Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to analyze and compare the Chinese optative modals, namely, 想xiǎng,要yào,想要xiǎngyào,会huì ,and 愿意yuànyì with their Thai equivalents in terms of meaning, syntactic structure, as well as contexts. The result shows that the Chinese optative modals 想xiǎng,要yào,and 想要xiǎngyào convey the meaning that is comparable to the Thai optative modals อยาก (จะ), ต้องการ (จะ), ปรารถนา (จะ), ประสงค์ (จะ), whereas the Chinese optative modals 愿意yuànyì render the meaning that is comparable to the Thai optative modals จะ, คิด (จะ), ยินดี (จะ), เต็มใจ (จะ), ตั้งใจ (จะ). Nevertheless it seems that the Chinese modal 会huì used in the sense of promise or undertake as referred to in previous studies, does not directly related to or definitely convey the meaning of will or desire as seen in the case of the Chinese optative 想xiǎng,要yào,想要xiǎngyào ,and 愿意yuànyì. When comparing the syntactic structure which contains the optative modals in both languages, we find that there are a number of similarities in the majority of cases; for instance, these optative modals can occur in the so-called pivotal sentences as well as in the serial verb constructions; or the subject of the sentence containing such optative modals has to be humans and/or sentient beings or inanimate things that can be used in place of human beings, etc. Regarding the context of culture and the context of situation, we find that both the Chinese optative modals 想xiǎng,要yào,想要xiǎngyào,and 愿意yuànyì and their Thai equivalents can appear in a context by which the message addresser and addressee are of the same or different age. They can also be used in the situations denoting will or desire which occur in the past, present, or future.