Breakdown of เมือง นี้ เคย ถูก ปกครอง โดย ต่างชาติ
นี้
this (modifier)
เคย
to have ever
เมือง
city
ถูก
passive marker
ต่างชาติ
foreign
โดย
by / via
ปกครอง
to govern, to rule
Questions & Answers about เมือง นี้ เคย ถูก ปกครอง โดย ต่างชาติ
I learned that ถูก is usually for negative passive sentences. Is being ruled considered negative here, or is ถูก used neutrally?
Traditionally, ถูก is used for unpleasant events. However, modern written Thai often borrows English passive structures for news or history. Because of this, you will frequently see ถูก used as a neutral passive marker in formal or academic texts, which is how it functions here.
Do we always need โดย (by) to introduce who did the action in a passive sentence?
Not in everyday speech. Spoken Thai usually drops โดย and places the agent right after the verb (which would be ถูกต่างชาติปกครอง). But using ปกครองโดย (ruled by) sounds much more formal and literary, fitting the historical tone of describing a city's past.
Why does เคย (once/used to) come before ถูก rather than after it?
In Thai grammar, time or experience markers like เคย (used to), กำลัง (currently doing), or จะ (will) must come before the passive marker ถูก or โดน. You set the timeframe first, then introduce the passive state.
Usually, I see ชาวต่างชาติ for "foreigners". Does ต่างชาติ by itself mean the people or the nation?
It can refer to both! ต่างชาติ literally means "different nation". It can be used as an adjective (foreign), a noun for the country (foreign nation), or as a common abbreviation for ชาวต่างชาติ (foreign people). In this sentence, translating it as either "foreigners" or "a foreign nation" works perfectly.
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