The Latvian Vocative and Other Case Forms in Direct Address Constructions

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of syntactic and pragmatic functions of the vocative and direct address constructions. Since the direct address in Latvian, in addition to the vocative, also permits the nominative and accusative, this article examines the relationships and conditions of use of these three cases depending on the noun declension. In Latvian, the vocative (and nominative and accusative used in the function of direct address) is also variously agreed with its attached nominal (noun, adjective, declinable participle) or pronoun, so in order to better understand the syntax and pragmatics of the direct address in Latvian, this article covers this issue as well. The analysis of the data shows that there are five possible pragmatic functions of direct address in Latvian. The choice of these functions is operated, taking into account the place (of the address) in the clause or text, the lexemes used, and various extra-linguistic factors.

1. Introduction

The aims of this article are as follows: firstly, to clarify the relationships between the Latvian vocative, nominative, and accusative in direct address constructions; secondly, to analyze the features of agreement in these constructions; and thirdly, to investigate the syntactic functions and pragmatic uses of the vocative and other cases in address constructions, as well as to establish a possible relationship between the use of different cases in address constructions and the pragmatic functions of the direct address. Such aims are determined by several factors. In grammars and grammatical studies of the Latvian language, the vocative is usually mentioned in the context of the noun declension paradigm, but a broader analysis and systemic account of its morphological variations and syntactic and pragmatic functions are missing (e.g., Holvoet, 2012; Nītiņa & Grigorjevs, 2013, pp. 358–366; Kalnača & Lokmane, 2021, pp. 84–89). Similarly, the competition between vocative and other cases in the structure and pragmatics of direct address constructions has not yet been extensively studied.

This study takes the view that the vocative and (direct) address must be treated as two separate concepts. The vocative is the special morphologically marked form (according to Stifter, 2013), whereas the direct address is any word or noun phrase used to call or address a person or, less frequently, another living being, an object, or a phenomenon (according to Sonnenhauser & Noel Aziz Hanna, 2013). The function of the direct address can be realized either by means of the dedicated (vocative) case (Heine, 2023, p. 232) or, alternatively, by using other case forms, e.g., the nominative or the accusative (see, e.g., Adams, 1978 on Greek; Blake, 1997 on Latin; Baerman, 2009; Daniel & Spencer, 2009 for a typological perspective).

This is also most directly true for Latvian, which has both a morphological vocative (1a) and the possibility of using the nominative (1b) and the accusative (1c) in the function of address (see Section 2 for more details):

(1) a. VOC1

Mans	varonīgais	bruņiniek-ø!
my.nom.sg	heroic.nom.sg	knight-voc

“My heroic knight!” (LVK2018)

b. NOM

Bet,	mīļā	mās-a,
but	dear.nom.sg	sister-nom.sg

kāpēc tu atvēri logu?

“But, dear sister, why did you open the window?” (LVK2022)

c. ACC

Mamm-u!	Kas	ar	tevi?
mum-acc.sg	what.nom	with	2.ins.sg

“Mum! What’s wrong with you?” (LVK2022)

The structure of this article is as follows: Section 1 provides an introduction, which formulates the aim of the study and indicates the data sources used; Section 2 describes the data; Section 3 discusses the core functions and the forms of the Latvian vocative; Section 4 takes a closer look at the vocative, nominative, and accusative selection patterns in the function of direct address in Latvian. Section 5, Section 6 and Section 7 are devoted to the syntax and pragmatics of address constructions in Latvian; we first take a closer look at the agreement in address constructions, then we turn to the place of address constructions in the clause, as well as the pragmatic functions of the address constructions, and the conclusions are given at the end.

Before we begin the analysis of the Latvian vocative and other case forms in direct address constructions, a brief sociolinguistic description of the Latvian language is necessary. Namely, Latvian belongs to the Baltic group of the Indo-European language family. This group also contains Lithuanian and the extinct Old Prussian language. The Baltic languages stand out among other Indo-European languages for their particular conservatism in both their phonetic and grammatical systems.

Latvian is the official language of the Republic of Latvia. When Latvia joined the European Union in 2004, Latvian also became an official language of the European Union. There are approximately 1.5 million native speakers of Latvian. Of these, 1.38 million live in Latvia, and the rest live in the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, and other countries. Latvian is spoken as a second language by approximately 500,000 people of other ethnicities (Latvian population statistics are available from the Latvian Language Agency at https://valoda.lv/en/state-language/ (accessed on 6 January 2025)).

2. Data

The data have been collected from various sources—both Latvian language corpora and fiction, texts found on social networks, and also from utterances overheard in everyday conversations and examples from private correspondence, as required. However, the article does not provide a statistical analysis of the data, as it was not possible to obtain reliable and accurate data in sufficient quantities, the reasons for which are discussed in the following paragraphs.

The bulk of the data have been extracted from the most recent Latvian balanced corpora The Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian LVK2018 (10 million words, available at https://repository.clarin.lv/repository/xmlui/handle/20.500.12574/11) and The Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian LVK2022 (101 million words, available at https://repository.clarin.lv/repository/xmlui/handle/20.500.12574/84). Secondly, specific corpora are used as follows: a collection of texts from the literary magazine “Karogs” corpus (48.7 million words, available at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12574/83), and the syntactically tagged corpus of the Latvian language The Latvian Treebank v2.12 LVTB (18,850 sentences, available at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12574/86).

The tag [tag = “n..sv.”] was used to extract vocative examples from the morphologically tagged corpora LVK2018 (3351 hits found), LVK2022 (9345 hits found), and “Karogs” corpus (48,800 hits found). Unfortunately, this method yields many irrelevant data (e.g., various names of institutions and companies, names of persons from various lists, and references from scholarly texts, various abbreviations, words in other languages, pronouns, verbs, numerals, and other lexical units that have no vocative at all in the paradigm, as well as grammatical homonyms). Manual processing of such a large dataset would be too labor-intensive and of little use for the purposes of this study. Moreover, it cannot be claimed that the automatic selection finds all occurrences of the vocative in the corpus—when the selected examples are reviewed, it can often be seen that nominative forms are tagged as vocative forms, but a co-occurring vocative form has not been tagged. Even filtering the results does not significantly reduce the failure to recognize the vocative (on peculiarities of the computational model of Latvian morphology, see Paikens et al., 2024).

