한국언어과학회

This study aims to compare the duration of phonologically homophonous words in Thai that are used as a content word in one context, and as a function word in another. It is premature to assume that function words in Thai will be reduced as in other languages, considering that most function words in Thai have been originated from the homophonous content word through grammaticalization. Therefore, this study investigated whether the four most frequent Thai monosyllabic function words are produced with a shortened duration as compared to the corresponding content words. Sentence utterances including target words are produced by eight native Bangkok Thai speakers. Syllable rime duration of each word is measured and compared. Overall results show that the rime of function words is significantly shorter than that of content words. It is also confirmed that words located at the end of an utterance are remarkably lengthened regardless of the word type.