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

> FWIW the use of singular
> _ni_ has bcome in vogue in later years among younger
> people who want to affect social distance or
> 'uppity'.
This is a pet peeve of mine as well :). My reasons are
more political, though; it has always been very
satisfying to my socialist heart that swedish has such
an egalitarian pronoun-system :) (as if – for instance
– english was any different :p).

I really think most kids are sincerely doing it to be
polite, however. They just don't get that many older
people will be annoyed rather than flattered.

/Kalle B

--- Benct Philip Jonsson <bpjonsson@...> skrev:

> 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...
>