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

From:Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Date:Thursday, December 13, 2001, 18:48
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" Chicago, IL 60637 Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers

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John Cowan <cowan@...>