Edited by Annick Paternoster and Susan Fitzmaurice
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 299] 2019
► pp. 39–74
This contribution studies address forms in grammars and textbooks of several West and South Slavic languages of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, especially in the pedagogical dialogues that accompany these works. The languages in focus had been using several address forms borrowed from German (or Italian), and due to the efforts of linguistic purism, these borrowings were eliminated in the nineteenth century. The result is in all those languages a system of address pronouns consisting of the second person singular and plural. The purist efforts were motivated by the wish of restoring an older language form, or to approach an imagined ideal type of Slavic language; they are an effect of the national movements of these non-dominant ethnic groups (National Revival).