Zero Anaphor Subjects in Thai Sentences

Abstract

In global communication, the insight of a language will enrich the mutual understanding betweenforeign and native speakers. When compared with English, in several languages in Southeast Asia, especiallyThai, the frequent occurrence of zero anaphora or the use of zero pronouns is dominantly typical.This article reports the study on Thai zero anaphor when it occurs at subject position. The data came from50 articles, collected by quota sampling from contemporary newspapers and magazines from 1992 to 2003.

From the analysis, it is remarkable that zero anaphor subjects in Thai sentences can refer to moredifferent types of antecedent than the ones in English. Thai zero anaphor subjects in simple, compound andcomplex sentences can refer to the antecedent which is the first/ second/ third person, singular/ plural or allpersons. Moreover, there may be more than one zero anaphor subject in one sentence, and each one refersto different antecedent.

Since the inference from the mother tongue may cause some problems in communication, the studyof these different characteristics will be beneficial to linguists and foreigners who study Thai, and teachersof English to Thai students.