Thai
Tai-Kadai family · Kam-Tai branch · Eurasia
Thai is an SVO language, like 488 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.
On Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses, WALS codes Thai as “Moderately differentiated; other”, a value held by 3 of the 138 languages coded, the others being Batak (Karo) and Mupun.
The closest grammar profile to Thai in the atlas belongs to Vietnamese, an Austro-Asiatic language: the two agree on 96 of the 117 features both have coded.
On Negative Morphemes, WALS codes Thai as “Negative auxiliary verb”, a value held by 47 of the 1,157 languages coded, Finnish and Sanuma among them.
Contrast Thai with Vietnamese or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Thai, rarest first.
- Politeness Distinctions in PronounsPronouns avoided for politeness7 of 207
- Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns'We' and 'I' identical10 of 200
- Voicing and Gaps in Plosive SystemsMissing /g/34 of 567
- Zero Marking of A and P ArgumentsZero-marking16 of 235
- Definite ArticlesNo definite article but indefinite article45 of 620
- Nonperiphrastic Causative ConstructionsNo morphological type or compound type23 of 310
- Fusion of Selected Inflectional FormativesIsolating/concatenative13 of 165
- Action Nominal ConstructionsMixed: Several patterns in the same language14 of 168
Inside the Tai-Kadai family
Thai matches the most frequent Tai-Kadai value on 28 of the 34 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (82%).
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Thai; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Thai for 124 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 113 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Thai shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 14
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Tone | Complex tone system | 88 of 527 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Moderately low | 101 of 564 |
| The Velar Nasal | Velar nasal, also initially | 147 of 469 |
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 184 of 564 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in plosives alone | 189 of 567 |
| Consonant Inventories | Average | 201 of 563 |
| Syllable Structure | Moderately complex syllable structure | 274 of 486 |
| Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | 388 of 567 |
| Glottalized Consonants | No glottalized consonants | 409 of 567 |
| Vowel Nasalization | Contrastive nasal vowels absent | 180 of 244 |
| Presence of Uncommon Consonants | None | 449 of 567 |
| Uvular Consonants | No uvulars | 470 of 567 |
| Absence of Common Consonants | All present | 503 of 567 |
| Front Rounded Vowels | None | 525 of 562 |
Word structure 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Little or no inflectional morphology | 141 of 969 |
| Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb | 2-3 categories per word | 24 of 145 |
| Locus of Marking in the Clause | P has no marking | 42 of 236 |
| Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking | No subject person/number marking | 57 of 198 |
| Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Possessor is dependent-marked | 98 of 236 |
| Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives | No case | 75 of 162 |
| Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Inconsistent marking or other type | 121 of 236 |
| Case Syncretism | Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal | 123 of 198 |
| Reduplication | Productive full and partial reduplication | 278 of 368 |
| Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection | monoexponential TAM | 127 of 160 |
Nouns and pronouns 21
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| The Associative Plural | Associative plural absent | 37 of 236 |
| Ordinal Numerals | First/one-th, two-th, three-th | 54 of 321 |
| Indefinite Articles | Indefinite word distinct from numeral for 'one' | 102 of 534 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are obligatory | 78 of 400 |
| Distributive Numerals | No distributive numerals | 62 of 251 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | No possessive affixes | 260 of 902 |
| Asymmetrical Case-Marking | No morphological case-marking | 81 of 261 |
| Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection | No person marking at all | 70 of 200 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 379 of 1,031 |
| Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers | Formally similar, involving interrogative expression | 43 of 116 |
| Number of Cases | No morphological case-marking | 100 of 261 |
| Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem | 114 of 261 |
| Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives | Unrelated | 100 of 225 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Adpositions without person marking | 209 of 378 |
| Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical | 94 of 168 |
| Number of Genders | None | 145 of 257 |
| Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | No gender system | 145 of 257 |
| Systems of Gender Assignment | No gender system | 145 of 257 |
| Indefinite Pronouns | Interrogative-based indefinites | 194 of 326 |
| Comitatives and Instrumentals | Differentiation | 213 of 322 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | No gender distinctions | 254 of 378 |
Noun phrases 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Possessive Classification | No possessive classification | 125 of 243 |
| Nominal and Verbal Conjunction | Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical | 161 of 301 |
| Noun Phrase Conjunction | AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical | 131 of 234 |
