Person and honorification: Features and interactions in Magahi

Abstract

The Magahi language is rich in honorification morphology: it has three versions of ‘you’ (nonhonorific, honorific, and high honorific) and makes honorific distinctions for third person nominals as well as second person nominals. This work uses these empirical riches to develop a formal syntactic theory of honorific marking. It argues that Magahi’s honorific distinctions can be decomposed into two binary features, [+/–HON] and [+/–HIGH]. These features are specified on an Hon head that is part of the extended projection of any nominal phrase in Magahi; from there they can be copied onto verbal functional heads by Agree. It goes on to argue that Hon heads in Magahi bear a first person designated index that specifies the individual with respect to which the social standing of the person referred to by the nominal inside HonP is evaluated. This first person index is used to account for the intricate ways in which honorific marking interacts with indexical shift in Magahi.