Other forms used in the function of direct address, namely the nominative and the accusative, could not be extracted from the morphologically labelled corpora; a syntactically labelled corpus was needed for this purpose. To retrieve the address constructions from the Latvian Treebank, the query http://hdl.handle.net/11346/PMLTQ-LR5Y was used, and 109 items with the direct address construction were retrieved. In our study, 107 of them were used because two examples had to be excluded as they contained the word Dievs (”God”) as a part of an interjection in a phonetically altered form. However, this set is too small to produce statistically significant and reliable results.

For all the above reasons, as well as bearing in mind the specific nature of this study, all data were analyzed qualitatively, and no quantitative assessment was carried out.

3. Vocative in Latvian: Core Functions and Forms

Typologically, Latvian belongs to the group of languages that have a specific vocative case (morphologically expressed by an ending), which is used when directly addressing the addressee (Heine, 2023, pp. 232, 241; for a typological perspective, see Blake, 1997; Moro, 2003; Daniel & Spencer, 2009; Parrot, 2010). The status of the vocative case as a full-fledged member of the inflectional paradigm is nevertheless often disputed in the literature (for a discussion from a typological perspective, see, among others, Moro, 2003; Haspelmath, 2009; Daniel & Spencer, 2009; on Latvian, see, e.g., Holvoet, 2012, p. 55; Kalnača, 2014, pp. 25–34). Such discussions are related to the fact that the vocative is different from other case forms in that it is not a part of a clause, and it is delimited from other words of the same clause with a pause (in speech) or punctuation marks (in writing) (Slocum, 2016; Schnelzer, 2024); in Latvian, see examples as follows (2):

(2)

a.	Dzejniek-ø,	es	nekad
	poet-voc	1.nom.sg	never
	neesmu	redzējis	jūs	vaigā […]
	not_be.aux.prs.1sg	see.ptcp.nom.sg	2.acc.pl	face_to_face.loc.sg

“Poet, I’ve never seen you face to face […]” (LVK2018)

b.	Labdien,	cienījamo	skolēn-ø!
	hello	dear.acc.sg	student-voc

Vēršos pie tevis ar lūgumu palīdzēt veikt pētījumu […]

“Hello, dear student! I am asking you to help me with my research […]” (LVK2022)

However, for the purposes of this study, the vocative is treated as a full-fledged noun declension case, with its understanding based on Daniel and Spencer’s (2009, p. 626) definition as follows: “The vocative is a form used for calling out and attracting or maintaining the addressee’s attention. […] a vocative name the addressee explicitly, by using a term referring to and, so to speak, directly acting on them.”

That is to say, the core function of a vocative in a language is actually quite simple: to name the person addressed, i.e., a specific person, and to attract their attention (Gutzmann, 2019, p. 177), either calling the person by their name, as in (3a), or naming him or her as a relative (3b), by profession, etc. (Heine, 2023, pp. 238–240):

(3)

a.	Ko	tu	teici,	Kārl-i,
	what.acc	2.nom.sg	say.pst.2sg	Kārlis-voc

es nedzirdēju, piedod.

“What did you say, Kārlis, I didn’t hear, sorry.” (LVK2018)

b.	Tēt-ø,	es	tevi	mīlu!
	dad-voc	1. nom.sg	2. acc.sg	love.prs.1sg

“I love you, Dad!” (LVK2022)

The vocative is also used when addressing animals (4a) and also for personification purposes when addressing objects (4b) or some imaginary phenomenon (4c), etc. (e.g., Nītiņa & Grigorjevs, 2013, p. 356; Kalnača & Lokmane, 2021, p. 121):

(4)

a.	Ak,	lāc-i,	kam	nobijies?
	oh	bear-voc	what.dat	scare_of.pst.2sg

“Oh, bear, what are you scared of?” (LVK2022)

b.	Hallo,	televizor-ø, –	viņš	klusu	teica,
	hallo	TV_set-voc	3.nom.sg	quietly	say.pst.3

lai sarunu nedzirdētu vecmāmiņa virtuvē.

“Hallo, my TV set,” he said quietly so that the conversation would not be heard by the grandmother in the kitchen.” (LVK2022)

c.	Sit,	eņģel-ø,	kokles,
	strike.imp.2sg	angel-voc	kokle.acc.pl

lai iet svētā sieva dancot.

“Angel, strike the zither (the kokle), so that the holy wife goes dancing.” (LVK2018)

Morphologically, the forms of the vocative in Latvian vary depending on the declension (e.g., Nītiņa & Grigorjevs, 2013, pp. 358–366; Kalnača & Lokmane, 2021, pp. 84–86), and, as already mentioned in Section 1, other case forms, namely, the nominative and accusative, are used in the function of direct address.

In Latvian, the noun has six declensions, three of which are masculine (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) and three are feminine (4th, 5th, and 6th); feminine declensions also include common nouns, as well as male personal names (given names and surnames) (e.g., Nītiņa and Grigorjevs op. cit.; Kalnača and Lokmane op. cit.). All declensions have morphological singular vocative forms, and the nominative in the function of direct address is always used in the plural (typologically, for this feature, see, e.g., Schnelzer, 2024, p. 24).

