Of
University of Ljubljana
FACULTYofARTS
Acta Lingüistica Asiatica
Volume 3, Number 1, May 2013
Acta Linguistica Asiatica Volume 3, Number 1, May 2013
Editors: Andrej Bekeš, Mateja Petrovčič
Editorial Board: Bi Yanli (China), Cao Hongquan (China), Luka Culiberg (Slovenia), Tamara Ditrich (Slovenia), Nina Golob (Slovenia), Kristina Hmeljak Sangawa (Slovenia), Ichimiya Yufuko (Japan), Terry Andrew Joyce (Japan), Jens Karlsson (Sweden), Lee Yong (Korea), Lin Ming-chang (Taiwan), Arun Prakash Mishra (India), Nagisa Moritoki Škof (Slovenia), Nishina Kikuko (Japan), Sawada Hiroko (Japan), Chikako Shigemori Bučar (Slovenia), Irena Srdanovic (Japan).
© University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, 2013 All rights reserved.
Published by: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts)
Issued by: Department of Asian and African Studies
For the publisher: Andrej Černe, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts
The journal is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0).
Journal's web page:
http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/
The journal is published in the scope of Open Journal Systems ISSN: 2232-3317
Abstracting and Indexing Services:
COBISS, dLib, Directory of Open Access Journals, MLA International Bibliography, Open J-Gate and Google Scholar.
Publication is free of charge.
Address:
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts Department of Asian and African Studies Aškerčeva 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
E-mail: matej a.petrovcic@ff.uni-lj. si
Table of Contents
Foreword.............................
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Passives in South Asian Languages
Pritha CHANDRA, Anindita SAHOO.....................................................................9-28
Politeness Strategies in Odia
Kalyanamalini SAHOO.........................................................................................29-46
A New Perspective on the Creation of Neologisms
LIN Ming-chang.....................................................................................................47-60
The Fifth Milestone in the Development of Chinese Language
Matej a PETROVČIČ..............................................................................................61-74
We Have It too: A Strategy Which Helps to Grasp the Japanese Writing System for Students from Outside of the Chinese Character Cultural Zone
Andrej BEKEŠ........................................................................................................75-84
Foreword
With this volume, Acta Linguistica Asiatica is entering its 3rd year. After the second half of last year, focusing on research in "Lexicography of Japanese as a Second/Foreign Language" we begin this year with selection of papers covering various perspectives and languages, from South Asian Languages, via Indian subcontinent and China all the way to Japan.
The first paper, by Pritha CHANDRA and Anindita SAHOO, entitled Passives in South Asian Languages, discusses continuum of passive constructions, spreading over three language families , Indo-Aryan (Oriya), Dravidian (Malayalam) and Austro-Asiatic (Kharia), and forming a kind of sprachbund, based on a generalized notion of passive. This approach also shows that Tibeto-Burman languages such as Meitei and Ao also can be said to have passives.
The second paper, by Kalyanamalini SAHOO, entitled Politeness Strategies in Odia, discusses the conceptual basis for politnesess strategies in Odia (spelled also Oriya as in the first paper), pointing out inadequacy of Brown and Levinson's model of politness, and proposing a new, "community of practice" based model of politeness for Odia.
The next two papers deal with neologisms in Chinese language. LIN Ming-chang in his paper A New Perspective on the Creation of Neologisms focuses on the language user's psychological requirements for devising neologisms, and therefore proposes a new research perspective towards the reasons for devising neologisms. Mateja PETROVCIC in her paper The Fifth Milestone in the Development of Chinese Language investigates the structure and features of neologisms in the last century. The author suggests that the widening gap between rich and poor should be considered as the fifth milestone for changes in Chinese language.
In the fifth paper, We Have It too: A Strategy Which Helps to Grasp the Japanese Writing System for Students from Outside of the Chinese Character Cultural Zone, the author, Andrej BEKES, argues for employment of analogy transfer strategies to help beginner learners of Japanese to overcome cognitive and affecctive blocade when facing the complexities of Japanese writing system.
Andrej Bekeš
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Passives in South Asian Languages
Pritha CHANDRA
Anindita SAHOO
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi prithachandra@gmail. com
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi sahoo.anindita@gmail.com
Abstract
Haspelmath (2010) debates whether universal (descriptive) categories of the types that generativists (cf. Newmeyer, 2007) envisage are real and needed for cross-linguistic studies. Instead every language has its own unique set of categories. We raise doubt on this "categorial particularism" position by drawing on underlying similarities of passive constructions of three South Asian languages - Oriya (Indo-Aryan), Malayalam (Dravidian) and Kharia (Austro-Asiatic). Unlike English-type passives, they retain subject properties for their logical subjects and object properties for their logical objects, suggesting commonalities that a "categorial particularism" approach would not allow us to posit. Our further contention is that like English passives, they too satisfy Shibatani's (1985) minimal condition for passives - the underscoring or the optionality of agents. Passive voice must therefore be a universal found in all languages primarily resulting in the optionality of agents. We also show how adopting this approach helps us re-analyse Meitei and Ao (Tibeto-Burman) as languages involving passives.
Keywords: active-passives; universals; comparative concepts; descriptive categories; South Asian languages
Haspelmath (2010) se v svoji razpravi sprašuje, ali so univerzalne kategorije, ki jih obravnavajo generativisti (prim. Newmeyer, 2007), resnične in potrebne za medjezikovne raziskave. Namesto tega naj bi imel vsak jezik svoje lastne kategorije. Članek se ne strinja s konceptom "specifičnih kategorij", kar prikaže na primeru podobnih pasivnih konstukcij v treh jezikih Južne Azije: v indoarijskem jeziku orija, dravidskem jeziku malajalam in avstroazijskem jeziku karija. Z razliko od pasivov, ki so značilni za angleščino, pasivi v teh jezikih ohranjajo značilnosti osebka za logične osebke in značilnosti predmeta za logične predmete. V okviru koncepta "specifičnih kategorij" to ne bi smelo biti mogoče. Sledi utemeljitev, da enako kot v angleščini tudi tu omenjene oblike pasiva ustrezajo mininalnim pogojem za pasiv, kot jih določa Shibatani (1985), t.j. poudarek na neobveznem vršilcu dejanja. Pasiv torej mora biti univerzalna značilnost vseh jezikov, ki se sprva kaže skozi neobvezni vršilec dejanja. Članek nazadnje pokaže, kako lahko s tem pristopom ponovno analiziramo tibetansko-burmanska jezika Meitei in Ao, kot jezika v pasivom.
Ključne besede: aktivni pasiv; univerzalije; koncepti primerjave; opisne kategorije; jeziki Južne Azije
Acta Linguistica Asiatica, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2013. ISSN: 2232-3317 http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/
Izvleček
1. Introduction
Generative linguistics is defined by its assumption of universals, the idea that there is a substantial set of categories such as adjectives, passive voice, accusative case etc. available cross-linguistically (Newmeyer, 2007). The "categorial universalist" approach allows linguists to compare languages at the level of categories and is widely accepted amongst generative typologists (Payne, 1997; Corbett, 2000; Van Valin, 2005; Dixon 2010). There are two perspectives with regard to universals. The first is that languages make their own selections from a universal set of features, constructing categories that may not be available cross-linguistically. However, if they have some category (say adjectives), this category will exist in the same sense as it is present in all other languages (cf. Newmeyer). A second and a more radical approach to universals, assumes that particular categories are universal not only in the sense of being universally available, but also of being universally instantiated (Baker, 2003; Dixon, 2004). As illustration, the "verb-object" constraint that combines the verb with its object to form a linguistic unit without the subject is assumed a true linguistic universal (Baker, 2009), but confirmed by different languages in varied ways.
A diametrically opposite view to universalism held by some typologists is that there are no universal "descriptive categories" common across languages; each language has its own unique set of categories that are in principle, non-comparable across languages (cf. Haspelmath, 2007, 2010). Grammatical categories are not cross-linguistic entities (either universally available or universally instantiated). To undertake comparative studies therefore, typologists construct "comparative concepts" (e.g. passive voice, subject etc.) that are usually based on some semantic content. These concepts are thus theoretical constructs, not real objects in the world's languages.
In this paper, we place a typological study of passives of South Asian languages/SALs against the universalism/particularism debate.1 It has been noticed by Mahajan (1994) that Hindi passives are different in that they neither demote their subjects nor promote their objects as subjects. Here, we show that these properties are also true for many other South Asian languages. The absence of English-type passives in Hindi, and other SALs could be taken to indicate that there is no universal passive-voice category to be compared across languages. This together with the observation (Shibatani, 1985) that many Sino-Tibetan languages (especially Phillipine-type languages) lack prototypical passives would argue strongly against positing a universal linguistic category for passive.
However, we claim, based on similarities between languages of three different families (Austro-Asiatic, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan) that passive voice is available to even those languages that fail to host English-type passives. The passive head helps underscoring the agents - the minimal condition for passives (Shibatani, 1985) - in SAL passives, just like it does in English. We also discuss data from SALs like Meitei and Ao (Tibeto-Burman) that are generally assumed to lack passives, presenting novel evidence with underscored agents in some otherwise active looking constructions.
The paper is organized as follows. We start section two with some widely accepted properties of passives. This is followed by section three where we illustrate
1 We restrict ourselves to regular passives with transitive verbs in this paper.
how SAL passives differ from their English counterparts. In the next section, Meitei and Ao are shown to host passives. The final section concludes the paper with some observations on the universalist and particularist debate.
2. Canonical Passives
It is generally agreed that a passive has the following properties (Givon, 1979; Siewierska, 2005; Shibatani, 2006; Comrie, 1989):
i)	It contrasts with another construction, the active.
ii)	The subject of the active corresponds to a non-obligatory oblique phrase of the passive or is not overtly expressed (but only implied).
iii)	The subject of the passive, if there is one, corresponds to the direct object of the active.
iv)	The construction displays some special morphological marking of the verb.
v)	The construction is pragmatically restricted relative to the active.
A typical example of a regular passive vis-à-vis its active counterpart is given in (1)-(2).
(1)	John saw Mary.
(2)	Mary was seen (by John).
There are two noticeable differences between the active and the passive forms: in the passive, (i) the agent is underscored and (ii) the theme is highlighted, exactly opposite of what we find in the active. While the active agent cannot be deleted and is the canonical subject, the passive agent is optional and introduced by a "by-phrase". According to Shibatani (1985), agent underscoring (or its optionality) is a minimal condition for passives; all passives must meet at least this formal condition. A second property for passives is that the object, which is the theme of the active, occupies the subject position in the passive and becomes the most prominent argument of the construction. In semantic terms, this leads to the formation of a consequent result or inchoative state depicting a topicalized object (see Gehrke & Grillo, 2009). In short, the theme-rheme relation of the active is distorted in the passive (Granger, 1983).
Most scholars take both properties - subject demotion and object topicalization (or its promotion to subject position) - as the two canonical properties defining passives cross-linguistically. Generative syntax treats passivization as an operation on argument structure involving the promotion of the internal argument to the subject position and demotion of the external argument to an adjunct position. Baker, Johnson and Roberts (1989) in their pioneering study, suggest that these changes are brought about by the e^-morpheme introducing a third argument in the structure. This extra argument gets the external theta-role originally due to the agent and the accusative case value of the verb, otherwise assigned to the internal argument. The former is therefore forced to surface as an (optional) adjunct and the latter as the subject of the sentence, receiving a nominative case. Schematically (3):
(3)	[Objj [V-en (+ext.e,+acc.case) ti tj] by-SubjJ
Passives in several languages attest to both these properties. Some relevant examples are provided below for illustration.
(4)	Der lower wurde von ihm getotet the-nom. lion-nom. became by him killed-p.part. "The lion was killed was him."
(German, Siewierska 1984)
(5)	Billettene fas av publikum i luken tickets-the get-s by audience-the in window-the "The tickets are got by the audience in the window." (Norwegian, Afarli 1992)
(6)	C'a	domashn'a robota bula napysana neju This-nom. home.nom. work.nom. be.pst. write.part.nom by her "This homework was done by her."
(Ukranian, Slavutych, 1973)
3. Non-Canonical Properties of Passives
Unlike English and other languages, passives in some South Asian languages are not distinguished by both agent underscoring and object to subject promotion. Mahajan (1994) was the first to point out that though Hindi agents surface as by-phrases in passives, they retain all prototypical subject properties. Passive objects on the other hand are not derived subjects; they display all prototypical properties of active objects (also see Bhatt, 2003; Richa, 2011).
To illustrate:
(7) raavan yuddh mein (raam dwaaraa)	maaraa	gayaa
Ravan battle in (Ram by)	kill-PFV	go-PFV "Ravan was killed in the battle by Ram."
This sentence is a Hindi passive, where the internal argument of a transitive verb maar ("kill") seemingly surfaces as the subject of the sentence, while the agent becomes an optional adjunct, marked by dwaaraa. The verb is in its agreeing perfective participial form aa, followed by the auxiliary verb yaa ("go").
Mahajan claims that despite appearances (7) is only passive-like in that it differs in important respects from English-type passives. He terms it and similar others as Active Passives, observing their commonalities with their active counterparts. Active passives, like their active counterparts have logical subjects/agents (dwaaraa-DPs) with subject-hood properties and logical objects with object-hood properties. There is however a difference in the verbal morphology, just as we would expect of passives and the agents become optional.
Mahajan uses diagnostics like anaphor binding, pronominal co-reference and control (drawing on works by Keenan (1976) among others) to substantiate his claim on passive subjects. Consider:
(8)	a. salmaai apnei ghar kaa niriksan karegi
Salma self's home GEN examination do-FUT-FEM "Salma will examine self's house."
b. salmaai dwaaraa apnei ghar kaa niriksan kiyaa gayaa Salma by self's home GEN examination do-PFV go-PFV2 "Salma will examine self's house."
Possessive reflexive binding is a subject property in Hindi. In the active (8a), the possessive reflexive apne is bound by the matrix subject salmaa. The situation remains exactly the same in the passive (8b); the agentive by-phrase of the passive salmaa dwaaraa also binds the possessive reflexive. Similarly, agentive by-phrases also fail to co-refer to pronominal DPs in the structure, a condition known as "anti-subject orientation". Both active and passive logical subjects pattern alike in this regard, as illustrated below in (9a)-(9b).
(9)	a. salmaai uske*i ghar kaa niriksan karegi
Salma her home GEN examine do-FUT-FEM "Salma will examine her house."
b. salmaai dwaaraa uske* ghar kaa niriksan kiyaa gayaa Salma by	her home GEN examine do-PFV go-PFV
"Her house will be examined by Salma."
Yet another subject property of Hindi is that its subjects can control into complement clauses (10a). Agentive by-phrases in passives have the same ability (10b).
(10)	a. salmaai [PROi ghar jaanaa] chaahti	thi
Salma	home go-INF want-IMP-FEM be-PST-FEM
"Salma wanted to go home."
b. salmaai dwaaraa [PROi ghar jaanaa] chaahaa gayaa alma by	home go-INF want-IMP go-PFV
"Salma wanted to go home."
Moreover, both active and passive subjects may also control into conjunctive participle adverbial clauses in the language (11a)-(11b).
(11)	a. salmaai [PROi ghar jaa kar ] mohan ko daategi
Salma	home go ConjPrt Mohan ACC scold-FUT-FEM
"Salma will scold Mohan after going home."
2 Richa (2011) uses "PFV" to gloss the past form of the passive morphemes in Hindi; we follow her here.
b. salmaai dwaaraa [PROi ghar jaa kar ] mohan ko daataa gayaa Salma by	home go ConjPrt Mohan ACC scold-PFV go-PFV
"Mohan was scolded by Salma after she went home."
Agentive by-phrases in Hindi passives bind possessive reflexives, show anti-subject orientation, control into complement and adverbial clauses, thereby depicting all prototypical subject properties of the language.
Furthermore, Mahajan provides evidence to show that the object in the Active Passive behaves just as it does in an active construction. Consider (12a)-(12c).
(12)	a. raajaa ne saare shero ko maar diyaa
king ERG. all tiger-PL ACC kill give "The king killed all the tigers."
b.	raajaa dwaaraa saare shero ko maar diyaa gayaa king by all tiger-PL ACC kill-PFV give-PFV go-PFV "All the tigers were killed by the king."
c.	sitaai dwaaraa salmaaj ko uske*l/j3 ghar bhej diyaa gayaa Sita by Salma ACC her home send give-PFV go-PFV "Salma was sent to her home by Sita"
d.	raam dwaaraa mohani ko [PROi ghar jaane ke liye] kaahaa gayaa Ram by Mohan ACC home go-INF GEN for tell-PFV go-PFV "Mohan was told by Ram to go home."
In the passive construction (12b), the logical object saare shero retains the accusative ko of the active object (12a). Apart from that, the pronoun in the passive construction (12c) can co-refer with the object. This suggests that the passive object is also the grammatical object because had it been in a subject position, it would have shown anti-subject orientation. Interestingly, the passive object can control into the complement clause, indicating that it has moved to a position high enough to c-command the embedded subject (12d). However, that position is not the subject position of the Active Passive.
Contrary to Mahajan, Bhatt (2003) claims that non-case marked objects (minus ko) are promoted in passives, which are attested by the nominative case on them; compare (13a) and (13b).
(13)	a. mujh ko fouran pehchaan liyaa jaayegaa
me-OBL -ACC immediately recognize take-PFV go-PFV-FUT "I will be recognized immediately."
b. me fouran pehchaan li	jaaungi
I immediately recognize take-PFV go-PFV-FUT.F "I will be recognized immediately."
3 The pronominal can also refer to any arbitrary person.
But Bhatt's claims for object movement to subject position are not well-substantiated. Richa (2011) presents evidence from control indicating quite the contrary. As shown in (14a)-(14b), both objects, with or without ko case, fail to control into the conjunctive participial clauses, a fiat only possible for real subjects.
(14)	a. sitaai [PRO*1/*imp arg ro kar ] ghar se bheji	gayi
Sita	cry ConjPrt home from send-PFV.F go-PFV.F
"Having cried, Sita was sent home."
b. sitaai ko [PRO*i/*imp arg ro kar ] ghar se bhejaa gayaa Sita ACC	cry ConjPrt home from send-PFV.M go-PFV.M
"Having cried, Sita was sent home."
But these two differently marked objects clearly have different landing sites. This difference is witnessed by the ability of only overtly case-marked objects to bind pronominals (15a) versus (15b), suggesting that only these DPs are placed high enough to A-bind other DPs.
(15)	a. chuhej ko uskej/k beg me rakhaa gayaa
rat ACC his bag in keep-PFV go-PFV "The rat was kept in his bag."
b. chuhe_j uske*j/k beg me rakhaa gayaa rat his bag in keep-PFV go-PFV "The rat was kept in his bag."
To summarize, Hindi regular passives have two salient properties. The first is that the external argument which is an agentive phrase retains subject properties though it surfaces as a PP. The second property is that the ko marked object is in a higher position than the unmarked one, though neither occupies the subject position of the clause.
