Eurolinguistic Notes on Polish, German, Czech, Hungarian, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Latin in Warmer’s Late-17th-c. Colloquy. Part 2: Address Forms and Expressive Speech Act Routines

Abstract

Warmer’s 1691 colloquy including ten languages – (Silesian) Polish, (Silesian) German, (eastern) Czech, (northern) Hungarian, (Flemish) Dutch, (northern) French, Italian, Spanish, English and Latin – is studied qualitatively and descriptively for the typical European character of address forms and routine formulae in expressive speech acts. All vernacular languages except Dutch are languages with an informal/formal (T/V) address pronoun distinction, with reciprocal V typical among adults, among students, and between adults and young (or inferior) females, and non-reciprocal V typical from (inferior) males to people of a higher generation. Kinship terms are frequent vocatives toward adult relatives. A kinship term for a concrete blood relationship is used to denote a non-first-degree family member in general. The expression “friend” for acquaintances and strangers is often used as well as “sir/lady”. Professional titles as vocatives are also frequent, though maidservants can be addressed by guests with intimate address terms. With respect to greetings, all languages use patterns with “God” and the pattern “(Be) welcome” in salutations and “good evening/night” in valedictions. Contrast or complementary response formulae are more common than echo responses. Echo responses are only found for elliptical patterns. Patterns with an illocutionaryforceindicating device (IFID) are absent in salutations and uncommon in valedictions. In contrast, with respect to thanks, IFIDs are common, potentially followed by echo responses. Of all languages analyzed, Latin shares the smallest number of European and regional features, mostly adhering to classical variants (after the loss of many lingua franca usages).