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: Jakob Maché
Format: Article
Language:Catalan
Published: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 2025-02-01
Series:Catalan Journal of Linguistics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://revistes.uab.cat/catjl/article/view/475
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author Jakob Maché
author_facet Jakob Maché
author_sort Jakob Maché
collection DOAJ
description 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.
format Article
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2014-9719
language Catalan
publishDate 2025-02-01
publisher Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
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series Catalan Journal of Linguistics
spelling doaj-art-c79404bc24f64b35a5b4aa59719b74802025-08-20T02:11:09ZcatUniversitat Autònoma de BarcelonaCatalan Journal of Linguistics1695-68852014-97192025-02-0124110.5565/rev/catjl.475The Diversity of Vocative Formation Across LanguagesJakob Maché0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8567-1185Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa 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. https://revistes.uab.cat/catjl/article/view/475callsnon-concatenative morphologyvocativeallocutive agreementcaseparticles
spellingShingle Jakob Maché
The Diversity of Vocative Formation Across Languages
Catalan Journal of Linguistics
calls
non-concatenative morphology
vocative
allocutive agreement
case
particles
title The Diversity of Vocative Formation Across Languages
title_full The Diversity of Vocative Formation Across Languages
title_fullStr The Diversity of Vocative Formation Across Languages
title_full_unstemmed The Diversity of Vocative Formation Across Languages
title_short The Diversity of Vocative Formation Across Languages
title_sort diversity of vocative formation across languages
topic calls
non-concatenative morphology
vocative
allocutive agreement
case
particles
url https://revistes.uab.cat/catjl/article/view/475
work_keys_str_mv AT jakobmache thediversityofvocativeformationacrosslanguages
AT jakobmache diversityofvocativeformationacrosslanguages