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Imposters: A Study of Pronominal Agreement
A study of pronominal agreement with imposters, third person DPs ( this reporter , yours truly , my lord , Madam ) that denote the speaker or addressee. Normally, a speaker uses a first person singular pronoun (in English, I , me , mine , myself ) to refer to himself or herself . To refer to a single addressee, a speaker uses second person pronouns ( you , yours , yourself ). But sometimes third person nonpronominal DPs are used to refer to the speaker―for example, this reporter, yours truly―or to the addressee― my lord , the baroness , Madam ( Is Madam not feeling well ?). Chris Collins and Paul Postal refer to these DPs as imposters because their third person exterior hides a first or second person core. In this book they study the interactions of imposters with a range of grammatical phenomena, including pronominal agreement, coordinate structures, Principle C phenomena, epithets, fake indexicals, and a property of pronominal agreement they call homogeneity . Collins and Postal conclude that traditional ideas about pronominal features (person, number, gender), which countenance only agreement with an antecedent or the relation of the pronoun to its referent, are much too simple. They sketch elements of a more sophisticated view and argue for its relevance and explanatory power in several data realms. The fundamental proposal of the book is that a pronoun agrees with what they call a source , where its antecedent constitutes only one type of source. They argue that the study of imposters (and closely related camouflage DPs) has far-reaching consequences that are inconsistent with many current theories of anaphora.
284 pages, Hardcover
First published March 23, 2012
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February 13, 2022
(A.) In his prefatory acknowledgements for his book “Imposters,” Paul Postal writes that he “stumbled across imposters while doing research on what we called examples of the ‘ass camouflage construction.’”
Interesting choice of a verb there – “stumbled across.” Almost as though he doesn’t remember where he got the idea for something that became a huge element of the book. I’m sure that if Chris Collins or Simanique Moody had given him the idea, they would have been promptly credited.
Perhaps we can help him resolve the mystery. The book was published in March 2012. Presumably, he wrote the acknowledgements in 2011. If he “stumbled across” these examples three years before, that would be 2008.
Perhaps he doesn’t recall that in the last months of 2006 he began a correspondence with me in which he asked me to act as an informant for AAE (African-American English). This correspondence included, by my estimate, a couple of dozen exchanges in which he asked me my views on various expressions.
Here’s one from late October or early November of 2006: “Hi John:
“How are you doing? Could I bother you with a question. A colleague and I are working on the Black English construction seen in
“(1) e.g. that with ASS:
“(1) They are going to sue his ass….
(the email continues in this vein)
“…What I was wondering is how it works for southern White English, and as a sort of southerner, Richmond not being that far south, I thought you might qualify as an informant. Any chance in your view that white southerners would accept things like (4)?
“Best, Paul”
Here’s another one: “The question then is whether you, very White southern person, allow things like (3) where the subject has to be abstract:
“(3)a. His ass gon get arrested.
“b. His ass (is) dumber than a rock.
“c. His ass can't even tell time.”
Now pay attention to one of my responses in this series of exchanges:
JLW: “…Again, yes because all of these are metonymous. They're excellent. It's the same as:
JLW: “Her Royal Highness was summoned to court.
JLW: “His Majesty is dumber than a rock.
JLW: “Is it the "majesty" which is dumb? That's semantically impossible. In order to address a grand superior, one must avoid direct address and address only the majesty of the person. It's a way of showing great respect in the same way that saying "Your ass" is showing disrespect, real or mocking, in "Your ass is grass."
Another comment to me regarding my contribution:
PMP: “Thanks John. I discovered yesterday that we have a white student from small town Georgia and his judgments match yours on all relevant examples.”
And this: PMP: “Thanks again. Some of your judgments may show up in a footnote if the paper ever gets written.”
Another comment: PMP: “The paper is coming along...we are working like beavers on it; our goal is to be done no later than Christmas, which seems to me now a reasonable target. I will definitely send it to you when it is ready.”
