Cactus Names in Thai: A Study in Botanical Linguistics

Abstract

          The purposes of this study were to investigate cactus names in Thai based on botanical linguistics. The study was divided into three areas: word formation, structures, and conceptual meaning of cactus names in Thai. The data were collected from cactus books and the Internet in 2021. The results of the study were as follows: 1) There were six types of the formation of cactus names in Thai: borrowing (36%), shortening (27%), compounding (26.6%), translation (10%), proper names (0.3%) and imitation (0.1%). 2) The structure of cactus names in Thai consists of three main compositions: plant class terms, cores and modifiers, respectively. 3) The analysis of the conceptual meaning of cactus names in Thai was found that there were three main types of meaning: proper meaning (88%), metaphorical meaning (66%), metonymical meaning (56%), respectively. The most frequently occurring types of metaphorical meaning were animals and their organs (22.5%), things (21%), other kinds of plants (11%), and nature or natural phenomena (8%). In addition, the most frequently occurring types of metonymical meaning were thorns (26%), body shapes (22%), patterns (20%) and body colors (14%).