Re: Vocatives

On Aug 25, 3:10 pm, Dominic Bojarski <dominicbojar...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Aug 25, 9:05 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

My question is: What does it feel like to speak a language with a
vocative?

I appear not to have made myself clear.

Not speaking a language with a vocative makes me unsure of my
intuitions about how vocatives are used. That is why I asked for
advice. My intuition is that the use of an available vocative matters
at a rather high level in one's discourse strategy. High enough that
its use or non-use is often at least semi-conscious.

Once one has decided to use a vocative, of course, morphological
changes (like Brutus to Brute) are automatic. That's not what I am
asking about. What I am interested is how it feels to have a
differentiated vocative available in discourse as opposed to not
having one.

The dialog I mentioned in the Qur'an goes on for several repetitions -
Pharaoh says "O Moses ... " and Moses replies "O Pharaoh ..." and so
on. To my English speaking ear this sounds weird. Obviously there are
(or were) Arab speakers to whom this sounded not only acceptable but
even elegant.

I observe that I haven't gotten any responses from anyone who claims
to speak a language with a differentiated vocative. Do languages with
differentiated vocatives still exist?

PS: I have started using "differentiated vocative" to make it clear
what I mean and to filter out analyses that recognize undifferentiated
vocatives.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Vocatives
    ... Not speaking a language with a vocative makes me unsure of my ... intuitions about how vocatives are used. ... My intuition is that the use of an available vocative matters ... To my English speaking ear this sounds weird. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Vocatives
    ... differentiated vocatives still exist? ... every case found in any language in the world ... The logical conclusion is that English AND ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Vocatives
    ... On Aug 26, 6:09 pm, Dominic Bojarski ... differentiated vocatives still exist? ... every case found in any language in the world ... The logical conclusion is that English AND ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Vocatives
    ... differentiated vocatives still exist? ... every case found in any language in the world ... The logical conclusion is that English AND ... language that doesn't have those cases, the instruction book is going to ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Vocatives
    ... differentiated vocatives still exist? ... every case found in any language in the world ... The logical conclusion is that English AND ... because English now is not PIE. ...
    (sci.lang)
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