Note: even with a couple dozen exchanges – which he claimed to be helpful – I was not acknowledged in his article on AAE which appeared in the journal “Language.” Numerous other people were. Obviously that’s up to his discretion. Perhaps he felt that my contributions weren’t all that valuable. At any rate, I’m OK with not being acknowledged. I’ve studied the article and it leaves a lot to be desired.
Given all the communications from Postal in which he solicited my views, paid attention to my responses and expressed appreciation for my help, it’s hard for me to believe that he doesn’t recall where he got the idea for the “Your Majesty”-type (imposter) structures – at least a year, perhaps longer, before he claimed he “stumbled across” the idea. The fact that he also didn’t acknowledge my help on the “Language” article suggests that he wasn’t interested in giving me any credit for anything.
(B.) So now let’s look at the book. I’m going to focus on the “Your Majesty” portion of it, as opposed to the “your ass” portion. Rather than discuss all the ranks of aristocracy and all the countries that have used this sort of protocol for addressing those of high rank, I’ll just use the British monarchy and the current monarch as the exemplum.
There are several principles which informed the creation of what I will call “the protocol” – i.e. the use of Your Majesty for the monarch; Your Royal Highness for a prince or princess who is an heir or a sibling of an heir; Your Highness for non-royal princes; Your Grace for dukes and duchesses; Your Eminence for archbishops; Your Lordship and Your Ladyship for the lower ranks of the aristocracy.
One of the major principles which govern this protocol is universality: everyone from the highest-ranked prince, marquess or duke to the most menial subjects addresses the monarch as Your Majesty. Because of this universality, another important principle was that of simplicity and workability: the protocol had to be easy to understand and apply.
The term “Your Majesty” plays two roles:
1) It represents a mode of address which recognizes the highest status of all: greatness. Others have noted that the hierarchy of terms of address matches the hierarchy of rank;
2) Even more importantly, the term Your Majesty represents an obligatory verbal acknowledgement of the superior status of the person being addressed.
These are two separate components, in this case contained within one locution. Once the subject citizen uses the term Your Majesty, he is then free to use other, less formal terms in a conversation with the monarch.
The military uses the same construct: A captain, when talking to a colonel, will address him by his rank and say “sir” when ending a statement or asking a question. But before the conversation, the captain must acknowledge the superior rank. He does this by saluting. The subordinate always salutes the superior as an acknowledgment of superior rank and the superior returns the salute as a courtesy.
Back to the monarchy. When visitors come to Buckingham Palace with the purpose of meeting with the queen, they are given this rule to follow:
‘The first time you speak to the queen, use Your Majesty; after that, use ma’am.’
Here is a hypothetical conversation between the monarch and a subject citizen:
ER II: How do you do? (The queen always speaks first.)
Subject: I’m doing very well, Your Majesty. (acknowledgement of superior status)
ER II: Have you lived in Reading your whole life?
Subject: Yes, ma’am. (use of ma’am OK) Tenth generation.
ER II: Really!
Subject: Yes, ma’am. Of course, you won’t remember but I met you about twenty years ago in one of your walkabouts. (use of you and your OK because covered by the acknowledgement of superior status.)
ER II: Well, then, it’s nice to see you again. (Begins to move away.)
Subject: Thank you, ma’am (or Your Majesty).
The acknowledgement of superior status is absolutely foundational to any discussion of the protocol. This is what allows the subject to speak without awkwardness and to employ other, less wieldy turns of phrase.
Imagine having to say something like this:
“Yes, Your Majesty. Of course, Your Majesty won’t remember but I met Your Majesty about twenty years ago in one of Your Majesty’s walkabouts.”
To put it another way, the queen wants to carry on a natural conversation. She won’t be offended if you address her as ‘ma’am’ and use ‘you’ – as long as you have acknowledged her status first.
Even the prime minister, who, unlike the queen, wields real political and military power in the kingdom and can in effect give orders to the monarch, is still required to follow these protocols, as he is nevertheless a subject of the queen.
Thus, he might say, “Your Majesty, you must consider all of your options and you must act.” Here, he is giving the queen clear instructions but he is following the same protocol that a palace servant would follow.
