[lit-ideas] The Story of Oh
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 21:03:00 EST
"Oh, Mirembe" (Was: "O Mirembe" -- Was: Vocative Particles
In a message dated 1/28/2005 2:12:56 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
nantongo@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I learn that there are formally seven - even
> though
> most are not in common usage - vocative particles in Arabic and am trying
> to
> work out the corresponding state of vocative particles in English. It
> seems
> so far that English has lots of functional equivalents of vocative
> particles
> but only four (that I can find) actual particles. These seem to be: O,
> Hey,
> Ho and (new-fangled but definitely present) Oy and Yo. Does this sound
> right? Any enlightenment at all gratefully received.
Hi Mirembe,
I tried an advanced search with the OED for the exact phrase 'vocative
particle', and two hits were retrieved. One, under 'musha', below. The second
one,
more interesting, under one of the vocative particles you mention, viz.,
"O".
The OED notes that in Classical Latin, the spelling was variant: "O", but
also "Oh" (though I yet have to see the relevant Roman inscription attesting
this -- Geary may). Ditto, the OED has German "o" along with German "oh" [but
Henninge or Bruce may tell us if this is an anglicism?]
The OED writes:
"Although it is possible to regard all these forms as ult. cognate with each
other, the possiblity of independent formation of such a natural utterance
is very likely."
cf. Geary, J. M. "The meaning of 'oh': a cross-linguistic study". Texas
Papers in Linguistics, vol. 8.
It would be interesting to do a search for 'vocative particle' in technical
linguistics literature, too.
Logically, a vocative particle is one used at the beginning of a phrase, to
catch someone's attention (e.g. "O Roberto"). In Scots, the order is reversed:
Chiefly Sc. Added after the rhyme word at the end of a line in a
ballad, song, etc., for metrical reasons.
1721 A. RAMSAY Poems 374
O the Mill, Mill-O, and the Kill, Kill-O, And the Cogging of the
Wheel-O.
Cheers,
JL
-----
Collocations for 'vocative particle' in the OED:
(a) under "musha"
The initial of the form amossa is after the Irish vocative particle a.
(b) under "O"
"In Old English liturgical use prob. < classical Latin "o" ... ; in
subsequent use prob. < Old French O, vocative marker, expression of emotion or
surprise (end of the 10th cent.) and its etymon classical Latin o, vocative
marker,
(also oh) expression of emotion or surprise. Cf. ancient Greek o (also o
[with circumflex accent]), vocative particle ( Old Church Slavonic o), o (also
o
[with circumflex accent]), expression of surprise or emotion, Old Irish,
Irish "a", vocative particle, Old Welsh, Welsh "a", vocative particle,
Lithuanian o, vocative particle, expression of surprise or emotion, Latvian a,
a,
expression of surprise or emotion.
"Although it is possible to regard all these forms as ult. cognate with each
other, the possiblity of independent formation of such a natural utterance
is very likely."
Similar expressions of appeal, surprise, or emotion are also widely attested
in non-Indo-European languages.
[such as Arabic, as Nantongo notes?]
Middle Low German o, Old High German o (Middle High German o, German o, oh),
Old Icelandic ó, Old Swedish o, oo (Swedish o), Danish o, all as vocative
markers and as expressions of appeal, surprise, or emotion, are prob. also at
least in part ult. borrowings from Latin (many of the earliest examples appear
to have been influenced by uses in Latin biblical texts), although Old High
German may in some instances represent a variant of au, expression of
surprise or pain (Middle High German ou, German au), and once again the
possibility
of recurrent independent formation is likely; cf. also Gothic o (two
attestations: once translating Greek , vocative particle, and once translating
VAH
int.).
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