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  • From: "B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] We and us
  • Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:19:35 -0500

Hi David,

So I think we have found at least one 2nd person polite pronoun in BH. ;-) Correct me if I am wrong. Let's just talk about this one example for the moment.

BH 2nd person polite pronoun is the cliticized pronoun _yod_ when prefixed to the yiqtol form *when standing for the notion 2ms* (i.e. the polite yishma` instead of the notionally "correct" tishma` as an expression of social distance).

Of course the next question is whether a combination of clitic polite pronouns and stand-alone polite pronouns is attested cross-linguistically. Maybe not. But maybe we have found something close enough to satisfy the constraints of innate human language capability.

Shalom,
Bryan

David Kummerow wrote:
Hi Bryan,

Just a clarification of what you say below: it is not just that there needs to be 2nd and/or 3rd person CONTRASTS, but we should expect there to be 2nd and/or third person grammaticalised polite PRONOUNS. It is an important difference, I think. This is at the heart of the matter with my difference of opinion with Peter.

Regards,
David Kummerow.

Hi Vadim,

Interesting. Does "May *he* (the king) hear his slave" also exist?

I am sure you are right about the avoidance issue (which is btw, politeness). We're not really searching for politeness at this point in our discussion.

David has informed us that the 'ani/'anoki contrast is not best understood as a politeness thing. His evidence is that such a contrast needs, if cross-linguistic types have anything to say about it, 3rd and 2nd person contrasts as a priority to the 1st person. I have just been wandering around in the BH corpus looking for 2nd and/or 3rd person politeness contrasts.

Shalom,
Bryan




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B. M. Rocine
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