But Postal misses all of this. Unaware of how the protocol is used in actual practice, he focuses most of his analysis on working out the solutions to problems which aren’t relevant to day-to-day usage. To put it another way, British schoolchildren do not sit in class and try to work out the correct answers to complexities such as those discussed in this volume.
Like any aspect of spoken and written language, there is always a set of rules which govern – in other words, a grammar. The protocol described here has its own grammar. However, like any grammar, there are some who don’t understand the rules and so they needlessly complicate things. Postal seems to spend his energy trying to resolve contradictions between grammatical and ungrammatical usages of the protocol.
(C.) Let’s look at some examples of where Postal does this:
Chap. 7/Sentence (5) b. They advised that Your Lordship live within his means.
We might ask what “Your Lordship” is, in terms of person. Is it second person or third? Since “Lordship” is a thing, then technically this is third person noun modified by a second person pronoun and so
They advised that Your Lordship live within his means.
is alright but by that logic, so is
They advised that Your Lordship live within its means. (since Lordship is a thing.)
and absolutely nobody would say that. This suggests pretty convincingly that, although “Lordship” is a thing, “Your Lordship,” taken as a phrase, is a person. And so by convention Your Majesty equates to “you” and so does Your Lordship. The use of these structures licenses you, yours, yourself etc.
If we want to be consistent and still fully correct, while acting within the convention that Your Lordship means ‘you,’ then
They advised that Your Lordship live within your means. would be fine.
More likely alternatives to Postal’s Sentence (5) b.:
When first addressing the noble, using the acknowledgement of superior status:
Your Lordship, they advised you to live within yours means.
Later in the conversation:
Sir, they advised you to live within your means.
Another problem with this example
(5) b. They advised that Your Lordship live within his means.
is the use of hyperdistancing (in the use of ‘his’ or ‘her’) – that is, using 3rd person in the sentence while addressing someone directly.
Here’s another example:
(when directly addressing the monarch): Her Majesty’s arrival is much anticipated.
It’s possible to do this but it probably isn’t done much, if at all. For one thing, addressing the monarch using the 2nd person pronoun (Your) is just fine; it isn’t seen as informal or familiar. The “Majesty” part of the phrase conveys the notion of distance quite emphatically.
There may be those who do engage in hyperdistancing but I suspect that the reasons are either that they don’t understand the grammar of this protocol or perhaps they choose to speak in a more sycophantic way when addressing those of high rank.
Also, hyperdistancing can create confusion. “Her Majesty” could refer to some other monarch. In fact, using the third person pronoun was created as a means of reference:
(when the monarch is not present) Her Majesty was unhappy with the election results.
Thus this is fine in direct address: Your Majesty’s arrival is much anticipated.
And so, returning to They advised that Your Lordship live within his means.
we have a sentence using direct address (Your Lordship) and also hyperdistancing (his). This seems inconsistent. I’ll call this a ‘person-hybrid’ sentence – using both 2nd and 3rd persons to address and refer to the same individual in the same sentence.
To be consistent, it would be
They advised that Your Lordship live within your means. (more likely) or,
They advised that His Lordship live within his means. (less likely)
(D.) Here’s another, from Chapter 9:
(27) d. Your Majesty and her faithful servant will enjoy our/*them/*yourselves at the beach.
If spoken by the servant herself, it is a very odd locution, because the servant is referring to herself in the 3rd person (autohyperdistancing?) and in an overly florid way. This seems like a sentence one might find written in a bad Victorian novel but seems unlikely in the modern era.
Even changing the pronoun from third to second doesn’t change the fact that the servant is referring to herself as “your faithful servant,” which is a very pretentious way of talking about oneself.
Your Majesty and your faithful servant will enjoy our/*them/*yourselves at the beach.
Grammatical – yes but odd and unlikely. Much more likely is this example:
(27) c. Your Majesty and I will enjoy our/*them/*yourselves at the beach.
English employs ‘inclusive we/our,’ which means that a sentence using ‘we/our’ can include the person being addressed within the meaning of the pronoun. Thus, in
We are going to the movies ‘we’ might mean ‘I and the people I am with.’
