<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<style type="text/css" style="display:none;"><!-- P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;} --></style>
</head>
<body dir="ltr">
<div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" style="font-size:10pt;color:#000000;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;" dir="ltr">
<p>Dear Ricardo (and all),</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>When studying grammatical marking of insults, I think that one should first distinguish insults <span>in "direct speech"</span> (i.e directed to the addressee) and those in the third person (referring to someone being talked about).
<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Interestingly, for the second kind of insults, you can find in French a genitival construction as it was the case in the Portugese and Finnish examples mentionned by the colleagues:</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>In this specific construction (for insulting a referent in discourse), a "genitival" complement is attached to a depreciating
<b><u>adjective</u> </b>(outside this insulting use, this construction, in which the head of the NP is an adjective, is<span> agrammatical</span>)<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>DEM ADJ <b>GEN (of)</b> N</p>
<p>as in : <br>
</p>
<p><i>cet imbécile de chauffeur</i></p>
<p>DEM stupid <b>of</b> driver</p>
<p>lit. 'this stupid of driver'<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>This construction did exist already in classical French (cf famous example from the dramatist Molière :
<i>ce </i><i>coquin de valet</i>)<br>
</p>
<p>- this construction is impossible with a positive adjective (*<i>ce merveilleux DE chauffeur > ce merveilleux chauffeur</i> 'this wonderful driver')</p>
<p>- it would be strange to use it with a second person, that is to say it to the addressee (<i>? toi, imbécile de chauffeur</i> 'you, stupid of (a) driver'); possible though, but with specific pragmatic effects (cf using third person in dialogs)<br>
</p>
<p>- It is maybe possible with definite article (should be checked on corpus) but sounds less natural than with the demonstrative (<i>? l'imbécile de chauffeur</i>)</p>
<p>- I feel that it is possible to have a possessive determiner (mon imbécile de chauffeur 'my supid of driver') , but the demonstrative determiner is still better.
<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><span>So deictic pointing seems to be part of this specific "qualifying" construction whereby the referential noun is presented as a possessor the "quality" expressed by the.... adjectival head.<br>
</span></p>
<p><span>NB. <span>"<i>de</i>" is a preposition used for the source ('from'), the as well as for possession.<br>
</span><br>
</span></p>
<p></p>
<p>For those who read French, there is a book on this question in French, but I don't remember the details (so the comments above are mines):<br>
</p>
<div>Ruwet, Nicolas. <span><span><span><span dir="auto"><span><span><span><span dir="auto">1982</span></span></span></span>.
<i>Grammaire des insultes et autres études</i>. Paris : Éd. du Seuil</span></span></span></span></div>
<p><br>
</p>
Best
<p></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Stéphane <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div id="Signature"><style type="text/css" style="display:none"> <!-- p {margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0} --> </style>
<div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" dir="ltr" style="font-size:10pt; color:#000000; font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px">
<div style="font-size:13px"><font size="2"><i><br>
</i></font></div>
<font size="2"></font>
<div style="font-size:13px"><font size="2">Stéphane ROBERT</font></div>
<div style="font-size:13px"><font size="2">https://llacan.cnrs.fr/p_robert.php<br>
</font></div>
<font size="2"></font>
<div style="font-size:13px"><font size="2">CNRS-LLACAN</font></div>
<div style="font-size:13px"><font size="2">Langage, Langues et Cultures d'Afrique - UMR8135<br>
</font></div>
<font face="Arial"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:11pt"></span></font><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:11pt"></span></font><i><span style="font-size:11pt; font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif"></span></i></font><font size="2">https://llacan.cnrs.fr<br>
</font><font face="Arial"><i><span style="font-size:11pt; font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"></font><span style=""><font size="2" face="Tahoma"></font></span></span></i></font>
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px"><font face="Arial"><i><span style="font-size:11pt; font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif"><span style="">
<p><font size="2" face="Tahoma" color="FF0000"><br>
</font></p>
</span></span></i></font></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<hr tabindex="-1" style="display:inline-block; width:98%">
<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>De :</b> Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org> de la part de Riccardo Giomi <rgiomi@campus.ul.pt><br>
<b>Envoyé :</b> mardi 14 décembre 2021 19:49<br>
<b>À :</b> LINGTYP<br>
<b>Objet :</b> [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)</font>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Dear all,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>A student of mine would like to investigate the linguistic coding of insults across languages. She is particularly interested in finding out whether languages can have dedicated (uses of) grammatical forms/constructions for this specific purpose. The best
example I could come up with so far is the use of the Portuguese third person reflexive possessive adjective (determiner in Brazilian Portuguese)
<i>seu/sua</i> with epithets which are meant as insults. An example would be</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><i>Cala=te, seu burro!</i></div>
<div><a href="http://shut.up.IMP.2.SG" id="LPlnk998286" previewremoved="true">shut.up.IMP.2.SG</a>=2.SG.OBJ 3.SG.REFL.POSS
<a href="http://donkey.M.SG" id="LPlnk861821" previewremoved="true">donkey.M.SG</a></div>
<div></div>
<div>'Shut up, you idiot!'</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(Where, funnily enough, the third person of the adjective/determiner is presumably the polite form!) This is an interesting case, I think, because as far as I can see you never use
<i>seu/sua </i>in 'plain' vocatives, nor with terms of endearment, nor, for that matter, with NPs which are not used as invocations.
<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I am wondering whether anyone is aware of a language which has some grammaticalized form or construction that can be used in this specific way. Note that I am not interested in, say, abusive pronouns or honorifics or general expressions of the speaker's
disappointment ('frustrative' markers) but only in grammaticalized means of marking the speech act as an insult.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Many thanks in advance and best wishes to all,</div>
<div>Riccardo<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>-- <br>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D.<br>
</div>
University of Liège</div>
<div dir="ltr">Département de langues modernes : linguistique, littérature et traduction</div>
<div dir="ltr">Research group <i>Linguistique contrastive et typologie des langues</i></div>
<div>F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral fellow (CR - FC 43095)</div>
<div><i></i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>