Breakdown of บริษัท ถูก ลูกค้า ฟ้อง ครับ
ครับ
polite particle (male)
บริษัท
company
ลูกค้า
customer
ถูก
passive marker
ฟ้อง
to sue
Questions & Answers about บริษัท ถูก ลูกค้า ฟ้อง ครับ
How does the passive marker ถูก work to mean "was sued" in this sentence?
In Thai, the standard passive structure is [Receiver of action] + ถูก + [Doer of action] + [Verb]. Here, บริษัท (the company) is the receiver, ถูก shows they are on the receiving end, ลูกค้า (customer) is the doer, and ฟ้อง (to sue) is the action.
There is no word for "by" in the Thai sentence. How do we know it's "by a customer"?
The word ถูก sets up the passive structure so that the noun immediately following it is automatically understood as the doer of the action. You don't need a separate preposition like "by" in Thai; the specific word order of the passive structure does that job.
Why use the passive ถูก here instead of just saying "the customer sued the company" as an active sentence?
In Thai, the passive marker ถูก is almost always used for negative, unpleasant, or unfortunate events. Since getting sued is definitely bad news for the company, using ถูก sounds very natural and emphasizes the negative impact on the receiver.
I remember learning that ถูก means "cheap" or "correct". How do I know it's a grammar marker here?
Position in the sentence is key! When ถูก is placed before a noun and an action verb like ฟ้อง (to sue), it acts as a passive marker. If it were an adjective meaning "cheap" or "correct", it would usually come right after a noun it describes or at the very end of a phrase.
If we didn't know who sued the company, how would the sentence change?
You can simply drop the doer (ลูกค้า). The structure becomes [Receiver] + ถูก + [Verb]. The sentence would just be บริษัทถูกฟ้องครับ (The company was sued).
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