<div dir="ltr">Addendum<div><br></div><div>Contrary to what I wrote this morning (h. 11 CET), it is not completely true that <i>(un) </i> <i>pezzo di X </i>'espèce de X' , as in <i>pezzo di idiota </i>appears just in derogating expressions: As my wife has noticed, you have <i>un pezzo d'uomo </i>"a tall/big man",<i> un pezzo di ragazzo</i> "a tall and handsome boy" and even <i>un pezzo di ragazza</i> "a tall and beautiful girl" (with no insulting intention). The possibility of the positive value of such idiomatic expressions lies, I think, in the presence of the indefin. article <i>un: </i>e.g.<i> ho incontrato <b>un </b>pezzo d'uomo che... </i>"I met a tall man who...." On the other hand, <i>pezzo di idiota</i> and the like are usually used in direct speech as an insult against your interlocutor, i.e. "you, pezzo di idiota !!" </div><div>Best,</div><div>Paolo</div><div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Il giorno mer 15 dic 2021 alle ore 13:11 Maia Ponsonnet <<a href="mailto:maia.ponsonnet@uwa.edu.au">maia.ponsonnet@uwa.edu.au</a>> ha scritto:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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Hello, </div>
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I agree with all this. </div>
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An interesting observation is that in French, 'espèce de' is versatile in gender agreement. </div>
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I would accept "une espèce de crétin" (as more formal) but would say "un espèce de crétin", treating "crétin" as the head. </div>
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This said, I also agree that it is not specialized for insults. </div>
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It is simply an evaluative (pejorative) construction. </div>
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You can use it with inanimates as well:</div>
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"ils nous ont servi un espèce de ragout, c'était dégueulasse."</div>
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"they served us some sort of stew, it was disgusting."</div>
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Thank you very much for this very interesting discussion, and I would be keen to get a summary if someone creates one. </div>
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Kind regards, Maïa</div>
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<div id="gmail-m_-5077505430754692667divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000" style="font-size:11pt"><b>From:</b> Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> on behalf of Riccardo Giomi <<a href="mailto:rgiomi@campus.ul.pt" target="_blank">rgiomi@campus.ul.pt</a>><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, 15 December 2021 6:39 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Paolo Ramat <<a href="mailto:paoram@unipv.it" target="_blank">paoram@unipv.it</a>><br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a> <<a href="mailto:LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)</font>
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<div>Dear all,</div>
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<div>Thank you very much for a nice set of data and references. This will be extremely useful.
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<div>I will reply to some of you privately, asking for further comments/data/references. In the mean time, any further feedback is of course more than welcome!</div>
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<div>@Maia & Paolo: I agree with Paolo that <i>pezzo di / espèce de</i> are not grammaticalized, although not for the reason he mentions. After all the working hypothesis is precisely that languages can have grammaticalized means of marking a speech act as
an insult, so, according to this hypothesis, the fact that <i>pezzo di X</i> never occurs with positively connotated epithets does not entail that the construction is not grammaticalized.</div>
<div>A different type of argument for regarding these as lexical constructions is the fact that premodifying adjectives must agree with
<i>pezzo </i>and not with the epithet (and I guess the same goes for French <i>espèce</i>), cf.
<i>brutt<u>o</u> pezzo di cretina</i>, as opposed to *<i>brutt<u>a</u> pezzo di cretina</i>. This suggests that
<i>pezzo </i>is the head of the construction; if it had been a grammaticalized element, I suppose agreement would have been with the epithet. At any rate, these nouns are not really reserved for marking a speech act as an insult -- they can also occur in other
types of speech act, e.g. declarative <i>Quel pezzo di X mi ha rubato la bici </i>
(roughly, 'That dirty X stole my bike').</div>
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<div>Best wishes to all,</div>
<div>Riccardo<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Paolo Ramat <<a href="mailto:paoram@unipv.it" target="_blank">paoram@unipv.it</a>> escreveu no dia quarta, 15/12/2021 à(s) 11:03:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">In Italian too <i>pezzo di X </i>'espèce de X' , as in <i>pezzo di idiota
</i>and the very insulting, derogating<i> (</i>but very much used)<i> pezzo di merda, </i>appears just in derogating expressions: you will never hear <i> *pezzo di genio,
</i>nor<i> *pezzo di benefattore ! </i>This is, I think, an argument for not considering the construct
<i>'pezzo di X ' </i>as belonging to the grammar (Maia).