3.1 Oriya Active Passives
As with Hindi, Oriya regular passives don't differ much from English-type passives, at least going by the surface structure. The internal argument of a transitive verb appears as the subject of the sentence with the logical subject appearing as an adjunct introduced by a preposition dwaaraa ("by"). The verb is in its agreeing perfective participial form, followed by the light verb galaa, ("go"). A typical passive construction from Oriya is provided below (16b) with its active counterpart (16a).
(16)	a. Mili raam ku juddh re maari delaa
Mili ram ACC battle in kill-PFV give-PFV "Mili killed Ram in the battle."
b. (mili dwaaraa) raam juddh re maraa galaa Mili by ram battle in kill-PFV go-PFV "Ram was killed in the battle (by Mili)."
However the picture changes drastically once we start probing deeper into the structures. The first diagnostic - anaphor binding - shows that the agentive by-phrases are capable of A-binding reflexives, a property very reminiscent of active subjects. This similarity is illustrated between the active (17a) and the passive (17b).
(17)	a. salmaai taa-nijai ghara nirikshyana kalaa
Salma self home examine do-PFV "Salma examined her house."
b. salmaai dwaaraa taa-nijai ghara nirikshyana karaa galaa Salma by self home examine do-PFV go-PFV "Self's house was examined by Salma."
Moreover, like active subjects (18a), agentive by-phrases in passives also show anti-subject orientation (18b).
(18)	a. salmaai taa*i ghara nirikshyana kalaa
Salma her home examine do-PFV "Salma examined her house."
b. salmaai dwaaraa taa*I ghara nirikshyana karaa galaa Salma by her home examine do-PFV go-PFV "Self's house was examined by Salma."
While agentive by-phrases behave as subjects, passive objects retain the object properties of the language, as illustrated below.
(19)	a. raajaa dwaaraa sabu baaghanku maari diaa galaa
king by all tiger-PL-ACC kill-PFV give-PFV go-PFV "All the tigers were killed by the king."
b. sitaa dwaaraa salmaai ko taai ghar ku pathei diaa galaa Sita by Salma ACC her home to send give-PFV go-PFV "Salma was sent to her home by Sita."
In (19a) the passive object retains the ku accusative case marker. Sentence (19b) illustrates that a pronominal in a passive can co-refer with the object, which is quite different from what we witness with subjects. Case-marking on the object is however optional (20a)-(20b), similar to what we observe for Hindi.
(20)	a. mote	atishighra chihni diaa jiba
me-OBL-ACC immediately recognize give-PFV go-PFV-FUT "I will be recognized immediately."
b. mu atishighra chihnaa padi jibi
I immediately recognize fall-PFV go-PFV-FUT "I will be recognized immediately."
In Oriya too, we find clear syntactic differences between the marked and the unmarked ones, with only the former co-referring to possessive pronominals in the
structure (21a)-(21b). This indicates that marked objects are placed higher than the unmarked ones.
(21)	a. sitaai taa»l/j	ghar paakhare dekhaa galaa
Sita her-OBL-GEN home near see-PFV go-PFV "Sitai was seen near her home."
b. sitaai ku taai/j ghar paakhare dekhaa galaa Sita ACC her home near see-PFV go-PFV "Sita was seen near her home."
The marked ones can also control into adjunct clauses (22a)-(22b).
(22)	a. sitaai [PRO*i/imp ^ kaandu kaandu] gharu bidaa karaagalaa
Sita	crying crying home send do-PFV
"Sita was sent from home while she was crying."
b. sitaai ku [PROi/imp ^ kaandu kaandu] gharu bidaa karaagalaa sita ACC	crying crying home send do-PFV
"Sita was sent from home while she was/people who sent her were crying."
However, these facts cannot be taken to claim that the marked object has moved as high as the subject. Evidence for a non-subject position for the raised object comes from control effects into conjunctive participles marked by the suffix kari on a bare verb stem. This conjunctive participle is the root of the verb karibaa and it obligatorily requires an overt controller in subject position (23).
(23)	cikui monuj ku [PROi/*j hasikari ] maarilaa Chiku Monu ACC	laugh-ConjPrt hit-PERF "Chiku hit Monu while he was laughing."
When conjunctive participles are placed in passives, objects - promoted/not promoted - are however unable to control their PRO subjects. Consider:
(24)	a. ?sitaai [PRO*i/*imp arg kaandikari ] gharu bidaa karaagalaa
Sita	crying-ConjPrt home send do-PFV
"Having cried, Sita was sent from home."
b. sitaai ku [PRO*i/imp arg kaandikari ] gharu bidaa karaagalaa Sita ACC	crying-ConjPrt home send do-PFV
"Having cried, Sita was sent from home."
As (24a)-(24b) show, Sitaa, with or without the overt accusative case marker fails to control into the kari marked adjunct; the controller must instead be a subject. The conjunctive participle control test therefore suggests that the direct object is never in a subject position, though it could land up in a higher position.
3.2 Malayalam Active Passives
Like the other Indian languages discussed above, Malayalam also has passives whose surface morphology suggests that the logical object has become the derived subject and the logical subject, with an instrumental marker, an adjunct. Compare the active with the passive in the following sentences.
(25) a. Jo:a raaman-e adicc-u John Ram-ACC beat-PST "John beat Ram."
b. raaman jo:a-in-aal a^ikka-ppett-u Ram John-INSTR beat-PASS-PST "Ram was beaten by John."
As with the other languages, anaphor binding is a good subject-hood diagnostic in this language.4 Here too, we find that the agentive by-phrase retains the subject-hood properties of the active subject. As illustrated in (26a)-(26b), both active and passive subjects A-bind reflexive DPs.
(26) a. salmaai swandami vi:tt-il tira-(y)um Salma self-GEN house-LOC search-FUT "Salma will search self's house."
b. salmaa-(y)aali swandami vi:tt-il tiraya-pped-um Salma-INSTR self-GEN house-LOC search-PASS-FUT "Self's house will be searched by Salma."
Another diagnostic that can identify subjects in Malayalam is control. As we see below, both active subjects and agentive by-phrases in passives can control into complement clauses (27a)-(27b).
(27) a. salmaai [PROi vitt-il po:kan] aagrahicc-u Salma	house-LOC go-INF wish-PST
"Salma wished to go home."
b. salmaa-(y)aali [PROi vi:tt-il po:kan] aagrahikka-ppett-u Salma-INSTR	house-LOC go-INF wish-PASS-PST
"By Salma was wished to go home."
What is unique about Malayalam passives is that their objects can never be marked overtly like their active objects (28a)-(28b).
4 Anti-subject orientation is not a subject property in Malayalam.
(28)	a. ^aan kaduva-(y)e konn-u
I tiger-ACC kill-PST "I killed the tiger."
b. kaduva enn-aal	kolla-ppett-u
tiger 1P.SG-INSTR kill-PASS-PST "The tiger was killed by me."
Lack of overt case-marking may suggest that these objects are placed structurally lower, similar to what we observe for Hindi and Oriya. However, control facts suggest otherwise. Passive objects control into complement clauses in Malayalam as they do in the active counterparts, suggesting that they raise high enough to c-command other arguments. This is illustrated below in (29a)-(29b).
(29)	a. raamani mohan-oda [PRO *i/j vittil	pokan] paranju
Raman Mohan-GEN	house-LOC go-INF say-PST
"Raman asked Mohan to go home."
b. raaman-aali mohanj-oda [PRO *i/j vittil pokan] paRa (y)a-ppett-u
Raman Mohan-GEN	house-LOC go-INF say- NomPrt-PASS-PST
"By Raman, Mohan was asked to go home."
3.3 Kharia Active Passives
Kharia too falls nicely in line with Hindi, Oriya and Malayalam when it comes to passives; i.e. its passives have typical SAL properties. Consider the data set given below (30a)-(30b), where an active and a passive are compared. The passive object is displaced to a sentence initial position, and the agent becomes optional.
(30)	a. mili-ko raam te mahaa koley hinte taaro
Mili-ERG Ram-ACC big fight in kill-PST "Milli killed Ram in the battle."
b. raam mahaa koley hinte ter-dom-ki Ram big fight in kill-PASS-PST "Ram was killed in the battle."
When realized, the agent is marked by the instrumental marker bung, as illustrated below.
(31)	mili yaa bung raam mahaa koley hinte ter-dom-ki Milli-ERG by Ram big fight in kill-PASS-PST "By Milli, Ram was killed in the battle."
The bung marked agent in Kharia behaves like active agents in different tests like anaphor binding, pronominal co-reference and control. Some relevant examples are given below.
(32)	a. salmaai aadiyaai ohoh-yaa yonaa-kangnaa karaaye
Salma self house examine	did
"Salma examined her own house."
b. salmaai-yaa bung aadiyaai ohoh-yaa yonaa-kangnaa karaay- dom-ki Salma-ERG by self house-GEN examine did- PASS-PST "Self's house was examined by Salma."
Possessive reflexive binding is a subject property in Kharia as illustrated in (32a). The structure in (32b), which is a passive construction, similarly has the agentive phrase salmaa bung bind the possessive reflexive. Anti-subject orientation is another subject characteristic in Kharia. Once again, both active and passive agents obey this constraint, as (33a-33b) show.
(33)	a. salmaai hokadaa»l/j ohoh-yaa yonaa-kongnaa karaay
Salma her	house-GEN examine did
"Salma examined her house."
b. salmaa-yaai bung hokadaa*i/j ohoh-yaa yonaa-kongnaa karaay-dom-naa Salma-ERG by her house-GEN examine did- PASS-PST "Her house was examined by Salma."
Kharia subjects can also control into complement clauses (34a). The agentive phrase in passives also behaves similarly in subject control construction (34b).
(34)	a. salmaai [PROi ohoh chonaa] laamnaa laa-kho
Salma	house go want be-PST
"Salma wanted to go home."
b. salmaa-yaai bung [PROi ohoh chonaa] laam-dom-ki Salma-ERG by	house go want-PASS-PST
"By Salma was wanted to go home."
Apart from that, Kharia subjects can control into conjunctive participle adverbial clauses in Kharia (35a), a behavior mimicked by agentive phrases in passives (35b).
(35)	a. salmaai [PROi ohoh chol-kon] mohan-te lene-ye
Salma	house go-ConjPrt Mohan-ACC scold-FUT
"Salma will scold Mohan after going home."
b. salmaai-yaa bung [PROi ohoh chol-kon ] mohan te lene- dom-ki Salma-GEN by	house go-ConjPrt Mohan-ACC scold-PASS-PST
"Mohan will be scolded by Salma."
Passive objects also show object-like properties in the language. Firstly, accusative case-marking is obligatory for objects in passives. Non-case-marked objects yield ungrammaticality, as illustrated in the contrast between (36a)-(36b).
(36)	a. ing-te truth	kong-dom-go-naa
I-ACC immediately identify-PASS-FUT "I will be identified immediately."
b. *ing truth	kong-dom-go-naa-ing
I-NOM immediately identify-PASS-FUT "I will be identified immediately."
These case-marked DPs are placed high enough to c-command and control PRO in embedded clauses (37).
(37)	raam-yaa bung mohan-tei [PROi ohoh chonaa thong] gam-dom-ki Ram-ERG by Mohan-ACC house go for said- PASS-PST "Mohan was asked to go home by Ram."
But the promoted object is not placed high enough as the subject, as is confirmed by the fact that it obviates the anti-subject constraint (38).
(38)	sitaa-yaa bung salmaai-te hokadaai ohoh daang-dom-ki Sita-ERG by Salma-ACC her house send-PASS-PST "Salama was sent to her house by Sita."
3.4 Summing up: The Spectrum of Passives
SAL passives and their English counterparts are different as we have discussed above, yet they share one crucial feature: the underscoring of the agent. This underscoring or optionality, we suggest, is a crucial property of the passive voice, which has the unique ability of introducing an argument with a preposition. Preposition marking is what makes the argument appear like an optional adjunct. However, it is also interesting to note that though phonetically optional (in the sense of not getting overtly manifested obligatorily), passive agents are present in the structure as implicit arguments, an observation originally due to Bhatt and Pancheva (2006). Consider the following examples in this regard.
(39)	The boat was sunk to collect the insurance.
(40)	The boat was sunk deliberately.
As illustrated above, the PRO of the embedded clause (39) needs a controller, which is the implicit agent. Similarly in (40), an agent-oriented adverbial is allowed because of the presence of an implicit agent. SALs display similar behavior (41)-(42).
(41)	nauke-ko bimaa lene ke liye duboyaa gayaa boat-ACC insurance collect for sink go-PFV "The boat was sunk to collect the insurance"
(42)	nauke-ko jaanbhujkar duboyaa gayaa boat-ACC deliberately sink go-PFV "The boat was sunk deliberately."
That indicates that the optionality of the agent is a matter of phonetics, not syntax. Passive agents are just like any other argument of the structure; they are obligatory hosted in the syntax. Whether they appear ultimately to the subject position or not differ from one language to the other, a difference possibly determined by other systemic concerns.
Secondly, if we are right, there is an entire spectrum of passive constructions, some of which obey only the minimal condition for passives - the underscoring of agents, and others which have additional features of object topicalization/promotion and/or verbal morphology alternations. English is a language that has all three properties, whereas SALs discussed here have only two of them - agent underscoring and change in verbal morphology. Tibeto-Burman languages may have passives that have agent underscoring and object topicalization, but no verbal morphology alternations. We detail on passives from this family of languages in the next section.
4. The Tibeto-Burman Passive
Whether Tibeto-Burman languages like Ao and Manipuri host passives is a contentious issue since there is no separate passive verbal morphology nor are agents marked with prepositions like "by" or "with". Actives do have some counterparts with dropped agents and topicalized objects quite reminiscent of passives, but additional evidence is called for before we can confidently make any such claim. Take some sentences below for illustration.
(43)	a. john-i kaari kaa aali	(Ao)
John car one buy-PFT "John bought a car."
b. kaari kaa (john-i) aali
car one John buy-PFT-PASS "A car was bought by John."
(44)	a. police.tu.naa nag phugani	(Manipuri)
police-DEF you beat-FUT "The policeman will hit you."
b. (police.tu.naa) nag.bu phugani police-DEF you-DEF beat-FUT "You will be hit by the policeman."
In both Ao and Manipuri, agent underscoring is possible in some constructions, such as (43b) and (44b); compare these with the (a) sentences where agents are a must. The objects in the optional agent-constructions are also highlighted by either their sentence-initial positions or by a definiteness marker respectively. Ao also has objects marked distinctly with the definiteness particle ji or yaa with the agents suppressed. This is illustrated in (45)-(46).
(45)	a. parnoki tanur yaashi aangu
They child yesterday see/find-PFV "They saw/found the child yesterday."
b. Tanur-ji yaashi tesusaa aangu
child-def. yesterday last see/find-PFV "The child was last seen yesterday."
(46)	a. window-yaa nisung aa-i aaksaa
window-def. person someone broke "The window was broken by someone."
Similarly, Manipuri (see the contrast in (47a) and (47b)) can use the sentence-initial position to highlight the object.
(47)	a. joan-naa meri-bu phure
Joan-DEF Mary-DEF hit-PFV "Joan hit Mary."
b. meri-bu joan-naa phukhre/phure Mary-DEF Joan-DEF hit-PFV "Mary was hit by Joan."
In short, we find these languages using either the sentence-initial position or a special morpheme to mark the most prominent, non-subject argument. In contrast, actives with ergative subjects occupy the sentence-initial position, but there is no special marking for them. Special marking seems restricted for non-subject arguments. This is the initial indication that these are not true actives. Moreover, the topicalized objects are placed high enough to control into complement clauses (see (48b) and (49b); contrast them with the active sentences with subject control in the (a) sentences.
(48)	a. na-yaa (sepaai) azuktsa insurance bentba yong	(Ao)
you-def. policeman hit insurance collection for "You will be hit by the policeman to collect the insurance."
b. sepaai-naa na azuktsa insurance bentsu aatemaa policeman you hit insurance collect purpose "The policeman will hit you to collect the insurance."
(49) a. insurance khomnaabaa naangbu phugani	(Manipuri)
insurance collect you hit. will "You will be hit to collect the insurance."
b. pulisnaa naangbu phuragaa insurance khomgani police you hit	insurance collect
"The police will hit you to collect the insurance."
Interestingly, both languages can use agent-oriented adverbials with these optional agent-sentences. Consider:
(50)	a. sepaai teloktem aashaa-tang mitsi-tok	(Ao)
policeman protestor deliberately kick-PFV "The policeman kicked the protestor deliberately."
b. teloktem-ji (sepaai) aashaa-tang mitsi-tho protestor-def. policeman deliberately kick "The protestor was kicked deliberately (by the policeman)."
(51)	a. pulisnaa protestardo thauojna kawkhi	(Manipuri)
policeman protestor deliberately kick "The policeman kicked the protestor deliberately."
b. protestardo thauojna kawkhi protestor deliberately kicked "The protestor was deliberately kicked."
Such sentences with agent-oriented adverbials suggest that like passives in other languages, the agents in Ao and Manipuri, even when they are phonetically absent or removed from their canonical sentence-prominent positions, are syntactically active. They are implicit arguments when not phonetically represented.
Moreover, like other passives (English (52)), Ao and Manipuri prevent these constructions from hosting "from" agentive phrases (53)-(54) respectively.
(52)	*The man was killed from the car.
(53)	*tanur-ji sepaai-e	mitsi-tok Child-def. policeman-from kicked "The child was kicked from the police."
(54)	*angando kawkhi pulistagi Child kicked police-from "The child was kicked from the police."
A final piece of evidence to show that these optional agent-less constructions are actually passives is their semantics with negation. It is observed that with Ao sentences like (55), the presence of a negation imparts it a non-stative reading. The sentence is interpreted as the beans not having put to boil at all by an agent; there is no reference to a state of the beans being half-boiled. On the other hand, a stative interpretation is possible for (56).
(55)	Beans-yaa ano me-molaa Beans-def still not-boiled
"The beans have not been put to boil"
(56)	Beans-yaa chonga me-molaa Bean-def. well not-boiled "The beans are not well-cooked"
The interesting difference between the two is that only in the former - with the non-stative meaning, can one have an optional agentive by-phrase phonetically
represented, whereas the one with the stative meaning completely rejects the presence of an agent. This suggests that the former is a passive and the latter a stative.5
Manipuri on the other hand prefers a stative meaning with such constructions (57). As expected, agentive phrases are ruled out here.
(57) Hawaaido munde Beans not-cooked "The beans are not well-cooked"
We thus have some substantial piece of evidence for suggesting that active looking constructions in Ao and Manipuri with optionally dropped agents and topicalized objects are indeed passives. Lack of separate passive verbal morphology suggest otherwise, but we have illustrated here that the properties of actives - like projecting agents as most prominent arguments or subjects as well as controlling into complement clauses - are not found in these agentless constructions. Moreover, the latter allow agent-oriented adverbs while disallowing from-agentive phrases, two properties that we also observe with English passives. Similarly, only passives with non-stative readings allow optional agents, whereas statives don't. Suppression of agents therefore seems to be a property unique to passives in these languages as well.
