The rise and fall of Japanese nonsubject honorifics: The case of ‘o-Verb-suru’☆

Abstract This paper seeks to describe the pragmatic content of a particular honorific form in Japanese, i.e., the productive o -Verb (stem)- suru form of nonsubject honorific. The account demonstrates the pragmatic variables that determine the acceptability of a form that is still often considered to be fully determined by ‘syntactic’ rules. In identifying what representation of the world is necessarily implied by that form, the paper claims that the determination of the target of honorification depends not only on the socially perceived relative position but also on the consonance of the action or state that is described in the sentence with a pragmatic notion of benefactivity; more specifically, with a notion of benefit transfer. At least in the conventional use of the o -V- suru form, there is an implied relationship of benefit between the two participants, in which the exalted nonsubject referent is either the beneficiary or the source of benefit, depending on the predicate and on the context. This pragmatic account also serves as a starting point for analyses of the social meaning of the use of the form in various contexts, and it is shown that certain ‘deviant’ usages suggest the outlines of the emerging pattern.