That’s ‘we/our-exclusive.’ But in knocking on my neighbor’s door, if I say the same sentence,
Come on! We are going to the movies. I might very well be including my neighbor.
That would be ‘we/our-inclusive.’
Similar arguments can be applied to Chap 9 (36), where it isn’t clear who is making the statement, the “faithful correspondent” or a third person.
And so in Chap 9 (26) b. where Postal approves of
Your Majesty and the defense minister should portray *ourselves/yourselves/themselves more favorably.
he is correct in approving ‘yourselves’ – since “your” is inclusive of both parties. However, the use of “themselves” is hyperdistancing and thus unnecessary. That choice presents a ‘person-hybrid.’
(E.) Postal presents us with this example.
Chap 7 Sentence 6 *Your Lordship understands you
It is unlikely anyone ever wrestles with this problem. Using the acknowledgement of superior status and the licensed you, this would be most likely:
Your Lordship, you understand yourself.
If later in the conversation: Sir, you understand yourself.
If hyperdistancing is employed: His Lordship understands himself.
I mentioned the distinction between direct address (Your Majesty) and reference (His Majesty), which is a useful distinction in pragmatic terms. In Chap. 11 Sent. (14) b:
*If His Majesty refuses to attend the council meeting, they will condemn the fool.
Postal is correct in saying that this is bad – but only if His Majesty is employed in hyperdistance mode, where it is a more distanced version of Your Majesty. Of course, if His Majesty is referential – i.e. said to someone besides the monarch, then it would be OK.
That’s a pretty clear-cut “rule,” in my opinion, but I don’t see where Postal just comes out and states it that way.
(F.) And so what we see is that there is a micro-grammar which governs this protocol. Perhaps we can describe it.
1. Acknowledgement of superior status: Those of superior status must be formally acknowledged. This can take the form of a salute or a locution, such as Your Majesty.
a. The locution can serve as both an acknowledgement and a descriptor which indicates status. Majesty = greatness, the highest status. Thus, a monarch.
2. Formality: Once status has been acknowledged, less formal usages can be employed: ma’am, sir, you, your, yourself.
a. Not too informal, of course: the person of superior status may not be addressed on a first name basis. Even the use of the last name – i.e. “Mrs. Windsor” – would be unthinkable.
3. Hierarchy: There is a hierarchy of address which matches the hierarchy of rank. Thus:
monarch: Your Majesty
prince: Your Royal Highness
duke: Your Grace etc.
4. Universality: Those of high rank are addressed by all inferiors in the same way. Thus, from the most menial servant to the highest noble, the monarch is addressed by all as Your Majesty.
5. Reference: The person of superior status is referred to, when absent, in the third person and in line with the protocol: His Majesty.
6. By convention, ‘Your Majesty’ in direct address means you. Referential ‘His Majesty’ means he/him.
7. Inclusion: English ‘we/our’ forms can include the person being addressed. ‘You/your’ forms can include a person other than the addressee.
8. Simplicity and utility: Because the protocol is universally applied, there needs to be as little complexity as possible. Despite this, some people misapply the rules, thus creating an unnecessary degree of complexity:
a. Hyperdistancing: either because they misunderstand the rules or because of an inclination to sycophancy, some people use third person pronoun forms in direct address:
(while directly addressing the monarch): Her Majesty made a very fine speech today. It was one of Her Majesty’s best.
“Your Majesty” would have been perfectly acceptable.
b. person-hybrid: Some speakers will use both second person and third person pronouns in the same sentence, both addressing and referencing the same person:
They advised that Your Lordship live within his means.
The hyperdistanced “his” could correctly be “your.”
They advised that Your Lordship live within your means.
(G.) Where does Postal get these problems which he works so assiduously on? My assumption is that these problems are “generated” by his syntactic model – a generative construct, of course, which tells him how the model has to work.
The problem with this approach – this generative approach – is that the idea for the protocol and all of its principles didn’t just spring fully formed from the mind of one person – or many people – like Athena from the forehead of Jove. The protocol doesn’t exist as a hard-wired component of the neurostructure.
Rather, the protocol was developed over time by people – administrators, diplomats, courtiers and the aristocracy itself – through discussions, consultations and perhaps even by trial and error. The monarchy, of course, had to assent.
