Re: Politeness

Williams Annis wrote:
>  >interrogative form may or may not *exist*, but it would rarely be
>  >used. "Where is the door?" would translate to something like, "If
>  >you would tell me the location that is the door."
>
>         This is how English speakers (American ones, at any rate) give
>polite commands, by giving indirect questions or suggestions: "could
>you close the door".
>
>         I believe polite commands in Hindi use some sort of
>multi-causative construction, implying, as I recall, that the person
>you're asking to do something has armies of servants in a hierarchy
>waiting to his bidding.
>
>         Vaior allows a passive-causative construction along this line,
>assuming the verb in question isn't already a derived causative.  This
>is very polite.  You can also use the moderating particle 'úai' after
>an imperative to tone down a command:
>
>         fauni enen maven úai - "close the door please"
>         faun-aunin-i enen maven úai - "please cause the door to be closed"
>
>(-au- marks the passive, -nin- the causative).
The normal way to be moderately polite in Tairezazh is to employ a simple
imperative, eg _tsair lis tar_ "give that to me". Alternatively, you can
switch to subjunctive, eg _sha tsaist lep fe tar?_ "would you give that to
me?", which's somewhat more polite. If you feel like being markedly
impolite, you can use a bare indicative _sha tsaist lis tar_ "you will give
that to me", the implication being that the person you're addressing has no
choice in the matter. This form is also common for legitimate commands; eg a
officier ordering around his troops or a teacher telling his/her students
what to read before the next lesson.

                                                   Andreas

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