Vocative for nominative

Olga Meerson meersono at GEORGETOWN.EDU
Tue Oct 9 16:27:16 UTC 2007


Who is the patron saint of Savvo / Savo? Is it a different person from the one of Savva/ Sava? What case is Sava in, in "Gimnazija Sveti Sava"? What case is Savo in in "Osnovna škola Savo Ili"? Whatever cases they are (I do not know Serbian, so my questions are really questions and not objections), these have nothing to do with either nominative or vocative, judging by their function in the sentence.  
o.m.



----- Original Message -----
From: Toma Tasovac <ttasovac at PRINCETON.EDU>
Date: Tuesday, October 9, 2007 11:40 am
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Vocative for nominative

> 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 "????????? ?????  
> ????" (Gimnazija Sveti Sava) but "??????? ?????  
> ???? ????." (Osnovna škola Savo Ili?).
> 
> 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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