Re: CHAT: Politeness in conlangs

Barry Garcia <Barry_Garcia@...> wrote:
>=20
> Reading the discusssion about politeness prefixes, i am wondering, how
> does everyone here handle them in your languages?=20
Drasel=E9q has several marked registers you can use to
show your attitude towards the speaker and the things
you're saying. They apply to verbs only, in a way similar
to Japanese inflections: you add the suffix to the root
and you have a new verb you can conjugate like any other.

The register markers (in infinitive) are

informal     -iten
informal     -ikel=FCn
doubtful     -=FCnden
formal       -aisen
formal       -alman
deferent     -asuvan
deferent     -essen

(as you see there are alternatives). For example, say
you have _=EDngiman_ 'to request' (root _ingi_ + verb ending
_man_). To add some politeness to this, you take _ingi-m_
(root plus the first part of the verb ending) and you
add _-asuvan_, hence _=EDngimasuvan_. Then you can conjugate

 =EDngimasuvev "I request"
 =EDngimasuver "you request"
 =EDngimasuv "(s)he requests"
 etc.

The possessive pronouns can be transformed into verbs
(and then you use the active participle), and these verbs
can be inflected as above, so you can also mark register
on possessives. Compare:

 _gian olmar_ 'your house'
 _giadnel olmar_ 'yours-being house' ('the house that is yours')
 _gi=E1dnasuval olmar_ 'yours-being house' (deferent)

Of course inflected possessives like this are long and
pedantic, but you can use them on occasions when you meet
very important people.


--Pablo Flores