The Diversity of Vocative Formation Across Languages
The present study reviews manifestations of vocatives in a wide range of typologically related and unrelated languages and identifies three major patterns: particles, suffixes and non-concatenative forms such as intonation contours. It is shown that regardless of their shape vocatives systematicall...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Catalan |
| Published: |
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Catalan Journal of Linguistics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://revistes.uab.cat/catjl/article/view/475 |
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| Summary: | The present study reviews manifestations of vocatives in a wide range of typologically related and unrelated languages and identifies three major patterns: particles, suffixes and non-concatenative forms such as intonation contours. It is shown that regardless of their shape vocatives systematically encode not-at-issue meaning, particularly the speaker’s evaluation of the type of social relationship with the addressee and the perceived physical distance. It is demonstrated that optional vocative markers are most efficiently treated as modifiers of speech acts, whereas mandatory vocative morphemes function as nominal modifiers that mark the noun as incompatible with argument positions and only appropriate for the speech act type address.
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| ISSN: | 1695-6885 2014-9719 |