The Linguistic Structure of Honorific Styles

Honorifics vary greatly depending on the language culture and specific customs of the group in question. Some communities might use pronouns such as “Your Majesty” or “Your Excellency” to show respect for someone in a position of authority while others may use special titles like “Chief” or “Elder” to honor someone with a distinguished status or achievement. This ethnographic design study was aimed to explore the extant honorific styles of the Mandaya Kagan and Mansaka ethnolinguistic communities of Tagum City. The findings reveal the existence of the appellative honorifics of Kinship Sub-kinship Rank Aged Professional No Naming and Identity Honorifics. Moreover bound morpheme markers such as ma dag da pyag an gi on ka di and ba exist in the dialects of the ethnolinguistic communities which describe and define the person’s characteristics and abilities in the honorific styles.