Abstract
Politeness has a major place in many languages, and is remarkably pervasive in some. Yet we rarely find respect as a morphosyntactic feature, alongside gender, person, number and case. I document this imbalance, and then ask why this is what we find. This paper was later published as a section of the book Features (2012). 338 pages. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107661080. http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item6832255/?site_locale=en_GB Also in Linguistik 2012, 51 (1). Available online at: http://www.linguistik-online.de/51_12/corbett_a.html