| Adjectives without Nouns | Adjective may occur without noun, and without marking | 73 of 124 |
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | No obligatorily possessed nouns | 201 of 244 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 17
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| The Perfect | Perfect derived from word meaning 'finish' or 'already' | 21 of 222 |
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | No tense-aspect inflection | 152 of 1,131 |
| Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | Overlap for both possibility and necessity | 36 of 207 |
| The Morphological Imperative | No second-person imperatives | 122 of 548 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Verbal constructions | 65 of 240 |
| The Prohibitive | Normal imperative + special negative | 182 of 496 |
| The Past Tense | No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction | 88 of 222 |
| Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| Coding of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| The Future Tense | No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction | 112 of 222 |
| Imperative-Hortative Systems | The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system | 201 of 375 |
| Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | No grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction | 121 of 222 |
| Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | No suppletion in tense or aspect | 123 of 193 |
| Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | 158 of 234 |
| Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives | None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) | 153 of 193 |
| Verbal Number and Suppletion | No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples | 159 of 193 |
| The Optative | Inflectional optative absent | 271 of 319 |
Word order 13
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Position of Polar Question Particles | Question particle at end of sentence | 314 of 884 |
| Order of Genitive and Noun | Noun-genitive (NGen) | 468 of 1,249 |
| Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word follows adjective (AdjDeg) | 192 of 481 |
| Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | Verb-object-oblique (VOX) | 210 of 500 |
| Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Prepositions | 511 of 1,184 |
| Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem) | 562 of 1,225 |
| Order of Object and Verb | Object follows verb (VO) | 705 of 1,518 |
| Order of Numeral and Noun | Numeral follows noun (NNum) | 608 of 1,154 |
| Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Initial subordinator word | 398 of 659 |
| Order of Adjective and Noun | Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj) | 879 of 1,367 |
| Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial | 615 of 902 |
| Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause follows noun (NRel) | 579 of 824 |
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject precedes verb (SV) | 1,192 of 1,496 |
Simple clauses 24
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Optional pronouns in subject position | 61 of 711 |
| Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Both sequential type and purposive type | 15 of 118 |
| Comparative Constructions | Exceed Comparative | 33 of 167 |
| Predicative Possession | Topic Possessive | 48 of 240 |
| Verbal Person Marking | No person marking of any argument | 82 of 378 |
| Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Neutral alignment (no verbal person marking) | 84 of 380 |
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No person marking of the S | 96 of 380 |
| Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym | 114 of 297 |
| Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | Non-assignable (no asymmetry found) | 114 of 297 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have verbal encoding | 151 of 386 |
| Passive Constructions | There is a passive construction | 162 of 373 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is possible | 175 of 386 |
| Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns | Neutral | 79 of 172 |
| Order of Person Markers on the Verb | A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb | 187 of 379 |
| Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' | Indirect-object construction | 189 of 378 |
| Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases | Neutral | 98 of 190 |
| Applicative Constructions | No applicative construction | 100 of 183 |
| Other Roles of Applied Objects | No applicative construction | 100 of 183 |
| Reciprocal Constructions | Distinct from reflexive | 99 of 175 |
| Polar Questions | Question particle | 585 of 955 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Different | 269 of 386 |
| Antipassive Constructions | No antipassive | 146 of 194 |
| Productivity of the Antipassive Construction | no antipassive | 146 of 186 |
| Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation | Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation | 170 of 206 |
Complex sentences 3
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Relativization on Obliques | Gap Strategy | 55 of 112 |
| 'Want' Complement Subjects | The complement subject is left implicit | 144 of 283 |
| Relativization on Subjects | Gap | 125 of 166 |
Vocabulary 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Tea | Words derived from Sinitic cha | 110 of 230 |
| Hand and Arm | Different | 389 of 617 |
| Numeral Bases | Decimal | 125 of 196 |
| Finger and Hand | Different | 521 of 593 |
Other 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks | Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings | 71 of 143 |