Diller, Anthony (1994). Thai. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Semantic and lexical universals: Theory and empirical findings (pp. 149-170). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.25.10dil
This chapter argues that, in assessing how specific NSM primitives could best be represented in Thai and how formulations could be constructed using these items, it is useful to keep a few general features of the language in mind. In fact, just what ‘the language’ might mean for Thai is perhaps the most critical feature. Different speech registers or what Sapir refers to as ‘subforms of language’ are especially salient in the Thai communicative context. NSM formulations in Thai would be a subform. It is assumed that the Thai version of a semantic metalanguage is best constructed as an intimate, informal linguistic subform, as though we were overhearing, say, a mother talking to her daughter.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