5. Conclusion: A way out for Universalism
Our study shows that cross-linguistically passives manifest different surface properties. English passives are recognized by optional agent suppression, object to subject movement and separate verbal morphology, whereas languages like Hindi, Oriya, Kharia and Malayalam have passives with optional agent suppression and separate verbal morphology, but no object movement to subject position. Finally, Ao and Manipuri passives optionally suppress their agents and have object movement, but do not host separate verbal morphology. There is then one crucial property that all passives in the languages under study share and that is the suppression or underscoring of the agent. They therefore obey Shibatani's minimal condition for passives. We can therefore safely conclude that there is a universal passive voice - with its ability to underscore the agent - underlying every language. This paper is therefore a defense of "categorical universalism" over Haspelmath's proposed "categorical particularism".
Haspelmath through his emphasis on categorical particularism proposes a radical disconnect between grammatical analyses of particular-languages and cross-linguistic
5 Dubinsky and Simango (1996) find a similar semantic distinction between passives and statives in Chichewa illustrated through the following examples. Passives in this language, unlike Ao and Manipuri however have a distinct passive morphology.
(i)	Nyemba si-zi-na-phik-idwe Beans neg-agr-past-cook-pass "The beans were not cooked (at all)."
(ii)	Nyemba si-zi-na-phik-ike Beans neg-agr-past-cook-stat "The beans were not cooked (well)."
typological studies. "Each language has its own categories, ...[which] are often similar across languages, but the similarities and differences between languages cannot be captured by equating categories across languages" (Haspelmath, 2007, p. 663). Typology is therefore considered beyond the reach of language-particular theoretical researches.
We suspect otherwise, given what we observe in the paper. One crucial property that we find for every passive in well-studied languages such as English is agent suppression. This property is then isolated and investigated on novel data from a set of chosen languages. It is observed in all these constructions, which force us to contend that they are indeed all of the same type even though some of them may manifest extra features and surface morphology. Our search therefore leads us from language-particular properties to significant typological generalizations, indicating that the disconnect Haspelmath tries to build between these two strands of research is faulty to start with. Language particular theoretical analyses and typology go hand in hand to a large extent; they feed into each other.
We therefore find it appropriate to end our paper with an observation due to Newmeyer (2010, p. 688), "universal comparative concepts and language-particular descriptive categories are each highly problematic in and of themselves. It is only by means of working out the interplay between the language-particular and the language-independent that we can hope to understand either".
References
Afarli, T. A. (1989). Passive in Norwegian and in English. Linguistic Inquiry 20(1), 101-108. Baker, M. C. (1988). Incorporation: A Theory of grammatical function changing. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. Baker, M. C. (2003). Lexical categories: Verbs, nouns and adjectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baker, M. C. (2009). Language Universals: Abstract not Mythological. Behavior and Brain Sciences, 32, 448-449.
Baker, M., Johnson, K. & Roberts, I. (1989). Passive arguments raised. Linguistic Inquiry, 20, 219-251.
Bhatt, R. (2003). Topics in the Syntax of the Modern Indo-Aryan Languages. (Passivization
Handout) URL: http: //web .mit. edu/rbhatt/www/24.956 Bhatt, R., & Pancheva, R. (2006). Implicit Arguments. In The Blackwell Companion to Syntax
Vol. II, 554-584. Wiley-Blackwell. Collins, C. (2005). A Smuggling Approach to the Passive in English. Syntax, 8, 81-120. Comrie, B. (1989). Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Corbett, G. G. (2000). Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dixon, R. M. W. (2004). Adjective classes in typological perspective. In Adjective classes: a cross-linguistic typology; R. M. W. Dixon, and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (Eds.), 30-83. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dixon, R. M. W. (2010). Basic Linguistic Theory. Vol. 1-2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dubinsky, S., & Simango, S. R. (1996). Passive and Stative in Chichewa: Evidence for Modular Distinctions in Grammar. Language, 72(4), 749-781.
Gehrke, B., & Grillo, N. (2009). How to become passive. In Explorations of Phase Theory: Features, Arguments and Interpretation at the Interfaces; K. K. Grohmann (Ed.). Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.
Givon, T. (1979). On understanding grammar. New York: Academic Press.
Granger, S. (1983). The be + past participle construction in spoken English with special
emphasis on the passive. Holland Linguistic Series 49. Amsterdam, New York & Oxford North: Elsevier.
Haspelmath, M. (2007). Pre-established categories don't exist: consequences for language description and typology. Linguistic Typology, 11(1), 119-132.
Haspelmath, M. (2010). Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in cross-linguistic studies. Language, 86(3), 663-687.
Keenan, E. L. (1976). The Logical diversity of natural languages. In Origin and Evolution of Language and Speech. New York: Academy of Sciences.
Mahajan, A. (1994). Active Passives. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics; R. Aronovich, W. Byrne, S. Preuss, and M. Senturia (Eds.). Stanford University: CSLI Publications.
Newmeyer, F. J. (2007). Linguistic typology requires cross linguistic formal categories. Linguistic Typology, 11, 133-157.
Newmeyer, F. J. (2010). On Comparative Concepts and Descriptive Categories: A Reply to Haspelmath. Language, 86, 688-695.
Payne, T E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richa (2011). Hindi Verb Classes and their Argument Structure Alternations. UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishers.
Roberts, I. (2008). Smuggling, Affectness and Argument Structure Alternation. Ms. University of Cambridge.
Shibatani, M. (1985). Passives and related constructions: a prototype analysis. Language, 61, 821-848.
Shibatani, M. (2006). On the conceptual framework for voice phenomena. Linguistics, 44, 217269.
Siewierska, A. (1984). Passive: A Comparative Linguistic Analysis. London: Routledge
Siewierska, A. (2005). Passive constructions. In M. Haspelmath, M. Dryer, D. Gil, & B. Comrie (Eds.)., World Atlas of Linguistic Structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Slavutych, Y. (1973). Conversational Ukrainian. Edmonton: Gateway.
Van Valin, R. D. Jr. (2005). Exploring the syntax-semantic interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Politeness Strategies in Odia
Kalyanamalini SAHOO
English & Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India kalyani. eflu@gmail.com
Abstract
This study discusses how various politeness strategies are implemented linguistically and how linguistic usage is related to social and contextual factors in the Indic language Odia1. The study extends the validity of politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1978) with reference to Odia speech-patterns and shows that Odia usage of politeness would be more differentiated according to the social relationship and gender than the content of the message. In Brown and Levinson's model, individual speech acts are considered to be inherently polite or impolite. However, in Odia, it is found that communities of practice, rather than individuals, determine whether speech acts are considered polite or impolite. Thus, politeness should be considered as a set of strategies or practices set by particular groups or communities of practice as a socially constructed norm for themselves.
Keywords: gender; politeness strategies; pronouns; address forms; Odia language
Izvleček
Razprava predstavi, kako se različne strategije vljudnosti izražajo skozi jezik in kako je izbira jezikovnih sredstev povezana z družbenimi in kontekstualnimi dejavniki v indijskem jeziku orija. Študija pokaže, da teorija vljudnosti (Brown & Levinson, 1978) velja tudi za govorne vzorce v oriji, saj so razlike v izražanju vljudnosti tesneje povezane s spolom in družbenimi razlikami, kot pa s samo vsebino sporočila. V okviru Brownovega in Levinsonovega modela so posamezna govorna dejanja inherentno ljudna ali nevljudna. Na primeru odije se je izkazalo, da je dojemanje govornega dejanja kot vljudnega ali nevljudnega, v večji meri odvisno od jezikovne skupnosti, in ne toliko od posameznega govorca. Na podlagi tega bi morali vljudnost obravnavati kot nabor strategij in dejanj, ki jih zase določijo posamezne skupine ali skupnosti kot dužbena pravila.
Ključne besede: spol; strategije vljudnosti; zaimki; oblike nazivov; orija
1 Odia, formerly known as Oriya, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Odisha, a state in the eastern part of India.
Acta Lingüistica Asiatica, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2013. ISSN: 2232-3317 http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/
1. Introduction
Politeness is defined by the concern for the feelings of others. For Holmes (1995), politeness refers to "behaviour which actively expresses positive concern for others, as well as non-imposing distancing behaviour". It is "a battery of social skills whose goal is to ensure everyone feels affirmed in a social interaction" (Mills, 2003). In terms of Brown and Levinson (1978), politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers' "face", whereas "face" refers to the respect that an individual has for him-/her-self, and maintaining that "self-esteem" in public or in private situations. This refers to the situation, where the addresser usually tries to avoid making the addressee feel uncomfortable. Hence, politeness means some manners or etiquette which is grafted on to individual speech acts in order to facilitate interaction between speaker and hearer. Such etiquette emerges over stretches of talk and across communities of speakers and hearers. Brown and Levinson assume the speaker's volitional use of language, which allows the speaker's creative use of face-maintaining strategies towards the addressee. In Japanese, however, as (Matsumoto, 1988; Ide, 1989) claim politeness is achieved not so much on the basis of volition as on discernment (wakimae "finding one's place"), or prescribed social norms. It adheres to formality norms appropriate to the particular situation. This study investigates how politeness strategies are followed in Odia and what types of politeness strategies are transmitted through linguistic channels.
Odia is an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is one of the official languages of India, and is mainly spoken in the Indian state Odisha. According to the census data 2001 (censusindia.gov.in), the language is spoken by over 33 million people in India; and globally over 45 million speak Odia. In Odisha, good manners are most highly esteemed, and the children are taught that it is very essential for them to show respect to their superiors and elders, to be friendly with the peers, and to be always kind and courteous to their inferiors. The custom of greetings and salutations, of visiting, of eating, of giving gifts, of introductions, writing letters, and the like, are all strictly defined2, and they are like the code of laws which binds society together, and no one is allowed to transgress them so easily. It is a fundamental part of civilization and also a very essential characteristic of religion.
Since the social status of each individual is not equal in Odia society, one person typically has a higher/lower position than his/her peers, and such position is determined by a variety of factors including profession, age, caste, gender, family relationship or even a particular situation or psychological state (Sahoo, 2003). The person in the lower position in a particular situation, usually, uses a polite form of speech with a person in the higher position, for example, a person asking for a favour tends to do so politely. Strangers usually speak to each other politely. Except for a few situations, children usually use less-polite speech until their teens. Educated people use more polite forms than the uneducated people, women use more polite forms than men. Females have a long tradition of addressing their husband and other members of the inlaw's family with reverence. Also, in many other situations, females usually use more polite forms than men.
2 The rules vary for both the sexes, though.
The use of honorifics is a common feature in Odia. Some of the common honorifics are: agyan "yes sir/madam", babu "Mr.", and some honorific titles borrowed from English like Professor. Dr., Mr., Miss, Mrs, sir/madam, etc. agyan "yes sir/madam" is perhaps the only honorific term that can be used for nearly all kinds of persons irrespective of their caste, sex and occupation. babu3 can be used with either the first name or the last name of the person. However, "sir/madam" is not confined to vocative contexts only, but is freely used in nominative & objective cases as well; eg, sir/madam mote kahile je... ("sir/madam told me that..."), mu sir-nku kahibi... ("I will ask sir.").
The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 2 discusses variants of the second person singular pronoun and different levels of politeness found in Odia society. Section 3 considers politeness strategies like choice of lexical words, use of indirectness, indirect speech and sophisticated vocabulary, avoidance of negative questions, etc. Section 4 focuses on linguistic sub-strategies implemented for making requests, commands, suggestion, prohibition and seeking permission. Section 5 concludes with a summary of the discussion.
For the data in this paper, I have consulted the EMILLE/CIIL corpus.4 Also, being a native speaker of the language, some of the examples are provided by me.5
2. Levels of Politeness
2.1 Positive vs. Negative Politeness
Brown and Levinson's (1978) model analyses politeness in two broad groups: positive politeness and negative politeness. Positive politeness "anoints the face of the addressee by indicating that in some respects, S[peaker] wants H[earer]'s wants (e.g. by treating him/her as a member of an in-group, a friend, a person whose wants and personality traits are known and liked)". On the other hand, Negative politeness which is "essentially avoidance-based and consist(s).. .in assurances that the speaker.will not interfere with the addressee's freedom of action." Thus, Positive politeness is concerned with demonstrating closeness and affiliation, whereas Negative politeness is concerned with distance and formality. On the other hand, for Holmes (1995), "polite people" are those who "avoid obvious face-threatening acts ... they generally attempt to reduce the threat of unavoidable face threatening acts such as requests or warnings by softening them, or expressing them indirectly; and they use polite utterances such as greetings and compliments where possible."
Brown and Levinson (1978) proposed that communicator's choice of super-strategies (such as, bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, off the record, and no communication) depends on power, distance, and level of the imposition. Specifically, as power, distance, and imposition increase, individuals will
3	A term like babuaNi "Mrs" also exists, but that is used to refer to the wife of a babu rather.
4	The use of EMILLE/CIIL corpus is gratefully acknowledged.
5	In a non-systematic enquiry, I have verified all the data with some 11 native speakers of the language.
use higher level super-strategies. In other words, politeness theory suggests that negative strategies are more "polite" than positive strategies and individuals will use more negative strategies than positive strategies when speaking with a powerful person.
In Odia, categories that capture positive politeness strategies include being affiliative, attentive, concerned, approving, encouraging, supportive, positive, seeking agreement, and even giving gifts to the target. These categories correspond to Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies of noticing or attending to the target, showing interest, approval, and sympathy for the target, seeking agreement, asserting common ground, joking, asserting knowledge of the target's wants and concerns, being optimistic, and asserting reciprocity. On the other hand, categories that capture negative politeness include being indirect, not being open, being apologetic, being avoidant, being uncertain, and being professional. These categories correspond to Brown and Levinson's strategies of being indirect, hedging, being pessimistic, minimizing the imposition, being deferential, and being apologetic.
2.2 Pronouns as Markers of Politeness
In Odia, personal pronouns are marked for politeness. 2nd person pronoun is marked for politeness conveying three morphological variants of the form denoting three layers of honorificity. 3rd person singular pronoun se (s/he) is marked for politeness through plural agreement with the verb (Sahoo, 2011)6, as shown in example (1). (1b) marked with plural agreement is more polite than the counterpart (1a) with singular agreement.
(1) a. se as-u-chh-i
s/he come-PROG-Aux-3sg[-Hon] "S/he is coming."
b. se as-u-chh-anti
s/he come-PROG-Aux-3pl./3sg[+Hon] "S/he[+a,n] is coming."
3rd person genitive pronoun like ta(ra) (his/her) vs tanka(ra) (his/her[+Hon]/pL) shows that tanka(ra) is marked for politeness as it is used in the plural form.
The second person singular pronoun "you" in Odia has three lexical realizations: tu, tume and apaNa. These lexical variants of the second person singular pronoun, as far as their usage is concerned, differ in their semantics and are used under specific social circumstances, with a distinctive social distribution (Sahoo, 2003):
• tu is an intimate pronoun which is used for close friends, relatives, female family members or younger people. Due to its lack of honorific content, it is used with servants, socially low class people, etc.
6 1st person singular pronoun is also used in plural form to mark politeness. However, it is restricted to literary use only.
•	tume occupies an intermediate position between tu and apaNa both in terms of intimacy and respect or honorification. It is therefore employed in a wide range of contexts, e.g. in addressing one's spouse, in-laws, male family members, colleagues, strangers (of the same age-group), neighbours, all the elders, etc.
•	apaNa is a honorific form and is used for teachers, officials, senior colleagues, people of high social status, etc.
In terms of politeness, we can refer to them as the plain form, the simple polite form and the advanced polite form, respectively. The distribution of the three variants of the pronoun is thus determined by the dimensions of honour, intimacy and social status with respect to the societal role-relationship. For example, one uses the tu variant of "you" for his/her elder brother and sister as well, but uses tume [+honorific] for his/her sister-in-law (brother's wife), and the brother-in-law (sister's husband). This is because of the difference in the degree of intimacy between brothers and sisters and the in-laws. Thus, a polite form is used for the in-laws. Parents use the tu form for their children. Intimate friends can use tu and little less intimate friends can use tume for each other, whereas colleagues in an office can choose tume or apaNa for each other. Students use apaNa for a teacher, while the teacher can use either tu (in primary school) or tume (in secondary or high school, university, etc.). Thus, the degree of politeness can be determined from the usage of the variants of the second person pronoun.
Based on the variants of the second person singular pronoun, there are at least three levels of politeness in Odia: the plain form, the simple polite form and the advanced polite form.
(i)	The plain form is casual speech, which is used among children, close friends, kins, family members (either very intimate or younger to the addresser), friends of the same age-group. Due to its lack of honorific content, this is also used for servants, socially low class people, etc.
(ii)	The simple polite form occupies an intermediate position between casual and honorific, both in terms of intimacy and respect or honorificity. It is therefore employed in a wide range of contexts, e.g. among family members, colleagues, strangers (of the same age-group), neighbours, in-laws, elders, while praying gods, etc.
(iii)	The advanced polite form is a honorific form which is used with teachers, officials, people of high social status, etc.
In addition, there is the rude form, which is not in use in a normal conversation. It is either rough language or blunt speech that consists of talking down to the listener, or it is very colloquial and appropriate only in a very familiar group.
3. Politeness Strategies
Politeness theory posits that, as the social distance between the speaker and the listener increases, politeness increases (Brown & Levinson, 1978; Holmes, 1995). This is true for Odia. In Odia, power, social distance and contextual factors affect different
politeness strategies. Individuals simply tend to use more strategies as power and distance increase. Some strategies are more sensitive to distance differences and some are more sensitive to power differences. One tends to be more polite to someone who is socially more distant (e.g. a stranger) than to someone who is socially more close (e.g. a family member). Moreover, age and sex also play important roles in it (Sahoo & Babu, 2012). As distance is greater with superiors and subordinates than with peers, thus, one would expect more politeness with superiors and subordinates than with peers. Peers are likely to have more or less similar experiences, they tend to be more familiar with one another, and interact more informally with one another.
Politeness depends not only on the semantic content of the utterance but also on the accompanying kinesics such as body movements, gestures and facial expressions--that contextualize the utterance. However, in this paper we will focus on linguistic means only.
3.1	Distance Differences
Let's consider a situation of distance differences. In a socially intimate or zero distance situation, while making a request, a child might use a sentence like (3) for his/her mother, instead of (2) (with the use of light verb die "give"/particles Tike and ma /past tense to mark politeness), which is more appropriate for a request with people of distant differences.
(2)	a. mili, mo frock-Ta Tike silei kari-die ma
Mili, my frock-CL PRT stitch do-give 2sg PRT "Mili, will you stitch my frock, please?"
b. mili, mo frock-Ta Tike silei kari-delu Mili, my frock-CL PRT stitch do-give-PAST "Mili, could you please stitch my frock?"
(3)	ma, mo frockTa silei kare/kari-die mother, my frock stitch do-IMP/do-give-IMP "Mom, stitch my frock."
In (3), imperative constructions are quite compatible in a mother-son/daughter relationship, while in (2), distance in social relationship demands an appropriate politeness strategy while making requests.
3.2	Choice of Lexical and Structural Means
Choice of lexical words as well as the structure of the sentence contributes towards politeness. E.g. (4b) is a more polite construction than (4a), although both the sentences mean the same. In fact, (4a) is considered to be a rude speech.
