Here are some of the factors you have to consider when acquiring a new vocabulary:
-Gender of person being addressed
-Rank of or relationship to person being addressed
(children, family, co-worker, superiors)
-Time of day
-Whether you are talking to someone, or about someone, or calling out to them
(in Slavic languages you actually change the form (spelling) of someone's name depending on how you are using their name)
-Number/Quantity
(counting often changes depending on what you are counting- in Japanese there are whole different sets of numbers for counting people, flat objects, round objects, etc.)
-Location/Position
(ie. if you are leaving or staying)
-Situation
(formal/informal)
These are all my tired brain can come up with at the moment. Please feel free to let me know your ideas of what I should add to the list!
i notice none of us are commenting on this one. :) It all sounds too hard to me -- i think i'll stick with kreyol!
ReplyDeleteWell, some of these apply to many languages. The whole counting thing in Japanese is a bit crazy though. I might do a post about it. Kreyol is great though! At least Japanese doesn't have plural forms, although I'm not sure if that's less confusing or not. =)
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