference: Expanding Research in Languages pronouns V and T function as a social and Linguistics in Asia (FLLIPC 2013), 11-12 marker, indicating power and solidarity April 2013, Faculty of Language and between the participants respectively. Linguistics University of Malaya. Similarly, Tai personal pronouns are also This paper was subsidized by RGJ scholarship marked by social meanings. In Standard program by Thailand Research Fund. Thai, for example, first person pronoun 2 Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Linguisitics, /phǒm/ is typically used by a male speaker Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, in formal contexts whereas its counterpart Bangkok, Thailand /di.chán/ is used by a female speaker. In Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 08:31:41AM via free access Multiple Meanings of the Pronoun /haw/ in Tai Lue casual contexts, the first person pronoun Cooke 1968). Pronoun /raw/ is primarily for males is unmarked /kuu/ which is used as a first person plural pronoun as in reciprocal to the pronoun /mɨŋ/, a second the following examples, person pronoun. In other Tai languages, a paper on Zhuang pronoun systems by (1) กกก Kullavanijaya (2009) describes personal jùu.jùu kru kɔɔ phuut pronoun systems in some dialects of Zhuang as also being marked by social suddenly teacher PART say indexes, such as politeness, intimacy, and kĥn maa naj sìŋ thî social status. For example, pronoun ascend come in something which /kho:i35/ in Debao dialect is used as a phûak.raw kam.laŋ rɔɔ humble self-referring term, reciprocal to we PROGRESS wait pronoun /tsau35/, showing respect to the “Suddenly, the teacher said something we addressee. are waiting for.” In Rhekhalilit (2010), the pronoun systems In (1), the pronoun /raw/ is marked by of Kham Mueang and Tai Lue are pluralizing marker ก /phûak/, literally analyzed to show the different dimensions meaning ‘group’, emphasizing the group of contrast between these two sister of the speakers, in this case, students. languages. The analysis reveals that pronoun systems in both languages are These studies also reveal that the pronoun marked by eight dimensions of contrast. /raw/ is used to refer to a singular definite Both Kham Mueang and Tai Lue pronoun self-referring expression, mainly indexing systems share the five similar features of intimacy between conversation 1) person, 2) number, 3) relative status, 4) participants. For example, intimacy and 5) the presence of monk. However, they are different in other (2) ก ก dimensions. In Kham Mueang, there are three additional dimensions namely, 6) di.chăn jaak rɔ́ɔŋ.hâaj gender, 7) inclusiveness and 8) deference. I(female) want cry Compared to that of Kham Mueang, Tai raw rák khǎw thɛ̂ɛp taaj Lue pronoun system spoken in Lampang we love he almost die province consists of three additional different dimensions of contrast, tham.maj khǎw mâj rûu specifically, 6) gender of speaker, 7) why he NOT know gender of addressee, and 8) formality. “I (female) want to cry. I love him so much. Why he doesn’t even know.” As mentioned in earlier paragraphs, personal pronouns in Tai languages are From (2), the pronoun /raw/ is used to marked by social markers, particularly the refer to the speaker herself as equivalent to first person pronoun /haw/ or its the pronoun /di.chăn/ in the previous equivalent /raw/. Many studies of the clause. This example shows the singular Standard Thai pronoun system share the meaning of pronoun /raw/ in Standard same conclusion that there are multiple Thai. Moreover, Cooke (1968) and Higbie meanings of the pronoun /raw/ (i.e. and Thinsan (2003), confirm that the Simpson 1997; Higbie and Thinsan 2003; 35 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 08:31:41AM via free access MANUSYA: Journal of Humanities, Special Issue No 20, 2014 pronoun /raw/ is also used as a second To sum up, from the previous studies, the person singular pronoun, exclusively when pronoun /raw/ in Standard Thai has four referring to lower or inferior addressee. different meanings: 1) first person plural, For example, 2) first person singular with intimacy, 3) second person singular with lower status, (3) ก and 4) generic meaning. raw mæ̂æ wâ jàa caj rɔ́ɔn In Standard Lao, Enfield’s analysis (1966) mother COMP we don’t heart hot suggests that the pronoun /haw/ can also paj loej lûuk be used with either a plural or singular go PART child meaning. In contrast with Standard Thai, it “I think that you shouldn’t be hot- is commonly used by children, especially tempered, my son.” when talking to their parents, in order to lower the formality in a family From (3), the mother, who is speaking to conversation. her son, refers to him as /raw/, showing the lower status of the addressee. This multiple usage of pronoun /haw/ is also found in northern branches of the Tai Lastly, Simpson (1997) also adds its language, such as Zhuang. Kullavanijaya generic function, equivalent to generic we (2009) analyses different dialects of in English. For example, Zhuang and finds that pronoun /ɤau31/ in Debao dialect has three different (4) ก meanings, that is 1) first person plural; 2) (Simpson 1997:171) first person singular indexing intimacy; raw and 3) second person singular indexing càʔ aw tɛ̀ɛ caj lower status and intimacy. we will take but heart tua.ʔeŋ kɔ̂ɔ mâj dâj In conclusion, these three examples from self PART NOT get Tai personal pronoun analysis agree that raw tɔ̂ŋ duu rɔ̂ɔp khâaŋ the pronouns /raw/, /haw/, and /ɤau31/ we must look all around share the multiple meanings of first person pronoun; that is, the unmarked plural dûaj wâa mɔ̀ʔsǒm řɨ plàaw meaning and the singular with some social also COMP appropriate or not indexes as summarized in Table 1 below. “We can’t just satisfy our own desire; we have to look around too and see if it’s appropriate or not.” The example (4) from Simpson (1997: 173) shows the generic use of the pronoun /raw/ in order to “downplay the speaker’s personal experience” and in order to emphasize the shared standpoint of a larger group instead. 36 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 08:31:41AM via free access Multiple Meanings of the Pronoun /haw/ in Tai Lue Table1 A comparison of meanings of the first person plural pronouns in some Tai languages Standard Thai /raw/ Standard Lao /haw/ Zhuang Debao /ɤau31/ First person plural X X X First person singular X X indexing intimacy First person singular X lowering formality in a conversation Second person X X singular indexing lower status of the addressee Generic meaning X Table 1 summarizes the multiple meanings native speakers, the number of studies on of pronouns /raw/, /haw/ and /ɤau31/ in the use of personal pronouns in this dialect some Tai languages. Clearly, these are still limited. As a result, this paper pronouns share the first person plural aims to provide an insightful explanation meaning, but their singular meanings are of the pronoun /haw/ in Tai Lue to fill in differently marked by some social the gap in the literature in this area. indexicalities such as intimacy and lower status of either the speaker (as found in According to Lewis, Simons and Fenning Standard Lao /haw/) or the addressee (as (n.d.), Tai Lue is a literary Tai language found in Standard Thai /raw/ and Zhuang spoken in several areas of Southeast Asia, such as Xishuangbanna in Yunnan ɤau31 / /).
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