(4) a. radhua-Ta chanDaLa-Te Radhua-CL mean-CL "Radhua is so mean / such a nuissance!"
b. radhuaTa bhala pila nuhan Radhua-CL good child not "Radhua is not a good boy."
3.3 Indirectness
Another aspect of Odia politeness is its indirectness. The real art of Odia communication is steering the conversation without being obvious about it, so that the addressee feels comfortable. Especially, requests are often made indirectly, by keeping oneself from the potential to be imposing. For example, for using the phone of somebody, instead of directly asking him/her as in (4a), it is more polite to say a softer sentence such as (4b), and just leave it hanging.
(5)	a. mu Tike tama phone-ru kathabarta karibi-ki
I little your phone-from talk	will do QUE
"Can I use your phone, please?"
b. mu Tike phone karibi boli bhabuthili je...
I little phone will do COMP thinking COMP...
"I was thinking of making a call, but... "
Then the other person responds by inviting you to use the phone. Similarly, asking for a company to go out one would express as in (6):
(6)	mu baharaku jibaku bhabuthili je, kintu ekuTia jibaku mana heuni
I outside go-INF was thinking COMP, but alone go-INF mind be-NEG
"I was thinking of going out, but don't feel like going alone."
Then the other person may offer to accompany him/her for going out or may arrange somebody/somethingelse to get the work done.
3.4 Avoidance of Negative Questions
Positive questions are considered to be more polite than negative questions. So in a situation where one just enquires if the addressee has a pen, one avoids to ask a negative question like (7a):
(7) a. tama pakhare kalama nahin ki?
your near pen not QUE "Don't you have a pen?"
Instead, one asks a positive question like (7b):
(7)	b. tama pakhare kalama achhi ki?
your near pen is QUE "Do you have a pen?"
This is so, because, although both (7a) and (7b) denote that the addresser is enquiring if the addressee carries a pen with him/her at that particular momement or for that particular occasion; (7a) connotes that the addressee should have carried a pen with him/her at that particular momement or for that particular occasion; and in case s/he does not have a pen at that moment, then s/he is below the social norms. So, using such a construction might be impolite and face-threatening. Hence, the addresser uses a polite construction like (7b).
3.5	Nominalization
In Odia, as the verb agrees with the subject noun for honorificity, use of nominalized form of the verb is more prevalent with strangers, when the addresser does not know which level of politeness needs to be used for the addressee. As second person singular pronoun is marked for honorificity and three variants of this pronoun are available, and the language allows pro(noun)-drop (Pattanaik, 1987; Sahoo, 2010), nominalization of the verb is used to show politeness without using the pronouns. For example, instead of using a construction like (8a), where the verb is marked for honorificity, one uses a construction like (8b), that is, by nominalizing the verb and dropping the subject pronoun:
(8)	a. kuaDe jaucha/jauchu/jauchanti
where	going[+Hon]/[-Hon]/[+Hon]
"Where are you going?"
b. kuaDe jibara achhi?
where go-NOM	is
"Where do you have to/ need to go?"
3.6	Sophisticated Vocabulary
As sophistication denotes educated, cultured and well-mannered, people attribute positive traits to sophistication. A little sophisticated vocabulary also makes the construction sound more polite as politeness demands sophistication. So, a sophisticated construction like (10) would be more polite than a casual construction like (9):
(9)	busre gale	bus rastasara	pakai pakai neba
by bus go-COND bus road-throughout drop drop take-FUT-3sg
"If we go by bus, it's no good, as the bus will be slow by making stops on the way."
(10) mu bhabhuchi, busre gale ame ete shighra pahanchi pariba nahin, I thinking, by bus go-COND we that fast reach can not,
kahinki na bus rastare sabu sTapre Tikie Tikie rahi rahi jiba. because bus road-on all stop-in little little stay stay go-FUT-3sg.
"I think if we take the bus, we will not be able to reach there in time as the bus tends to arrive late by making frequent stops."
(10)	justifies the statement by providing a reason for it, hence, it is sophisticated and more polite than (9), which is just a statement. Similarly, a casual talk would be like (11), while a more polite one would be like (12), giving all the rights to the addressee to do the work as s/he likes:
(11)	chala dekhiba tame kaNa/kemiti kariparucha let see you what/how do-can 2sg. "Let's see what you can do/ how you can do it."
(12)	tume jemiti kariba/jaha	kariba chaLiba, mora kichhi asubidha nahin you however do-FUT/whatwever do-FUT ok, mine any objection not "Whatever/ however you do is fine (with me), I don't have any objection in this regard."
While confirming something, a softened interrogative construction is used to sound more tentative, so that it can have a polite effect on the interlocutor. For example, in a situation, where the addresser does not find his/her pen and asks the addressee if s/he has left the pen with him/her, s/he would use a construction like (13b), instead of asking a direct question like (13a).
(13)	a. mo kalama-Ta kain tuma/apaNanka pakhare achhi ki?
my pen CL where your	near be QUE
"Is my pen with you?"
b. mo kalama-Ta kain tuma/apaNanka pakhare rahi jaini ta?7 my pen CL where your	near be PRT
"Is it by mistake I left my pen with you?"
4. Linguistic Sub-strategies
Certain linguistic sub-strategies are also used to communicate in a polite manner. In certain cases, syntactic means are used/preferred over lexical means. Requests are made by asking for a favour, commands are made by demanding to do the work by using direct or indirect strategies, proposals are made by asking for agreement by the hearer etc. There are polite forms for giving suggestions, permission, and prohibition of actions. Like commands, these have the potential to sound too abrupt, and so they are treated carefully. However, intonation also plays a major role for polite forms.
7 An example like (13) also can be used when the speaker doubts that the hearer has taken/even stolen the item from him.
4.1 Performative Utterances
For explicit performative utterances (Austin, 1962) like "thank you" or "sorry", Odia rarely uses lexical means for politeness, but it uses certain morpho-syntactic structures to sound polite in the entire utterances or the whole dialogue. Instead of using formulaic expressions like "thank you" and "sorry" one uses constructions like (14) and (15), by expressing the consequences in a positive and negative tone, respectively:
(14)	o, bhari bhala hela, tume eiTa karidela oh, very good happened, you this did "Oh, it is very good that you did it (for me)"
(15)	oho! bodhe bhul hoigala, mu jaNi parili nahin oh! probably mistake happened, I know could not "Oh! probably, it is a mistake, I could not understand"
4.2 Requests
Requesting somebody to do a work is made more polite by first asking the person to do a favour, and then mentioining about the work. This way the addressee gets an opportunity for a preparatory phase before agreeing/ disagreeing to do the work. E.g. while asking somebody to repair your watch in a shop, you would ask the person in a way as it is in (16):
(16) e, mo pain goTe kama karidebu ki? mo ghanTa-Ta-ku dokana-re hello, me for a work will do QUE? my watch-Cl-ACC shop-in
Tike maramati kari aNibu? little repair do bring-FUT-2sg.
"Hello, will you do me a favour? Can you you please get my watch repaired in a shop?"
Request forms are made by using light verbs, particles, quantifier, past tense form of the verb, interrogatives, etc. In (17), while requesting somebody for a bucket of water, the addresser uses particles like ma/los; in (18), while asking for some rice, one uses the past tense form of the verb. In (19), there is a formulaic quantifier9, a light verb and a question marker; and in (20), a light verb and a question marker have been used for making a request.
8	The particle lo is used as a fondling term for females only (especially, children and young females), while the emphatic particle ma can be used for both male and female.
9	The formulaic quantifier Tikie "little" connotes the meaning "please", and is very often used in making requests, asking for permission, etc.
(17)	e jhia, mote goTe balTi paNi die ma/lo oh, daughter me a bucket water give PRT "Oh daughter, could you please give me a bucket of water?"
(18)	mote ganDe/muThe bhata delu
me CL/QUAN rice give-PAST 2sg "Give me some rice, please."
(19)	mote Tikie gaDi-re bas-ai de-b-a-ki?
me little bus-in sit-CAUS give-FUT-2sg.-QUE "Could/will you please make me sit in the bus?"
(20)	mo pain khanDe/goTe luga kiNidebu?
me for CL/QUAN saree buy-give-FUT 2sg. "Will you please buy a saree for me?"
Note that constructions like (17)-(18) are usually used among family members, while (19)-(20) are with familiar people.
A request can also be made polite by passivizing the construction and omitting the by-phrase. Such types of constructions are usually used among less-familiar people or strangers. In the following example, the addresser expresses that s/he would feel happy if the work is done by the addressee.
(21)	ei kamaTa hoigala mane bhari khusi lagiba this work-CL is done means very happy will be felt "I/(you) will feel happy once this work is done."
The intended meaning here would be "I will feel happy once this work is done by you."
An assurance to the request is also made in a similar way as in (22), (23) by using a passive voice. Here, the addressee assures that he would do the work and would feel restless until the work is done completely, as in (22); or he would try his best to do the work, as in (23).
(22)	ei kamaTa na-sariba paryanta munDa-ru chinta jibani
this work-CL not done until head-from worry go-FUT-NEG "Worries will not go out of my head until this work is completed." [I will feel worried until this work is done.]
(23)	dekhiba, kaNa kara-jaipariba see-FUT-PL what do-PASS "Let's see what can be done."
The intended meaning would be "Let's see if I can do something for you." 4.3 Proposals
In a social interaction, proposals are usually made by asking the adressee's consent first, and then only progress is made. So, in a situation where a person wants to apply
for a joint project with another, s/he seeks the consent of the other person in the following way, as in the example (24). It characterizes one's desire not to be imposed upon the other.
(24)	ame duijaNa mishi goTe project pain apply kariba ki? we both combined a project for apply do-fut QUE "Shall we both apply for a project?"
4.4 Polite Commands
Command forms are difficult to handle as they denote the superiority of the commander. Commands are usually dealt with carefully, demanding the work by making the hearer feel comfortable and assured. Note that as there is subject verb agreement, the use of the imperative verbal form depends on the honorific variant of the second person singular pronoun. So, the commander has the choice to pick a particular variant of the imperative form depending on the situation and the social status of the addressee.
Depending on the levels of honorificity (as discussed in section 2), there are four types of command forms available in Odia. Let's look at the verb kar (to do). By using the imperative form of this verb, various command forms can be listed as follows:
Impolite, true command form:
There is a true command form, which is used with inferiors, children, servants, etc. For example, kar /do-IMP/, kar(e) kar(e) /do-IMP do-IMP/ [repetition of the verb is done to quicken the process of doing], tu kare /you[-Hon] do/. The addressee also can be obliged to do the work, as in (25).
(25)	tote	eiTa kar-ibaku paD-iba/he-ba you[-Hon]-DAT this do-INF fall-FUT 3sg. /be-FUT 3sg. "You[-Hon] have to do it."
Casual command form:
The casual polite form is appropriate for children, close-friends, younger family members, etc. This is the same as the true command form (as mentioned above) but is made polite simply by changing the intonation only. For example, kare /do-IMP/, and sometimes by using an interrogative negative marker karu-nu /do-IMP-NEGINT/ "Why don't you do it?".
(26)	tu ei kamaTa kare, se seiTa karu you this work do-IMP, he that do-IMP "You do this work and let him do that."
Polite command form:
There is a normal-polite form which can serve as the command form for friends or equals, family members, colleagues, among the people of the same age group. This form can be used for strangers too. E.g. kara /do-IMP/, kara na /do-IMP tag que/, tame
kara /you [ +Hon] do/. The command can be stiff but polite too. For example, while giving dead-line to complete some work in a particular duration of time, the command can be given as the following:
(27)	ei kamaTa aji arambha kari dui dina bhitare sari-dele
this work today start do two day within complete-give-COND
bhala heba good be-FUT 3sg.
"It will be good if you start this work today and complete it within two days."
Honorific command form:
Then, there is the honorific command form, which is very polite, as in (28); in addition, with a negative marker and exclamation, as in (29); with a negative marker, question marker and an emphatic particle, as in (30). It is used while giving commands to a superior10 by reducing one's self-importance (which makes the hearer sound like polite requests or suggestions). For example, while asking a senior colleague to complete some work to submit it to the higher authority, a junior colleague can use as it is in (28)-(30).
(28)	apaNa karantu / karantu na you[+Hon] do-IMP / do-IMP tag que "You[+Hon] do it."
(29)	apaNa kar-u-na-ha-nti! you[+Hon] do-PROG-NEG 2sg.[+Hon] "Why don't you do it!"
(30)	arambha karunahanti kahinki ma? start do-PROG-NEG why PRT "Why don't you start, ya?"
Note that there is a negative marker used in this construction, and certain change in the intonation makes the meaning that "You are privileged to do the work."
Conditionals also can be used for this purpose, to soften the command by clarifying the situation. For example,
(31)	apaNa asile	bhari bhala huanta, mu se bisayare Tike you[+Hon] come-COND very good will be, I that about little
kathabarta karibapain chahunchi talk	do-INF want
"It would be good if you come, I would like to talk (a little) about that."
Note that in the above examples (25)-(31), the agreement markers on the verb are very different depending on how polite one wants to be. The appropriate choice of
10 Here, "superior" means not superior in official authority, but may be superior in age, colleagues in the profession, etc.
honorifics is based on complex rules evaluating addressee, referent, and entities or activities associated with.
4.5	Suggestion
Suggestions are offered among the familiar folks only, guiding the subject in thought, feelings or behaviour. It is handled carefully to minimize any threat to the hearer's positive face. Suggestions are expressed by using conditionals and double negatives. E.g. while suggesting somebody to go to a particular place, or to give something to somebody, the interlocutor may use constructions like (32) and (33), respectively.
(32)	tu seThaku na-ga-le	bhala he-b-a-ni
you there NEG-go-COND good be-FUT-3sg.NEG "It won't be good if you don't go there."
(33)	ame tanku kicchi nadele	bhala hebani
we him something NEG-give-COND good be-FUT-3sg.NEG "It won't be good unless we give him something."
Other imperatives also can be expressed with a conditional and double negatives:
(34)	na-kha-ile	he-ba-ni NEG-eat-COND be-FUT 3sg.-NEG "It won't do unless you eat."
The intended meaning is "You have to eat."
In the above types of constructions, "it won't be good" / "it won't do" denotes that the world will end if that particular action (i.e. "giving", "eating") is not performed. So, the addressee feels more comfortable about doing it — after all, by doing that action, the s/he is not only obeying the addresser's wish, but also is saving the world.
4.6	Prohibition
Prohibition is expressed with the same phrase as above (for suggestion), but by using only a single negative. So, instead of expressing it in negative command form as in (35a), one could rephrase it politely as it is in (35b), that is, by using a conditional and giving reasons or constraints:
(35)	a. basani
sit-2sg.-NEG "Don't sit."
b. bas-ile he-ba-ni,	kama karibaku paDiba
sit-COND be-FUT 3sg.-NEG, work to be done "It won't be (good) if you sit, one needs to work." ["You must not/ are not allowed to sit."]
Also, one can politely prohibit somebody not do something by giving some reason or by showing the consequences that will happen if the action is done. For example, while prohibiting somebody to sit on the baby-bed, one might use a construction as in
(36).
(36)	nahin, sethire basa-ni, baDaloka chhoTapila sejare bas-ile No, in that sit-not grown-ups baby	bed-in sit-COND
pilara deha kasTa heba
baby's body-ache happen-FUT 3sg.
"Please don't sit in that (baby bed). If grown-ups sit on baby's bed, then the baby will suffer from body-ache."
In (36), as elaborate precaution is given while prohibiting to do the act, the expression looks more polite, as it is more reasonable not to do that particular work.
4.7 Permission
Permission is requested (or granted) by asking whether (or stating that) the action is good or acceptable. E.g. If one wants to sit down, in formal situations, one may seek permission directly like (37)11. However, in informal situations, for the sake of formality & social etiquette, one asks politely by using a conditional, as in (38).
(37)	mu eiThi basibi	(ki)?
I here sit-FUT 1sg. (QUE) "May I sit here?"
(38)	eiThi bas-ile chaLibana? here sit-COND ok
"Is it ok to sit here?"
Then the request is granted by using expressions like (39) or like (40), as the addressee confirms that the action is most welcome:
(39)	han, basa basa, sei jagaTa hin basiba pain hoichi Yes, sit sit that place EMP sitting for is "Yes, please sit down, that place is meant/allotted for sitting."
(40)	basa basa, basile shighra kama arambha kariba
sit sit, sit-COND, soon work begin do-FUT 1pl. "Yes, please sit down, after sitting, we will start the work."
11 Constructions like (37) are rather formal, and are used in situations like interviews, etc. where English language plays an important role. The norm looks like to have been borrowed from English.
5. Conclusion
Exploring different forms of pronouns employed in a wide range of contexts in Odia society, this study assumes that the choice of the appropriate variant of the second person pronoun by the interlocutors indicates the correlation of the structure of language and the structure of society including a differential treatment of women and men. Use of plural agreement with the 3rd person singular pronoun, variants of the second person singular pronoun, non-reciprocal usage of address forms, etc. indicate the types of politeness strategies practiced in the society. A further observation is that politeness is not only a set of linguistic strategies used by individuals in particular interactions, it is also a judgment made about an individual's linguistic habits; thus it is a general way of behaving as well as an assessment about an individual in a particular interaction. However, the assessment of an act as polite or impolite depends on the judgement whether the act is appropriate according to the norms in the particular community of practice, although there will be a lot of flexibility in these norms depending on the participants on the (speech)-act.
Abbreviations	
AUX	auxiliary
CAUS	causative
CL	classifier
COMP	complementizer
COND	conditional
DAT	dative
EMP	emphatic
FUT	future
IMP	imperative
INF	infinitival
NEG	negation
PASS	passive
PAST	past
PL	plural
PROG	progressive
PRT	particle
QUAN	quantifier
QUE	question
SG	singular
TAG QUE	tag question
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer of this article for the constructive comments and suggestions. My sincere thanks to Prof. B. N. Patnaik for his valuable comments on the earlier version of this article. All the errors are mine, of course.
References
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with Words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1978). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Holmes, J. (1995). Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman.
Ide, S. (1989) Formal forms and discernment: two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness. Multilingua, 8(2/3), 223-248.
Matsumoto, Y. (1988). Reexamination of the universality of Face: Politeness phenomena in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics, 12, 403-426.
Mills, S. (2003). Gender and Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pattanaik, U. (1987). Distribution of Empty categories in Oriya and English. Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, Central Institute of English & Foreign Languages, Hyderabad.
Sahoo, K. (2003). Linguistic and Socio-Cultural Implications of Gendered Structures in Oriya. In M. Hellinger & H. Bushman (Eds.) An International Handbook of Gender across Languages. V-III. P239-257. Amsterdam: Benjamin Publications.
Sahoo, K. M. (2010). Empty Categories in Oriya. Unpublished M.Phil dissertation, English & Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.
Sahoo, K., & Babu, S. (2012) (Ms.) Power Dynamism & Gendered Politeness in the Construction of Subject-hood in Odia. English & Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.