We can understand this protocol through the lenses of pragmatics and historical linguistics. Modern generative theory doesn’t seem to have much to offer.
Of course, the acknowledgement of superior status is not present in the “your ass” structure:
*“Your Ass, Your Ass must consider all of Your Ass’s options.”
Or: *“Your Ass, you must consider all of your options.”
So, what we see is that the protocol works and has been working for centuries. This is because it is a well-designed protocol – easy to understand and easy to implement. The protocol simply isn’t bogged down by the need to understand complex permutations, such as those which this book attempts to address.
One has to wonder why Postal didn’t actually learn and master the protocol as it is actually used. He clearly asked for informants to give him information on the ass camouflage construction. It appears that he didn’t do the same with this protocol.
Interesting choice of a verb there – “stumbled across.” Almost as though he doesn’t remember where he got the idea for something that became a huge element of the book. I’m sure that if Chris Collins or Simanique Moody had given him the idea, they would have been promptly credited.
Perhaps we can help him resolve the mystery. The book was published in March 2012. Presumably, he wrote the acknowledgements in 2011. If he “stumbled across” these examples three years before, that would be 2008.
Perhaps he doesn’t recall that in the last months of 2006 he began a correspondence with me in which he asked me to act as an informant for AAE (African-American English). This correspondence included, by my estimate, a couple of dozen exchanges in which he asked me my views on various expressions.
Here’s one from late October or early November of 2006: “Hi John:
“How are you doing? Could I bother you with a question. A colleague and I are working on the Black English construction seen in
“(1) e.g. that with ASS:
“(1) They are going to sue his ass….
(the email continues in this vein)
“…What I was wondering is how it works for southern White English, and as a sort of southerner, Richmond not being that far south, I thought you might qualify as an informant. Any chance in your view that white southerners would accept things like (4)?
“Best, Paul”
Here’s another one: “The question then is whether you, very White southern person, allow things like (3) where the subject has to be abstract:
“(3)a. His ass gon get arrested.
“b. His ass (is) dumber than a rock.
“c. His ass can't even tell time.”
Now pay attention to one of my responses in this series of exchanges:
JLW: “…Again, yes because all of these are metonymous. They're excellent. It's the same as:
JLW: “Her Royal Highness was summoned to court.
JLW: “His Majesty is dumber than a rock.
JLW: “Is it the "majesty" which is dumb? That's semantically impossible. In order to address a grand superior, one must avoid direct address and address only the majesty of the person. It's a way of showing great respect in the same way that saying "Your ass" is showing disrespect, real or mocking, in "Your ass is grass."
Another comment to me regarding my contribution:
PMP: “Thanks John. I discovered yesterday that we have a white student from small town Georgia and his judgments match yours on all relevant examples.”
And this: PMP: “Thanks again. Some of your judgments may show up in a footnote if the paper ever gets written.”
Another comment: PMP: “The paper is coming along...we are working like beavers on it; our goal is to be done no later than Christmas, which seems to me now a reasonable target. I will definitely send it to you when it is ready.”
Note: even with a couple dozen exchanges – which he claimed to be helpful – I was not acknowledged in his article on AAE which appeared in the journal “Language.” Numerous other people were. Obviously that’s up to his discretion. Perhaps he felt that my contributions weren’t all that valuable. At any rate, I’m OK with not being acknowledged. I’ve studied the article and it leaves a lot to be desired.
Given all the communications from Postal in which he solicited my views, paid attention to my responses and expressed appreciation for my help, it’s hard for me to believe that he doesn’t recall where he got the idea for the “Your Majesty”-type (imposter) structures – at least a year, perhaps longer, before he claimed he “stumbled across” the idea. The fact that he also didn’t acknowledge my help on the “Language” article suggests that he wasn’t interested in giving me any credit for anything.
(B.) So now let’s look at the book. I’m going to focus on the “Your Majesty” portion of it, as opposed to the “your ass” portion. Rather than discuss all the ranks of aristocracy and all the countries that have used this sort of protocol for addressing those of high rank, I’ll just use the British monarchy and the current monarch as the exemplum.
