ศาลาชุมนุม

Sawatdee khrap,

จะ is an auxiliary expressing the future and ได้ is an auxiliary expressing the past
but what is the meaning of จะได้, in the following sentence for example:
ผมจะได้รับสมาร์ทโฟน : I - จะได้ - to receive - a smartphone.

Which is the conjugation tense expressed by จะได้ ?

Thank you for your help.
Have a nice day.
Serge

I would guess that it is ได้รับ and the tense decided by จะ.

Thank you for the question, Serge. ได้ is one of those words in Thai that has a number of meanings and you can understand its usage only in context. The use in the sentence you provide is "to get" or "receive".

"ผมจะได้รับสมาร์ทโฟน"
I'm going to get a smart phone.

For other examples see:

http://www.thai-language.com/id/209295
http://www.thai-language.com/id/230376
http://www.thai-language.com/id/236909

Some might say that ได้ in this case means "to be able to", but generally ได้ of ability comes at the end of a clause, not as part of the initial verb cluster.

A third interpretation is found, for example, in "A Reference Grammar of Thai" by Shoichi Iwasaki and Preeya Ingkaphirom (I&I). Chapter 10, page 123ff, deals with จะ as a "challengeability marker." I&I
"The word จะ is a pre-verbal modal particle which indicates that the proposition expressed in a sentence is 'challengeable . . . . A proposition is considered challengeable or non-challengeable depending on the degree of its acceptability as a fact. . . . "

As for I&I's comment on ได้, this usage is likely the "change-of-state (inchoative)" usage:

"Change-of-state, or inchoative aspect, concerns two opposing states and indicates that a change from one state to another has taken place, e.g., "It has become expensive".

ได้ . . . (to get): This pre-verbal auxiliary verb indicates that some situation is realized. It is used both in present/future and in past contexts. It is similar to the English expression, 'get/got (an opportunity) to do something."

I'll leave it to your imagination and interpretation to understand I&I linguistic model.

According to the links it appears that จะได้ is favoured but it doesn't make much difference to me. ได้ can't mean past tense because of จะ so it must mean able to, just as กินได้ means that you can eat, ได้กิน means that you have eaten. จะได้กิน probably has some jargon to describe it grammatically, but it shows that in the future ได้กิน will be the case. There is a certainty about it. So if you tell someone จะได้รับ I think that you mean that in the future you will have got something.
จะได้รับสมาร์ดโฟน means that there is an expectation of getting a smart phone.

Thank you for your explanation.
Have a nice day.
Serge