A New Perspective on the Creation of Neologisms
LIN Ming-chang
Fo Guang University,
Department of Chinese Literature and Applications lin747@gmail.com
Abstract
This article proposes a new research perspective towards the reasons for devising neologisms. Instead of reflecting upon this topic from the perspective of "a word", the language user's psychological requirements for devising neologisms are being used. This methodology introduces us to some distinct observations, especially regarding the user's inner motivations for devising and using neologisms. Although "functional" and/or "denotative" descriptions of neologisms are mentioned, much regard is paid to distinct psychological needs of the ones devising neologisms.
In sum it can be said that some neologisms are not devised for the purpose of describing new objects, but are set up in accordance to user's descriptive tastes and his sense of language.
Keywords: Chinese; neologisms; emotions and interests; psychological factors
Izvleček
Članek predlaga drugačen pogled na razloge za nastanek neologizmov, pri čemer se oddalji od razumevanja neologizmov kot novih "besed". V središče diskusije je tako postavljen uporabnik jezika s svojimi psihološkimi potrebami. Ta pristop vodi do opažanj, ki se razlikujejo od dosedanjih, posebej v povezavi z notranjimi motivi za tvorjenje in rabo neologizmov. Čeprav "funkcionalne" in/ali "opisne" razsežnosti neologizmov ne gre zanemariti, članek posveča več pozornosti internim potrebam posameznika po novih izrazih.
Raziskava pokaže, da določen segment neologizmov ne nastane zaradi potrebe po poimenovanju novih objektov, temveč odraža nagnjenja uporabnikov jezika, njihovega okusa in njihov čut za jezik.
Ključne besede: kitajščina; neologizmi; čustva in motivi; psihološki dejavniki
Acta Linguistica Asiatica, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2013. ISSN: 2232-3317 http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/
1. Definition of neologisms
Since the end of the 19th century, a large amount of new words and expressions have emerged in the Chinese language. The origins of these neologisms are quite heteronomous, they differ in syntax as well as in structure and function. However, these neologisms have one common characteristic: they have become a reformative symbol of the modern Chinese culture.
Neologisms appearing in the time of late-Qing and early Republican era have not only become the core virtues of Chinese modernization, but have been also incorporated into the system of Chinese language. Between The Hundred Days' Reform in 1898 and the May Fourth Movement in 1919 the quantity of neologisms expanded at a rapid rate and has not slowed down since then. Thus we can all agree with Wang Li's assertion that "there have never been as many newly created Modern Chinese neologisms" and "by looking from the aspect of vocabulary, the evolving pace of Chinese language in the last 50 years far exceeded that of the past millenia." (Wang, 1958, p. 516)
Since Lu Shuxiang's first addressing of the problem of neologistic research among the linguists in 1984, a vast majority of new vocabulary dictionaries have emerged. (Lu, 1984) That enabled sinologists to gradually pay more importance to the sociological and culturological meanings of neologisms. However, these dictionaries and research institutes merely emphasized Chinese neologism's forms, structures, etymologies and representative objects.
What follows in my research article is an attempt to adopt the language user's1 point of view to rethink the linguistic phenomena that manifests in neologisms.
Broadly speaking, modern Chinese neologisms are words or expressions, which signify new notions that had been yet non-existent in late-Qing, as well as the ones that might have held a different meaning back then. (Jiang, 2004, p. 497) We can thus employ Jiang Yinghao's four factors: the first is the relationship of Chinese neologisms with "new concepts", the second takes the late-Qing circumstances into the picture, the third looks at non-existent Chinese neologisms of that era, and the last observes neologisms that may have existed before but have adopted totally different meanings throughout their history.
We could categorize vocabulary into the general and the main vocabulary. The latter presents a core part of the vocabulary, and although lesser in degree than the former, it has existed for a longer period of time and could be characterized as stabilized, regularly used, standardized and generative. (Wang, 1997, p. 125)
However, we could also categorize general vocabulary into "common vocabulary", "archaisms", "loanwords", "dialectal vocabulary", "specialized vocabulary, etc. Furthermore, we could also use the neologistic terms of "new common", "new loanword", "new dialectal" and "new specialized" vocabulary. The main vocabulary can transform into the general vocabulary, and vice-versa, which means the main and general vocabulary are mutually interchangeable. This indicates
1 By the term language user I simply refer to the active subject, who may be writing or speaking the language.
that general vocabulary's old and new vocabulary are both interchangeable. (Liu, 2010, p. 8)
Using the aforementioned definitions and setting a certain point in time, we can normally estimate the type of a word in the vocabulary system. This way of thinking about the relations between the Chinese language system and the new and old vocabulary is called synchronic.
However, a thoroughly different method is used if we look at this problem from the diachronical viewpoint, either by portraying a word or an expression from the time of its emergence to abolition, or through the process of its reception into the class of general word. As Liu Shuxin said:
A word or expression may be regarded as new not only if it appears from nothingness into existence, but also if it receives the general approval by the users, extensive use and has already been set up in the language vocabulary. When this kind of word has already existed in the language for a fixed amount of time, let's say for fifteen to twenty years, then the people use it with ease and the freshness has been abolished. It starts to leave the scope of a neologism as it transforms into a commonly used word. (Liu, 1990, p. 283)
This way of defining enables us to observe the time and process of the development of neologisms. It is especially important to take the factors of approval and usage into perspective, so we can observe the time of neologism's unknown identity of "not receiving general approval and not being extensively used." Apart from that, this line of thought can raise some other questions. Is it possible for a neologism to spread only in "smaller groups" or "smaller geographical regions"? In this case, can a new word really exist for a period as long as ten to twenty years? Can it turn into a common word? Is there a possibility that its usage will not be discontinued in 2-3 years? If it is used only by a minority of the populace and disappears in 2-3 years, can it still be called a neologism?
Among the definitions of neologisms, notions of a "new concept" or a "new meaning" are also frequently mentioned when discussing the vocabulary content. Wang Tiekun says:
Neologisms denote words that are either newly created or borrowed from other languages, dialects of mother languages, ancient languages or professions, or even denote a newly generated word meaning or new usage of the original word. (Wang, 1991, p. 11)
Aside from the limits of vocabulary's origins, he also brings up "meaning" and "usage".
What follows is an even more minute discussion of the definitions for vocabulary's characteristics, which emphasize three characteristics of a neologism, the "form", "meaning", and "usage", which are all encompassed by the most important focal point of "newness". From this perspective, neologisms roughly denote newly emerging words and phrases, which include words and phrases with both new forms and meanings, or with both new usages and meanings, or only with new forms. (Duan & Zeng, 2010, p. 137)
Again, if we put these definitions in the perspective of a relationship between the vocabulary and its denoting objects, we can say that "neologisms, simply said, are produced for denoting or annotating new things and concepts." (Fang, 2010, p. 13) Denoting and annotating are the functions of a neologism, whereas new things and concepts are objects of neologism's denotation.
From aforementioned definitions, we can observe neologisms in three definitional spheres:
1.	The neologism per se: its structural shape (morphological structure); function; time of generation and the developmental process,
2.	relationship between neologisms, the language system and a comparison with the original Chinese vocabulary,
3.	the denoted object of a neologism: new words indicative of new concepts and things.
2. Reasons for devising neologisms
Regarding the reasons for devising a neologism, former scholars assumed that only by having a new concept we could say a word is a neologism. (Wang, 1958, p. 519) This illustrates a denotative standpoint for the reasons of devising neologisms. However, I claim the denoted object of a neologism not only represents a new concept.
Chen Yuan put forward a relevant comment regarding this topic:
The elements of social or any other kind of change, such as changes in societal structure, economic base, superstructure and folkways, as well as the new discoveries, inventions, technologies and breakthroughs of the scientific process, such as new concepts, new ideas, new opinions, new perceptions, are all inevitably influenced and produced by the communicating system of a language, which can be well observed through the medium of speech. Herein lies the main cause for devising neologisms. (Chen, 1998, p. 409)
Here, Chen uses a sequence of novelties, corresponding to objects denoted by the new vocabulary: new discoveries, new inventions, new technologies, new breakthroughs, new concepts, new ideas, new opinions and new perceptions.
Simply put, these novelties can be inductively summed up into two categories: that of concrete "new things" and of abstract "new matters and notions". Neologisms from the late-Qing and the early Republican era, which were collected in the 1912's Collection of new words (M^MMM Xinmingci Xunzuan), edited by Zhejiang native Zhou Qiyu	are presented using the following four categorizations:
1. The class of government (regarding aspects of political neologisms) includes 216 neologisms, such as republic, civilization, education, institutions, rights, elections, economy, law, etc.
2.	The class of academics (regarding aspects of academic neologisms) includes 97 neologisms, such as research, progress, observation, geography, astrology, ethics, physics, morals, thought, etc.
3.	The class of language (regarding non-political and non-academic abstract neologisms) includes 247 neologisms, such as freedom, movement, progress, scope, stress, institution, opinion, reputation, etc.
4.	The class of things (regarding neologisms of physical matter) includes 55 neologisms, such as materials, train, car, bronze statue, petroleum, annual ring, wallpaper, sea-tangle, gas, vegetation, etc.
Zhou's categorization criteria does not seem to be as clear and definite, and his ability of induction is also a bit unrefined, nevertheless it seems that he mainly thinks in two categories, namely "concerning the material" and "abstract", where the latter is a supercategory of the aforementioned political, academic and other neologisms. At that time these words represented the core ideas of "modernization", symbolized opening of China towards the world and attempts at striving for synchronicity with the world. China wanted to communicate with every country or at least keep up the pace with them, sought joint advancement, wanted to learn of their politics, academics, languages and physical matter and of the most importantly devoted its studies to learn of correspondent words and expressions. It could understand new politics, academics, languages and physical matter only by going through new vocabularies.
Zhou's compilation motives were to stress the inherency of these neologisms in the Chinese language itself, so he did not regard them as new inventions. Tang Yongchang wrote in the preface of his book that "all origins of neologisms in the classical Chinese books can be distinctively analyzed and deserve recognition." (Tang, 1912) Notwithstanding Zhou's futile effort, his book opposes the primary idea of neologism's usage and meaning being related to ancient meanings in Chinese. As an example he takes the word "democracy" from The book of History Shangshu), which states "...the sovereign cannot achieve..." (KiB^^M^ Minzhu wang yu cheng jue gong), where the first two characters which nowadays mean "democracy" (Ki minzhu) actually meant "people's sovereign" or "the leader of the people". These characters have nothing in common with democracy and it could even be said the two terms are nearly opposite in meaning. In one hundred years the Chinese characters for minzhu have lost the old meaning of "people's sovereign" and have been substituted with the meaning of "democracy".
The appearance of these neologisms properly explains an attempt of contemporary people to express new concepts, feelings and physical matter by borrowing words from already existing ancient vocabulary. One reason for this is because it is hard to devise a completely new word, the other reason is because the greater part of neologisms came from Japan.
As Yang Hua said:
The most basic reason for devising neologisms is the appearance of new matters and
concepts in civil life. However, the question of what kind of language forms are used
to mark and reflect upon those new matters and concepts, is to a large extent
determined by the social concepts and the psychology of language. (Yang, 2010, p.
210)
Contemporary people desired to communicate in Western standards, and when they wanted to keep up with the world, they expressed a lot of doubt in the ability of Chinese language to represent the Chinese culture. The people's social concepts and psychology of language affected the way language was used, which, in effect influenced the use of neologisms. That is why shedding light on "new matters and new concepts" cannot thoroughly explain the language user's state of mind.
Thus we should note that language users have a bit larger requirements than only using language as a tool for expressing and marking. They also pay much importance to the style and taste of expression. The function of language is not only in the indicative ability of denoting some information, but it more-so needs to meet the interests of expressive taste. This means that if we used the original vocabulary or alter and expand usages of original vocabulary, we would still create a neologism. New feelings and new interests of the language user can only be shown by using a novel feeling of a neologism.
From this we can also understand why Yan Fu (S®) and similar people strived to create translated vocabularies that corresponded with the Chinese tradition, but were in no need of obtaining a commonly used word.
Take the word "logic" for example, which entered Chinese in Ming Dynasty when Li Zhizao	translated it as mingli tan (^ffl^). All until the end of Qing
dynasty, it had been continuously retranslated into traditional Chinese local vocabularies by the names of bianxue (M^), mingxue	lizexue (fflM'J^) and
many others. The terms mingxue	and luoji	were also both used by Yan
Fu (Chen, 2011, p. 4). Another commonly used term had been the Japanese translation, namely lunlixue (^ffl^) (Wang, 1958, p. 525), and Sun Yat-sen's later translation lizexue (SM'J^). Nowadays these traditional Chinese local words are not used anymore, and are instead transliterated as luoji.
The reason for non-usage of those traditional Chinese local words is not in inelegance of Yan Fu's translations; on the contrary, contemporary intellectuals commonly wanted to communicate with the world and transform the old Chinese culture by following the standards of Western civilization. If something resembled classical Chinese cultural expression, it appeared "laggard", thus contemporary intellectuals wanted to keep distance with the Chinese tradition, avoiding its influences. We can thus say that neologisms sometimes represent a new culture or new concepts in language.
3. Neologisms devising new concepts
A common psychological state of language users is searching for uniqueness, variety, new styles and new characteristics in language. People like unique and lively language forms as well as colorful and rich language styles. (Yang, 2012, p. 211) It is not necessary for neologisms to be devised by the influence of emerging new matters,
things, concepts; on the contrary, it is possible for neologisms to bring new concepts or a new syntax into light. Thus seeking new states of mind and the freshness of language is frequently a major propulsion of inventing new words. (Jin, 2007, p. 46)
An especially good example is Lin Yutang's (	) devisement of the
neologism youmo (É!!), created in 1924 while trying to translate the English word "humor". A totally new translating invention of this word was obviously not needed, because he could use an old existing Chinese word with a similar meaning. However, Lin Yutang disfavoured literal translaton and assumed humor cannot be translated using the existing Chinese expressions for "joking" (^M xiaohua), "comicality" (^ tt huixie), or even "clownery" guji), neither can it be translated using the words which closely retain the essential meaning of this word, such as "wit" (M® fengqu), "harmonious wit" (tt® xiequ), or "humourous style" (Ëtftfê huixiefengge). Regardless of the straightforwardness of the transliteration, it could always be misinterpreted by other people. (Lin, 1924)
In accordance to the distinct meaning of humor, Lin Yutang first approved of words which retain some of the original meaning of humor. When he first started using a purely transliterative neologism youmo (É!!), he had not yet decided whether he wanted to use the phonetically and semantically similar word huimo	instead. No
later than a month after, he decided to use the former, as it corresponded to his intentons. The meaning of the two Chinese characters you (É) and mo (!) does not correspond to the English word humor in any way and the two terms even hold a bit of a contradiction. The two chinese characters of you and mo could easily be misinterpreted as jingmo (ffi!) or youjing (Élff), meaning to be secluded and silent, respectively. (Lu, 1927) Lin Yutang, however, intentionally abandoned translations that employed semantic and phonetic resemblance, so he deliberately chose non-correspondant Chinese characters, thus devising a neologism.
Of course, this was not made solely for the purpose of avoiding misunderstandings. An even more important reason is that by devising a new concept, he got rid of the unneeded disturbances and shackles of the old Chinese tradition. Despite having to do a lot of explaining, he was able to become a proponent of a new literary style, lifestyle and writing strategy. That is why transliteration is naturally in accordance with requirements of his contemporaries. (Lin, 2006)
In addition, Lin Yutang's devising of the neologism youmo was not made solely for the purpose of translating an English word, but was a part of his wish to promote a new "kind of a style in authorship or artwork", (Lin, 1924) called a "familiar essay" ( J pp ^ xiaopinwen). He asserted that youmo is a distinguishing feature of the "familiar essay" and that the contemporary meaning of youmo slightly differs from the English word humor. Especially when he was interpreting familiar essays of Ming dynasty, the characteristic of youmo helped him retain distinctions from the English notion of humor.
Using Lin Yutang's explanations, youmo includes meanings, such as penetrating through life's wisdom, a joy of heart, lightness of brushstrokes, non-obstructiveness, not using clichés, not immitating the faceless daoistic scholars, not seeking scholarly
joys and reputation, not aiming for a natural humour of mediocre ordinary people. (Lin, 1934)
He also quoted upon "sincerity", "broadness" and "sympathy" as the three prerequisite conditions of youmo, (Lin, 2006) which enabled this neologism to become "a kind of [his] philosophy of Buddhist compassion." (Lin, 1924) When he devised youmo, he forever contributed to the usage and meaning of this neologism, which not only received the acceptance by his contemporaries, but more-so became a very popular modern expression. For this reason Lin Yutang also recieved the title "Master of youmo", which was the driving force of the Chinese youmo literature campaign. Nowadays youmo is already a commonly used word in Chinese and has a couple of distinct usages and language feelings.
Summing up the experience of Lin Yutang's devising of a neologism youmo, we can observe these important notes:
1.	He abandoned the traditional Chinese words that closely resembled literal transcription and phonetic translation.
2.	He intentionally selected the words which did not corresponded to the original word in any way, and even used a contradictive vocabulary,
3.	The ever changing and ever increasing meaning and usage of neologisms has also been enabled by surpassing the established (English) word meanings and usages.
In the slow proces of its devisement, youmo started off as a neologism and adopted the status of a word of the general vocabulary. At that time it could be regarded as a minor peculiarity, but nowadays in the age of fast moving information, creation processes of neologisms similar to our example, are becoming a very normal phenomenon. In the age of networking there is no doubt that following the ever changing world's technological and societal advancements, new matter and concepts are constantly emerging. Neologisms that denote new matters, things, concepts have no other option but to quickly increase in quantity. But even more importantly, the state of language users seeking novelty adds even more to the exuberant glow of neologisms. Their purpose of language usage is not restricted only to simple expression or denotation, but also to the wish of convenient exhibition of their "narrative tastes and styles" in the mass media and cyberspace. Thus language is not only a tool, it has narrative objectives as well.
Examples of Chinese neologisms "Mister De" (® ^ ^ De Xiansheng) and "Mister Sai"	Sai Xiansheng) could also be regarded as similar to the devising
of youmo. "Mister De" can be translated as Democracy and "Mister Sai" as Science. Democracy was first translated as minzhu (Ki) in 1864 (Jin & Liu, 1999, p. 30) and kexue	was used as a translation of science since 1878. (Zhou & Ji, 2009, p. 96)
However, coming into 1918 Chen Duxiu ^^^ wrote in the New Youth magazine (^ Xinqingnian): "It is important to support Mister De and Mister Sai, and we cannot but oppose the quintessence of our country and its old literature." He also named them as they were two real persons, namely Demokelixi	and
Saiyinsi	(Chen, 1919) The former term became even more common after
1920 (Jin & Liu, 1999, p. 37), as it became an important slogan for the Chinese New Culture Movement (^H^A^SS® Zhongguo xinwenhua yundong). Mister De, Demokilixi, Mister Sai were all commonly used; however, there was no sign of minzhu and kexue, not because they were representing new concpets, but because they were not in accordance with the new feelings and meanings aroused in a large group of people towards "old concepts". The users have intentionally abandoned commonly used and well known vocabulary, and started using specific and rare neologisms to express their special feelings.
