Re: Verbal Inflection for Formality

Eldin Raigmore wrote;


----- Original Message -----
From: "Eldin Raigmore" <eldin_raigmore@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 4:39 PM
Subject: Re: Verbal Inflection for Formality


> On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 13:52:21 -0400, Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> wrote:
>
> "We" is used as if first-person-singular by Popes and Emperors and Kings
> and Queens in European languages.  Furthermore it gets plural agreement.
> "We are not amused", Victoria said; not "We am not amused".
>
> >I'd view things like Usted, Sie, vous, Your Grace/Majesty/etc. as simple
> >vocab. replacements;
We do that a lot too. It tends to confuse people who don't know us :-)))
>
> So far I think I'd agree with you.
>
> >they don't require completely different verbs or verb forms.
>
> Here I'd disagree in part.
What I meant was, the verbal forms required are within the normal range; you
don't have to use a different base or ending. Using a 3d person form simply
is a way of distancing (w.r.t. status) speaker from Noble Hearer.

The analogue, as I conceive it would be if Eur. languages had a whole nother
set of vocab. and endings used in the polite mode--

Vous écambrusc tréchi gesartimet 'vous etes tres gentil' (to a nobleman)
whereas one would have to say say 'vous etes tres gentil' to a superior
non-noble, and 'tu es tres couaque' to a close friend.

> Much the way Indonesian uses titles/offices etc. for politeness or
> >when dealing with superiors. Then, along with familiar aku 'I', there's
> >much more common saya, IIRC from a Skt. word for 'slave'.
I just remembered-- there a native word (IIRC) hamba 'slave' that can also
be used for "I" but my guess is it's quite passé. One of the (wise) reasons
minority Malay was chosen for Indonesia's national language was precisely
that it didn't have the complicated and "undemocratic" respect levels of
majority Javanese. (Plus the fact that all ethnic groups outside Java
already knew at least some Malay as L2, but zero Javanese)
>
> (Thanks.  Indonesian and Javanese were some of the ones I was trying to
> think of.)
>
> And do the speaker-humble forms take third-person verb-agreement when the
> (humble) speaker is the subject?
Fortunately there isn't a lot of agreement morphology in Indonesian, and
although I'm not sure, probably not in Javanese either.

In Indon. it only crops up in the so-called passive:
ACTIVE
Aku/saya menulis buku itu (meN+tulis is active) I write/wrote that book
Kamu/Saudara/Anda/Dokter/Bapak/Pak Suharto/Pak Profesor (etal.) menulis buku
itu You write/wrote that book =
Ia/Ali/Dr./You, resp./Pak Suharto etc menulis buku itu ... write/wrote that
book

PASSIVE
Buku itu ditulisnya ~...ditulis Ali ~...ditulis Pak Suharto That book was
written by him ~Ali ~Mr.Suharto etc......(3d person referent)

BUT:
a) Buku itu kutulis (fam.) ~...saya tulis (more formal) ...by me
(You can't say ditulis aku/saya etc.)

b) Buku itu kautulis (fam.) ...was written by "thee"
.... Saudara/Anda tulis (more formal) ...was written by 'vous'

Now: I am not sure, since the occasion never arose, whether one would say
_(1) buku itu ditulis Pak Suharto_ OR (2)buku itu Pak Suharto tulis in
direct address., but I strongly suspect it's (2), since the rule is "In
passive, a 1st or 2nd pers. agent goes before the verb."

Maybe Yahya Abdal-Aziz can answer this....? Suppose you're talking to a
General or Governor, and you want to say: "The problem that (you) have
mentioned..."  This would require a "passive" construction: would you say
"So'alnya yang Pak Jendral sebut..." or "So'alnya yang disebut Pak
Jendral..."  ???Enquiring minds want to know.

>
> ("the honorific system" includes what gets done to mark some actants as
> humble, as well as what gets done to exalt other actants.)
Truly.
>
> BTW there are languages where part of the honorific system is in the
> voice;
> an honorific referent can't ever be a non-subject participant of a clause
> which has a non-honorific subject.  So if a lot is happening or has
> happened or is going to happen to a prince, and you're telling someone
> about it, you use the passive voice a _lot_.
If not passive, at least the special "honorific" voice. That would be
interesting.
> ....
> Of course you know better than I, but check again and see whether when one
> refers to oneself as "the sole of the foot" one's actions don't take
> third-
> person agreement.
I simply don't know enough Jav. to say; for Malay/Indo. one would have to
scour written works, esp. old ones, to see how it's handled.
>
> >Similarly the various honorific terms in Kash, properly used when dealing
> >with nobles and/or officialdom.
I see, in the one ex. cited in the syntax, that one uses 3d person forms in
such cases: aka simbi ya/melo... (lit. Q Mr/Sir 3s/want) 'would you like
to...?' (as with Span. Vd.)  This is about like (stereotyped) British
schoolboy over-use of "Sir" (to a school-master) in such things as: 'Will
Sir tell us when the test is?"