Thus, for the 1st declension (M), the 4th, 5th, and 6th declensions (all F), the vocative is a form with a zero ending:

(5) a. 1st declension (M)

Godātais	ārlietu	ministr-ø!
dear.nom.sg	Foreign_Affair.gen.pl	Minister-voc

“Dear Minister for Foreign Affairs!” (LVK2018)

b. 4th declension (F)

Vecmāmiņ-ø!	Nu	neesi	tik	pikta
grandmother-voc	ptcl	not_be.cop.imp.2sg	so	angry.nom.sg

“Grandmother! Don’t be so angry!” (LVK2022)

c. 5th declension (F)

Jaunkundz-ø,	kā	jūs	to	uzzinājāt?
young_lady-voc	how	2.nom.pl	that.acc.sg	find_out.pst.2pl

“Young lady, how did you find out?” (LVK2018)

d. 6th declension (F)

Ak,	debes-ø,	atveries!
oh	heaven-voc	open_up.imp.2sg

“Oh, heaven, open up!” (LVK2022)

The nouns of the 2nd declension (masculine only) have the ending -i in the vocative; for some nouns, in colloquial or, less frequently, poetic style, this -i is dropped and the vocative is a form with a zero ending (e.g., Paegle, 2003; Holvoet, 2012; Kalnača & Lokmane, 2021, pp. 87–88), cf. (6) and (7):

(6)

a.	Mans	brāl-i	Pēter-i,
	my.nom.sg	brother-voc	Pēteris-voc

kas tev nāk prātā?

“My brother Peter, what comes to your mind?” (LVK2022)

b.	Paldies,	Pēter-ø,
	thanks	Pēteris-voc

par nelielo ekskursiju.

“Thank you, Peter, for the little trip.” (LVK2022)

(7)

a.	Tu	vispār	manī	klausies,	brāl-i?
	2.nom.sg	at_all	1.loc.sg	listen.prs.2sg	brother-voc

“Are you listening to me at all, brother?” (LVK2022)

b.	Kā	tevi	sauc,	brāl-ø?
	how	2.acc.sg	name.prs.3	brother-voc

“What is your name, bro?” (LVK2022)

In 3rd declension nouns (mainly masculine), the vocative ending is -u, as in (8):

(8)

Nāc,	Jēz-u,	nāc!
come.imp.2sg	Jesus-voc	come.imp.2sg

“Come, Jesus, come!” (LVK2022)

The endings -i and -u of the 2nd and 3rd declensions are homonymous with the accusative forms of both declensions (see e.g., Menantaud, 2005, p. 171; Kalnača, 2014, p. 25).

The endings of case forms used in direct address in Latvian are summarized in

Table 1. Morphological forms of direct address in Latvian (adapted from Kalnača, 2017, p. 83).

SG	1st (M)	2nd (M)	3rd (M)	4th (F)	5th (F)	6th (F)
VOC +NOM, ACC	-ø -s, -š -u	-i, -ø	-u	-ø -a -u	-ø -e -u	-ø -s
PL	1st–3rd			4th	5th	6th
NOM	-i			-as	-es	-is

for all six declension classes.

In the Latvian Treebank, in the function of direct address, 47 vocative, 57 nominative, and 2 accusative forms are attested (106 in total), and one example contains the indeclinable female personal name Sanī, which does not fall into any declension; see

Table 2. Distribution of case forms in the function of direct address in the Latvian Treebank.

SG	1st (M)	2nd (M)	3rd (M)	4th (F)	5th (F)	6th (F)
VOC	18	17	-	9	3	-
NOM	10	-	-	17	8
ACC	-	-	-	2	-	-
PL	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
NOM	11	10	-	-	1	-

for the distribution of case forms by declension and number:

The most often used accusative is mammu (from the 4th declension noun mamma “mom”). In addition to its two uses in the Latvian Treebank, it is also represented in balanced corpora (47 hits in The Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian LVK2018 and 199 hits in The Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian LVK2022).

However, the use of these different forms and the choice of a particular case in the function of direct address in Latvian is not consistent; it can be influenced by both formal criteria and pragmatic factors.

4. Direct Address and the Selection Conditions of Vocative vs. Nominative Forms

It should be noted that in the 2nd and 3rd declensions, the use of the vocative forms is obligatory, while in the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th declensions, there is a (pragmatic) choice between VOC, NOM, and ACC (for more on this, see Kalnača, 2020).

Briefly, this pragmatic choice can be described as follows: Firstly, the use of vocative is to some extent lexically determined, e.g., all diminutives (9) and action nouns (nomina agentis) in the broadest sense, regardless of gender and declension (10), usually have a dedicated vocative form, and its use is mandatory.

(9) a. M

Ei,	vīr-iņ-ø,	kas	tu	esi?
hey	man-dim-voc	who.nom	2.nom.sg	be.cop.prs.2sg

“Hey, little man, who are you?” (LVK2022)

b. F

Kur	tu	mamm-īt-ø,	tur	arī	es.
where	2.nom.sg	mummy-dim-voc	there	also	1.nom.sg

“Where you are, Mummy, there am I.” (LVK2018)

(10) a. M

Godātais	sēdes	vadī-tāj-ø!
dear.nom.sg	session.gen.sg	President-suffa-voc

“Dear President of this session!” (LVK2018)

b. F

Sveika,	skolo-tāj-ø!
hello	teacher-suffa-voc

“Hello, Miss Teacher!” (LVK2022)

Secondly, the use of the vocative in the address is obligatory for masculine proper names, regardless of the declension, as in the following examples (11):

(11) a. 1st declension (M)

Es	neesmu,	Ojār-ø,	īsti	pārliecināts,
1.nom.sg	not_be.aux.prs.1sg	Ojārs-voc	quite	sure.ptcp.nom.sg

vai tu mani redzi un dzirdi.

