The Simplification Of Complex Onsets In Khmer Loanwords In Thai :Obstruent_obstruent Sequence

Abstract

The recent study is to find out how Thai simplify the consonant clusters or complex onsets
in Khmer loanwords in Thai. The data for analysis were collected from the previous studies which
related to Khmer loanwords in Thai. About 480 tokens with complex onsets were selected. Most
of them are still in use the present Thai. The study was done within the framework phonology.
Of those items collected, only complex onsets with the sequence of obstruent and obstruent
(obs_obs) were selected to analyze. In Khmer language, the complex onsets are of 88 pairs, and
Thai has 13 complex onsets. The result of the study was revealed that among 88 complex onsets
of Khmer were about 60 attested with Khmer loanwords into Thai language. From 60 complex
onsets, 27 are in the sequence of obs_obs. They are not in Thai phonotactics. So they were
simplified to conform to the Thai phonotactic. The simplification was done by segment deletion,
segment insertion or featural change. An active insertion segment is an epenthesisa. Most featural
change is always from unaspirated stop to aspirated stop. The study also found that the deletion
was not popular to simplify the complex onsets of these kin. The simplification did not systematically
take place to all kind of complex onsets. The complex onset pd, for example, had mapped
to pha-d, pra-d, or ra-d. It could be said that most of Khmer complex onsets were simplified in
different ways to conform to the Thai phonotactics. The findings could help language learners
find their way to understand Khmer language, especially in pronunciation of Khmer words.