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Semantic Extension of the Word ‘Mother’ in Thai, Lao and Chinese

Abstract

The objectives of this article are, first, to analyze and, secondly, to compare the semantic extension of the word ‘Mother’ in Thai, Lao, and Chinese. The lexical and semantic data are gathered from dictionaries and interviewing native speakers. Using the cognitive semantic approach as a theoretical framework, the study shows that ‘Mother’ in Thai has 10 meanings, Lao has 8 meanings and Chinese has 7 meanings. These 3 languages have 6 meanings of ‘Mother’ in common, namely, ‘one who gives birth to a child’ ‘one who takes care of a child’ ‘adult woman’ ‘big’ ‘leader’ and ‘prototype’. There are 4 meanings of ‘Mother’ appear individually, ‘spirit who has patronage’ ‘things that have been compared with the female having a child’ ‘things that have something like a female organ’ and ‘natural thing’.