What is a bystander honorific?

Definition
	A bystander honorific is an honorific in which the social status of some other person present is expressed through choices made among linguistic alternants. These choices
	are made based upon the person’s relationship to the speaker, but do not depend on whether the alternants refer to the person, or the person is the addressee.

Example (Dyirbal, Australia)

Dyirbal has a "mother-in-law language" which is a set of lexical items substituted in the presence of

Source:

Dixon 1972 32

Generic
	A bystander honorific is a kind of
	What is a honorific?

Concept module: bystander honorific
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): B
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004