Re: Phaleran Update: Arkhilokhos' _A Poet's Shield_

Quoting Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>:

> On Tue, 11 Dec 2001 01:52:56 -0600, Thomas R. Wier
> <trwier@...> wrote:
>
> [snip very interesting examples and comments]
>
> >[4] The Phaleran demonstrative system has four dimensions:
> >physical deixis, visibility, time and formality. _heotli_
> >here specifically denotes "yon-wretched-invisible-one".
>
> Formality?!! (the rest I kinda think I sorta understand...)
>
> Will you please explain?
I've always found the term "politeness" an awkward term,
possibly because of the consonant cluster /tn/, while
the term "honorific" implies for me a high level of politeness,
which doesn't really capture the spectrum.  Instead,
I used "formality" as a more neutral cover term for all
types of politeness (or the lack thereof) because
formality, in the usual sense of the term, is fundamental
to levels of politeness.  "Formality" also emphasizes the
fact that social caste is essential to understanding use
of these demonstratives:  prototypically, "informal" is
used with members of the same caste (because Phaleran
society is very fragmented, these would constitute most
of the people that any given person knows);  formal is
used for those either one or two castes above them;
and honorific is used for anyone higher than that. (There
are six total castes, so the difference in social status
can theoretically be large.  At the same time, virtually
no one comes into contact with people more than three
castes above themselves, either because they are already
high in rank, or because their social status practically
prevents them from mixing. Because of this, there is
little push to grammaticalize finer distinctions.)

> And some details about "time"?
This refers to whether the thing being mentioned is in
close in time to the speech act.  Say you've lost your
knife.  The temporal deixis would allow you to distinguish
between a knife that you lost some time back from one that
you lost just a moment ago.  The past-time demonstrative
can also serve as a quasi-obviative pronoun, distinguishing
noun phrases recently mentioned from previously mentioned
ones. (Pronouns fully grammaticalize this distinction, as
do plural verb forms.  For full NPs, however, it's optional
and may be affected by speech register.)

> >[5] To avoid vowel hiatus, _martei_ has a shortened form
> >_marty'_.  In such shortened forms generally, the diphthong
> >reduces to the semivowel version of the highest vowel in
> >the diphthong.  /i/ is higher than /e/, so the shortform
> >is /j/.
>
> Interesting. Any direct analogs in natlangs?
South Texas Spanish really tries to avoid vowel hiatus,
and has similar strategies to avoid it.  I've modeled
this aspect of Phaleran on that.  (If I can find examples
of the Spanish from my phonology course notes, I'll post
them.)

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>

             "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
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