“I am not quite sure, Ojārs, that you can see and hear me.” (LVK2022)

b. 2nd declension (M)

Bet	Jān-i!	Ko	tu	runā!
but	Jānis-voc	what.acc	2.nom.sg	talk.prs.2sg

“But, Jānis! What are you talking about!” (LVK2018)

c. 3rd declension (M)

[…] Zemg-u,	iemet	[ripu vārtos]	vēl!
Zemgus-voc	throw.imp.2sg	[puck net]	again

“[…] Zemgus, throw [the puck in the net] again!” (LVK2022)

Similarly, when using masculine titles of professions and occupations in direct address, usually the vocative is preferred, e.g., in example (12) as follows:

(12)

Mežsarg-ø,	paskaidro	viņiem	īsto	likumu.
forester-voc	explain.imp.2sg	3.dat.pl	real.acc.sg	law. acc.sg

“Forester, explain to them the real law.” (Karogs)

In contrast, the vocative and nominative oscillations can be present in kinship names, e.g., in the word tēvs “father”, as in (13):

(13)

a.	Kas	tev	kaiš,	tēv-ø?
	what.nom	2.dat.sg	matter.prs.3	father-voc

“What’s the matter, father” (LVK2022)

b.	Tēv-s,	saki,	tu	esi	latgalietis?
	father-nom.sg	tell.imp.2sg	2.nom.sg	be.cop.prs.2sg	Latgalian.nom.sg

“Father, tell me, are you a Latgalian?” (LVK2018)

However, in the compounds with the noun tēvs in direct address, such as sievastēvs ”father-in-law”, krusttēvs ”godfather”, and vectēvs ”grandfather”, only the vocative is used, as in (14):

(14)

Pareizi,	sievastēv-ø,	parunāsimies.
right	father-in-law-voc	talk.imp.1pl

“Right, father-in-law, let’s talk.” (Karogs)

Thirdly, the situation is different in the case of feminine nouns. For proper names (both in the 4th and 5th declension), the nominative is used in neutral and formal situations (15), while the vocative indicates a domestic situation or a close relationship with the speaker (e.g., Kalnača, 2020), as in (16):

(15)

a.	Nē,	Mār-a,	es	nāku	pie	tevis,
	no	Māra-nom.sg	1.nom.sg	come.prs.1sg	to	2.gen.sg

- Edmunds paskaidroja […]

““No, Māra, I’m coming to see you”, Edmund explained […]” (LVK2018)

b.	[…] Kristīn-e,	bet	man	liekas,
	Kristīne-nom.sg	but	1.dat.sg	seem.prs.3

ka tie īsie mati jums tomēr bija labāki.

“[…] Kristīne, but I think the short hair was better on you.” (LVK2022)

(16)

a.	Sveika,	Ilz-ø, –	māte	mierīgi	teica […]
	hello	Ilze-voc	mother.nom.sg	calmly	say.pst.3

““Hello, Ilze”, the mother calmly said […]” (LVK2018)

b.	Kristīn-ø,	kur	mēs	tagad	braucam?
	Kristīne-voc	where	1.nom.pl	now	go.prs.1pl

“Kristīne, where are we going now?” (LVK2018)

Fourth, only in colloquial speech and among well-known people is the accusative also used as a form of direct address, usually in the 1st (M), 4th, and 5th declension (both—F) proper and kinship names, as in (17) and (18) (all—personal knowledge):

(17) 1st declension (M)

Klāv-u,	atnesīsi	man	kafiju?
Klāvs-acc.sg	bring.fut.2sg	1.dat.sg	coffee.acc.sg

“Klāvs, bring me a coffee, will you?”

(18) a. 4th declension (F)

Kur	jūs	[būsiet]	pa	svētkiem,	Elīz-u?
where	2.nom.pl	[spend]	prep	holiday.dat.pl	Elīza-acc.sg

”Where will you spend the holiday, Elīza dear?”

b. 5th declension (F)

Liene. Aptuveni kāds [kombinezona] izmērs ir uz [bērna] 1 gadiņu, […] 80 cm būtu

ok?

Agnese.	Lieņ-u,	nē,	pērc	lielāku […].
Agnese.	Liene-acc.sg	no	buy.imp.2sg	bigger. acc.sg

“Liene. Roughly what size [of the overalls] would be for one year old, […] 80 cm would it be ok?

Agnese. Liene, no, do buy a bigger one […].” (Facebook)

So, the issue of forms of address is not as simple as it might prima facie seem because, in Latvian, it is not necessarily the case that all declension nouns, including proper names, have their own specific vocative forms. When addressing a person, the inherited or so-called true vocative forms are not equally distributed in all declensions, and variations are possible even within a single declension: next to the true vocative forms, sometimes even for the same noun or its derivative, it is also possible to have a nominative in the direct address function and, in some declensions, also the forms of the accusative.

5. Agreement in Address Constructions

The vocative, due to its specific function as an address, is a textual or discourse phenomenon, but, at the same time, it has the ability to bind other words to form a phrase (Daniel & Spencer, 2009; Hill, 2013, 2014).

It would be expected that an agreed attribute—an adjective, a numeral, a declinable participle, or a possessive pronoun—would also take the vocative case, since the lexemes belonging to these parts of speech usually agree with the noun in gender, number, and case, i.e., the so-called morphological controllers that symmetrically reflect the form of the independent constituent of the phrase (see e.g., Schnelzer, 2024, pp. 27–53), as in (19):

(19)

NOM SG mīļ-ā māt-e ”dear mother”

GEN SG mīļ-ās māt-es

DAT SG mīļ-ajai māt-ei

…

VOC SG ?

If the main constituent of the address is in the vocative, the dependent constituent can be either in the nominative or accusative (regardless of the declension), i.e., mīļ-ā māt-ø or mīļ-o māt-ø ”dear mother”, as in (20) and (21):

(20) NOM VOC

Paula sēdēja un rakstīja vēstuli:

“Mīļ-ais	Fīlip-ø!”
dear-nom.sg	Fīlips-voc

“Paula was sitting and writing a letter: “Dear Fīlips!”” (A. Eglītis)

(21) ACC VOC

Kāds sakars mākslas karjerai ar tēviem?

