Vocatives: A Note on Addressee-Management

The aim of this paper is to establish a semantic characterisation of vocatives, while leaving aside pragmatic and sociolinguistic considerations as far as possible. I will defend the 'IPA-hypothesis' of the meaning of vocatives, that is, the hypothesis that vocatives have three basic functions: to identify the addressee(s), to predicate something on the addressee(s), and to activate the addressee(s). It will be argued that the traditional call vs. address dichotomy is insufficient. Adapted from the source document