Yet another example is daren (^ A), which comes from the Japanese tatsujin (A oC^), with an original meaning of a master or an expert. Master (AW dashi) or expert zhuanjia) are words commonly used in Modern Chinese, so in fact there is no need to introduce words, such as Japanese daren. However, daren implies a "foreign style (Japanese style)" and fresh interests, which had been lacking in the old terms of master and expert. Even the most recent common practice of the youth, using instead the word gaoshou (HA), cannot compare to the neologism daren, which can better show the fresh and unique interests of language users. Since the beginning of 21st century the word daren has appeared in Taiwan and became a popular neologism. It stands in phrases such as "the master of love" (SS^A lianai daren), "the mistress of beauty" (AS^A meili daren), "a musical genious" (W^^A yinyue daren), "a great cook" (A^^A meishi daren), "master of the household" (^^^A jiashi daren) , "a health expert"	jiankang daren), "an excellent bartender" (bMM
^A tiaojiu daren), "expert at savings"	shengqian daren), etc. The word
also gradually reached Mainland China and became a commonly used neologism, as we can find the entry in the sixth edition of Modern Chinese Dictionary from 2012. Neologisms borrowed from abroad all use similar preferences, such as Chinese words for "popularity" (A^ renqi), "a prostitute" funti), "a woman above 30" (t^A renti), "an unmarried woman above 30" (^A baiquan), "a (male/female) geek" (AM /AA zhainan/zhainti), etc.
Another group of neologisms are formed from "sandhi2", such as Taiwan's famous jiangzi (ft A), which is a shortened version of zheyangzi (^.^A), meaning "this way" and niangzi (UA), a shorten of nayangzi (®f^A), meaning "that way". By following the taste of a likable expression, this neologism became commonly imitated. Youth likes to say "jiu jiang" (^ff, meaning "just like this") or "jiu niang" (^U, meaning "just like that"). Also good examples examples are biang (^ IA v) which means "not the same" (A—^ buyiyang), and 881 or 886 which means "bye-bye".
The feeling of freshness in neologisms frequently takes on a large fascination and attracts a large amount of people. A Cantonese (Hongkongese) transliteration of English name for "taxi" (WA) is a great example. The Taiwanese use the native term jichengche (fffMA) and in the Mainland China it is called a chuzuqiche (^ffl^A).
2 Sandhi comes from sanskrit's samdhi, meaning "joining". This term covers a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries, such as fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words.
Both are frequently used general vocabulary words, hence chuzuqiche for Chinese is not a fresh thing or a concept at all. But thankful to the intercultural exchange between Hong Kong and China, the word for "taxi" () entered China and became a neologism, which developed a series of new words, such as di (l as abbreviation for taxi), dadi (iH meaning "taking a cab"), miandi (01, commonly referred to as "a bread car", "a box shaped van", "a cab").
Creation and extinction of words can also be influenced by governmental interferences and reforms, with examples such as "a board member" (M^ dongshi), "a stockholder"	gudong), "a pawnshop"	dangpu), "bankruptcy" (#JH
daobi), "an auction" (f&M paimai), "a prostitute" (jinu), "usury" (ft^lj® gaolidai), "fortune telling" (W'm suanming), etc. These words had disappeared after establishing The People's Republic of China, but have been slowly reappearing again. Some other examples which express respectful cultural words that faded away during Cultural Revolution, but are gradually recuperating in use are: "await respectfully" (^
gonghou), "patronize" ( ® H huigu), "long time no see" (A ® jiuwei), "condescend" quzun), "fail to meet you" shiying), r"equest the pleasure of your arrival" (m^ shangguan), "your mother"	lingtang), "your father"
lingzun), etc.
Governmental intervention into language is however not always effective. There is an interesting example where Shanghai municipal administration once started restricting depictions on the taxi's and posted the following in 1985: "Cars which continue to use the sign with characters dishi (|±) will not be allowed to enter the streets and do business. Starting from September 1st , we unitedly start to standardize the taxi signlamps, which will state both chuzu (^ffi) and taxi on the front." This governmental notice has not been effective in its prohibitive demands, as the term dishi (|±) not only continued to be used but also produced a number of words deriving from the character di (l). (Y ang, 2010, p. 214) This word also has its place among the entries in the Modern Chinese Dictionary, which can serve to show the power of societies looking for newness and change.
New formulation modes not only produce appearance of new words, they can also change the syntax. A good example is the use of the passive voice character bei M in such phrases as "to commit a suicide" (M § ^ bei zisha), "to get employed" (M^® bei jiuye), "to volunteer" (MS® bei ziyuan), "to donate" (Mifi^ bei juankuan) and "to represent" (M^^ bei daibiao). Although not exactly logically consistent, thankful to the usage of a passive voice, they are still very important as an expression of irony and passive protest. Suicide can only be an intentional act of ending one's life, therefore bei zisha (M § states an ironic saying "it is not a suicide, yet it is called as suicide." The same goes with phrases of getting employed, volunteering, donating and representing, which expressed in the passive voice seem to violate the syntax of language, but can really demonstrate the language user's protest and mockery as well as being faked and forced. This also shows the Chinese people's crisis of faith and the awakening consciousness of citizenship rights in the beginnigns of the 21st century.
4. Conclusion
Neologisms have existed since the ancient times. Investigating this topic based on the aspect of formalism or from research on new matters, new things and new concepts, can explain to us the origins of its appearance and enables us to understand its characteristics.
The majority of research concentrating on neologisms can be recollected into three aspects:
1.	Neologisms form and structure per se,
2.	the denoted object of a neologism,
3.	relationship between a neologism and an archaism or the system of language.
If we do not reflect through the aspect of a "word", but instead change the emphasis to the language user's psychological requirements, we can obtain very different observational outcomes. Motives for devising and using neologisms are not only in the functional requirements, or in denoting new matters and concepts, but are connected to language user's psychological requirements. We can thus say that neologisms are not produced for the reason of depicting new objects, but are devised for relating to language user's new tastes of description and a sense of language.
These kinds of neologisms have some characteristic features:
1.	Even if it is already sufficiently expressed in the Chinese vocabulary, neologisms can be formulated by discarding the original Chinese word by being either borrowed from foreign languages or devised completely anew.
2.	When borrowed from foreign languages, the word can be clearly translated by adopting the method of literal translation, from which we can intentionally pick from non-correspondent meanings or even violate the word meaning, even to the point of using characters that have nothing to do with the translated meaning, merely following phonetic translation.
3.	Even if we don't borrow from foreign languages, we can still use the method that doesn't fit the logic of language or normatives of grammar to express special emotions or language feelings.
4.	Meaning and usage of neologisms can evolve and develop unceasingly.
The devising of Chinese neologisms has already transcended functional demands and this very issue deserves to be furtherly researched on the subjective grounds of emotions and interests.
References
Chen, B. [MM] (2011). Luojixue de diyi tangke	Taipei: Wunan
chubanshe
Chen, D. [IMM^] (1919). Xinqingnian zui'an zhi dabianshu [ÄW^^i^]. Xinqiangnian [ÄW^] 6(1).
Chen, Y. [M®] (1998). Chen Yuan yuyanxue lunzhu [Hiffü]. Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe
Duan, C. [SW#], & Zeng, C.	(2010). "171 tiao xinciyu" gouci, yongci de dingliang
fenxi [ r 171 fiÄMIMJ ffigsU ffl^W^Ä^^]. Journal ofHainan Normal University (Social Sciences)	] 23, 137-144.
Fang, Y. [^^ffl.] (2010). Taiwan Riyu wailai liuxingxinci zhi yanbian yu rongru [n^HM^h ^^TÄf^iMS^i^A]. Furen daxue fanyi yanjiuso shuoshi lunwen [ffitA^ffi^
Jiang, Y. [M^M] (2007). Huang Zunxian "Jihai zashi" zhong de xinyuci	( B^t
!#» ^ ÖÜÄM^]. Huang Zunxian yanjiu xinlun [^ÄSW^ÄbÄ], 496-505.
Jin, H. [^EM] (2007). Xiandaihanyuxinciyanjiu [JS^^MÄMIW^]. Guoli zhengzhi daxue zhongwenxi shuoshilunwen
Jin, G., [^^S]&Liu, Q.[ fJW^] (1999). "Xinqingnian" minzhu guannian de yanbian[Ä
The Twenty-First Century Review [^—Ä&S]. Hongkong: Zhongwen dawue chubanshe
Lin, M.	(2006). Xinglingyu beimin: Lin Yutangzaoqiyoumo shuxieyanjiu [ttS^®
®-A Stride Over/Forward — Cultural Fusion/Function
in the Study of Lin Yu-tang [f^^M--
Lin, Y. [#M^] (1924). Youmo zahua [lÄt^]. Chenbao fulu [Ä^S'J^].
Lin, Y. [#M^] (1934). Lun youmo [t#llK]. Lunyu [IMM], 33.
Liu, S. [f/Ä] (1990). Hanyumiaoxie cihuixue	Beijing: Shangwu
yinshuguan
Lu, X. [#ffl] (1927). Shuo youmo yizhi fuji	Mangyuan [#®] 2(1).
Lü, S. [S/#S] (1984). Dajia lai guanxin xinci xinyi [A^^IMhÄf^Ä®]. Cishu yanjiu [$*ffi&], 1.
Tang, Y.	(1918). Xinmingcixunzuanxu [Ä^f^sJUÄ^]. Shanghai saoyeshanfang
Wang, L. [IA] (1958). Hanyu shigao	Beijing: Zhonghua shuju
Wang, D. [I®#] (1997). Yuyanxuegailun	Shanghai waiyu jiaoyu chubanshe
Wang, T. [I^g] (1991). 10 nianlai de Hanyu xinciyu de yanjiu [10 ^W^MÄMIMWW Yuwen jianshe	4.
Yang, H.	(2002). Hanyu xinciyu yanjiu [^MÄf^MW^]. Harbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu
chubanshe [Sflff^Wft^tt].
Zhang, M. [^^ff] (2010). Lun shixia liuxing goushi/bei XXO	XXO.]
Journal Of Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University ].
Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan yuyan yanjiusuo cidan bianji shi [^H tttftf^mnW^^i (2010). Xiandai Hanyu cidian (di 6 ban) [ii^tgMI^A®]. Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan	].
Zhou, C., [^g] & Ji, X. [¿S^^] (2009). Jiujing shei zai Zhongguo zuixian shiyongle
"kexue" yici?	? ]. Journal of Dialectics of Nature
[g^^^^am], 4.
Zhou, Q.	(1918). Xinmingcixunzuan [^^f^sJH^]. Shanghai saoyeshanfang
The Fifth Milestone in the Development of Chinese Language
Mateja PETROVCIC
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Department of Asian and African Studies mateja.petrovcic@ff.uni-lj .si
Abstract
Chinese language has undergone drastic in the past century. Papers on the language development stress four big events in the Chinese history that imposed changes on the language, i.e. The May Fourth Movement (1919), establishment of the People's Republic of China (1949), Cultural Revolution (1966), and China's reform and opening (1978). According to the features of recent neologisms, we suggest that the widening gap between rich and poor should be considered as the fifth milestone for changes in Chinese language.
Keywords: Chinese; neologisms; language development; social gap
Izvleček
Kitajski jezik se je v zadnjem stoletju korenito spremenil. V študijah zasledimo opažanja, da so ga močno zaznamovali štirje zgodovinski dogodki, ki predstavljajo mejnike v razvoju sodobne kitajščine. To so bili Gibanje 4. maja (1919), ustanovitev Ljudske republike Kitajske (1949), Kulturna revolucija (1966) in politika odpiranja Kitajske (1978). Glede na lastnosti neologizmov zadnjih let lahko rečemo, da se je izoblikoval peti mejnik v razvoju jezika, in sicer naraščajoče socialne razlike oz. razkorak med bogatimi in revnimi.
Ključne besede: kitajščina; neologizmi; razvoj jezika; družbeni razkorak
1. Major Milestones for Language Changes
Scholars agree that four big events in the history of China imposed changes onto Chinese language. The first milestone was 1919, when the May Fourth Movement took place; the second one was 1949, when People's Republic of China was founded; the third milestone was Cultural Revolution in 1966, and the fourth milestone dates to 1978, when China launched the policy of reforms and opened up to the outside world (Li, 2008; Sheng, 2009; Wu, 2006; Zhang, 2007). Zhang (2007) further noticed that since 1978, Chinese people have been welcoming new things and concepts with such
Acta Linguistica Asiatica, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2013. ISSN: 2232-3317 http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/
eager as never before. As a result, numerous new expressions in the fields of politics, economics, science and technology, social life etc. have appeared.
In addition to the above-mentioned milestones, some research papers point out the expansion of computers, internet and the development of information-communication technologies. It is to be agreed with Wu (2006, p. 24) that a variety of new products on this field leads to the corresponding Chinese expressions, and Han (2011, p. 99) that the rapid development of Internet technology has enabled the rise of numerous netizens which continuously create vivid forms of Chinese Internet language, and thus have an important impact on Standard Chinese. In other words, internet as the medium for spreading news can be seen as the cradle of new words and expressions.
This study proposes that the present social-economic situation with the widening gap between rich and poor may be considered as the fifth milestone for changes in Chinese language. According to the reports in The Economic Times, following Global Times and the Beijing News, the Gini coefficient1 in China reached 0.438 at the end of 2010, whereas it was 0.275 in the 1980s2. Coefficients that exceed 0.4 are thought to indicate a challenge to the country's stability. The widening gap between rich and poor is associated with great achievements for the reforms and opening-up policy that happened within the last three decades. The changes helped officials and business people to prosper, whereas a vast number of Chinese were left with meager monthly wages in a society whose living standards have reached higher brackets ("China faces instability risks as gap between rich, poor widens," September 17, 2012).
Chapter 3 below demonstrates that newly created words in Chinese reflect exactly the mentioned social problem.
2. The Amount and Structure of New Words and Expressions
Language as the communication tool meets the needs of its speakers; therefore, it has to be changing as to reflect new situations and tendencies in life. Social changes may affect grammar, but they are reflected most intensely in the vocabulary of language. As Wang (2011, p. 1) notes, "new words are social barometer as they mirror changes in a society. Whenever such a change happens, new words will come forth to describe it." The above-mentioned milestones have caused many changes in all fields of social life; ranging from economics, politics, science and technology, culture, education, medical care, information technology, everyday life etc. As shown in the
1	The Gini coefficient is an index measuring inequality of income with a scale of zero to one, zero being totally equal and one being totally unequal. ("China faces instability risks as gap between rich, poor widens," September 17, 2012)
2	For detailed figures of Gini index in China, see ("Index Mundi: China GINI Index," 2011) or consider (The World Factbook, 2012). The Economic Times also reports that since 2000, no official statistics about wealth gap have been released by National Bureau of Statistics, with the argumentation that the Gini index couldn't be calculated as the incomes of urban and rural residents are calculated separately. ("China faces instability risks as gap between rich, poor widens," September 17, 2012) Further reasons are discussed in Chen et al. (2010).
following paragraphs, even great historical events could not affect life in the same extent. New expressions from different decades carry different characteristics.
Newly created words and expressions have always attracted scholars and lexicographers. Whereas no presentable work on neologisms is available from the period before 1987, more than 30 dictionaries of neologisms were published in China since then (Su & Huang, 2003). According to data, though incomplete, they vary in the scope, as well as in the inclusion criteria, and cover from 335 entries up to 20 thousand entries (Chao, 2004).
Scholars have noted that since China adopted the reforms and opening up policy up to the 1990s, more than 7000 new words were invented in Chinese. According to statistics, approximately 600 neologisms arose yearly in the 1980s, around 400 in the 1990s, and about 450 in the first ten years of the 21st century (Lin, 2000 in: Lin & Xie, 2012; Zhang, 2007, p. 2). Different studies show that the amount of neologisms appearing per year is more or less constant. Xu (2009) made a research for the period 1966-1990, Li (2008) for the period 1990-2005, and Hou and Zhou (2011) for the recent five years. See Table 1.
Table 1: New words per year (Data range: 1966-2010)
	1966-19673	1977-1990	1990-20054	2006-20105
New words per year (average)	415	375	400	447
Although the amount of new expressions per year is rather constant, the semantic distribution of new words varies significantly in different decades due to the belonging historical events. A brief overview is presented in the following sections.
2.1 The May Fourth Movement
The May Fourth Movement is primarily related to changes in conceptual and knowledge systems, and to the shift of values etc. In this period Europeanization of the Chinese language affected not only vocabulary, but also had a significant impact on the grammatical features of Chinese language. (Gunn, 1991; Zhang, 2004) Words like "democracy" (demokelaxi	"science" (saiensi ftMM7), "stick" (sidike
MW^), "club" (julebu M^^), "morphine" (mafei	"rectification" (zhengfeng
3	For data 1966-1967 and 1977-1990, compare (Xu, 2009, p. 19)
4	Li, 2008, p. 5.
5	Hou & Zhou, 2011, p. 313.
6	Word "democracy" was semantically translated into minzhu ß ± before the May Fourth Movement, and was later on phonetically translated into demokelaxi	Nowadays the term minzhu is used again. (Du, 2009, p. 61)
7	Present Chinese expression for the word "science" is kexue 44^.
^M), "test" (kaoyan etc. originate from this period. (for more examples, see Xu, 2009, p. 19)
2.2	People's Republic of China
The establishment of People's Republic of China gave rise to several new expressions in the field of politics, e.g. "New Democracy" (xin minzhu zhuyi ^Sii X ), "Mao Zedong Thought" (Mao Zedong sixiang % # % ffi ), "People's Democratic Dictatorship" (Renmin minzhu zhuanzheng A ^ Si^S), "Five Economic Sectors" (wu zhong jingji chengfen ift^i^^^), "Three-Anti and Five-Anti Campaigns" (san-fan wu-fan H^i^), "Reform of the Three Industries" (san da gaizao H^^^) etc. Social changes also affected everyday's life, where, for example, a new term "comrade" (tongzhi ^ ^) replaced the previous "mister" (xiansheng or "miss" (xiaojie Jffl). (Chao, 2004, p. 8)
2.3	Cultural Revolution
New expressions from the Cultural Revolution period had even stronger political connotations. Some of the mostly used phrases are "capitalist roader" (zouzi pai ^^ M), "rebel faction" (zaofan pai ^MM), "little red book" (hongbaoshu H^^), "Red Guard" (Hong Weibing H i ^), "relative family" (guanxihu ^ % ^ ), "anti-revolutionary revisionism" (fan geming xiuzheng zhuyi M^^i^EiX), "Sweep Away All Demons and Monsters" (Huangsaoyiqie niugui-sheshen — ), etc. (Chao, 2004, p. 8)
The reason for the Cultural Revolution to be one of the milestones is a big turn in the distribution of new words. In this period, a large majority of new words were related to politics (74.6%), whereas in the next decade only a few new expressions were coined in the same field (Wu, 2006, p. 24). See Figure 1 for distribution of neologisms in the period 1966-1967.
