person specification (polite/familiar)

From: Alexei A. Frounze (alexfru_at_chat.ru)
Date: 02/15/05 

Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 03:52:01 +0300

In my software project I need to specify a person fully.

Here's the standard set of properties it should include:

person: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
number: singular, plural
familiarity/politeness: familiar, polite
gender: masculine, femenine, neuter
being animate: yes (i.e. person), no (i.e. thing)
and maybe even proper name: yes, no (e.g. pronoun)
etc

The inner workings will depend on these properties and the grammar of the
language in question.

What I'm now thinking of is that there's little reason to make the
familiarity/politness option being independent of the person option (i.e.
1st/2nd/3rd). The reason for this is that in the 3 languages I know, this
polite form is normally used with just one person (2nd or 3rd):

Russian: 2nd person you (you=ty/vy) both singular and plural
English: 2nd person you both singular and plural
Spanish: 3rd person both singular and plural
(el/ella/ellos/ellas=he/she/it/they, Ud./Uds.=you polite)

I'd rather go for the new 4th=polite person and have no separate
familiarity/politness option at all...

Having made such a design, I'm now being curious... Are there languages that
wouldn't fit their polite person(s) into my 4th=polite person?

Thanks,
Alex

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