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<p>The linguistic mechanisms embedded in naming conventions—particularly the filionymic construction ‘father of’ and the patronymic construction ‘son of’—carry pragmatic implicatures in the negotiation of social politeness because they can acknowledge hierarchical structures, demonstrate respect, communicate power relations, undermine paternal honour, ridicule ancestry-based power and even express hostility. This study examines, in multiple languages, the dimensions of filionymic and patronymic constructions in formal and informal discourses. Using corpus-based analysis, we developed an annotation schema that identifies, for each construction, the language variety (e.g., British English, Canadian English, Argentinian Spanish), genre (e.g., generic, politics, historical, health, economy), frequency, referent gender, referent number, sentimentality and ontological relation (e.g., filionym, filionym-like). We examined filionymic and patronymic constructions in five corpora—Arabic, English, French, German and Spanish—from the TenTen corpus family. Multilingual comparisons using the Sketch Engine revealed universal patterns and significant cross-linguistic variations in the use of patronyms and filionyms, which represent more than mere cultural artefacts: they are dynamic linguistic strategies that encode social power relations and sentimentality. Semitic and Romance languages showed the most diversified use of the studied constructions across genres and topics, whereas Germanic languages almost only used these constructions in historical, religious and encyclopaedic contexts. The literal and metaphoric meanings of ‘son’ and ‘father’ determine whether the construction would be a filionym, filionym-like, patronym or patronym-like. The sentiments of these constructions reveal how social distance can be maintained, and verbal violence substantiated through the systematic use of such relations. In addition, the polarity of such constructions is highly dependent on the presence of a title or epithet in the construction and the affective meaning of any common nouns in the construction.</p>

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Universality of Filionymic and Patronymic Constructions

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年5月29日

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  • Bacem Essam,
  • Jim Bowden,
  • Esra Abdelzaher

摘要

The linguistic mechanisms embedded in naming conventions—particularly the filionymic construction ‘father of’ and the patronymic construction ‘son of’—carry pragmatic implicatures in the negotiation of social politeness because they can acknowledge hierarchical structures, demonstrate respect, communicate power relations, undermine paternal honour, ridicule ancestry-based power and even express hostility. This study examines, in multiple languages, the dimensions of filionymic and patronymic constructions in formal and informal discourses. Using corpus-based analysis, we developed an annotation schema that identifies, for each construction, the language variety (e.g., British English, Canadian English, Argentinian Spanish), genre (e.g., generic, politics, historical, health, economy), frequency, referent gender, referent number, sentimentality and ontological relation (e.g., filionym, filionym-like). We examined filionymic and patronymic constructions in five corpora—Arabic, English, French, German and Spanish—from the TenTen corpus family. Multilingual comparisons using the Sketch Engine revealed universal patterns and significant cross-linguistic variations in the use of patronyms and filionyms, which represent more than mere cultural artefacts: they are dynamic linguistic strategies that encode social power relations and sentimentality. Semitic and Romance languages showed the most diversified use of the studied constructions across genres and topics, whereas Germanic languages almost only used these constructions in historical, religious and encyclopaedic contexts. The literal and metaphoric meanings of ‘son’ and ‘father’ determine whether the construction would be a filionym, filionym-like, patronym or patronym-like. The sentiments of these constructions reveal how social distance can be maintained, and verbal violence substantiated through the systematic use of such relations. In addition, the polarity of such constructions is highly dependent on the presence of a title or epithet in the construction and the affective meaning of any common nouns in the construction.