Politics
Culture & Education & Medical Care Sports & Military Science & Technology Economics Others
0%	10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
1 1 1 1 1 1 1							
r		—¿	—¿	—¿	—¿	—^	—}
Figure 1: Distribution of neologisms in years 1966-1967 in %; (Based on Xu, 2009, p. 19)
2.4 Reform and opening up
After China's reforms and its opening up, almost one third of the newly created expressions was related to economical concepts, e.g. "socialist market economy" (shehui zhuyi shichang jingji ii^i^^^^i), "Special Economic Zone" (Jingji tequ	"Speed up reform" (jiakuai gaige JP'R^^), "Open door policy"
(kaifangzhengce ftfflMffi) etc. (Chao, 2004, p. 8)
China's contacts with foreign countries influenced not only economics, but also had a large impact on other fields of life. Therefore, Chinese language absorbed several new words and expressions, e.g. "clone" (kelong"cartoon" (katong ^ffi), "email" (yimeir jj^JL), "internet" (yintewang@#I), "mini skirt" (mini qun "soft drink" (ruan yinliao	"human rights" (renquan Afe) etc. (Huang, 2009,
p. 188) See Figure 2.
Figure 2: Distribution of neologisms in years 1977-1990 in %;
(Based on Xu, 2009, p. 19)
Moreover, in the search of self-expression and through the refusal to follow others, people became very creative in language use. Old words that were thought of as "worn out" and were replaced with new ones which carried a taste of uniqueness. (Yuan, 2006, pp. 42-43) As mentioned in Chapter 1, people welcomed new things and concepts with such eager as they never did before. If the previous system was described as "communal pot" (daguofan Aff®) or "iron rice bowl" (tiefanwan
the new situation was called porcelain "rice bowl" (cifanwan	(Yuan,
2006, p. 43)
In the period 1990-2005, this trend was even more evident. According to Li's (2008) research results, the largest amount of new words was related to economics, finance and business, whereas social life became the second largest source for new expressions. Many new expressions were related to the field of news and communications, which is an expected trend, since new technologies enabled different channels for information flow. See Figure 3.
Economics & Finance & Business Social life News & Communication Culture & Education & Medical Care Construction & Real lstate Science & Technology Sports & Military Politics & Law Others
Figure 3: Distribution of neologisms in years 1990-2005 in %; (Based on Li, 2008, p. 20)
3. The Fifth Milestone: Economic Inequality
The importance of social life as a source of neologisms is even more obvious in the recent years. Wu and Wu (2012, p. 67) have noted that in year 2010, nearly 35% of all new expressions were related to social life. See Figure 4.
Figure 4: Distribution of neologisms in 2010 in %; (Based on T. A. Wu & Wu, 2012, p. 67)
However, in spite of the rapid economic growth and higher living standards, recently invented words and expressions reveal that Chinese citizens do not feel satisfied with the present quality of life. Numerous new words reveal dissatisfaction with the living conditions, and the trend of inventing the negatively loaded words is still growing. For example, several words indicate pressure, financial burden, unease, suspicion, fear and other similar feelings. Examples that support this observation is the productive use of morphemes like nu (X, "slave") or bei X, "being X-ed").
3.1	Various Slaves
Character nu (X) which means "slave" is a very trendy tool to express one's negative attitude toward some situations. New words with nu reveal that people feel like slaves about several things, for example:
•	Fangnu (^X), "house slave", "mortgage slave".
A slave to one's mortgage. The person who works to pay off the loan used to buy a house.
•	Chenu ($X), "car slave".
Somebody forced to sacrifice quality of life to buy or maintain a car.
•	Hunnu (®X), "marriage slave".
Due to high expenses of wedding ceremonies and banquets, a marriage is a huge financial burden. At the same time, people mostly feel obligated to get married.
It is worth noticing that the present pressure, requirements and expectations are frequently expressed in ways that are much more humorous and creative. For example, men are expected to have a house, car and wife, and those who achieve this goal are called zhuannan ^M. Since the character zhuan ^ consists of three netizens apply it to refer to fangzi	"house"), chezi	"car") and qizi (S^, "wife"), while
at the same time, character zhuan ^ means "restpectful and prudent". Therefore this word also means successful self-starter who builds his career from scratch. As such, it could be translated as "ABC-man" (Apartment-Bride-Car) in English.
Other examples of nu-phrases include: cainu (^X, "food slave" - because of the increasing food prices), bainu (SX, "white collar slave" - office worker who is overworked and exploited), jienu (^ X , "festival slave" - people who are overwhelmed by the pressure of socializing and giving away gifts during major Chinese traditional festivals), zhengnu (ffiX, "slave of certificates" - people who are forced to take all kinds of exams to get as many certificates as possible to improve their qualifications and get a good job), among others.
3.2	Being X-ed
Roughly speaking, the bei-construction in Chinese functions similarly to the English passive voice. This morpheme has recently become a very productive and widely used element. It expresses the meaning of something happening without
someone's knowledge or agreement, or even that the situation is untrue and harmful. Zhang (2010, p. 87) understands numerous new expressions with bei as awakening awareness of civil rights and the lack of trust, while Liu (2010, p. 51) relates these words to empathy. On the other hand, Han (2011, p. 99) prefers looking at this phenomenon as the passiveness and helplessness of the socially weak people, whose voices cannot be heard. Some examples are:
•	Beishanglou (Mi®), lit. "being flated", "being apartmented". The process of farmers being forced to give up their land by local governments and move into apartments is referred to as "going upstairs"
•	Beishishi (Mffiffi) or beisiwang (M^t), lit. "being recorded dead". Hundreds of Chinese villagers were registered as dead and struck from village lists. By recording the false deaths, local officials held back payments.
•	Beijiuye (M^^), lit. "being quasi-employed".
Some universities are faking job contracts for their graduates to make sure graduate employment statistics remains high.
Further examples of bei-phrases are: beidiyi (M% —, "being reported as the (worst) first one"), beijianqiang (MM^, "being toughened" (due to difficult life conditions)), beizhiyuan (M^S, "being volunteered" (for a task against one's will)), beishangwang (Mill, "being (automatically) connected to the Internet" (and stolen money)), beijuankuan (Mifi^, "being selected to donate money") etc.
3.3 Real Estate Market
In addition to the above mentioned "mortgage slave" or closely related "rental slave", several words describe the problem of increasing urbanization and rising real estate prices. The following new words vividly describe the citizens' response to housing issue.
•	Danxing woju (S^^^) or danju (S^), lit. "egg-shaped snail house". Dai Haifei, a 24-year-old architect in Beijing, found a solution to live rent-free. He built himself a mobile egg-shaped house that was powered by the sun. This structure, which was small enough to fit on a sidewalk, was made of bamboo strips, wood chippings, sack bags, and grass seed that's expected to grow in the spring.
•	Dixia biaojian (ttTfelXI), lit. "underground room".
A retired Chinese coal miner Chen Xinnian, 64, from Zhengzhou, Henan province, has found an underground solution to the country's sky-high housing costs, by carving out a new home beneath the shack he lives in.
•	Cunzhengfang (^ffi^), lit. "village-certificated house". Residence supposedly only transferable to other village residents but often sold on the open market.
•	Qunzu (^ffi), lit. "group renting" or "collective renting". Most migrant workers like to participate in the collective renting program as they cram as many people as possible into a small house in order to cut the share of the rent each has to pay.
•	Qiuxuefang	"school-nearby house".
Many parents buy houses in the neighborhood of elite schools purely for the purpose of guaranteeing a better education for their children. According to the existing rules in many cities, primary and middle schools are only allowed to enroll students living in their neighborhoods.
On the other hand, rapid economic development has led to higher purchasing power and gave rise to various new expressions. Two examples from 2010 are "Peking Pound" (Beijingbang ^M^) that is used for the money that Chinese spend overseas every year (Sun, January 2, 2011); and "Nth rich generation" (fu N dai H N an expression for wealthy and prominent families. The latter term resembles "Second rich generation" (fu er dai H^^) which describes children of entrepreneurs who became wealthy under 1980s economic reforms.
For the above-sketched reasons, this article proposes that the economic inequality should be considered as the fifth milestone in the language development that has promoted the social life to be the most important source for the creation of new words and expressions.
4. Some Other Linguistic Features of Recent Neologisms (2006-2010)
4.1 The Amount of New Words
Table 1 above shows that in the last five years around 450 words have been created annually. The more detailed analysis reveals that the amount of new words is increasing year by year. See Table 2.
Table 2: New words per year (Data range: 2006-2010) (Hou & Zhou, 2011, p. 313)
	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
New words per year	1718	420	444	573	626
We assume that these figures are slightly misleading, and do not purely indicate an increasing tendency in creating new words. Such numbers might be a result of more
8 According to Wang (2007, p. 52), over 300 new expressions were invented in 2006, however, only 171 of them were extracted and officially presented to the public.
sophisticated language technologies, larger databases, better query methods, different inclusion criteria etc.
Numerous new expressions are closely related to specific events. For example, in 2008, several new words arose because of Olympic Games in Beijing, Sanlu milk scandal, Sichuan earthquake and financial crisis. (Ren, 2009, p. 29)
These figures also include words for specific individuals that suddenly - on purpose or not - gained their five minutes of glory, for example "Brother Sharp" (Xilige ^AJ^, a homeless man in Ningbo) or "Peacock Dance" (Kongquege a performance in China's Got Talent), and are not very likely to become an established part of vocabulary.
The character men ( H, gate) originates from the Watergate scandal and is nowadays commonly accepted as the word for "scandal", but several names of affairs will probably sink into oblivion very quickly, e.g. "Comment Scandal" (Jieshuomen f from June 27, 2006.
In overall, this is still a very rough interpretation, and a more detailed research should be done to define accurate and reliable reasons for the increasing tendency in creation of neologisms.
4.2 The Length and Structure of New Words
According to Hou and Zhou's (2011) results, 3-syllable words are thought to be the most productive, whereas creation of 2-syllable words is a decreasing trend. The average length of new words and expressions is 3.2 characters. Compared to the previous century, words nowadays are undoubtedly longer.
Table 3 and Figure 5 provide a detailed situation of the length and structure of new words, and are based on data gathered in Hou and Zhou (2011, p. 313). Note that different researchers came to almost identical results. (Duan & Zeng, 2010, p. 138; Wu & Wu, 2012, p. 66)
Table 3: Distribution of N-syllable words per year (Data range: 2006-2010)
	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
2-syllable words9	34%	22%	17%	19%	17%
3-syllable words	31%	38%	47%	51%	55%
4- or more-syllable words	35%	40%	37%	30%	28%
9 Only one one-syllable word was recorded in 2006, therefore this category is omitted from the table.
60%
20%
30%
50%
40%
3-syllable words
4- or more-syllable words
10%
2-syllable words
0%
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Figure 5: Distribution of N-syllable words per year (Data range: 2006-2010) - graphical presentation
Further analysis has shown that present neologisms generally reflect domestic needs, social situations, problems, formations or concepts, and do not refer much to ideas from abroad. Loanwords tend to be translated into Chinese semantically, or at least semantically and phonetically at the same time. Purely phonetic translations are quite rare.
5. Conclusion
Chinese neologisms vividly reveal the changes that China has undergone over the past decades. At the beginning of the 20th century, The May Fourth Movement deliberately "updated" and Europeanized Chinese language. The second big event that reshaped Chinese, was the establishment of the People's Republic of China and Cultural Revolution with the strongly enriched political vocabulary, whereas the economical sector became much more influential after the China's reforms and its opening to the world. These events are considered as the four milestones in development of Chinese language.
This paper has sketched the present social-economic situation and the widening gap between rich and poor, which engenders resentment, frustration, insecurity on one side, and huge purchasing power on the other side. The gap is thought to be a new turning point in the Chinese language development, with the field of social life to be the most important source for new words and expressions. Therefore, we propose the beginning of the 21st century with its economic inequality to be the fifth milestone in the development of Chinese language.
References
Chao, F. [1Ä] (2004). Tan Xinciyu cidian [MÄiüiÄ]. PublishingScinence 47(1), 8-11.
Chen, J., Dai, D., Pu, M., Hou, W., & Feng, Q. (2010). The trend of the Gini coefficient of China (Vol. 109). Manchester: Brooks World Poverty Institute.
China faces instability risks as gap between rich, poor widens. (September 17, 2012, 2012, October 3). The Economic Times Retrieved October 3, 2012, from http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-09-17/news/33902854_1_gini-coefficient-inequality-economic-reforms
Du, L. [ttMM] (2009). Cong wenhua jiechu de shijiao kan Hanyu zhong de yiyi wailaici [AA.^
WÄi^b^Ü]. Journal ofPuyang Vocational and Technical College	(6), 60-62.
Duan, C. [SW#], & Zeng, C.	(2010). "171 tiao xinciyu" gouci, yongci de dingliang
fenxi [ "171	fflii W^M^^]. Journal of Hainan Normal University
(Social Sciences)	23, 137-144.
Gunn, E. M. (1991). Rewriting Chinese. Style and Innovation in Twentieth-Century Chinese Prose. Standford: Standford University Press.
Han, G.	(2011). "Bei XX" wangluo liuxingyu chutan
Central China Normal University Journal of Postgraduates [^^fff^A^fifi^^^Ä], 18(4), 99-102.
Hou, M. [ffÄ], & Zhou, J.	(2011). 2010 Hanyu xinciyu [2010 ÄiiÄiiii]. Beijing:
Shangwu yinshuguan
Huang, F.	(2009). Gaige kaifang 30 nian lai shehui liuxing de xinci xinyu ji qi guifanhua
30 ^fr^frWÄÜÄi&ÄMfätt;]. Jinrikeyuan [^0^4^] (6), 188189.
Index Mundi: China GINI Index. (2011, March 2, 2011). Retrieved October 3, 2012, from http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/SI.POV.GINI/compare?country=cn
Li, K. [^4] (2008). Research on the Newly Born Vocabulary of Modern Chinese ßl^XinÄ iififi^]. Shandong University.
Lin, J.	& Xie, X. [if^]. (2012). Xinci xinyu he putonghua jiaoxue [ÄÜÄifD
Journal, 312-316. Retrieved from http://www.doc88.com/p-576886562640.html
Liu, H.	(2010). "Bei XX" xinci de duojiaodu kaocha [ XX"
Yuyan wenzixueshuyanjiu [iW^^^^fi^], 95(3), 49-53.
Ren, H.	(2009). Qian tan 2008 nian wangluo xinci [^ 2008 ^IN^ÄÜ]. Anhui
wenxue	8, 326.
Sheng, X.	(2009). Gaige chuqi Xiandai Hanyu de jubian [Ä^Hil^ÄiiWg^].
Rencai ziyuan kaifa [Ai^Mff^] (7), 105-106.
Su, X.	& Huang, Q.	(2003). Xin ciyu de chengshu yu guifan cidian de
xuanlu biaozhun. Tan "Xiandai Hanyu cidian" (2002 zengbuben) de "fulu xinci" [Äiiii
-$ «iHmüÄ» (2002	W "ffl«
Ü" ]. Cishuyanjiu [ «^fifi^» ]. (3), 106-113.
Sun, S. (January 2, 2011). British Media coined "Peking Pound" for Extravagant Chinese Purchases and High stakes Gambling Abroad Retrieved September 9, 2012, from
http://www.chinahush. com/2011/01 /02/british-media-coined-peking-pound-for-extravagant-chinese-purchases-and-high-stakes-gambling-abroad/
Wang, H. [UliR] (2011). A Contrastive Analysis of English and Chinese Neologism from the Perspective of Memetics.
Wang, M. [1^] (2007). Yanjiu yu sikao: 2006 nian Hanyu xin ciyu	2006 ^
Kili®]. Yuwen jianshe [ii^iS] 10, 52-53.
The World Factbook. (2012). Retrieved October 3, 2012. from
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2172.html.
Wu, L.	(2006). A Research on Old Words New Meaning since the Beginning of Reform
and Opening up	(1979 ^-2005
Shaanxi Normal University [RHffi^^^].
Wu, T. [^], & Wu, X.	(2012). 2010 nian Hanyu xinciyu yanjiu [2010 ^ilii
W^]. Yuwenyishu	326, 66-68.
Xu, B. [W^^] (2009). The Analysis on Motivation of the Generating and Developing of Chinese New Words of New Period [itWHiiltiiiir^Ml^S^] Unpublished M.A., Dalian University of Technology.
Yuan, Y.	(2006). 1990-2002 nianjian de jingjilei xinci touxi [1990-2002 ^lllg^^
lii^^]. Nanjing Normal University [SMW^^^].
Zhang, J. [^Mfl (2007). A Tentative Approach to the Chinese Neologism Translation in Recent Two Decades	Central South University
Zhang, M. [^^ff] (2010). Lun shixia liuxung goushi "bei XX"	XX"].
Journal of Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University (3), 85-87.
Zhang, W.	(2004). 20 shiji chu Hanyu de Ouhua yu wenxue de biange [20
il^^^l^]. Wenyi zhengming	(3), 38 - 44.
We Have It too: A Strategy Which Helps to Grasp the Japanese Writing System for Students from Outside of the Chinese Character Cultural Zone
Andrej BEKEŠ
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts andrej .bekes@ff.uni-lj .si
Abstract
For beginner learners with non-Chinese character background complexities of Japanese writing system often represent an insurmountable obstacle. Yet closer look at different types of writing systems reveals that differences between them are more of a degree than of a kind. Present paper, based on this perception, argues for the employment of strategies based on a transfer of analogies between alphabet based writing systems such as English, to Japanese writing system. This would help beginner learners overcome cognitive and affective blockade, when beginning to learn Japanese writing.
Keywords: writing system; Chinese characters (kanji); pleremic; cenemic; analogy transfer
Izvleček
Kompleksnost japonskega sistema pisave pogosto predstavlja nepremagljivo oviro za tiste učeče se na začetni stopnji, ki ne izhajajo iz kulturnega kroga kitajske pisave. Natančnejši pogled na različne sisteme pisave pokaže, da razlike med sistemi niso toliko v sami zasnovi, ampak bolj v deležu, ki ga vsak tip pisave v danem sistemu zavzema. Izhajajoč iz takega pogleda na pisavo, pričujoči članek predlaga, za to, da bi učeči se premagal kognitivno in čustveno blokado ob prehodu na novi sistem pisave, uporabo učnih strategij, ki temeljijo na prenosu analogij iz sistema pisave lastnega učečemu se na ciljni, to je, japonski sistem pisave.
Ključne besede: pisave; kitajske pismenke (kanji); pleremsko; cenemsko; prenos po analogiji
1. Introduction
At present the majority of learners who learn Japanese do not learn it because they are especially interested in Japan's language and culture but for a wide spectrum of reasons, including study, work, or being married to a Japanese. Many live in Japan and for them, in order to be fully functional and autonomous members of community, learning Japanese implies also writing. For many of these learners, complexities and unfamiliarity of the writing system that they have to face when trying to learn Japanese can be overwhelming, causing them to give up the effort, with all the negative societal consequences that follow such decisions.
Acta Linguistica Asiatica, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2013. ISSN: 2232-3317 http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/
Based on what kind of linguistic units are represented by individual units of writing, writing systems can be classified into semantically informed ones, i.e., pleremic, and semantically "empty" ones, i.e., cenemic. Pleremic systems are based on logography (word-writing), morphograpy (morpheme-writing) or both, and cenemic systems on writing units that represent individual sounds or syllables (Haas, 1976; French, 1976).
