thanks on vy

[John Dingley]

Hi,

Thanks to all those who have striven to put me on the right
path regarding the "polite vy". I am following up all leads
with the captiousness of old age. However, I offer this to
be going on with, by way of Alina Israeli:

Paul Friedrich
"Structural Implications of Russian Pronominal Usage (1966)"
in: Language, Context, and the Imagination. Essays by
Paul Friedrich
Selected and Introduced by Anwar S. Dil
Stanford University Press, 1979, pp. 74-75

French determined Russian pronominal usage. Only ty had been
employed till about 1700, whereas "... the French manner of 
address to one person in the plural number appeared in the
eighteenth century and rapidly became current among the 
educated circles" (Isachenko 1960: 414). By 1800, more or
less when French was instituted as a "passport," the use of 
the plural vy as a formal and respectful singular, on analogy
with French vous, had become established and launched on its
independent course, although subsequently reinforced and subtly
influenced by the pervasive French bilingualism and constant 
exposure to French novels and plays.

A.V. Isachenko
Grammaticheskii stroi russkogo iazyka v sopostavlenii s
slovatskim. Morfologiia. Chast' vtoraia.
Bratislava, 1960, p 414

Pri obrashchenii v russkom iazyke, kak i v ... frantsuzskom i dr.
upotrebliaetsia tak nazyvaemaia forma vezhlivosti, obrashchenie
"na vy" (vykanie). V russkom iazyke eta frantsuzskaia manera 
obrashcheniia k odnomu litsu vo mnozhestvennom chisle poiavilas'
v XVIII veke i ochen' bystro voshla v obikhod obrazovannykh
krugov.

In due course I shall post a summary of my findings.

S Novym godom!
John Dingley

--------------------
http://dlll.yorku.ca/jding.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------