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

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 Jonathan Knibb wrote:
> T4 has a rather complicated system of pronouns - I must have been in an odd
> mood that day. Unfortunately I don't have my notes with me at the moment, but
> I can give the basics from memory. There are three relevant variables, which
> I refer to as "familiarity" (F), "authority" (A) and "servility" (S).
[snip description of F and A variables]

> The prototype for asymmetrical S is the master-servant relationship. This is
> where it gets really complicated. :) In principle, there could be a
> full-servility situation parallel to the full-authority situation I
> described, where both speakers (X and Y) use high-S pronouns for X and low-S
> pronouns for Y. However, this is very unusual. ...
[etc]

Jonathan,
This system is elegant, extremely polite and quite convincingly naturalistic.
Because some FAS combinations suit prototypical situations, many other
combinations would be rarely or never used; which fact gives your speakers the
opportunity to express novel relationships, in both subtle and shocking ways.
It could be the basis of both a courtly etiquette and a thieves' argot, at one
and the same time. I like!

Although I was at first surpised that you have two separate factors for Authority and
Servility, I can envisage situations of "democratic (non-servile) authority",
such as an elected spokesperson and his constituency; and also situations of
"formal servility" that acknowledges no authority eg, an actual power, such as
Shogun, to a titular master, such as Emperor. These would be difficult to
convey succinctly without having both A & S variables.

Regards,
Yahya