1 Affectionately used and more common among the youths
LISSIM 6
June 1-15, 2012@ Kangra
Selected Essays
Lalit
Rajkumar
MPhil,
DU
The question of attaching the VHMs (Verbal Honorific Markers) only to the main verbs of the sentence (that is, to feed the utterance with the required honorific elements) was raised in the following examples. It is presumed here that the subjects are already in their required honorific pronominal forms (or their substituted forms) to show some examples of sentences with or without the proper VHM attached to the auxiliary and how they behave under such circumstances.
a) With First Person Subjects
1. «y/«yhak č«t-n«-b« t«w-g«-ni (Informal or, rude)
I go-ADV.M.-NZR do-INT-COP
‘I will do go’.
2.
«y/«yhak
č«t-č«-n«-b«
t«w-g«-ni (Informal
or, rude)
I go-VHM-ADV.M.-NZR do-INT-COP
3. «y/«yhak č«t-n«-b« t«w-j«-g«-ni (Honorific)I go-ADV.M.-NZR do-VHM-INT-COP
4. «y/«yhak č«t-č«-n«-b« t«w-j«-g«-ni (More honorific)
I go-VHM-ADV.M.-NZR do-VHM-INT-COP
b) With Second Person Subjects
5. itaw k«ri ča-ge t«w-r«m-mi-no?[1]1 (Plain)
My friend what eat-INT do-already-PROG-Q.prt
c) ‘What are you doing (used as ‘trying’) to eat (my friend)?’
6. itaw k«ri ča-bi-ge t«w-r«m-mi-no? (Affectionate)
My friend what eat-VHM-INT do-already-PROG-Q.prt
7. itaw k«ri ča-ge t«w-bi-r«m-mi-no? (Honorific)
My friend what eat-INT do-VHM-already-PROG-Q.prt
8. itaw k«ri ča-bi-ge t«w-bi-r«m-mi-no? (More honorific)
My friend what eat-VHM-INT do-VHM-already-PROG-Q.prt
With Third Person Subjects
9. khura-ns čak-si ča-ge t«w-r«m-b«-r«-ne? (Plain)
Uncle-NOM rice-this eat-INT do-already-NZR-COND-CONF
‘Was uncle really trying to eat this food?’
10. khura-n« čak-si ča-bi-ge t«w-r«m-b«-r«-ne? (Odd)
Uncle-NOM rice-this eat-VHM-INT do-already-NZR-COND-CONF
11. khura-n« čak-si ča-ge t«w-bi-r«m-b«-r«-ne? (Honorific)
Uncle-NOM rice-this eat-INT do--VHMalready-NZR-COND-CONF
12. khura-n« čak-si ča-bi-ge t«w-bi-r«m-b«-r«-ne? (More Honorific)
Uncle-NOM rice-this eat-VHM-INT do-VHM-already-NZR-COND-CONF
(B) Nominalization and Honorification
In the case of English, Brown and Levinson (1987), based on the findings of Ross (1973), claimed that ‘formality is associated with the noun end of the continuum’. And, according to Harada (1976), ‘honorific infinitivization’ is obligatory in Japanese as the verb has to be infinitivized if it has got an honorific suffix added to it. So, the focus of this section is to show how the Meiteilon nominalizer –p«/-b« is used as a politeness enhancing element in an utterance as the language has its own complicated rules of honorificity with the verbal honorific markers (VHMs) –pi/-bi and -č«/-j« taking the centre stage. A few examples supporting this phenomenon are shown as below:
13. som-d« «muk-t« lak-pi-yu. (Honorific but casual)
Here-DET once-DET come-VHM-DECL
‘Please come here once’.
14. som-d« «muk-t« lak-pi-yu-b«. (More honorific)
Here-DET once-DET come-VHM-DECL-NZR
15. k«ri m«thel ča-bi-r«k-ke? (Honorific but casual)
What dish (+HON) eat-VHM-DIR-INT
‘What dish did you have (today)?’
16. k«ri m«thel ča-bi-r«k-p«-ge? (More honorific)
What dish (+HON) eat-VHM-DIR-NZR-INT
17. «y-bu «muk-t« č«N-j«-r«k-ke? (Honorific but casual)
I-SFE once come-VHM-DIR-INT
‘May I come in once, please?’
18. «y-bu «muk-t« č«N-j«-r«k-ke-b«? (More honorific)
I-SFE once come-VHM-DIR-INT
From these set of examples it is quite clear that the nominalizer do play a role in the working of honorificity in the language. But, a much more detailed study on the phenomenon is required to show if this influence of the nominalizer is triggered by other features.
References
Harada, S.I. 1976. Honorifics. In M. Shibatani (ed.) Syntax and Semantics 5: Japanese Generative Grammar. New York: Academic Press. 499- 570.
Rajkumar, Lalit. 2010a. Honorificity in Meiteilon: the importance of the Meiteilon Honorific Markers. Term paper, Deparment of Linguistics, University of Delhi, Delhi.
Rajkumar, Lalit. 2010b. Problems and prospects in prototyping the verbal honorific markers of Meiteilon. Paper presented at the 32nd AICL, Lucknow.
Rajkumar, Lalit. 2011. Wielding the double-edged Meiteilon Verbal Honorific Markers: in awe of the sharp edges of -č«/-ǰ« and –pi/-bi. Paper presented at the 44th ICSTLL, Mysore.
Ross, J. R. 1972. The category squish: endstation Hauptwort. In Papers from the eighth regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 316-328. Chicago.
Ross, J. R. 1973. Nouniness. In Fuzzy Grammar: A Reader, ed. Osamu Fujimura, 137-357. The TEC Company, Tokyo.
1 Affectionately used and more common among the youths
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