Paliels,	man-u	zēn-ø,	paliels.
big.nom.sg	my-acc.sg	lad-voc	big.nom.sg

“What does an art career have to do with fathers? Quite a lot, my lad, quite a lot.” (A. Eglītis)

If the independent constituent of the address is in the nominative, the dependent constituent is in the same case, as in (22):

(22)

Šķiet,	cienīt-ais	kung-s,
seems	dear-nom.sg	sir-nom.sg

jūs būsit zaudējis derības.

“It seems, dear sir, that you have lost the bet.” (LVK2018)

Less common in modern Latvian are examples where both the dependent and independent components are in the accusative, usually with the word mamma “mum” (23a), and also with several proper names, e.g., Klāvs, Ojārs (both M, 1st declination), Anna, Laura, Inga, Elīza (all F, 4th declination), Liene, Ilze (F, 5th declination) (for details, see Kalnača, 2017, 2020), in Latvian folk songs, and also with various common names in the function of direct address, as in (23b):

(23)

a.	Mīļ-o	mamm-u!
	dear-acc.sg	mum-acc.sg

“Dear mum!” (LVK2018)

b.	Bērīt,	man-u	kumeliņ-u,
	bay.voc	my-acc.sg	foal-acc.sg

Es tev pāri nedarīšu:

Taisīš’ mazas kamaniņas,

Ņemšu mazu līgaviņu.

“Oh my dear bay foal,

I won’t abuse you,

I will make a small sleigh

I will take a small bride.” (www.dainuskapis.lv; see also Gāters, 1993, p. 158)

So, a true agreement is possible in two cases—NOM NOM (24a) and ACC ACC (24b). Alternatively, the dependent constituent in the nominative or accusative is subordinate to the noun in the vocative case, i.e., the address construction is either NOM VOC (24c) or ACC VOC (24d).

(24)

a.	mīļ-ā	māt-e!
	dear-nom.sg	mother-nom.sg
	“dear mother!”
b.	mīļ-o	mamm-u!
	dear-acc.sg	mum-acc.sg
	“dear mum!”
c.	mīļ-ā	māt-ø!
	dear-nom.sg	mother-voc
d.	mīļ-o	māt-ø!
	dear-acc.sg	mother-voc

Impossible combinations are *ACC NOM (25a) and *NOM ACC, as in (25b):

(25)

a.	*mīļ-o	mamm-a
	dear-acc.sg	mum-nom.sg
b.	*mīļ-ā	mamm-u
	dear-nom.sg	mum-acc.sg

So, since the adjective has no specific vocative form, the nominative or accusative form of the adjective must be used with a noun in the vocative (e.g., Schnelzer, 2024, pp. 46–47).

As Axel Holvoet (2012, p. 43) points out, the specific agreement features in vocative phrases violate the principle of phonology-free and morphology-free syntax, as normally only the morphosyntactic feature value of the noun should be visible to the adjective, and not the way in which it is realized. In search of an explanation for this unusual situation, he comes to the conclusion that these features could be phonologically driven, namely, treated as a spread of the vocative feature of truncation to the surroundings of the vocative noun. However, Holvoet has overlooked the possibility of using the accusative of a noun in the function of address, stating: “… nowhere in the grammars do we find the assertion that the accusative can be used as a vocative” (Holvoet, 2012, p. 53). Since such a use is nevertheless possible, as in (17), (18), and (23), we are inclined to believe that in cases where true agreement is not possible, either the nominative or the accusative of the adjective is “borrowed” from agreeing attribute phrases.

6. Syntactic Functions and Place of an Address in a Clause

The address construction can be used in the clause in a relatively free manner; it is intonationally distinct in spoken text, and, as is often pointed out, its syntactic relation to the rest of the clause is free (Palacios Martínez, 2018, p. 34), as in (26):

(26) Cilvēk-ø!

man-voc

– iekliedzās skolotājs un izbrīnā pacēla uzacis.

““Man!” the teacher shouted and raised his eyebrows in amazement.” (Karogs)

The address is also used as an autonomous utterance, e.g., when addressing parliament and the government, as in (27):

(27)

Ļoti	cienījamā	Saeimas	priekšsēdētāj-a!
very	honorable.nom.sg	House.gen.sg	Speaker-nom.sg
Godātais	ārlietu	ministr-ø!
honorable.nom.sg	Foreign_Affair.gen.pl	Minister-voc
Ekselenc-es!	Kolēģ-i!
excellence-nom.pl	colleague-nom.pl

“Very honorable Speaker of the House! Honorable Minister for Foreign Affairs! Excellencies! Colleagues!” (LVK2018)

This is why, as noted above, the address is often considered a component of discourse rather than a clause component. However, there is also a contrary view, namely that an integrated address is primary in the clause, and an autonomous address is derived from the integrated version (e.g., Gutzmann, 2019, p. 8).

Although the vocative, like the nominative and accusative, performs the specific semantic role of a speech act participant, often the primary function of an address construction is to describe rather than to identify the addressee (28a), at times expressing an emotional attitude (28b):

(28)

a.	– Marš	no	loga,	zagl-i!
	intj	of	window.gen.sg	thief-voc

– ieķērcās tas uz Joski.

““Get out of the window, thief!”–he yelled at Joske.” (Karogs)

b.	Tu	neliet-i,	tu	briesmon-i,
	2.nom.sg	scoundrel-voc	2.nom.sg	monster-voc

es tevi nositīšu.

“You scoundrel, you monster, I’ll kill you.” (LVK2018)

Syntactically, an address that describes the addressee includes additional predication, i.e., the address tells the speaker that the addressee(s) is (are) regarded as a thief (thieves) (30a), qualified as a villain and a monster (30b), or figuratively described as art detectives (30c) (for predicational vocatives, see also Schaden, 2010; Gutzmann, 2019, pp. 181–182). Parallels can be drawn here with detached attributes and appositions, which have a secondary predicative function (e.g., Kalnača & Lokmane, 2021, pp. 437–439). The similarity between address and apposition is also pointed out by Heine (2023, p. 233). Addresses are intonationally distinct in the clause, as indicated by punctuation, and are used to emphasize and highlight a characteristic of a person or other reality, as in (29):

(29) Taču nu viņam,

labākajam	Meistara	skolniekam	un,	jā,	pat	māceklim,
best.dat.sg	master.gen.sg	pupil.dat.sg	and	yes	even	apparentice.dat.sg

uzradusies konkurente.