There are several principles which informed the creation of what I will call “the protocol” – i.e. the use of Your Majesty for the monarch; Your Royal Highness for a prince or princess who is an heir or a sibling of an heir; Your Highness for non-royal princes; Your Grace for dukes and duchesses; Your Eminence for archbishops; Your Lordship and Your Ladyship for the lower ranks of the aristocracy.
One of the major principles which govern this protocol is universality: everyone from the highest-ranked prince, marquess or duke to the most menial subjects addresses the monarch as Your Majesty. Because of this universality, another important principle was that of simplicity and workability: the protocol had to be easy to understand and apply.
The term “Your Majesty” plays two roles:
1) It represents a mode of address which recognizes the highest status of all: greatness. Others have noted that the hierarchy of terms of address matches the hierarchy of rank;
2) Even more importantly, the term Your Majesty represents an obligatory verbal acknowledgement of the superior status of the person being addressed.
These are two separate components, in this case contained within one locution. Once the subject citizen uses the term Your Majesty, he is then free to use other, less formal terms in a conversation with the monarch.
The military uses the same construct: A captain, when talking to a colonel, will address him by his rank and say “sir” when ending a statement or asking a question. But before the conversation, the captain must acknowledge the superior rank. He does this by saluting. The subordinate always salutes the superior as an acknowledgment of superior rank and the superior returns the salute as a courtesy.
Back to the monarchy. When visitors come to Buckingham Palace with the purpose of meeting with the queen, they are given this rule to follow:
‘The first time you speak to the queen, use Your Majesty; after that, use ma’am.’
Here is a hypothetical conversation between the monarch and a subject citizen:
ER II: How do you do? (The queen always speaks first.)
Subject: I’m doing very well, Your Majesty. (acknowledgement of superior status)
ER II: Have you lived in Reading your whole life?
Subject: Yes, ma’am. (use of ma’am OK) Tenth generation.
ER II: Really!
Subject: Yes, ma’am. Of course, you won’t remember but I met you about twenty years ago in one of your walkabouts. (use of you and your OK because covered by the acknowledgement of superior status.)
ER II: Well, then, it’s nice to see you again. (Begins to move away.)
Subject: Thank you, ma’am (or Your Majesty).
The acknowledgement of superior status is absolutely foundational to any discussion of the protocol. This is what allows the subject to speak without awkwardness and to employ other, less wieldy turns of phrase.
Imagine having to say something like this:
“Yes, Your Majesty. Of course, Your Majesty won’t remember but I met Your Majesty about twenty years ago in one of Your Majesty’s walkabouts.”
To put it another way, the queen wants to carry on a natural conversation. She won’t be offended if you address her as ‘ma’am’ and use ‘you’ – as long as you have acknowledged her status first.
Even the prime minister, who, unlike the queen, wields real political and military power in the kingdom and can in effect give orders to the monarch, is still required to follow these protocols, as he is nevertheless a subject of the queen.
Thus, he might say, “Your Majesty, you must consider all of your options and you must act.” Here, he is giving the queen clear instructions but he is following the same protocol that a palace servant would follow.
But Postal misses all of this. Unaware of how the protocol is used in actual practice, he focuses most of his analysis on working out the solutions to problems which aren’t relevant to day-to-day usage. To put it another way, British schoolchildren do not sit in class and try to work out the correct answers to complexities such as those discussed in this volume.
Like any aspect of spoken and written language, there is always a set of rules which govern – in other words, a grammar. The protocol described here has its own grammar. However, like any grammar, there are some who don’t understand the rules and so they needlessly complicate things. Postal seems to spend his energy trying to resolve contradictions between grammatical and ungrammatical usages of the protocol.
(C.) Let’s look at some examples of where Postal does this:
Chap. 7/Sentence (5) b. They advised that Your Lordship live within his means.
