Re: CHAT: Politeness in conlangs

On Wed, 9 Jun 1999, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Barry Garcia wrote:
> > For you all, they use the pronoun for "they"
>
> "They"?  Very unusual to have a third person pronoun be used for second
> person.
Usted in Spanish.  Sie in German.

And, in Hatasoe, although the markings on the verb remain second person,
the explicit pronoun "sho" (man, or sir) or "tano" (woman, ma'am) is used
as the subject.

Hatasoe also has three forms of imperatives (actually, four, but one's no
longer used).

The first is used for so-called "light" verbs, like "sua", sing.  A light
verb's final syllble is _a_.  The informal imperative of a light verb is
made by dropping this final syllable, thus "su!" (sing!).

A heavy verb, one whose final syllable is C+a (like, say, ha, or ka, or
pa), makes the imperative by adding the infix -ke-.  This is actually a
worn down subjunctive, the archaic polite form now used informally.

The modern polite imperative uses the helping verb "Nehasa" (to be good).
Hence,

"nenehasa sua!"
ne-nehasa sua
You.be-good to-sing
Please sing.