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<div>Paolo</div>
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<div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Prof. Dr. Paolo Ramat</span>
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<div dir="ltr">Il giorno mer 15 dic 2021 alle ore 07:48 Nigel Vincent <<a href="mailto:nigel.vincent@manchester.ac.uk" target="_blank">nigel.vincent@manchester.ac.uk</a>> ha scritto:<br>
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Maia is of course right that the English 'you X' is a way of insulting people but that depends on X being an insult. The same construction can be used to praise: 'you genius', 'you darling', etc.</div>
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Nigel</div>
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<font face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000" style="font-size:11pt"><b>From:</b> Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> on behalf of Maia Ponsonnet <<a href="mailto:maia.ponsonnet@uwa.edu.au" target="_blank">maia.ponsonnet@uwa.edu.au</a>><br>
<b>Sent:</b> 15 December 2021 1:54 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Jussi Ylikoski <<a href="mailto:jussi.ylikoski@oulu.fi" target="_blank">jussi.ylikoski@oulu.fi</a>>;
<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a> <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)</font>
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Hello, </div>
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Doesn't the English "you idiot" (you [insult]) qualify as an example? </div>
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Copula-free adposition is not standard in English predication, and it seems largely limited to second person sing and derogatory adjectives? </div>
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French has "espèce d'idiot" - not sure whether it qualifies as grammatical or lexical. </div>
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Cheers, Maïa</div>
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<font face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000" style="font-size:11pt"><b>From:</b> Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> on behalf of Jussi Ylikoski <<a href="mailto:jussi.ylikoski@oulu.fi" target="_blank">jussi.ylikoski@oulu.fi</a>><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, 15 December 2021 6:09 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a> <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)</font>
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Dear Riccardo and all,</div>
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D’Avis and Meibauer's paper "Du Idiot! Din idiot! Pseudo-vocative constructions and insults in German (and Swedish)" (<a href="https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.degruyter.com%2Fdocument%2Fdoi%2F10.1515%2F9783110304176.189%2Fhtml&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7C18f0840504564a430a4408d9bfb775ad%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751618751334098%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=YtvWy84MP7idITTVxJWQv5Ov5wyyIdzuJmfhb4EM0nk%3D&reserved=0" id="gmail-m_-5077505430754692667x_gmail-m_-7318995592525743576gmail-m_-766327169779748147LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" target="_blank">https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110304176.189/html</a>)
might be of interest; see also the thirty studies referring to this paper according to Google Scholar:
<a href="https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fcites%3D9645899484374998601&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7C18f0840504564a430a4408d9bfb775ad%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751618751334098%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=tbPuv8Q1wCWZfnqLUSXCpVDRqg1j93uAi6VhEV%2Bjc70%3D&reserved=0" id="gmail-m_-5077505430754692667x_gmail-m_-7318995592525743576gmail-m_-766327169779748147LPlnk878646" target="_blank">
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=9645899484374998601</a> (and so forth).</div>
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Best regards,</div>
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Jussi<br>
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<font face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000" style="font-size:11pt"><b>Frá:</b> Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> fyrir hönd Sebastian Nordhoff <<a href="mailto:sebastian.nordhoff@glottotopia.de" target="_blank">sebastian.nordhoff@glottotopia.de</a>><br>
<b>Sent:</b> þriðjudagur, 14. desember 2021 22:50<br>
<b>Til:</b> <a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a> <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br>
<b>Efni:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)</font>
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<div>Dear Riccardo,<br>
Sinhala has several levels of politeness in imperatives (marked by <br>
affixes), one of which would be rendered as "Do X, you $#!% !!!". I once <br>
nearly got beaten up when underestimating the impact that the use of <br>
this form can have. I can look up the reference if you want to.<br>
Best wishes<br>
Sebastian<br>
<br>
On 12/14/21 19:49, Riccardo Giomi wrote:<br>
> Dear all,<br>
> <br>
> A student of mine would like to investigate the linguistic coding of <br>
> insults across languages. She is particularly interested in finding out <br>
> whether languages can have dedicated (uses of) grammatical <br>
> forms/constructions for this specific purpose. The best example I could <br>
> come up with so far is the use of the Portuguese third person reflexive <br>
> possessive adjective (determiner in Brazilian Portuguese) /seu/sua/ with <br>
> epithets which are meant as insults. An example would be<br>
> <br>
> /Cala=te, seu burro!/<br>
> <a href="https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fshut.up.imp.2.sg%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7C18f0840504564a430a4408d9bfb775ad%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751618751334098%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=vcUcQyL%2BGHVqyOkN6wRwrCK87T31uIPlv83%2BU4w4yXI%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">
shut.up.IMP.2.SG</a> <<a href="https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fshut.up.imp.2.sg%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7C18f0840504564a430a4408d9bfb775ad%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751618751334098%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=vcUcQyL%2BGHVqyOkN6wRwrCK87T31uIPlv83%2BU4w4yXI%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">http://shut.up.IMP.2.SG</a>>=2.SG.OBJ
3.SG.REFL.POSS <br>
> <a href="https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdonkey.m.sg%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7C18f0840504564a430a4408d9bfb775ad%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751618751334098%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=Dp%2FbjnQzYoohURoGN7oHqG7LSlKWzAepAnTOmLHL71Y%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">
donkey.M.SG</a> <<a href="https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdonkey.m.sg%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7C18f0840504564a430a4408d9bfb775ad%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751618751490341%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=fgeWxj6HHR4DWebelsw7qvlvRsdbEnvdW7kD0dqo3pg%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">http://donkey.M.SG</a>><br>
> 'Shut up, you idiot!'<br>
> <br>
> (Where, funnily enough, the third person of the adjective/determiner is <br>
> presumably the polite form!) This is an interesting case, I think, <br>
> because as far as I can see you never use /seu/sua /in 'plain' <br>
> vocatives, nor with terms of endearment, nor, for that matter, with NPs <br>
> which are not used as invocations.<br>
> <br>
> I am wondering whether anyone is aware of a language which has some <br>
> grammaticalized form or construction that can be used in this specific <br>
> way. Note that I am not interested in, say, abusive pronouns or <br>
> honorifics or general expressions of the speaker's disappointment <br>
> ('frustrative' markers) but only in grammaticalized means of marking the <br>
> speech act as an insult.<br>
> <br>
> Many thanks in advance and best wishes to all,<br>
> Riccardo<br>
> <br>
> -- <br>
> Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D.<br>
> University of Liège<br>
> Département de langues modernes : linguistique, littérature et traduction<br>
> Research group /Linguistique contrastive et typologie des langues/<br>
> F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral fellow (CR - FC 43095)<br>
> //<br>
> <br>
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