We might ask what “Your Lordship” is, in terms of person. Is it second person or third? Since “Lordship” is a thing, then technically this is third person noun modified by a second person pronoun and so
They advised that Your Lordship live within his means.
is alright but by that logic, so is
They advised that Your Lordship live within its means. (since Lordship is a thing.)
and absolutely nobody would say that. This suggests pretty convincingly that, although “Lordship” is a thing, “Your Lordship,” taken as a phrase, is a person. And so by convention Your Majesty equates to “you” and so does Your Lordship. The use of these structures licenses you, yours, yourself etc.
If we want to be consistent and still fully correct, while acting within the convention that Your Lordship means ‘you,’ then
They advised that Your Lordship live within your means. would be fine.
More likely alternatives to Postal’s Sentence (5) b.:
When first addressing the noble, using the acknowledgement of superior status:
Your Lordship, they advised you to live within yours means.
Later in the conversation:
Sir, they advised you to live within your means.
Another problem with this example
(5) b. They advised that Your Lordship live within his means.
is the use of hyperdistancing (in the use of ‘his’ or ‘her’) – that is, using 3rd person in the sentence while addressing someone directly.
Here’s another example:
(when directly addressing the monarch): Her Majesty’s arrival is much anticipated.
It’s possible to do this but it probably isn’t done much, if at all. For one thing, addressing the monarch using the 2nd person pronoun (Your) is just fine; it isn’t seen as informal or familiar. The “Majesty” part of the phrase conveys the notion of distance quite emphatically.
There may be those who do engage in hyperdistancing but I suspect that the reasons are either that they don’t understand the grammar of this protocol or perhaps they choose to speak in a more sycophantic way when addressing those of high rank.
Also, hyperdistancing can create confusion. “Her Majesty” could refer to some other monarch. In fact, using the third person pronoun was created as a means of reference:
(when the monarch is not present) Her Majesty was unhappy with the election results.
Thus this is fine in direct address: Your Majesty’s arrival is much anticipated.
And so, returning to They advised that Your Lordship live within his means.
we have a sentence using direct address (Your Lordship) and also hyperdistancing (his). This seems inconsistent. I’ll call this a ‘person-hybrid’ sentence – using both 2nd and 3rd persons to address and refer to the same individual in the same sentence.
To be consistent, it would be
They advised that Your Lordship live within your means. (more likely) or,
They advised that His Lordship live within his means. (less likely)
(D.) Here’s another, from Chapter 9:
(27) d. Your Majesty and her faithful servant will enjoy our/*them/*yourselves at the beach.
If spoken by the servant herself, it is a very odd locution, because the servant is referring to herself in the 3rd person (autohyperdistancing?) and in an overly florid way. This seems like a sentence one might find written in a bad Victorian novel but seems unlikely in the modern era.
Even changing the pronoun from third to second doesn’t change the fact that the servant is referring to herself as “your faithful servant,” which is a very pretentious way of talking about oneself.
Your Majesty and your faithful servant will enjoy our/*them/*yourselves at the beach.
Grammatical – yes but odd and unlikely. Much more likely is this example:
(27) c. Your Majesty and I will enjoy our/*them/*yourselves at the beach.
English employs ‘inclusive we/our,’ which means that a sentence using ‘we/our’ can include the person being addressed within the meaning of the pronoun. Thus, in
We are going to the movies ‘we’ might mean ‘I and the people I am with.’
That’s ‘we/our-exclusive.’ But in knocking on my neighbor’s door, if I say the same sentence,
Come on! We are going to the movies. I might very well be including my neighbor.
That would be ‘we/our-inclusive.’
Similar arguments can be applied to Chap 9 (36), where it isn’t clear who is making the statement, the “faithful correspondent” or a third person.
And so in Chap 9 (26) b. where Postal approves of
Your Majesty and the defense minister should portray *ourselves/yourselves/themselves more favorably.
he is correct in approving ‘yourselves’ – since “your” is inclusive of both parties. However, the use of “themselves” is hyperdistancing and thus unnecessary. That choice presents a ‘person-hybrid.’
(E.) Postal presents us with this example.
Chap 7 Sentence 6 *Your Lordship understands you
It is unlikely anyone ever wrestles with this problem. Using the acknowledgement of superior status and the licensed you, this would be most likely:
Your Lordship, you understand yourself.
