Politeness in Otseqon

Otseqon politeness is basically two dimensional along the axes of respect and social distance, that is, those are independent of each other so you basically have 4 combinations: respectful + socially close, respectful + socially distant, equal + socially close, equal + socially distant.

Basically, the use of socially distant language depends on who you are speaking to, and the use of respectful/humble language depends on who you are speaking about. (These often coincide.)

A lot of vocabulary suppletes for respect (speaking about a referent that is respected) and humility (speaking about yourself to a referent that is respected). This is especially common in the following semantic domains:


 * cooking & eating
 * drinking & smoking
 * bathing
 * posture & motion
 * boating (sailing & kayaking)
 * talking & speech acts
 * understanding & the senses
 * possessive classifiers / verbs of giving and receiving

(I say 'suppletes' but it's not really a bijective mapping from normal to respectful or humble vocabulary so it's more just that some words are considered respectful, some are humble, and others are casual/neutral. The neutral forms tend to imply a degree of social closeness.)

In addition to alternate vocabulary, there is the honorific prefix haC-/hakk- (also the lexically more specific derivation) and the honorific suffix -cʼan (usually partially reduplicated -cacʼan for a respected plural referent). Using both is more respectful than either alone.

There are sort of two levels of respect, one where you just use the respectful/humble vocabulary and one with additional morphology to indicate a greater level of respect and also a degree of social distance. This reuses certain verb morphology pertaining to valency. When the respected referent is the S of an intransitive verb or the A of a transitive verb, the verb takes the suffixes -CAUS-REFL. When the referent is the O of a transitive verb, the verb takes the special -HON.PASS suffix. Similarly, when speaking very humbly of oneself, one usually does not use transitive verbs with a first-person agent at all, unless one is taking responsibility for a bad outcome or making a mistake. This is possible because all Otseqon verb roots are inherently intransitive and unaccusative, even ones that strongly imply the activity of some agent. In such humble cases, the bare root (which normally only allows an interpretation involving an indefinite, non-specific agent) is used as a pseudo-transitive, and the involvement of the 1SG person is inferred from context.

Social distance is indicated by some suppletive morphology and changes in certain constructions. First and second person prefixes have alternate forms used when talking to a socially distant person, as does the negative clitic, the conjunction ‘and’, the question marker, and the imperative clitic. Imperatives further differ in that instead of attaching directly to the requested clause it attaches to the verb ‘give’ in a clause chain following the requested clause.

Note that while it is polite to use the socially distant forms with someone you do not know well, with someone you do know well it is somewhat impolite or cold.

This system gives rise to the following registers of sorts:

Socially close, speaking equally of others and oneself: This is used in casual circumstances, like when talking to friends of the same age. It can be used as the sort of inverse of the below, when the person of the higher status does not want to stress their status (for example parents would normally speak to children this way). Either neutral or respectful vocabulary can be used, the latter being somewhat more polite.

Socially close, speaking respectfully of another and humbly of oneself: Usually used when speaking about your parents; some people use this most of the time as it is seen to be somewhat polite.

Socially distant, speaking equally of others and oneself: This is how one normally talks to strangers of a more or less similar age or who don't have obviously higher status. In this case it is common to use respectful vocabulary to refer to both of you, and to use the honorific -cʼan/-cacʼan (but not to combine it with the honorific prefix). This is also the language used for public broadcasts.

Socially distant, speaking respectfully of another and humbly of oneself: This is used when speaking to one's superiors or generally someone you are not particularly close to who has authority in a particular situation. Service workers (e.g. at a restaurant) use this to speak to customers. This is the register where the additional respectful features based around verb morphology tend to be used.

Socially distant, speaking respectfully of oneself and humbly of another: This is the inverse of the above. It is used when one has authority in a given situation and either wants to or is just expected to stress that. This usually also involves the use of the 1PL person prefixes to refer to oneself in place of the 1SG prefixes. There are various variants of this: using respectful vocabulary to refer to oneself + humble vocabulary to refer to another, using neutral vocabulary to refer to oneself + humble vocabulary to refer to another, and using respectful vocabulary for oneself + neutral vocabulary for another. The differences sort of lie in the degree of formality and how much authority is being stressed. Old people and people trying to sound self-important can use this register normally, and tend to use one of the latter two variants.

Socially close, speaking respectfully of oneself and humbly of another: This is somewhat indicative of men around 30 and some people find it annoying.