Vocative for nominative

[Toma Tasovac]

On 09.10.2007., at 14.35, Olga Meerson wrote:

> Most of my Serbian friends are referred to, in the third person, by  
> the vocative form of their name. (Savvo, Oljgo, etc.).

That can't be true. Sava and Savo are two different names -- Savo  
also happens to be the vocative of Sava. But if your friends refer to  
somebody in the third person as Savo, that can only mean that his  
name is Savo. That's why we have "Гимназија свети  
Сава" (Gimnazija Sveti Sava) but "Основна школа  
Саво Илић." (Osnovna škola Savo Ilić).

In contemporary Serbian, the vocative case is definitely NOT used  
instead of the nominative. As was already mentioned in this thread,  
the use of the vocative instead of the nominative is the stuff of  
epic folk poetry.

> Moreover, the name (as they commemorate him at the ebtrance, in  
> third person definitely!) of their Patriarch is PavlE, not Pavel.

That's because the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church is not  
Russian and his name is Pavle, not Pavel.

> In contemporary Russian, it was common, for a while, to refer to  
> your father confessor, if he also was a friend, as otche, not otec,  
> in third person as well. But this reminds me more of the  
> undeclinable nicknames in the ironic use of Bakhtin's chuzhaia  
> rech' (considering that irony can be endearing)--on the same level  
> as Raskol'nikov uses "kazhetsia" in his mother's letter as a noun  
> in accusative. (Eta samaia Dunechka za eto kazhetsia zamuzh idet!)
> Other people's examples were much more linguistically sound--and  
> very interesting to me.
> o.m.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: John Dunn <J.Dunn at SLAVONIC.ARTS.GLA.AC.UK>
> Date: Tuesday, October 9, 2007 4:53 am
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Vocative for nominative
>
>> Possible examples are found in Old Russian texts from the Novgorod
>> area.  See, for example, A.A. Zaliznjak, Drevnenovgorodskij
>> dialekt, pp. 82-87.
>>
>> John Dunn.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: kkwon at FAS.HARVARD.EDU
>> To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
>> Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 17:22:37 -0400
>> Subject: [SEELANGS] Vocative for nominative
>>
>> Dear SEELANGers,
>>
>> Does anyone know of any language (esp. in Slavic langauges), in
>> which vocative
>> is used for nominative? I am excluding the case when a
>> default/unmarkednominative is used for vocative, i.e., John! Ivan!.
>>
>> Among Slavic, I have heard/read about BCS (am I right in order?),
>> Slovenian,Belarussian (,and possibly Polish, to my vague memory)
>> have this kind of
>> morphological substitution...
>>
>> Many thanks in advance,
>>
>> Joon
>>
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>>
>> John Dunn
>> Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
>> University of Glasgow, Scotland
>>
>> Address:
>> Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
>> 40137 Bologna
>> Italy
>> Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
>> e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
>> johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it
>>
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>
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