Re: Second person/polite pronouns (fuit Re: Another Ozymandias)

Sally Caves skrev:
> Great question, Benct!
>
> Since Teonaht does not distinguish number in its verbs (except the
> copula, which is rarely used), I guess it can't answer most of your
> questions.
A language may distinguish number, and person,
in its pronouns without distinguishing number/person
in its verbs.  In fact it is quite common.  To go
only to my front yard (ha, I love standing set
phrases on their head!) Swedish has lost all person
and number distinction in verbs (using the erstwhile
third person singular throughout), but preserved its
personal pronouns.  I wonder if the opposite --
number/person distinctions in the verb but not in
pronouns -- even exists.  Our familiar Indo-European
languages of course use the same form of the verb
for all genders even in the third person singular,
unlike many languages from other families.

>  But there are honorific and non honorific forms of the
> second person, that I have unimaginatively labeled "familiar" and "formal."
Schlabels schmabels.  I think that "familiar" vs. "honorific"
are the popular terms now, while "formal" was popular in an
earlier, more formal period.  Whatever label you use you
still have to know what you mean by it!(*)

> Fy/fel/fyry/fyryi  (Subject, object, emphasized Agent and Experiencer)
>
> This is non-honorific.  You are addressing a peer, a friend, a child, a
> family member, or you are speaking down to someone.
>
> Sy/sed/syry/syryi
>
> Honorific.  You are addressing someone you don't know, a superior, you
> are being polite to a customer, etc.
Some languages of course have a whole different set of
vocabulary to be used in formal/honorific situations,
including how you refer to yourself in the presence of
a 'honorable' person -- yes, the language changes in the
presence of such a person, even if s/he is not an inter-
locutor, and often even when talking *about* them in
their absence!  The Sohlob languages (my conlang family)
actually tends to this side of the scale.  I guess
things may get more and more complicated if I would
write/translate texts involving such distinctions.

> Another form of the honorific in Teonaht is to address the person by his
> title, constantly:  Does the Sir/Madam wish to examine another coat?
> May I interest the Sir/Madam in an accompanying belt?  etc.  Have I
> offended the Sir/Madam?
Swedish, until some forty years ago, did that, but went
one step further, using not only Sir/Madam, but the
persons occupational title as a word of address.
I for instance would have been adressed as Kandidaten
(i.e. the academic Candidate degree9 for most of
my life.  In fact _min Herre/Herrn_ or _Frun_ was used
only with people so lowly as to not have any occupational
tiles, although servants would address their employers
with these titles, and _Frun_ of course was the correct
address for a housewife, so there were proportionally
more women addressed _Frun_ than there were men adressed
_Herrn_ -- once you knew their occupation that is.

One interresting aspect of this is that when the system
eventually was abolished people started using the familiar
second person singular pronoun _du_ to everyone.  There
had been some use of the second person plural _ni_
with singular reference on the French model, but this
had been associated with people who didn't wish to
draw attention to their 'lowly' occupation, yet be
formal towards one another, and so this usage was
frowned upon by practitioners of the occupational
title addressing system.  FWIW the use of singular
_ni_ has bcome in vogue in later years among younger
people who want to affect social distance or
'uppity'.  I and many with me frown on it as being
stuck-up rather than polite.  I usually answer such
address in the first person plural, and AFAIK none
of these pompous brats has understood what I was
doing.  Of course they don't know about the
_pluralis majestatis_ any more than they know about
the real stylistic value of the "V-forms" in Swedish.

This said I have a real hard time not to perceive
the use of polite forms in other languages as
pompous...

--

/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

         Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                             (Tacitus)

I'm afraid the current situation in the Eastern
Mediterranean forces me to reinstate this signature...

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