Usage
The Thai language lacks grammatical number. A count is usually expressed in the form of an uninflected noun followed by a number and a classifier. "Five teachers" is expressed as "teacher five person" khru ha khon (Thai: ครูห้าคน ครู-ห้า-คน or with the numeral included Thai: ครู ๕ คน.) Khon "person" is a type of referent noun that is also used as the Thai part of speech called a linguistic classifier, or measure word. Variations to this pattern do occur, and there really is no hierarchy among Thai classifiers. A partial list of Thai words that also classify nouns can be found in Wiktionary category: Thai classifiers.
Read more about this topic: Thai Numerals
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)