[Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)

Wed Dec 15 00:55:54 UTC 2021

PS: French "espère d'idiot" translates as "sort of idiot".

Dr Maïa Ponsonnet
Senior Lecturer, Discipline of Linguistics

Graduate Research Coordinator, School of Social Sciences

Building M257, Room 2.36

The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Hwy, Perth, WA (6009), Australia
P.  +61 (0) 8 6488 2870 - M.  +61 (0) 468 571 030

________________________________
From: Maia Ponsonnet <maia.ponsonnet at uwa.edu.au>
Sent: Wednesday, 15 December 2021 8:54 AM
To: Jussi Ylikoski <jussi.ylikoski at oulu.fi>; lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)

Hello,

Doesn't the English "you idiot" (you [insult]) qualify as an example?
Copula-free adposition is not standard in English predication, and it seems largely limited to second person sing and derogatory adjectives?

French has "espèce d'idiot" - not sure whether it qualifies as grammatical or lexical.

Cheers, Maïa

Dr Maïa Ponsonnet
Senior Lecturer, Discipline of Linguistics

Graduate Research Coordinator, School of Social Sciences

Building M257, Room 2.36

The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Hwy, Perth, WA (6009), Australia
P.  +61 (0) 8 6488 2870 - M.  +61 (0) 468 571 030

________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Jussi Ylikoski <jussi.ylikoski at oulu.fi>
Sent: Wednesday, 15 December 2021 6:09 AM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)

Dear Riccardo and all,

D’Avis and Meibauer's paper "Du Idiot! Din idiot! Pseudo-vocative constructions and insults in German (and Swedish)" (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110304176.189/html<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%7Ccc94c4625b3c491e5c2808d9bf4e9dc5%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751168309659999%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=Qm0dhs6L0wUoC0ozwJeshZnGlztNFYs2tB0%2FwjH91yo%3D&reserved=0>) might be of interest; see also the thirty studies referring to this paper according to Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=9645899484374998601<https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fcites%3D9645899484374998601&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7Ccc94c4625b3c491e5c2808d9bf4e9dc5%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751168309659999%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=SiEIXLU6h58y3oPt6JDnSMiqxAD9CDEmDdvrhfbB%2F64%3D&reserved=0> (and so forth).

Best regards,

Jussi

________________________________
Frá: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> fyrir hönd Sebastian Nordhoff <sebastian.nordhoff at glottotopia.de>
Sent: þriðjudagur, 14. desember 2021 22:50
Til: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Efni: Re: [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)

Dear Riccardo,
Sinhala has several levels of politeness in imperatives (marked by
affixes), one of which would be rendered as "Do X, you $#!% !!!". I once
nearly got beaten up when underestimating the impact that the use of
this form can have. I can look up the reference if you want to.
Best wishes
Sebastian

On 12/14/21 19:49, Riccardo Giomi wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> 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) /seu/sua/ with
> epithets which are meant as insults. An example would be
>
> /Cala=te, seu burro!/
> shut.up.IMP.2.SG <http://shut.up.IMP.2.SG<https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fshut.up.imp.2.sg%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7Ccc94c4625b3c491e5c2808d9bf4e9dc5%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751168309659999%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=Wsd38z3IS7%2FaqTyJkGPUkncKamWvN1IwGXTun%2F7NpTI%3D&reserved=0>>=2.SG.OBJ 3.SG.REFL.POSS
> donkey.M.SG <http://donkey.M.SG<https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdonkey.m.sg%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7Ccc94c4625b3c491e5c2808d9bf4e9dc5%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751168309659999%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=DAnllkzoCwHEhKOA07WYqh25abAsY2i7%2Fp4%2Bmj134VM%3D&reserved=0>>
> 'Shut up, you idiot!'
>
> (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 /seu/sua /in 'plain'
> vocatives, nor with terms of endearment, nor, for that matter, with NPs
> which are not used as invocations.
>
> 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.
>
> Many thanks in advance and best wishes to all,
> Riccardo
>
> --
> Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D.
> University of Liège
> Département de langues modernes : linguistique, littérature et traduction
> Research group /Linguistique contrastive et typologie des langues/
> F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral fellow (CR - FC 43095)
> //
>
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