Honorifics are grammatical markers that speakers use to show respect or deference to someone whom they consider to be higher in social status than themselves. Japanese has two major types of honorifics. One type is used to show respect toward someone referred to in the sentence, with different forms used for subjects vs. non-subjects. We will refer to this type as argument honorifics . The other type is used to show respect to the addressee, and so are considered to be a mark of polite speech. This type is often referred to as “performative honorifics”, because they indicate something about the context of the current speech event, specifically the relationship between speaker and addressee. We will instead refer to this second type as addressee honorifics.11
The use of an argument honorific to indicate the speaker’s respect for a person referred to in the sentence is illustrated in (19a), which shows respect for the referent of the subject NP (Prof. Sasaki). The use of an addressee honorific to indicate the speaker’s respect for the addressee is illustrated in (19b).
(19) a. Sasaki sensei=wa watasi=ni koo o-hanasi.ni.nat-ta.
Sasaki teacher=top 1sg=dat this.way speak.hon-past
‘Prof. Sasaki told me this way.’ [Harada 1976: 501]
b. Watasi=wa sono hito=ni koo hanasi-masi-ta.
1sg=top that man=dat this.way speak-hon-past
‘I told him (=that man) this way.’ (polite speech) [Harada 1976: 502]
Argument honorifics are only allowed in sentences that refer to someone socially superior to the speaker; sentence (20a) is unacceptable, because no such person is referred to. But addressee honorifics are not subject to this constraint (20b).
(20) a. *Ame=ga o-huri.ni.nat-ta.
rain=nom fall.hon-past
(intended: ‘It rained.’) [Harada 1976: 502]
b. Ame=ga huri-masi-ta.
rain=nom fall-hon-past
‘It rained.’ (polite speech) [Harada 1976: 502]
In the remainder of this section we will focus primarily on addressee honorifics. Potts (2005) analyzes addressee honorifics as conventional implicature triggers, specifically as a kind of expressive. This means that addressee honorifics do not contribute to the truth-conditional at-issue content of the sentence. The truth conditions of (20b) would not be changed if the honorific marker were deleted. Misuse of the honorific (e.g. for referring to someone socially inferior), or dropping the honorific when it is expected, would not make the statement false, only rude and/or inappropriate.12
As we would predict under Pott’s proposal, the honorific meaning cannot be part of the propositional content that is negated or questioned. (21a–b) are felt to be just as polite as (20b); the element of respect is neither negated in (21a) nor questioned in (21b).
(21) a. Ame=ga huri-mas-en desi-ta.
rain=nom fall-hon-neg cop-past
‘It didn’t rain.’ (polite speech)
b. Ame=wa huri-masi-ta-ka?
rain=top fall-hon-past-q
‘Did it rain?’ (polite speech)
We have seen that addressee honorifics express beliefs or attitudes of the speaker. They are independent of and secondary to the at-issue propositional content of the utterance. They cannot be negated or questioned, and do not affect the truth value of a statement. Thus they clearly fit Potts’ definition of conventional implicatures.
11 The term argument honorifics is adapted from Potts (2005), who referred to this type as “argument-oriented honorifics”. Harada (1976), one of the first detailed discussions of these issues in English, refers to this type as “propositional honorifics”. Harada was the original source of the term “performative honorifics” for those which show respect to the addressee, a terminology which is now widely adopted.
12 Thanks to Eric Shin Doi for very helpful discussion of these issues, and for providing the examples in (21).
