Thai Syntactical Structures Translated into English Participial Phrases in The Story of Mahajanaka

Abstract

This study using the data from a royal novel named The Story of Mahajanaka by King Bhumibol Adulyadej was to examine types and functions of Thai word groups translated into English participial phrases and to compare functions of those Thai word groups and the English participial phrases. Phraya Upakit Silapasan’s categorization of syntactical structures and functions of Thai word groups (B.E. 2541) was used to analyze Thai word groups, and Michael Swan’s (2020) and John Eastwood’s (1994) categorization of functions of English participial phrases. It was found that the top three Thai syntactic structures translated into English participial phrase were 1) verb phrase (25 phrases), 2) adverbial clauses (8 clauses), and adjectival phrase (6 phrases). The functions of English participial phrases were not exactly the same with those of the original Thai structures. This means various Thai syntactical structures can be translated into English participial phrase. This may be because the Thai syntax which focuses on meaning and function rather than position of word allows different ways of sentence segmentation without losing essential content.