Deviations from linguistic expressions of politeness caused by Behaghel’s law

Marek Ruszkowski

Uniwersytet Humanistyczno-Przyrodniczy Jana Kochanowskiego w Kielcach

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century, Otto Behaghel formulated a law, which he called the law of the increasing members, on the basis of the material selected from several dozen world languages. According to this law, when words are coordinated and include equal elements, they are fixed in a definite order – a shorter element usually precedes the longer one (a length of words is measured in syllables). Deviations from linguistic expressions of politeness (which would prescribe placing a woman before a man) caused by this regularity can be noticed in many coordinates, e.g., dziad i baba, Andrzej i Eliza, Antoniusz i Kleopatra, Jacek i Agatka, Jan i Cecylia, Jaś i Małgosia, Klaudiusz i Messalina, Mąż i żona, Tristan i Izolda, Witold i Elwira. The order of some coordinates of this type may also be motivated by substantial aspects such as social hierarchy, old-time patriarchal family relations, or a translation into Polish. Nevertheless, Behaghel’s linguistic law undoubtedly influences the order of elements in many coordinates.