“But now he, the Master’s best pupil and, yes, even apprentice, has a rival.” (LVK2018)

There may also be cases where a descriptive address borders on a detached apposition (31a), especially if it is placed after a personal pronoun (31b):

(30)

a.	He,	cik	tālu	ar	avīzi	aizmetīsi,	ākst-s.
	hey	how	far	with	newspaper.ins.sg	throw.fut.2sg	clown.nom.sg

“Hey, how far are you going to throw the newspaper, you clown.” (LVTB)

b.	Jūs,	jokdar-i	māksliniek-ø,
	2.nom.pl	joker-voc	artist-voc

aicinādams uz Atmodu, […] sapnī ielikāt kādu tonnu laikmeta demagoģijas un liekulības.

“You, joker-artist, calling for an Awakening, […] put in that dream a ton of the demagogy and hypocrisy of the epoch.” (LVK2018)

For the sake of the system, the possibility of considering the address as a secondary predicate should also be considered in cases where it merely identifies the addressee or attracts their attention, as in (31):

(31)

Labrīt,	priekšniek-ø!
good_morning	boss-voc

“Good morning, boss!” (LVK2018)

The utterance contains the additional predication: “the addressee is the boss”.

The address involved in the clause can be placed at the beginning (32a), in the middle (32b), or at the end (32c) of the clause (e.g., Kalnača, 2014, pp. 38–40; typologically, e.g., Schnelzer, 2024, p. 6):

(32)

a.	Šoferīt-ø,	pieturiet,	lūdzu,	nākamajā	pieturā.
	driver-voc	stop.imp.2pl	please	next.loc.sg	stop.locsg

“Driver, please stop at the next stop.” (LVK2018)

b.	Neraudi,	Billīt-ø	mīļā,
	not_cry.imp.2sg	Billīte-voc	mīļā.nom.sg

tikai neraudi!

“Don’t cry, Billīte dear, just don’t cry!” (LVK2018)

c. Tu spēsi,

tu	visu	spēsi,	māsiņ-ø.
2.nom.sg	everything.acc.sg	can.fut.2sg	sister-voc

“You can do it, you can everything, little sister.” (LVK2018)

The Latvian Treebank data confirm that the address is fairly flexible in its placement and occurs equally often in all three positions—at the beginning (39 clauses), in the middle (32 clauses), and at the end (36 clauses). However, the position of the address has a certain relationship to its pragmatic functions, which will be described in more detail in the next section.

7. Pragmatic Functions of Address Constructions

The address constructions primarily function in communication, i.e., in spoken language. As this study is based mainly on written language, it should be borne in mind that the dialogues included in different written varieties, e.g., in fiction and journalism, are not a genuine copy of the spoken language but are specially constructed to suit the author’s purpose, as in (33):

(33) Es katru rītu mostos ar vārdiem:

“Labrīt,	Andrej-ø.”
good_morning	Andrejs-voc

“Every morning, I wake up with the words “Good morning, Andrejs.”” (LVTB)

One may doubt whether, in informal communication, especially in the family, an address would be used when the addressee is clearly identifiable in the communication situation. In this case, example (33), however, it was important for the author of the text to inform the reader that one of the communicants was Andrejs. The functions of address constructions in spoken language should be the subject of a separate study, but, in this article, we focus mainly on written texts.

Heine (2023, pp. 237–238), summarizing research on the basic functions of address (in his terminology—vocative), mentions the following: to identify someone as a hearer, to get the hearer’s attention/to activate the addressee, to maintain or emphasize the contact between the speaker and hearer, and to predicate a property of the addressee. However, upon closer examination of the use of the address, even more functions can be discerned; see the following paragraphs in Section 6.

The primary function of direct address, as already mentioned in Section 2, is to identify the addressee of the text. This is most often the case when there are several possible addressees (34a) or when there is a misunderstanding in a communication situation and the addressee needs to be clarified (34b). The address uses neutral lexis—proper names, kinship terms, etc.

(34)

a.	Tu,	Zelm-a,	tu,	Elmār-ø,
	2.nom.sg	Zelma-nom.sg	2.nom.sg	Elmārs-voc
	tu,	Teodor-ø,	un	tu,	Kat-e…
	2.nom.sg	Teodors-voc	and	2.nom.sg	Kate-nom.sg

Turpmāk jums būs jāiztiek bez manas palīdzības.

“You, Zelma, you, Elmārs, you, Teodors, and you, Kate… From now on you will have to do without my help.” (LVK2018)

b.	Onkulīt-ø,	es	ne	pie	jums	pēc	autogrāfa,
	old_chap-voc	1.nom.sg	not	to	2.dat.pl	for	autograph.gen.sg

bet pie puišiem.

“Old chap, I’m not coming to you for an autograph, but to the guys.” (LVTB)

The function of identifying the addressee is typical when the addressee is prompted to act, as indicated by a form in the imperative mood used in the utterance, as in (35):

(35)

Tu,	Juhan-ø,	paliec	un	izlej	ūdeni.
2.nom.sg	Juhans-voc	stay.imp.2sg	and	pour.imp.2sg	water.acc.sg

“You, Juhans, stay and pour out the water.” (Karogs)

The second function of the address is catching the addressee’s attention (Gutzmann, 2019, p. 178). This function alone is triggered when, from the communication situation, it is clear who the addressee is, but the address is a good conversation starter to activate the addressee, as in (36):

(36)

Mārtiņ-ø,	vai	tu	esi	rakstnieks	vai	dzejnieks?
Mārtiņš-voc	q	2.nom.sg	be.cop.prs.2sg	writer.nom.sg	or	poet.nom.sg

“Mārtiņš, are you a writer or a poet?” (LVK2018)

Only in this function, the addressee of the utterance can also be a pet, e.g., a dog, as in (37):

(37)

– Mājās,	mops-i,
home.loc.pl	doggie-voc
mājās, sargā māju!

