ADDRESS FORMS IN LANGUAGE CONTACT AND LANGUAGE CONFLICT: THE CURIOUS HISTORY AND REMNANTS OF ONIKANI IN CZECH

Among contemporary Czech forms of address, onikani (the use of the 3rd person plural (3pl) verb form for 2nd person singular (2sg) address, i.e. toward a single interlocutor) provides a noteworthy anomaly. Onikani has an interesting history in the development of a Czech standard language from the 18th century, but the extent and specifics of its usage and stylistics, and its social connotations in the 20th and 21st centuries, are not clearly defined in most of the research literature. In this article we undertake a preliminary study of the historical and contemporary usage of this address form. Adapted from the source document