In general writing systems are not homogeneous, - i.e. based on a single principle of representing units of language with units of writing. On the contrary, they seem to be incorporating various principles of representation, either primarily, at the level of the relation of units of writing to units of language, or secondarily, at the level of organization of the units of writing motivated by the relation of this organization to units of language. Thus for example, Latin script, used in many European languages is primarily cenemic, letters (ideally) representing individual sounds, but employs spaces to signal division between words, and as such also secondarily incorporates logographic principle (Haas, 1976).
Japanese writing system is even more complex, employing Chinese characters (henceforth kanji) for logography units and two kana syllabaries for representing syllables (or more correctly mora). On the top of it, kanji are in principle used to represent morphemes when writing Chinese loan words and words when writing Japanese native words (Coulmas, 1989).
Requirements for a student to make a conceptual jump from one's own, primarily cenemic writing system, to a heavily hybrid pleremic-cenemic writing system such as Japanese, can be enormous. Reflecting on my experience teaching Japanese at the International Student Center at the University of Tsukuba and at the Japanese Studies program at the University of Ljubljana, I argue in this paper for a familiarizing strategy, sensitizing learners to the hybrid nature of their own writing systems, as a starting point to approach writing in Japanese, for the purpose of making learners' conceptual transition into the Japanese writing system easier.
2. Previous research of kanji in Japanese language learning context
There is an extensive theoretical research on kanji. Kaiser (2001, 1995), written in Japanese, are accessible considerations of the role of kanji from the point of view of writing science - including comparative perspective. Coulmas (1989) is an introduction to writing systems, while Coulmas (2003) is offers a rigorous linguistic analysis of various writing systems. Both works also treat characteristics of Japanese writing system. Todo (1969) is an interesting discussion of kanji in Japanese language context by an expert Chinese philologist, offering interesting insights into internal structure of kanji, potential of script reforms, script development and their present-day use. Haas (1976) and French (1976) discuss theoretical frameworks for classification of writing.
Research concerning learning kanji is also quite extensive. Haththotuwa Gamage (2003a) addresses learning strategies and the influence of learners "orthographic" background (kanji cultural area or not) on success of learning kanji, stressing the fundamental differences in strategies for the two types of learners. The same author (Gamage, 2003b) addresses language learning strategies in general. Also relevant to
this paper is pointing out the "orthographic transfer" strategies, (Douglas, 1992). Nonetheless, such transfers are discussed only in the context of learners with Chinese character cultural zone background, often with harmful consequences. Possibilities of transfer strategies for learners with cenemic writing background, as a means to overcome conceptual hurdles in learning kanji, are not discussed. Douglas Ogawa (2004), in the context of learning and teaching kanji to learners with alphabetic background, discusses affective factors, while focusing more on issues such as the number of kanji, their relation to vocabulary, and absence of one to one encoding (such as on'yomi and kun'yomi "readings" etc.). Mental blockade, faced by learners when switching from an overall cenemic system to predominantly pleremic system, are not treated. Asaoka (2010) centers on issues such as retention and methods such as calligraphy, used to overcome the hurdles faced by Japanese learners. Rose (2010) investigates kanji learning strategies and offers important insights into until now rather neglected issue of self-regulation and other aspects of learning, while the important issue of trying to integrate kanji learning with the narrow and wide context of communication is not treated. Here, too, the issue of mental blockade in beginner learners is not dealt with.
3. A sketch of options available in writing
Writing in the narrow sense is the writing where units of writing are conventionally related to units of language (Coulmas, 1989). There is a major division regarding the level of linguistic units, stemming from the principle of double articulation (Martinet, 1960). According to this principle, continuous speech can be analyzed into discrete units of meaning, words and morphemes, this being the first articulation. Units of meaning can be further analyzed into semantically empty units of sound, this constituting the second articulation. Following French (ibid.) and Haas (ibid.), two basic options are pleremic and cenemic writing.
Pleremic writing is associated with the first articulation, i.e., with semantically informed, i.e., "full", units of meaning. Typical modern writing systems, extensively employing pleremic writing, are Chinese writing system and partly Japanese writing system, both based on the use of Chinese characters - kanji.
Cenemic writing is associated with the second articulation, i.e., with semantically empty units of sound such as syllables and individual sounds or phonemes. Typical representatives of cenemic writing are writing systems based on syllabic abugidas such as Ge'ez, Devanagari, etc., on alphabets such as Arab, Greek, Latin, Cyrillic, etc. (Daniels, 1990), and those employing syllabaries (e.g., partly Japanese, employing also katakana and hiragana syllabaries)
Ideography, on the other hand, is not writing in the narrow sense, since graphic signs in it are not primarily related to linguistic units. It is used to represent ideas and concepts directly and independently of language, in contexts such as traffic signs, mathematical formulas etc. (Haas, 1976).
Writing systems also display secondary organization. Primarily pleremic writings, for example kanji, include a lot of phonetically motivated elements. Because the primary principle is pleremic, this happens at the level if internal structure of character
("inner form", cf. Coulmas ibid). On the other hand, cenemic writing systems include secondary organization motivated pleremically, i.e., secondary organization units being related to words/morphemes. In such cases, secondary organization is usually ruled by orthography of each particular language (Haas, 1976).
4. A sketch of Japanese writing system makeup
Japanese writing system is hybrid, pleremic-cenemic, employing various primary and secondary devices to represent language units.
4.1 Primary devices
Primary devices are the most conspicuous part of writing system, i.e., units of writing, graphic signs, directly associated with language units of meaning or sound.
4.1.1	Chinese characters - kanji
In Japanese kanji are now conventionally used primarily to write verb stems, adjective stems, and nouns, in other words, "full meaning words", in line with what pleremic writing is expected to do. They are used in two ways. One is to write Chinese loan words or Chinese loan morphemes (on'yomi), for example A^ daigaku (university) etc. The other is to write native Japanese words or morphemes (kun yomi), for example P yama (mountain), etc. Neither of the two ways is straightforward, because the relationship between a character and the language element written with the character is not one-to-one. One character can be used to write several different words or morphemes. For example, character ^ can encode several Chinese loan elements (morphemes) belonging to different periods of loaning (zu, to, etc., meaning "head"), and several different native Japanese words (atama, kashira, etc., also basically meaning "head", but belonging to different meaning domains (Coulmas ibid.).
There are also other uses, two of which will be mentioned here. One of them is the logographic use of compound Chinese words (jukujikun), to write native Japanese words, for example, ^ 0 for ashita, asu (tomorrow), BB 0 for kino (yesterday), AA for otona (adult), etc. Nonetheless such examples are nowadays few and do not represent a significant additional load for beginner learners, therefore this paper will not deal with the issue. The other is the rebus-like use of kanji in many proper names (i.e., place names, family names etc.), such as ^^ tsukuba (a mountain in Kanto region), ffiM i*na (a town in the south of Nagano prefecture), etc. Often this use seems to be based on an older, Man 'yogana style rebus use of kanji.
4.1.2	Hiragana and katakana
Hiragana and katakana are used as supporting script in kanji-kana majiri style, and were developed as a necessity to write Japanese, a language highly inflected as compared with isolating Chinese, more accurately. Hiragana is at present used typically to write inflectional part of verbs and adjectives, adverbs, function words and often also full meaning words and proper names (as for instance in the name of
Tsukuba city (). Katakana is used typically for writing loan words and morphemes from languages other than Chinese, onomatopoeic words and for stressing (Todo, 1969; Coulmas, 1989).
4.2 Secondary organization principles
Secondary organization principles operate on primary graphic signs used to write a particular language. In Japanese, secondary organization is almost nonexistent.
Okurigana (inflection endings written in kana) do somehow contribute to the secondary organization by showing the inflectional ending of a verb or an adjective stem.
Wakachigaki (putting spaces between words) is problematic in Japanese because of the agglutinative nature of Japanese language, which makes it often very difficult to sharply distinguish between word boundaries. This is probably one of the reasons why dividing words with spaces did not catch up in Japanese orthography. Wakachigaki is used at the early elementary school level but is then discontinued. Another reason for not putting spaces between words is that at a more advanced level of writing ability, kanji employed to represent "full meaning" words can to some extent signal the boundary between individual words or morphemes, due to their different graphical impression.
While punctuation also belongs to the level of secondary organization, the principal marks such as ten (comma) and maru (period) delimit larger units such as phrases and clauses, which go beyond logography.
5. Hybrid nature of primarily cenemic writing systems
Inherently hybrid nature of cenemic systems can represent a welcome starting point for building consciousness about similarities, conductive to learners' intuitive grasp of principles on which the Japanese writing system is based.
5.1 Alphabets - exemplified by the Latin alphabet in English
Latin alphabet, used for writing English and a good number of other languages, from Albanian to Turkish, developed many conventions which in practice make the system hybrid, with inherent elements of pleremic writing principles.
5.1.1 Pleremic use at the primary level of organization
Such use is actually not so rare. Arab and Roman numbers used as subsidiary symbols within the alphabet, are used to write the words for numbers, and are thus pleremic. Further, all sorts of abbreviations, such as Dr (doctor), Mr. (mister) , Mrs. (mistress), prof. (professor), Rev. (reverend), etc, are word signs derived from primarily alphabetic letters. Such abbreviations are conventionally representing full words, i.e., Dr is pronounced as "doctor" and not as /di:a:r/. Same is true also of acronyms of place names, widely used especially in the US, such s NY (New York),
CA (California), etc., though there are exceptions, such as LA (Los Angeles, pronounced as /elei/, thus behaving as a true acronym). In these cases an acronym may function either as derived logogram, referring to the original word (in cases such as NY and CA), or as a cenemically recoded version of the original place name (in cases such as LA). The same is basically true also of acronyms of organizations, such as NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, pronounced /neitou/) etc. Such acronyms are very handy, because besides making the name shorter, they often conveniently hide the true purpose of the organization (mutual defense centered on North Atlantic, but being active in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan).
In addition, in more playful uses, examples such as "I V NY" and its imitations, are not rare. This example is interesting, because it employs two logographic graphic signs, pictographic V and alphabet derived NY. Similarly, smileys, Japanese "emoji" and similar, pictography based characters, such as V, ©, etc., are used in particular in electronic messaging to convey feelings and moods of the sender. Proliferation of pictographic signs also shows the need for direct, word-based option of writing, latent also in cenemic systems.
It can be seen that primarily cenemic systems, such as Latin alphabet based English writing system, are quite happy with a certain number of primary pleremic graphic signs (including the derived ones), since this in the right circumstances expedites communication.
5.1.2	Pleremic principles at the secondary level of organization
Pleremic principles at the secondary level of organization, with words as linguistic units being conventionally and consistently signaled by the spaces between them, are also very instructive for drawing learners' attention to analogies with pleremic-cenemic systems such as Japanese.
Delimiting words with spaces was introduced in Latin alphabet in 7c.-8c. (Bruthiaux, 1993). Visual saliency of clearly individualized words contributed to the increase of accuracy and speed of reading. Individualized words thus function as a second degree logograms, in a way similar to phono-semantic compounds (M^^ / MW^ xingshengzi, keiseiji) in kanji. Both are phonetically motivated, while at the same time they also relate to the coded linguistic unit at the word/morpheme level.
5.1.3	Mixed pleremic-cenemic use
Interestingly, mixed pleremic-cenemic use, analogue to okurigana inflectional endings in kanji-kana majiri writing in Japanese, is also found in many alphabet based writing systems, as for example in the case of ordinal numbers in English, French, etc. In English, for example, we have 1st (FIRst), 2nd (SECOnd), 3rd (THIrd), 4th (FOURth), etc. The principle is the same as in okurigana, the ending part of the word written with a logograph is spelled phonetically, to disambiguate and thus ease the reading. In the case of English, it is necessary to disambiguate between cardinal and ordinal numbers, and in the case of Japanese, between different shapes of the inflected words.
5.2	Pleremic reflexes in abugidas and other phonetic scripts
Other cenemic writing systems also employ secondary organization to delimit individual words. Modern Hebrew and Arabic in some cases employ different shapes of letters written at the beginning as opposed to the rest of a word. To separate words, Arabic alphabet used for writing Persian, Uyghur, Urdu and Pashto employs bigger size of the letter at the beginning of each word (the so called nasta^liq). Korean hangul alphabet uses spaces. Many abugidas (being a hybrid between alphabetic and syllabic writing, also called alphasyllabic writing), employ word separating signs. For example in Ge'ez, words are separated by a kind of semicolon (Haile, 1996) while in devanagari abugida script used to write modern Hindi, words are separated by space. Related Khmer and Thai abugidas in modern use do not separate words.
5.3	Syllabic reflexes in alphabetic writing
This case seems to be limited to hangul, the Korean alphabet. In the case of hangul, letters are per definitionem grouped in syllabic groups, as for example in word han (Korean), written not as linearly as	(h-a-n) but grouped into two-
dimensional module: This makes syllables visually salient, a great asset also in writing phonetically Chinese characters (hanja in Korean). Hanja are usually transliterated as syllables conforming to the Korean syllabic principles, and thus expressed as hangul letters grouped in syllables.
5.4	Summary of analogies
Even a rather superficial comparison of a complex mixed pleremic-cenemic system such as Japanese and primarily cenemic systems as exemplified by Latin alphabet in English, and also by many other alphabet or abugida based systems mentioned in sections 4 and 5, shows that these systems actually do share many analogue traits. In fact, there is no pure division between a pleremic or a cenemic system; actually all writing systems seem to be at least to some extent based on a mixture of the two principles. These analogue traits are summarized in the Table 1 below. As can be seen from the Table 1, these analogies seem to be strong enough to be able to say that the basic differences in writing systems are those of degree rather than those of a kind.
Table 1: Analogies between Japanese and some cenemic writing systems
	Writing system	Japanese	Latin (English)	Hangul	Ge'ez (Amharic)	Arab	Hebrew
Primary organization	Primary type (main)	pleremic (kanji)	cenemic (alphabet)	cenemic (alphabet)	cenemic (abugida)	cenemic (alphabet)	cenemic (alphabet)
	Primary type (subsidiary)	cenemic (kana syllabary)	some logographic signs	some logographic signs	some logographic signs	some logographic signs	some logographic signs
	Pleremic and cenemic mixing	kanji-kana majiri (mixed kanji-kana)	traces	traces	traces	traces	traces
	okurigana endings	extensive use of okurigana endings	limited use of endings for ordinal numerals	NA	NA	NA	NA
Sec. organization	word separation	word boundaries vaguely shown by different script (kanji/kana or hiragana/katakana)	spaces	spaces	spaces, double dots etc.	letter shape, letter size	letter shape
	syllable grouping	present (kana)	NA	present	present	NA	NA
It is the transfer of these analogies inherent in cenemic scripts that has potential to help beginner learners of Japanese to surmount their conceptual blockade learning Japanese writing.
6. Conclusions
At the beginners level, when learners are faced for the first time with an unfamiliar and complex writing system, experience shows that the mental block towards such complexities often prevents learners from proceeding beyond the basic stage of learning, with all the societal and intercultural damage that goes with such developments.
The starting point of usual discussions of kanji learning strategies seems to always be beyond the initial contact with Japanese writing system. Such discussions are thus of no help at this critical point of learners' experience. Analogies summarized above are salient and intuitive enough to be easily transferred into Japanese writing system, thus providing a confused beginner with an intimate understanding of basic principles on which the Japanese writing system rests. Numerals and other subsidiary logographic signs in cenemic systems provide an intuitively accessible anchor for understanding the basic difference between pleremic and cenemic writing. Word separation and its connection with logography can amplify this understanding, in particular at the level when first phono-semantic compounds are introduced. Endings of ordinal numbers in
English, French, Spanish etc., can serve to elucidate the way okurigana functions, at the stage when first verbs and adjectives are written with kanji.
With a wider range of cenemic systems examined in a greater detail perhaps even more analogies could be discovered. Also, expanding analogies between certain types of kanji inner form and traffic signs, mental crutches for understanding the role of bushu (semantic classifiers) could be provided, a topic worth further investigation. Nonetheless, what is essential in our case is that such analogies are not explanations per se but mental crutches which help the learner to grasp the Japanese (and by analogy also Chinese) writing system, and start understanding its functioning from within that system.
References
Asaoka, N. (2010). Introducing kanji strategies through japanese calligraphy [^M t
hy$ ^^©^A©!!^]. 17th Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum, May 8 - May 9, 2010.
Bekeš, A. (1998). Vpliv Amerike na sodobni japonski jezik in pisavo. Azijske in afriške študije 2(1), 146-154.
Bekeš, A. (1999). Pojmovni okvir za klasificiranje sistemov kitajske in japonske pisave. Azijske in afriške študije 3(1/2), 218-238.
Bruthiaux, P. (1993). Knowing when to stop: Investigating the nature of punctuation. Language & Communication 13(1), 27-43.
Coulmas F. (2003). Writing systems: An introduction to their linguistic analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coulmas, F. (1989). The writing systems of the world. Oxford: Basil Blacwell.
Daniels, P. T. & Bright, W. (Eds.). (1996). The world's writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press.
Daniels, P. T. (1990). Fundamentals of grammatology. Journal of the American Oriental Society 119(4), 727-731.
Douglas, M. O. (1992). Development of orthography-related reading/writing strategies by learners of Japanese as a foreign language. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Southern California.
Douglas, M. O. (January 14th, 2004). Learning and teaching kanji: For students from an
alphabetic background. SenseiOnline - 40th Benkyoukailecture. Retrieved June 2013, from http://www.sabotenweb.com/bookmarks/about/douglas.html
French, M. A. (1976). Observation on the Chinese script and the classification of the writing systems. In W. Haas (Ed.), Writing without letters. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Gamage, H. G. (2003a). Perceptions of kanji learning strategies: Do they differ among chinese character and alphabetic background learners? Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 26(2), 17-31.
Gamage, H. G. (2003b). Issues in strategy classifications in language learning: A framework for kanji learning strategy research. ASAA e-journal of asian linguistics & language teaching. The Asian Studies Association of Australia. Retrieved June 2013, from http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/languages/asaa ejournal
Gelb, I. J. (1963). A study of writing. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press
(revised edition, first published 1992). Haas, W. (1976). Writing: the basic options. In W. Haas (Ed.), Writing without letters.
Manchester: Manchester University Press. Haile, G. (1996). Ethiopic writing. In P. T. Daniels, & W. Bright (Eds.). (1996). The world's writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kaiser, S. [A 4	(1995). Sekai no nihongo kyoiku.	0 ^MBW]
5, 155-167.
Kaiser, S. [A 4 ^af77y] (2001). Nihongo to kanji, Nihonjin to kanji -- Nihongo
no hyoki to kokunaigai ni okeru toraekata ni tsuite [ 0 ^gp t ^^ • 0 ^A t ^^--
--] Kokugo-ka kyoiku [SM^
W] 50, 66-76.
Martinet, A. (1960). Elements of general linguistics. Chicago: Chicago UP. Olson, D. R. (1993). How writing represents speech. Language & Communication 13(1), 1-17. Rose, H. (2003). Teaching learning strategies for learner success. Babel 38(2), 32-38. Todo, A. (1969). Kango to nihongo (Chinese language and Japanese language). Tokyo: Shuei shuppan.