“[Go] home, doggie, home, guard the house!” (LVTB)

The use of an address at the beginning of a clause or text after the exclamation also denotes the addressee activation function, as in (38):

(38)

Klau,	Vid-a,	dod	man	buru!
intj	Vida-nom.sg	give.imp.2sg	1.dat.sg	sail.acc.sg

“Hear/Listen, Vida, give me a sail!” (LVTB)

These two functions are not always strictly separable, as they can occur simultaneously; the addressee of a text can be named both to identify them and to draw their attention. These functions are united by the fact that the address is usually placed at the beginning of the clause, as in the previous examples, but it can also be placed in the middle (39a) or at the end (39b), especially in exhortations, where the addressee’s attention is drawn not only by the address but also by the verb in the imperative mood:

(39)

a.	Nāc	nu,	tēv-ø,	mājās.
	come.imp.2sg	now	father-voc	home.loc.pl

“Come home now, father.” (Karogs)

b.	Nāc	šurp,	zēn-ø!
	come.imp.2sg	here	boy-voc

“Come here, boy!” (Karogs)

An address can also be used to confirm and emphasize the status of the addressed person in cases where the addressee in the communicative situation has already been established and is unambiguous (Gutzmann, 2019, p. 180), and this would be especially true when the address is placed in the middle or at the end of a clause, as in the examples above.

The data analyzed suggest that the function of drawing attention to and acknowledging the person addressed tends to have additional pragmatic nuances. Although proper names or other neutral lexemes are used for address, the use of direct address can reinforce negative attitudes toward the addressee’s actions, as in (40):

(40)

Neaušojies,	Didz-i!
not_fool.imp.2sg	Didzis-voc

“Don’t fool around, Didzis!” (LVTB)

In this example, the statement itself, without the address, expresses a negative evaluation, but the use of a direct address by the speaker emphasizes the addressee’s responsibility for the unwanted action. In certain communication situations, such as teacher–pupil communication in educational institutions, it is quite common to express disapproval only by means of a direct address, using the proper name, if unwanted behavior is clearly apparent from the communication situation (e.g., talking during a lecture or class).

It is also common to re-emphasize the contact between the speaker and the addressee when the speaker wishes to stress the importance of the content of the speech (41a) or to indicate that what the utterance represents is a certain contrast to what the addressee might think or believe (41b).

(41)

a.	Viņa	ir	mana	māte,	Armand-ø.
	3.nom.sg	be.cop.prs.3	my.nom.sg	mother.nom.sg	Armands-voc

“She is my mother, Armands.” (LVTB)

b.	Es	esmu	pilsētas	bērns,	tēt-ø!
	1.nom.sg	be.cop.prs.1sg	urbangen.sg	child.nom.sg	dad-voc

“I am an urban child, dad!” (LVTB)

These pragmatic nuances should be explored further, certainly including spoken language.

The third function of a direct address is the establishment and maintenance of social relationships. Address is considered a form of social deixis (Levinson, 2007, p. 92) and functions similarly to the use of tu “thou” and jūs “you” in communication. It should be stressed that, in this case, the lexemes used in the address construction take on significance, as they can emphasize respect and social distance (42a) or, on the contrary, indicate familiarity (42b):

(42)

a.	Bet	godātais	kung-s,	lūdzu,	neuztraucieties!
	but	dear.nom.sg	sir-nom.sg	please	not_worry.imp.2pl

“But, dear sir, please don’t worry!” (LVK2018)

b.	Vecīt-ø,	tev	pašam	jumts	ir	aizbraucis!
	man-voc	2.dat.sg	self.dat.sg	roof.nom.sg	be.aux.prs.3	leave.ptcp.nom.sg

“Man, you’re going nuts yourself!” (LVK2018)

Positive lexemes, in Latvian, and also diminutives, can be used to soften what is being said when it is expected that the addressee will not like the content of the utterance, as in (43):

(43) Filips viņai atbildēja:

“Bērn-iņ-ø,	mēs	esam	tik	noguruši,
kid-dim-voc	1.nom.pl	be.aux.prs.1pl	so	tired.ptcp.nom.pl

varbūt tu vēlāk pienāksi.”

“Filips said to her: “Dear kid, we’re so tired, maybe you’ll pop in later.”” (LVTB)

In cases where the addressee has a choice between the nominative and the vocative (see Section 3), the use of the vocative conveys or emphasizes the informality of the communication. This is especially true for feminine proper names and various adjectives, where the nominative would be neutral in the address while the vocative adds a touch of informality (44a) or even expresses a pejorative attitude (44b):

(44)

a.	Katrīn-ø,	vai	tu	dzirdēji?
	Katrīna-voc	q	2.nom.sg	hear.pst.2sg

“Katrīna, did you hear?” (Karogs)

b.	Tu	vecen-ø,	valdies	pie	laika.
	2.nom.sg	hag-voc	behave.imp.2sg	prep	time.gen.sg

“You, old hag, behave before it is too late.” (Karogs)

Similarly, the truncated form of the 2nd declension is usually more informal than the ending form of the vocative, e.g., kaptein-ø vs. kaptein-i, Pēter-ø vs. Pēter-i, brālīt-ø vs. brālīt-i, as in (45):

(45)

Pēter-ø,	brāl-īt-ø,	tu	nebēdā	daudz.
Pēteris-voc	brother-dim-voc	2.nom.sg	fret.imp.2sg	too_much

“Pēteris, bro, fret not too much.” (Karogs)

Since the above examples of the vocative use neutral lexemes in the function of the address, the function of identifying the addressee or attracting their attention is combined with the function of establishing and maintaining social relationships.

