| Both Thai and Chinese belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family, so there are certain common characteristics naturally between these two languages. For example, both are lack of the morphological change and their grammar relation is expressed mainly by word order and the function word. However, Thai belongs to the Dong Dai branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. There are obvious differences between Thai and Chinese. A typical example is the position differences of modifier and the central word.This thesis takes Chinese and Thai modifier, the attribute and the adverbial as the object of the study. The writer employs Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis, Inter-language Theory and Acquisition Theory in this paper. The writer compares the differences of modifier between Chinese and Thai from grammar structure, the type and the order of modifier. The conclusion is drawn that the modifier is in front of the central words in Chinese while the modifier is behind the central words in Thai.The writer uses Quantitative Analysis to process the language materials gathered from the freshmen of Chinese major in Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand, in the form of compositions and questionnaires. Based on the analyses, the writer draws a conclusion that the modifier errors Thai students make are caused by the negative transfer of mother tongue. When Thai students use Chinese "de(often used together with attribute)" and "de" (often used together with adverbial) and multi-items modifier to make sentences, they often make errors. That is mainly because of the negative transfer of their mother tongue. But there are also other reasons, such as weak in the grasping of Chinese.In the last part of the thesis, the writer gives some advice to the teaching of modifier to Thai students in order to provide theoretical and practical references for the Chinese teaching which is facing to the Thai students. |
