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Beyond Honorificity: Analysis of Hindi jii

Beyond Honorificity: Analysis of Hindi jii. Gayetri Thakur M.A. Final Department of Linguistics Banaras Hindu University e-mail: gayetrithakur@gmail.com. Objective of the paper. To find out the distribution of Hindi particle jii traditionally categorized as an honorificity marker.

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Beyond Honorificity: Analysis of Hindi jii

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  1. Beyond Honorificity:Analysis of Hindi jii Gayetri Thakur M.A. Final Department of Linguistics BanarasHinduUniversity e-mail: gayetrithakur@gmail.com

  2. Objective of the paper • To find out the distribution of Hindi particle jii traditionally categorized as an honorificity marker. • to provide different pragmatic usages of the particle

  3. Relevance of the paper • By analyzing the polysemous nature of the particle, the present work contributes to Lexical semantics and pragmatics. • It also adds relevant theoretical input to Hindi NLP especially in the area of word sense disambiguation for Hindi and Hindi-English Machine Translation

  4. What is a particle? • Functional elements which do not change their forms in different syntactic environment but only their interpretation changes

  5. Different uses of jii • A. In Agreement: (in a conversation) 1.Speaker A:maiN kal dillii jaa rahaa huuN. I tomorrow Delhi go-aux-prog-be-1p.sg ‘I am going to Delhi tomorrow’ Speaker B: Jii… Agreement particle ‘Right, (sir).’ Speaker A: tum apnaa kaam puraa kar lenaa you your work complete do take-infinitive ‘(You) complete your work’ Speaker B:Jii… Agrp ‘Okay (sir).’

  6. 3. Speaker A:paRhaaii Suru kii hai naa study start do aux particle ‘Did you start (your) study or not?’ Speaker B:Jii Agrp ‘Yes (sir)’. In the given conversations above, jii is used as a particle by the speaker in order to agree with the one he/she is interacting with. This occurrence of jii is mostly found in formal situations.

  7. The utterances of speaker B in the examples 1, 2 and 3 can also be responded as 4(a . accha jii or jii accha‘Alright Sir’ 4(b). Thiik hai jii or jii Thiik hai‘O.K. Sir’ 4(c). haaN jii or jii haaN ‘Yes Sir’. Jii as a bi-morphemic utterance can only be used with yes-no questions when the speaker intends to express his/her agreement with the speaker, a wh-question cannot be responded using jii as a complete response

  8. B. Requesting Particle 5. jii aap bhii kuch lijiye. Reqp you(hon) also something take-hon-2p ‘(You also) please take something’ In the given structure jii occurs in initial position and is used as a Requesting particle

  9. C. In Addressal 6. aap bhii kuch lijiye, jii. you(hon)also something take-hon-2p-AddP ‘You also take something’ The same particle conveys a different meaning when it occurs in sentence final position as a marker to address the one, the speaker is interacting with and the sentence will occur with a rising pitch intonation in the given situation. Addressing particle is also used in the following way: jii,suniye you(hon) listen ‘Listen or Hey! Listen’

  10. Addressing particle is also used in the following way: jii,suniye you(hon) listen ‘Listen or Hey! Listen’ • The occurrence of jii in the given sentence is used to address someone when addressing by name is a social taboo. It appears to show politeness towards the addressee and is mostly used by the female speakers (e.g. wife to husband). This can be mapped onto English ‘hey’. jii may be preceded by aa toaddress some unknown person also.

  11. D. Vocatives 8.Teacher:siitaa ‘Sita!’ Student:jii,sar. ‘Yes, Sir.’ In the given conversation jii is not used to show any agreement but is just employed in order to respond with ‘yes’.

  12. E. Questioning Particle: 9. Speaker A: maiN kal ghar gayaa thaa Iyesterday home go-aux- pst ‘I had been to (my) home yesterday’ Speaker B: jii? ‘What?’ In the given situation, the hearer being unable to comprehend may respond by uttering jii in order to request the speaker A to repeat what he/she might have said.jii in the above context can be used with different intonation pattern, the rising or falling pitch. If the particle occurs with the rising pitch it would mean ‘what’ and if with a falling pitch it would mean ‘ok’. Hence, the intonation pattern plays an important role to disambiguate these two different uses of jii.

  13. F. Attitude Marker 10.KyuN jii kahaa the itne din. Why part where be-pst so many days ‘So, where were you for so many days?’

  14. G. Permission/Hesitation Marker 11.jii hameN bahar jaanaa thaa PerP we-dat out to go be-pst ‘Actually we wanted to go out.’ The occurrence of jii here is in order to seek permission in aformal situation where the speaker is hesitant and is afraid of the reaction of the one whom he addresses. This jii is mapped with ‘actually’ in English.

  15. H. Deferring Particle 12. Speaker A: tumhaarii fail puurii ho jaaegii to aaj merii madad kar denaa. Your file complete be go-fut part today my help do give-inf ‘If you complete your file today then help me too.’ Speaker B:jii …jii Ok.. Ok. In the sentence above, jii occurs as a deferring particle where the 2nd person defers the conversation using jii or jii …jii i.e.o.k along with the sense of respect being carried over all over.

  16. I. Signalling Sarcasm 13. Mother to child: sriimaan raam kumaar jii, aap ab paDh leMge? Mr.ramkumar hon. you now study take-fut-pl ‘Mr.Ram kumar, will you study now?’ In the given sentence the particle jii occurs after the proper name and expresses irritation on the part of the mother. She is using the honorific form sarcastically with the child.

  17. J. Irritational Marker 14.Kyaa huaa jii,kyuN nahii paDh rahe ho? What be-pst Irr-Mar why not study be-aux-2p-sg ‘What’s wrong? Why are you not studying?’ The above given form of jii is used as an irritational marker along with the filler kya in a situation where the person expresses his/her irritation towards the child. It does not have exact mapping in English but we often use ‘what’s wrong’ with a little shade of anger instead.

  18. K. Boost up Marker 15. jii, aapsab yah kaam kar sakte haiN. BoostP you (hon) all this work do can be-prt-2p-pl ‘Yes, you all can do this work.’ In the given structure jii is used to boost up the participants when produced with emphasis and conveys the sense of ‘yes’ in English. • Thus, the honorific marker jii serves several functions in expressing the agreement between hearer and speaker, in interrogation and so on. But the function of respect for the person referred to is the major one it exhibits in all contexts

  19. Future Work The disambiguation strategies have to be worked out and the algorithms have to be made for NLP applications

  20. Thank You

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