If later in the conversation: Sir, you understand yourself.
If hyperdistancing is employed: His Lordship understands himself.
I mentioned the distinction between direct address (Your Majesty) and reference (His Majesty), which is a useful distinction in pragmatic terms. In Chap. 11 Sent. (14) b:
*If His Majesty refuses to attend the council meeting, they will condemn the fool.
Postal is correct in saying that this is bad – but only if His Majesty is employed in hyperdistance mode, where it is a more distanced version of Your Majesty. Of course, if His Majesty is referential – i.e. said to someone besides the monarch, then it would be OK.
That’s a pretty clear-cut “rule,” in my opinion, but I don’t see where Postal just comes out and states it that way.
(F.) And so what we see is that there is a micro-grammar which governs this protocol. Perhaps we can describe it.
1. Acknowledgement of superior status: Those of superior status must be formally acknowledged. This can take the form of a salute or a locution, such as Your Majesty.
a. The locution can serve as both an acknowledgement and a descriptor which indicates status. Majesty = greatness, the highest status. Thus, a monarch.
2. Formality: Once status has been acknowledged, less formal usages can be employed: ma’am, sir, you, your, yourself.
a. Not too informal, of course: the person of superior status may not be addressed on a first name basis. Even the use of the last name – i.e. “Mrs. Windsor” – would be unthinkable.
3. Hierarchy: There is a hierarchy of address which matches the hierarchy of rank. Thus:
monarch: Your Majesty
prince: Your Royal Highness
duke: Your Grace etc.
4. Universality: Those of high rank are addressed by all inferiors in the same way. Thus, from the most menial servant to the highest noble, the monarch is addressed by all as Your Majesty.
5. Reference: The person of superior status is referred to, when absent, in the third person and in line with the protocol: His Majesty.
6. By convention, ‘Your Majesty’ in direct address means you. Referential ‘His Majesty’ means he/him.
7. Inclusion: English ‘we/our’ forms can include the person being addressed. ‘You/your’ forms can include a person other than the addressee.
8. Simplicity and utility: Because the protocol is universally applied, there needs to be as little complexity as possible. Despite this, some people misapply the rules, thus creating an unnecessary degree of complexity:
a. Hyperdistancing: either because they misunderstand the rules or because of an inclination to sycophancy, some people use third person pronoun forms in direct address:
(while directly addressing the monarch): Her Majesty made a very fine speech today. It was one of Her Majesty’s best.
“Your Majesty” would have been perfectly acceptable.
b. person-hybrid: Some speakers will use both second person and third person pronouns in the same sentence, both addressing and referencing the same person:
They advised that Your Lordship live within his means.
The hyperdistanced “his” could correctly be “your.”
They advised that Your Lordship live within your means.
(G.) Where does Postal get these problems which he works so assiduously on? My assumption is that these problems are “generated” by his syntactic model – a generative construct, of course, which tells him how the model has to work.
The problem with this approach – this generative approach – is that the idea for the protocol and all of its principles didn’t just spring fully formed from the mind of one person – or many people – like Athena from the forehead of Jove. The protocol doesn’t exist as a hard-wired component of the neurostructure.
Rather, the protocol was developed over time by people – administrators, diplomats, courtiers and the aristocracy itself – through discussions, consultations and perhaps even by trial and error. The monarchy, of course, had to assent.
We can understand this protocol through the lenses of pragmatics and historical linguistics. Modern generative theory doesn’t seem to have much to offer.
Of course, the acknowledgement of superior status is not present in the “your ass” structure:
*“Your Ass, Your Ass must consider all of Your Ass’s options.”
Or: *“Your Ass, you must consider all of your options.”
So, what we see is that the protocol works and has been working for centuries. This is because it is a well-designed protocol – easy to understand and easy to implement. The protocol simply isn’t bogged down by the need to understand complex permutations, such as those which this book attempts to address.
One has to wonder why Postal didn’t actually learn and master the protocol as it is actually used. He clearly asked for informants to give him information on the ass camouflage construction. It appears that he didn’t do the same with this protocol.
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