Ty/Vy oddities?

[Alina Israeli]

The second one is easier to explain. It is not exactly "reported speech" but "processed reported speech", so the speaker stays aware from beginning to end that they are talking to HIM and he gets into the skin of the speaker who talks to him. So it is as if he himself became the speaker who addressed him, and he cannot address himself with VY. 

The first one is more difficult particularly without exact data. This is probably lower social class speaker and he uses ONE listener in the crowd to stand for the crowd, as if he spoke to one person. It adds a narrative element to the story, because he brings the listener in. Обобщенно-личное 2 p sg, and sometimes pl (Turgenev had some examples of that) while speaking of oneself serves the same purpose supposedly.

Alina

On Sep 19, 2014, at 7:46 AM, Richard Robin <rrobin at EMAIL.GWU.EDU> wrote:

> Dear SEELANGS readers,
> 
> Over the past 25 years I very occasionally have heard two types of ты/вы oddities (odd to me, at least). I wonder if someone can tell me whether these are total anomalies, or whether I was just imagining things.
> 
> 1.  Collective ты for вы. At a party, someone tells a story and addresses the entire group as ты, e.g. И это всё! Но если *ты* хочешь знать подробности, я расскажу всё. (The substance of the conversation is made up; I can’t remember it unfortunately — just the use of the explicit personal pronoun ты, which suggests that this was *not* the impersonal ты - equivalent to the English “yuh,” the informal “one.” (I always tell my students, for “yuh” drop the ты unless in non-nominative.) I admit that I heard this only on two or three occasions. But the pronoun ты was quite prominent, and it was crystal clear that the entire group was being addressed. All were on ты with each other.
> 
> 2.  (Even more unexplainable): Ты for вы in reported speech, something like this: 
> Вот я был в турагентстве, меня спрашивают, А у тебя есть загранпаспорт? Отвечаю, С собой нет. Они: Тогда вернись с заграном.
> Again, I’m making up the exchange unfortunately. But the use of ты in reported speech for what would have been a вы conversation seems to be common (and optional?) I should mention, that again, in each case the story-teller and the listeners were on ты with each other.
> 
> Any comments from NSs or sociolinguists? I’m sorry I don’t have exact data. I usually don’t pull out voice recorders at parties. But these questions have been bugging me since 1990.
> 
> Richard Robin
> 
> 
> -- 
> Richard M. Robin, Ph.D.
> Director Russian Language Program
> Academy of Distinguished Teachers
> The George Washington University
> Washington, DC 20052
> 202-994-7081
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