Polite: politeness
| Values: | Form | Infm |
Politeness in Armenian belongs to the speaker-referent axis (meant to include the addressee when he happens to be the referent) and the honorific pronouns are used to refer to the addressee.
Note, that in Armenian, formal second person is identical to informal second person plural. This involves both the pronoun and the finite verb but not a participle, which has no special formal form. In addition, special pronouns are used that only occur in the formal register (Դուք).
Thus, the Polite feature distinguishes informal second-person pronouns (դու, դուք) from the formal Դուք. The formal pronoun is phonologically equivalent in all its case forms to the second-person plural դուք but it is distinguished in orthography by the capital letter Դ. We tag it as second person (because that is its meaning) and we tag also its number (it is used for singular addressees) despite the fact that it combines with second-person plural verbs.
Infm: informal register
The informal register is usually meant for informal communication (e.g. with family members and close friends).
Examples:
- դու գնացիր / դուք գնացիք (you went.
Sing/Plur) - դու գնում ես / դուք գնում եք (you go.
Sing/Plur)
Form: formal register
The polite register is usually meant for communication with strangers and people of higher social status than the one of the speaker.
Examples:
- Դուք գնացիք (you went.
Sing) - Դուք գնում եք (you are.
Singgoing)
Polite in other languages: [bej] [es] [hy] [pl] [u]