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  • From: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] We and us
  • Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 08:21:57 +1100



On 14/11/2006 03:22, David Kummerow wrote:
... The fact that BH under this account has a uniquely grammaticalised functional opposition in the first-person pronouns---whether this be one of politeness as in his first account in his article or one of (non-)immediacy under his second in his monograph---is extremely questionable.

Well, the fact remains that there is a distinction in the first person pronouns. It is the explanation which is perhaps questionable.


No, I am not questioning that there were two forms of the first person pronoun. I am questioning the account under which their use is said to be governed by functional politeness distinctions. The grammaticalisation of first-person pronouns only occurs in other known languages once this grammaticalisation is complete in the second- and third-person. Consequently, I take it that another explanation is warranted, but I don't have that answer myself. The possibility of dialect could be explored.


But are
there any other languages which make such a distinction for any purpose? If not, then by your argument any explanation is a priori "extremely questionable". Nevertheless, the fact remains, and there must be some explanation of it.


Yes, and that distinction is one of politeness. In the plural we get clusivity, as raised in a later post, but this is a different issue.

Later, David wrote:
... Helmbrecht demonstrates that the grammaticalisation of politeness distinctions in the first-person is from a number of options: nouns denoting "servant" and "slave" etc (Japanese, Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, Turkish); ...

If the use of nouns denoting "servant" and "slave" for the first person counts here, then certain registers of English must be considered an exception to Helmbrecht's rule and so potentially similar to Hebrew. For in English there is no politeness distinction in second person pronouns, but in some registers "your humble servant" is used consistently as a politeness related substitute for "I". And in fact precisely the same happens in the Turkic language into which I am working on Bible translation; in the register the translators have chosen to use, second person polite forms are not used (as not appropriate in a historical context, for they are known to be a recent innovation), but a form "your slave" similar to the now obsolete Turkish usage is sometimes used in this translation, especially where the Hebrew offers some support. But then that implies that Hebrew is an exception to Helmbrecht's rule for sometimes using `ABDEKA as a first person form, quite apart from 'ANI and 'ANOKI.


Note that I was referring to the grammaticalisation of first-person pronouns. Lexical items denoting "servant" and "slave" etc can be the source of polite first-person pronouns. But I hardly see how English "your humble servant" is a grammaticalised polite first-person pronoun. The same thing could be happening in the Turkish dialect you mention, but you would need to supply me with further details. Helmbrecht's implicational hierarchy of the grammaticalisation of politeness distinctions in pronouns would hypothesis that for English "your humble servant" to grammaticalise into a pronoun, a grammaticalised politeness distinction would need to be operable in the second- and third-person. Since this is not the case, "your humble servant" is hypothesised to remain a noun phrase.

Regards,
David Kummerow.




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