The fourth function of the direct address is emotive. Here, too, the lexemes used in the address are decisive, expressing both positive (46a) and negative (46b) attitudes. Such an address can be in any position in the following clause:

(46)

a.	Mīļo	dvēselīt-ø,	kur	tu	biji	agrāk?
	dear.acc.sg	soul-voc	where	2.nom.sg	be.cop.pst.2sg	before

“Dear soul, where were you before?” (LVK2018)

b.	Vai	tu,	vecais	smerdel-i,
	q	2.nom.sg	old.nom.sg	bastard-voc

patiešām biji iedomājies, ka savas dzīves laikā, darot tik ļaunus un briesmīgus darbus, vari palikt nesodīts?!

“Did you, you old bastard, really imagine that you could go unpunished in your lifetime, doing such evil and terrible deeds?” (LVK2018)

The use of emotionally expressive lexemes, especially those with negative connotations, does not so much address the addressee of the text as it describes them, as in (47):

(47) Nekas tu nebūsi,

neceri,	nožēlojamais	ākst-s!
not_hope.imp.2sg	miserable.nom.sg	jerk-nom.sg

“You’ll be nothing, don’t you hope, you miserable jerk!” (LVTB)

Positive lexemes are often used to express irony, as in (48):

(48)

Nu,	zini,	dārg-ā,
intj	know.prs.2sg	dear-nom.sg

vēl drusku, un izbesīsi mani galīgi.

“You know, dear, just a little more and you’ll piss me off completely.” (LVTB)

Irony is often derived from the wider context, which is why neutral lexemes can take on an ironic tinge in an address construction (on similar neutral lexemes with a negative connotation in German address constructions (see Gutzmann, 2019, p. 188), as in (49):

(49) Protams, nedomāju, ka izrādes veiksmes pamatā ir nenormētā leksika,

nepārprotiet,	biedr-i	puritāņ-i.
not_get_wrong.imp.2pl	fellow-nom.pl	puritan-nom.pl

“Of course, I do not think that the success of the show is based on its rude language, don’t get me wrong, fellow puritans.” (LVTB)

The fifth is the function of discourse marking. In this case, the address indicates a change of topic (50a) or a change of turn in the dialogue, i.e., the address shows that the turn of the person addressed has ended (50b) or invites the addressee to speak (50c):

(50)

a.	Ja	tev,	Edmund-ø,	vēl	ir	pacietība	klausīties,
	if	2.dat.sg	Edmunds-voc	still	be.prs.3	patience.nom.sg	listen.inf

es šonakt pastāstīšu tikai par vienu, bet, iespējams, vispārdrošāko mūsu kaujas operāciju, kas skaļi izskanēja visā Krievijas impērijā un jau tad kļuva par apbrīnas cienīgu leģendu.

“If you still have the patience to listen, Edmunds, I will tell you tonight about just one, but perhaps the most daring combat operation of our army, which resounded throughout the Russian Empire and even then, became a legend worthy of admiration.” (LVK2018)

b.	Labi,	Edmund-ø!
	well	Edmunds-voc

Vecas mīlestības un šodienas labo attiecību vārdā… Ragovska lietu atliksim!

“Well, enough, Edmunds! For the sake of old love and today’s good relations… Let’s postpone the Ragovskis affair!” (LVK2018)

c.	– Ko	tas	nozīmē,	Marit-ø?
	whatacc	it.nom.sg	mean.prs.3	Marita-voc

“What does it mean, Marita?” (LVK2018)

Sometimes this function is reinforced by other discourse markers, e.g., labi “well” in (50a). Neutral lexemes, e.g., proper names, kinship terms, etc., are typically used as discourse markers.

As indicated above, address constructions often combine several functions, which relate to the following domains, as in (51):

(51) a. Emotions and social relations:

Mīļo,	dumjo	mās-iņ-ø,
dear.acc.sg	silly.acc.sg	sister-dim-voc

ej un baudi mūziku un nevaino sevi, ka tevi uzlūdz ne pašas vīrs.

“Dear silly sis, go and enjoy the music and don’t blame yourself for not being asked to dance by someone else than your own husband.” (LVK2018)

b. Emotions, social relations, and discourse marking:

Tā,	lūk,	māš-el-ø!
how	intj	sister-dim-voc

“That’s how it is, my dear sis!” (LVK2018)

Therefore, further research into the pragmatic functions of address constructions would need to include a wider context—not only linguistic, but also extra-linguistic, i.e., the social roles of the communicants, the pool of shared knowledge, etc. A promising area of research is the use of address in spontaneous dialogues in informal communication, which would make it possible to identify both commonalities and differences in the use of address in different speech and written language genres.

8. Conclusions

Only two of the six Latvian declension classes have special vocative endings, and the use of these vocative forms in the function of direct address is obligatory. In the other four declension classes, the vocative is a zero ending, and the nominative is used alongside the vocative in the construction of the address and, for some lexemes, also the accusative. In cases where there is a choice of case, it may depend on the belonging of the lexeme to a particular thematic group (kinship names, names of agents or professions, proper names) and on pragmatic factors, such as the formality or informality of the communicative situation.

Although the address has no close syntactic relationship with the rest of the clause, it can be syntactically described as a secondary predicate. The function of the secondary predicate is more salient in a descriptive address since it expresses an additional predication, like a detached apposition.

Five pragmatic direct address functions have been identified as follows: the function of identifying the addressee, the function of attracting the addressee’s attention, the function of establishing and maintaining social relationships, the emotive function, and the function of discourse marking. The functions depend on the place [of the address] in the clause or text, the lexemes used, and various extra-linguistic factors, such as the social roles of the communicants and the parameters of the communicative situation.

Agreement takes place in speech groups whose independent component is in the nominative or accusative, whereas there is no morphological agreement when the independent component is in the vocative. In this study, a relationship between the features of the agreement in the address phrases, on the one hand, and the pragmatic functions of the address, on the other, has not been established.