Re: German T/V distinction (was Re: Is the list dead?)

Huh.  Did not know that the "plural as formal" thing went back so far
in VL..  But that does explain how it had time to lose its oomph and
necessitate new circumlocutions in Pt, Sp and It.



On 4/24/08, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 5:22 PM, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> > Why do we call this a "T/V" distinction?  <French tu/vous? Can't be
> >  <Latin since it didn't have a formality distinction in the 2nd person
> >  pronouns....
>
> Wikipedia claims (s.v. "T-V distinction") that the term originates
> from Brown and Gilman (1960) based on Latin "tu/vos", and that the
> latter started to become used for the Roman emperor starting in the
> 4th century AD.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
>
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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>