[Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)

Wed Dec 15 11:37:02 UTC 2021

Hi Riccardo and all,

If you are interested in curses as well, there is a paper by Sasha
Aikhenvald which discusses this for Tariana and Manambu.

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.. "3. “Damn your eyes!” (Not really): Imperative
imprecatives, and curses as commands". Swearing and Cursing, edited by Nico
Nassenstein and Anne Storch, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2020, pp.
53-78.

To this, I can add Kazakh (Tukic), which has dedicated form for bad wishes:

арам     қат-қыр

aram    qat-qyr

filthy     freeze.up-MAL.OPT

Drop dead. (Die filthy = pagan)

By the way, I will be glad to get more examples of languages which have
something like that - dedicated form to express curses.

Best,

Nina

https://www.hse.ru/en/staff/dobrushina

On Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at 2:23 PM Paolo Ramat <paoram at unipv.it> wrote:

> Dear Riccardo, Randy and Maia,
> I agree with Riccardo's argument: it is theoretically possible to imagine
> a language that has grammaticalized only negative, derogatory and insulting
> constructs: are there examples of this language type? Which could be  the
> morphological/syntactic means for such a grammaticalization ? And Riccardo
> is right in considering  *pezzo* as the head of the construct (though, in
> my Italian idiolect, I don't find unacceptable *brutta pezzo di cretina, *i.e.,
> roughly, [ [brutta]ADJ.F [pezzo di cretina] ]NP.F ). To Randy's
> wondering:  not being an Engl. native speaker I can't say whether '*piece
> of shit*' is  a borrowing from Ital.* pezzo di merda *(decidedly not a
> funny phrase !)*. *We need looking into  historical dictionaries/corpora
> of both languages
> All the best,
> Paolo
>
>
> piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
> ##39 0382 27027
> 347 044 98 44
>
>
> Il giorno mer 15 dic 2021 alle ore 11:39 Riccardo Giomi <
> rgiomi at campus.ul.pt> ha scritto:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Thank you very much for a nice set of data and references. This will be
>> extremely useful.
>>
>> I will reply to some of you privately, asking for further
>> comments/data/references. In the mean time, any further feedback is of
>> course more than welcome!
>>
>> @Maia & Paolo: I agree with Paolo that *pezzo di / espèce de* are not
>> grammaticalized, although not for the reason he mentions. After all the
>> working hypothesis is precisely that languages can have grammaticalized
>> means of marking a speech act as an insult, so, according to this
>> hypothesis, the fact that *pezzo di X* never occurs with positively
>> connotated epithets does not entail that the construction is not
>> grammaticalized.
>> A different type of argument for regarding these as lexical constructions
>> is the fact that premodifying adjectives must agree with *pezzo *and not
>> with the epithet (and I guess the same goes for French *espèce*), cf. *brutto
>> pezzo di cretina*, as opposed to **brutta pezzo di cretina*. This
>> suggests that *pezzo *is the head of the construction; if it had been a
>> grammaticalized element, I suppose agreement would have been with the
>> epithet. At any rate, these nouns are not really reserved for marking a
>> speech act as an insult -- they can also occur in other types of speech
>> act, e.g. declarative *Quel pezzo di X mi ha rubato la bici *(roughly,
>> 'That dirty X stole my bike').
>>
>> Best wishes to all,
>> Riccardo
>>
>> Paolo Ramat <paoram at unipv.it> escreveu no dia quarta, 15/12/2021 à(s)
>> 11:03:
>>
>>> In Italian too *pezzo di X  *'espèce de X' , as in *pezzo di idiota *and
>>> the very insulting, derogating* (*but very much used)* pezzo di merda, *appears
>>> just in derogating expressions: you will never hear * *pezzo di  genio,
>>> *nor* *pezzo di benefattore !  *This is, I think, an argument for not
>>> considering  the construct *'pezzo di X ' *as belonging to the grammar
>>> (Maia).
>>>
>>> Paolo
>>>
>>> Prof. Dr. Paolo Ramat
>>> Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
>>> 'Academia Europaea'
>>> 'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
>>> Università di Pavia (retired)
>>> Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)
>>>
>>> piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
>>> ##39 0382 27027
>>> 347 044 98 44
>>>
>>>
>>> Il giorno mer 15 dic 2021 alle ore 07:48 Nigel Vincent <
>>> nigel.vincent at manchester.ac.uk> ha scritto:
>>>
>>>> Maia is of course right that the English 'you X' is a way of insulting
>>>> people but that depends on X being an insult. The same construction can be
>>>> used to praise: 'you genius', 'you darling', etc.
>>>> Nigel
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA MAE
>>>> Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics
>>>> The University of Manchester
>>>>
>>>> Linguistics & English Language
>>>> School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
>>>> The University of Manchester
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nigel-vincent(f973a991-8ece-453e-abc5-3ca198c869dc).html
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf
>>>> of Maia Ponsonnet <maia.ponsonnet at uwa.edu.au>
>>>> *Sent:* 15 December 2021 1:54 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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>>>> >
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-- 
Nina Dobrushina
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