T-form

English

Alternative forms

• T form

Etymology

From the first letter of the second-person singular pronoun in Romance languages; ultimately from Latin tu and Proto-Indo-European *túh₂.

Noun

T-form (plural T-forms)

1. (linguistics) A second-person pronoun used in informal situations, to address friends, family, and sometimes inferiors.
   • 1996, Marco Jacquemet, Credibility in Court:

     Shifting his feet and still perplexed, he then asked me if I was a faculty researcher, using again the informal T-form.

   • 2002, The Bible Translator:

     In the Erzin dialect, children address their parents with the V-form; to use the T-form would show a lack of respect for parents.

   • 2012, Marcel Bax, Dániel Z. Kádár, Understanding Historical (Im)Politeness:

     Typically, the informal pronominal address term (T-form) is the original second-person pronoun (Latin tu; Germanic du) and the polite or formal V-form is a plural form.

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “informal second-person pronoun”): V-form

Translations

informal second-person pronoun

• Finnish: sinuttelumuoto

See also

• thou