[Multilingual Monday] Allocutive Forms, Plus A Name Bonus!!
In the last Multilingual Monday I discussed the complexity of verb forms in Basque, and it was pointed out that I had skipped a verb form -- for good reason, as it gives today's topic: the allocutive form. Basque is the olny language I know of -- please correct me if I'm wrong! -- that contains these special verb forms.
So, just what are allocutive forms? Basque uses a pronoun, hi, as a second-person intimate form. Each person in Basque has specific forms, and hi is no exception -- see ni naiz, "I am", vs. hi haiz, "you are". However, if you use hi, ALL verb forms adjust to show this intimacy. It doesn't matter if the person you're talking to is in the sentence or not, the verb you use will reflect the intimacy you have with the person you're talking to. Also, depending upon the verb, gender of who you're talking to may be revealed -- something that doesn't happen otherwise in any other instance in the language. To illustrate: standard Basque for "Today is Sunday" is Gaur igandea da. However, if you're telling this to someone who you refer to as hi, this sentence would be Gaur igandea duk, if you're talking to a male, or Gaur igandea dun, if you're talking to a female. Notice that, in this example, the last verb changes from da to either duk or dun, and also that obviously the person you're talking to is not present at all in the sentence.
This special usage can be compared, perhaps, to, say, formal forms in Japanese, where ます, masu, is affixed to verb forms to show a distal formality to who you're talking to, but I'm not sure this could really be considered a kind of allocutiion despite the fact that, like the Basque hi forms, are used whether or not the person you're talking to is involved in the sentences spoken. but rather are used consistently to reflect the relationship between the speaker and the listener. Regardless, the hi form is being found less and less frequently in Basque, and many speakers prefer to stick to a more distal, simpler zu, and this distinct element of Basque is in danger of disappearing altogether.
And now for our special bonus section, which was going to be last week's MM but I was afraid it was a bit too thin to be an article on its own. I had contemplated famous figures whose names have become part of a language after having had to explain the significance of "Benedict Arnold" to a non-native English speaker. The name, after all, has been interwoven with the connotative definition of "traitor", and calling someone a "Benedict Arnold" means that they have somehow betrayed someone's trust. It isn't just in English, of course, that this happens -- again, let's look at Japanese and the slang term まきまきする, Maki maki suru, referring to someone getting a sex change operation, after one of the most famous transsexuals in Japan, カルーセル麻紀, Karuuseru Maki. I'd love more expamples in any language of famous figures becoming part of a language's venacular.
So, just what are allocutive forms? Basque uses a pronoun, hi, as a second-person intimate form. Each person in Basque has specific forms, and hi is no exception -- see ni naiz, "I am", vs. hi haiz, "you are". However, if you use hi, ALL verb forms adjust to show this intimacy. It doesn't matter if the person you're talking to is in the sentence or not, the verb you use will reflect the intimacy you have with the person you're talking to. Also, depending upon the verb, gender of who you're talking to may be revealed -- something that doesn't happen otherwise in any other instance in the language. To illustrate: standard Basque for "Today is Sunday" is Gaur igandea da. However, if you're telling this to someone who you refer to as hi, this sentence would be Gaur igandea duk, if you're talking to a male, or Gaur igandea dun, if you're talking to a female. Notice that, in this example, the last verb changes from da to either duk or dun, and also that obviously the person you're talking to is not present at all in the sentence.
This special usage can be compared, perhaps, to, say, formal forms in Japanese, where ます, masu, is affixed to verb forms to show a distal formality to who you're talking to, but I'm not sure this could really be considered a kind of allocutiion despite the fact that, like the Basque hi forms, are used whether or not the person you're talking to is involved in the sentences spoken. but rather are used consistently to reflect the relationship between the speaker and the listener. Regardless, the hi form is being found less and less frequently in Basque, and many speakers prefer to stick to a more distal, simpler zu, and this distinct element of Basque is in danger of disappearing altogether.
And now for our special bonus section, which was going to be last week's MM but I was afraid it was a bit too thin to be an article on its own. I had contemplated famous figures whose names have become part of a language after having had to explain the significance of "Benedict Arnold" to a non-native English speaker. The name, after all, has been interwoven with the connotative definition of "traitor", and calling someone a "Benedict Arnold" means that they have somehow betrayed someone's trust. It isn't just in English, of course, that this happens -- again, let's look at Japanese and the slang term まきまきする, Maki maki suru, referring to someone getting a sex change operation, after one of the most famous transsexuals in Japan, カルーセル麻紀, Karuuseru Maki. I'd love more expamples in any language of famous figures becoming part of a language's venacular.