User:RichardW57/NT draft

Consonant Cluster Supplement
TODO: Cite thwaai from Katsura

Syllabic Consonants
TODO: Write up from Katsura, possibly also Hartmann, and merge in Nan comments.

Tone Sandhi
The low-rising tone becomes a low-level tone when followed by any of the other tones in close juncture.
 * สามโมง (sam mong, [sàːm mōːŋ]) three o'clock from สาม (sam, [sǎːm]) three and โมง (mong [mōːŋ]) hour.

Tone Correspondences
The tone correspondences between Tai dialects and languages may be presented by the use of Gedney tone boxes. The cells present the the tone to be expected for the consonant class of the 'ancient' initial consonant given by the row and the reconstructed tone given by the column. For the Tai languages of Thailand, four rows suffice:


 * The initial letters in the Tai Tham script are in the high class by Northern Thai rules, but the letters in the Thai and Lao scripts are in the middle class by Thai and Lao rules. Correspondingly, Rows 1 and 2 behave the same in Northern Thai, but Rows 2 and 3 behave the same in Standard Thai and Lao.


 * In Standard Thai, most words starting /j/ but belonging in Row 3 are written with หย or ย,, as though belonging in Row 1 or Row 4.

The reconstructed tone generally corresponds to the syllable type and tone mark in the orthographies of Standard Thai, Northern Thai in Tai Tham script and Lao:

Not every word fits into a cell in the Gedney box. For example, unchecked monosyllables startinɡ with /ʔ/ are not restricted to the tones implied by the Gedney boxes, though these exceptional words are relatively infrequent.

Here are some (50-year old) Gedney tone boxes for Northern Thai: