Re: Verbal Inflection for Formality

---In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
>wrote:
>Hi!
Hi, Chris.

>I posted this on the ZBB, but I'd really appreciate any
>responses here as well.
>I know a little bit about the way Japanese has verb marking for
>formality, although my knowledge is a bit vague. But I've never seen
>a detailed cross-linguistic description of the phenomenon: when
>books mention it at all (and many which should don't, eg Describing
>Morphosyntax) Japanese is almost always the only example in my
>experience.
Odd.

>Surely there must be other languages that do the same thing out
>there...
There sure as heck are.  Some are much better examples.

European languages tend to use either or both of Grammatical Number and or
Person in Honorifics.

Modern Spanish "Usted" is derived from an older phrase which, I think,
was "Vostre Merced" = 'your Grace' or something like that. Modern German,
and I think Modern Dutch as well, also use what used to be third-person
forms for "formal second person".  (IIRC the Dutch version is _not_ the
same as, nor even related too, the German version.)  And of course Modern
French and Early Modern English use what used to be plural forms for formal
second person.

The High Honorific terms "Majesty" and "Highness", which are
morphologically third-person, are used in English for sovereign monarchs
and for princes and princesses, whether addressed in the second person or
referred to in the third person.

But there seem to be Insular SouthEast Asian languages, and I think there
may be other Asian and/or other Oceanic languages, with High Honorifics,
Middle Honorifics, Low Honorifics, equals-speech, Not-All-That-Humble,
Humble, and Very-Humble forms -- a total of seven degrees of honor or
humility.

http://wwwlot.let.uu.nl/Research/ltrc/eurotyp/h3.htm
appears to think there are, in some European languages,
Honorific and Humble categories;
and the Humble category is really three categories,
Speaker-Humble,
Addressee-Humble,
and
Referent-Humble.

http://72.14.203.104/search?
q=cache:pO83xYd62TYJ:www.oc.vu.lt/kordona.pdf+Interlinear+Morphemic+Gloss+Ho
norific&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5

discusses, among others, the Ancient and Mediaeval and Modern versions of
some Indian languages, among them Hindi and Maldivian and Divehi, and
mentions
"This section also deals with such topics as language planning and
ethnography of speaking. The latter includes the means of expression
of ‘respect’ (or, using a more common term, the category of
honorificity). ... It would be in order to mention complex systems of
distinctions between speech registers attested in other Indo-Aryan
languages. In particular, one of the richest systems is that found in
Maldivian, or Divehi, which consistently distinguishes between forms of the
second and third honorific degrees."

http://www.anthrosource.net/doi/abs/10.1525/jlin.1993.3.2.131;jsessionid=nfe
Bs7iwrPg5axje8V?cookieSet=1&journalCode=jlin
refers to a journal article,
"Grammatical and Indexical Convention in Honorific Discourse
Asif Agha
University of California, Los Angeles"
in
"Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
December 1993, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 131-163 "
about, mostly, Lhasa Tibetan, apparently.  But the title leads me to
believe that the author seems to have wanted to draw cross-linguistic
conclusions, or at least to have wanted to propose cross-linguistic
hypotheses.

http://72.14.203.104/search?
q=cache:YJ0groLKfjAJ:lib.org.by/_djvu/L_Languages/LF_Formal%
2520theory/Kahrel.%2520Aspects%2520of%2520negation%2520in%2520English%2520
(thesis)
(158s).pdf+Interlinear+Morphemic+Gloss+Honorific&hl=en&gl=us&amp;ct=clnk&cd=7

contains a footnote that refers to the Dawawa language, whose honorific
system is based on its system for negation (!).

http://72.14.203.104/search?
q=cache:XdD3jdz_U3AJ:www.gwu.edu/~sita/syll/tamilsyllabi.pdf+honorific*&hl=e
n&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6

says that in 2003 the SITA had courses in, perhaps among other languages,
Kannada and Tamil; and in Week I of the Tamil course it taught
"Honorific and non-honorific suffixes, suffixes that convey respect,
intimacy, closeness, distance, offensive, social distance, etc."

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1:135000074/Indexicality+and+honorific+speech+
level+choice+in+Korean.html?refid=SEO

lists a journal article
"Indexicality and honorific speech level choice in Korean."
by
"Eun, Jong Oh"
in
"Linguistics: an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences;
5/1/2005"

Another paper (Robert Ryan's PhD thesis?) seems to suggest that in some
language(s) the honorific system is based on the system for expressing
reflexives.

>anyway, I'm very interested in learning more about this.
Well, I would too, because I don't know much about them.  I don't know much
about them because I don't like them.  I want to know what the typological
correlates of honorifics are so I can avoid those features in my conlangs
and not make it so obvious I was trying to avoid honorifics.

>I'd be very grateful if someone could either:
>(1) Outline in detail for me the exact system Japanese has in verbal
>inflection for formality
>(2) Give examples from languages other than Japanese of verbal
>inflection for formality
>(3) Provide any proposed typological generalizations
>(+ counter-examples if you know any) of verbal inflection for >formality
I believe all the languages mentioned in the above references have verbal
morphology for honorifics among their repertoire of "honorific things".

-----
eldin

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