| บทคัดย่อ(English) |
This research compares the tonal systems and the phonetic characteristics oftones in the speech of the "Lao", the "Nyo", and the "Phutai" in That Phanomdistrict, Nakhon Phanom province in order to show the extent to which speakers oflanguages in the same language family who live in the same area and are in constantcontact manage to maintain their distinct tonal systems and phonetic characteristicsof tones. Nine villages -- three in the north, three in the centre, and three in thesouth of the northern part of That Phanom district -- were selected as studylocations. Based on information from village headmen and villagers, each studylocation selected must be inhabited only by a single group. The data were collectedfrom 45 informants -- 20 of the "Lao", 15 of the "Nyo", and 10 of the "Phutai". Thewordlist consists of 150 items --10 tokens of 15 words in two analogous sets. Auditory judgement was used to analyse the tonal systems while instrumentalanalysis to analyse the phonetic characteristics. As far as tonal system isconcerned, that of the "Phutai" is distinct from those of the "Lao" and the "Nyo".The "Phutai" systems found in this study still maintain the distinctivecharacteristics of the typical Phutai tonal system. The "Lao" systems all vary fromthe typical Lao tonal system while all except one of the Nyo systems also vary fromthe typical Nyo tonal system. As far as phonetic characteristics are concerned, manytones in the speech of the three groups are found to be similar. Considering the relationship between how a group calls themselves and theirlanguage as well as the linguistic characteristics of their speech, it is found thatin the area of study the "Phutai" is the only group which is consistent in all of thethree aspects. The "Lao" and the "Nyo" call themselves and their languagesdifferently but the linguistic characteristics of their speech show a considerableamount of mixture. This research shows that a tonal study can demonstrate thepatterns of language mixture among the ethnic groups that speak languages in the samefamily and live in the same area. |
