Re: CHAT: Politeness in conlangs

At 14:16 09/06/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Reading the discusssion about politeness prefixes, i am wondering, how
>does everyone here handle them in your languages? In Sakatda Ka Kadomo
>there is a familiar you (umi) and a formal
>you (ami). For you all, they use the pronoun for "they"
>
        In Azak, politeness isn't handled with pronouns (in fact, there are no
pronouns but personal suffixes). In fact, -azh means "you" like in English,
with both singular and plural meanings. But when you adress somebody using
his/her name, politeness is important. You can't call someone using simply
his/her name. You must use the suffix -om with it, this suffix having a
sense of polite request ("would you please... ?"). This suffix is very
important in a polite conversation and can be used with almost any kind of
word.

        In Reman, politeness isn't handled with pronouns, but expressions like
"hello" or "good bye" are different depending on the level of politeness
(and it's important not to make mistakes in them).

        In Moten, politeness is mostly expressed by formulae, like in Reman (and
more importantly than in Reman). But there is also what I call a
"ceremonial" level of politeness where you can't use the personal pronouns.
Instead, you use different forms of demonstratives (as demonstratives are
also normally used for the third person, as there is no personal pronoun
for the 3rd person, it means that in "ceremonial" level of politeness, you
use the third person for everybody, even yourself!):
personal pronouns:
ga: me, I
ba: you (singular)
telga: we, us
telba: you (plural)
los: he, she, it, him, her (yon one)
lusos: they, them (yon ones)

"ceremonial pronouns":
len: me, I (this one)
lam: you (singular) (that one)
los: he, she, it, him, her (yon one)
lusos: they, them, we, us (inclusive) (yon ones)
lusen: we, us (exclusive) (these ones)
lusam: you (plural) (those ones)

As you can see, "ceremonial" speech differentiates 1st plural inclusive and
exclusive, whereas personal pronouns don't!

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>____________________________________________________________________
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>                    "Bailando en el fuego con un gran deseo" - India
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                                                        Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html