LINGUIST List 2.615

Mon 07 Oct 1991

Disc: Polite/Plural Pronouns

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

  • Swann Philip, 2.608 Polite Pronouns
  • Geoffrey Russom, Re: 2.608 Polite Pronouns
  • , 2.608 Polite Pronouns
  • , Re: 2.605 Polite Pronouns
  • , You/youse and politeness

    Message 1: 2.608 Polite Pronouns

     Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1991 08:16:53 +0100
    From: Swann Philip <swanndivsun.unige.ch>
    Subject: 2.608 Polite Pronouns
    RE: Lei in Italian If I remember correctly, "Lei" in Italian derives from forms such as "la sua altezza" (your Highness). It is the standard polite/formal 2nd singular pronoun in Northern Italy, but I think that Voi is more frequent in some other regions. "Lei" is not the same as the 3rd singular feminine pronoun "lei". Once on Italian television Racquel Welsh was a guest with an Italian actor, with the show's host acting as interpreter. At one point the actor said to the host "Lei e' molto ridicolo" (You are very funny), which the host translated as "She is very ridiculous"... the look on Welsh's face was memorable. Philip Swann FPSE-TECFA University of Geneva

    Message 2: Re: 2.608 Polite Pronouns

    Date: Fri, 04 Oct 91 08:45:20 EDT
    From: Geoffrey Russom <EL403015brownvm.brown.edu>
    Subject: Re: 2.608 Polite Pronouns
    In Providence we have a you/yous (not youse) distinction with a voiceless final -s. It seems to function entirely as a singular/ plural distinction, with no implications of politeness, though of course the difference in phonology would tend to discourage one from using you/yous usage as a guide to usage of you/youse (with final -z).

    Message 3: 2.608 Polite Pronouns

     Date: Fri, 04 Oct 91 07:57:40 EDT
    From: <elc9jprime.acc.Virginia.EDU>
    Subject: 2.608 Polite Pronouns
    "Y'all" is sometimes used, at least in Virginia, as a polite form of address to a single person, as in "Y'all come back, now", said by a shopkeeper to a customer. Of course, this could just be a standardized greeting formula. We're looking for more data on this.

    Message 4: Re: 2.605 Polite Pronouns

    Date: Sat, 5 Oct 91 19:23 MST
    From: <WDEREUSEccit.arizona.edu>
    Subject: Re: 2.605 Polite Pronouns
    Just a note on tu/vous in Belgian French: there have been several people who have suggested that non-French French varieties have different usages concerning the T/V distinction in pronouns. Sorry for not remembering who all mentioned this. My own experience is the following (I was monolingual Dutch speaking till the age of eight, then moved to Paris and learned French there, and then moved back to Belgium at the age of eighteen, and got my first exposure to Belgian French only then.) I did not notice any differences between the way Belgians use the tu/vous distinction and the Parisian way, even though I did carry around a notebook in which I recorded any tiny differences (phonological, lexical, syntactic) I could detect. I do remember snooty right-wing kids from Paris addressing their mom with 'vous', but I bet even those have their equivalents in Belgium. One thing that struck me in Belgium is a very great awareness of the existence of a class of people who use tu where they should use vous a lot. This is supposed to be typical of uneducated lower class Brussels people who are ethnically Flemish, and are more proficient in the Brussels Flemish dialect than they are in French, but nevertheless consider themselves French- speaking. As far as I can tell, there is such a class of heavy tu-users, but they are not nearly as numerous and stereotypable as popular opinion would have you believe. The Flemish dialects do not have a T/V distinction but Standard Dutch does. (Actually the Flemish dialects (that of Brussels, at least) uses something corresponding to an archaic-biblical type 2nd person sg. subject pronoun in Standard Dutch (can also be pl.), and what is related to the StandardV pronoun for an object 2nd person pronoun. So you never sound very rude in hteFlemish dialect). I suppose, then, that speakers of Flemish dialects would be tempted to use tu as a general equivalent for their 2nd person pronoun. But since the Flemish dialects are disappearing fast in Brussels and are being replaced by French and by more mesolectal varieties of Flemish, which are closerto standard Dutch and can do the Standard Dutch T/V distinction, one can understand how French speakers who do not have a T/V distinction are disappear- ing fast. There is a lot of stigmatizing against this in Brussels, but as we know Brussels is at least (if not more) prescriptive than Paris (Grevisse was from Brussels), so the proper T/V usage is a big deal for Bruxellois French speakers. Willem J. de Reuse Department of Anthropology University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 U.S.A.

    Message 5: You/youse and politeness

     Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1991 8:04:30 GMT
    From: <MCCONVELL_PDARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU>
    Subject: You/youse and politeness
    With reference to Herb Stahlke's report of polite (rather than plural) use of "youse" in Ohio, I am wondering if there may be comparable things happening in Australia. Many Australian English speakers have the you/youse distinction marking number (my own children for instance - I don't as I'm a Pom i.e. from England). However my students often insist that they have heard "youse" commonly in a singular sense. Whether it has to do with politeness, power/solidarity etc. I don't know. I don't think I've heard it. It occurs in Barry Mackenzie cartoons and films in a singular sense but since this is an exaggerated portrayal of Broad Australian speech and manners in part for an overseas audience this may be stereotyping involving unnatural extension of "youse". On Michel Grimaud's contribution on "mixed style" in plays involving T/V rapid switching between the same people, Brown and Gilman give a (presumably parallel) example from Marlowe: TAMBURLAINE: Here, Turk, wilt thou have a clean trencher? BAJAZETH: Aye,tyrant, and more meat. TAMBURLAINE: Soft, sir, you must be dietee; too much eating will make you surfeit. Brown and Gilman point out that the V is sarcastic when used t a prisoner, but also recalls the fact that Bajazeth is an emperor. This makes me wonder to what extent theatrical dilogue mirrors everyday usage or goes beyond it to create a special mixed style. Going back to "youse" one of the problems in this developing a polite connotation, at least in Australia, is the fact that it is a stigmatised substandard form. If it did occur this would be an interesting case of very widespread linguistic tendencies (for plural second plurals to become polite forms) overcoming local language attitudes. Patrick McConvell, Anthropology, Northern Territory University Darwin, Australia