Can have nine different meaning , depending on which word is emphasized in the sentence. Stress in thai Stress is used both at the syllable level and the word level in thai , although , just as in intonation patterns , stress pat-terns do not exhibit the variety in thai that is found in English. Stress nearly always falls on the final syllable in thai , and because each syllable is marked with a tone , secondary and tertiary stresses do not play an important role : Thamnfam customs Ronrfan school Phayayaam perseverance It is obvious that this will be a source of interference for Thai trying to learn the muli-level stress structure of English. There will be a tendency , for example , to pronounce the noun suspect with the final syllable stressed : *The policeman said I was a suspect. (An asterisk signifies that the sentence is unacceptable.) Emphatic or contrastive stress is also found in Thai , although , like intonation patterns , it is affected by the tones of the words which are emphasized. Words with falling tones are more easily marked with emphatic stress than words with rising tones. The difference in the way words in a sentence are stressed in English often appear extremely subtle to a Thai speaker. I didn’ t say he stole two large library books. Would immediately imply to a native speaker of English that 1) the speaker did not make the accusation verbally , but 2) he did agree with the accusation. These implications world be very difficult for a thai speaker to make unless he was given information other than that provided solely by the stress pattern of the sentence. Tones The third prosodic feature that is important to a comparison of the sound patterns of English and Thai I tone , the pitch level or contour of individual words in a language. Chart II lists the five tones in Thai. There are no tones in English , although single-word utterances with differences in thai , a tone language. A change of one tone in a phrase can often change the entire meaning of the phrase: Phi saw (falling then rising tone) : older sister Phi saw (rising and rising) : she devil The tone of the first syllable phi signals two very different meanings to a Thai speaker (although some younger brothers might