(Im)Politeness in Vedic Sanskrit

This paper focusses on verbal politeness in the direct speech found in Vedic. Certain impersonalisation strategies typical of classical Sanskrit are already attested here, as third-person polite directives or as the expression of the speaker's wishes, rather than as direct commands, and represent the maximum degree of illocutionary opacity. Passive syntax, which is a prominent device of indirectness in classical Sanskrit, is still marginal in Vedic. In the analysis of terms of address, a hierarchical but highly flexible politeness-orientated allomorphy can be observed. Moreover, the speaker can, in the same interaction, shift from one level of politeness to another to convey changes in his or her self-perception regarding the level of wisdom that he or she has with respect to an interlocutor (factor [+/- knowing]); rules marked by social stratification are not found to be decisive, contrary to what has been shown to be the case in post-Vedic normative texts.