[Lingtyp] Pronouns, politeness, political correctness

[Peter Slomanson]

Difficult for me to resist responding to the last parenthetical comment in
an interesting discussion. In certain heavily Sri Lankan Malay-speaking
communities, /se/ is understood, but only very rarely used, whereas /go/ is
used in all social contexts. The split you describe is basically no longer
there, though it remains in other parts of the country. I'm not
contradicting the accuracy of your observation or its relevance, only
adding the dialect variation.

Best,
Peter Slomanson

On Wed, May 10, 2023 at 7:30 PM Sebastian Nordhoff <
sebastian.nordhoff at glottotopia.de> wrote:

> On 5/10/23 18:11, PONSONNET Maia wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> >
> > This is very interesting indeed!
> >
> > I hope someone has studied this or will.
> >
> >
> > I'm not sure I agree that ownership of 2nd person alternations are not
> > contested.
> >
> > I think I'd say (following Silverstein and many others since) that
> > contestation IS - along with its converse, imposition  - /the/ whole
> > point of having this sort of alternation in a language?
>
> I meant that the fact that the choice of second person pronouns has
> implications for politeness/rudeness is universally accepted. You cannot
> feign ignorance. You can seriously offend people with a particular
> choice for 2sg, and everybody knows that (and can willfully make use of
> it in particular situations).
>
> What is currently not universally accepted yet (as per this thread, and
> at least in Europe) is that the choice of particular **third person**
> pronoun can also have implications on politeness/rudeness. Some people
> will deny any intentions to be rude with their choice of 3rd person
> pronouns.
>
> (Obviously, there are languages where you can be rude with first person
> pronouns as well. Sri Lanka Malay has /se/ and /go/ for 1sg, and the
> latter is considered really vulgar.)
>
> Best
> Sebastian
>
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