The Semantics of khn3 and lo1 in Thai Compared to up and down in English: A Corpus-based Study

This corpus-based study analyzes meanings of khɨn3 ‘ascend’ and loŋ1 ‘descend’ in Thai in comparison with up and down in English. Data came from three corpora: the Thai National Corpus (TNC) (Aroonmanakun et al., 2009), the British National Corpus (BNC), and the English-Thai Parallel Concordance (Aroonmanakun, 2009). Results of the analyses show that there are senses of the vertical spatial terms khɨn3 and loŋ1 in Thai that overlap with those of up and down in English. This reflects a universal image schema of vertical movement and similar semantic extension processes in the two languages. Data from the parallel corpus also reveal that the vertical spatial terms khɨn3 and loŋ1 do not always occur in the same contexts with up and down. But, when they do, the frequently shared meaning involves vertical movement, which is the basic sense of the terms. The use of corpora as a tool to study the semantics of vertical spatial terms in Thai and English makes it possible to obtain objective and naturalistic data as well as to observe frequency of various senses that are in use.