Cognitive Analysis of the Conceptualization of Object Subparts by Body Parts in Thai

Abstract

Thai body part terms—hua²¹⁴ ‘head’, laŋ²¹⁴ ‘back’, paːk²¹ ‘mouth’, t^hɔːŋ⁴⁵ ‘belly’, naː⁴¹ ‘face’, tiːn³³‘foot’, and kon⁴¹ ‘buttocks’—which function as free morphemes and combine with inanimate nouns, have evolved into compound word stems. These terms serve as heads of genitive constructions within compound word structures, and act as relational nouns that cause semantic expansion, enabling them to spatially locate subparts of objects such as the ‘front end,’ ‘top end,’ ‘bottom end,’ and ‘back end.’ This study utilizes the corpus from the Royal Thai Academy’s Thai Dictionary and the Thai Language Corpus to examine Levinson’s (1994) and Heine’s (1997) theories on the conceptual transfer of body parts, additionally applying Heine’s anthropomorphic and zoomorphic models, along with Lu and Park’s (2019) sleeping model, to explore how Thai body parts are cognitively conceptualized to spatially locate subparts of objects. The results indicate that the conceptualization of the front end of object subparts involves hua²¹⁴, paːk²¹, and naː⁴¹. Specifically, hua²¹⁴ is linked to the Zoomorphic Model and Sleeping Model. paːk²¹ is associated with the Anthropomorphic Model and Zoomorphic Model, and naː⁴¹ relies on both the Anthropomorphic Model and Zoomorphic Model. For the back end of object subparts, the conceptualization involves laŋ²¹⁴ and kon⁴¹, where laŋ²¹⁴ uses the Anthropomorphic Model, while kon⁴¹ uses the Zoomorphic Model. The top end of object subparts is conceptualized using laŋ²¹⁴ and naː⁴¹, with laŋ²¹⁴ linked to the Zoomorphic Model, and naː⁴¹ to the Sleeping Model. The bottom end of object subparts includes laŋ²¹⁴, tiːn³³, thɔːŋ⁴⁵, and kon⁴¹, with laŋ²¹⁴ using the Sleeping Model, tiːn³³ using the Anthropomorphic Model, t^hɔːŋ⁴⁵ using the Zoomorphic Model, and kon⁴¹ relying on both the Anthropomorphic Model and the Sleeping Model. This study enhances our understanding of Thai linguistics and enriches cognitive linguistics by demonstrating how Thai body part terms spatially locate subparts of objects.