Allocutive agreement
| Grammatical categories |
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In linguistics, allocutive agreement refers to a morphological feature in which the gender of an addressee is marked overtly in an utterance using fully grammaticalized markers.[1] The term was first used by Louis Lucien Bonaparte in 1862.[2]
Basque
In Basque, allocutive forms are required in the verb forms of a main clause when the speaker uses the familiar (also called "intimate") pronoun hi "thou" (as opposed to formal zu "you").[1] This is distinct from grammatical gender as it does not involve marking nouns for gender; it is also distinct from gender-specific pronouns, such as English "he/she" or Japanese boku ("I", used by males) and atashi ("I", used by females). In Basque, allocutive agreement involves the grammatical marking of the gender of the addressee in the verb form itself.
Grammatically this is done by introducing an additional second person marker in the verb form (marked ALL):
versus
Amaia n-a-u-n Amaia ABS.1SG-PRES-have-ALL.FEM I am Amaia (to a female addressee, speaking informally) Amaia n-a-u-k Amaia ABS.1SG-PRES-have-ALL.MASC I am Amaia (to a male addressee, speaking informally)
Eastern dialects have expanded on this by adding the polite (formerly plural) pronoun zu to the system; in some, hypocoristic palatalization converts this to -xu:
| Level | "I'll go" | "you'll go" |
|---|---|---|
| Polite | joanen niz | joanen zira |
| Intermed. | joanen nuzu/nuxu | joanen xira |
| Familiar, masc. | joanen nuk | joanen hiz |
| Familiar, fem. | joanen nun |
Some varieties have done away with the unmarked forms except in subordinate clauses: joanen nuk / nun / nuzu vs. joanen nizela 'that I go'
Beja
Some authors describe Beja, a Cushitic language, as having allocutive forms, marking the gender of a masculine addressee with -a in verbs and with -i for feminine addressees, for example tinbiisa "you (masc.) bury" vs tinbiisi "you (fem.) bury".[3]