Difference between these 3 honorific "to be's"?

I can’t seem to get this right, I’ve learned the honorific “to be” forms for いらっしゃる,
でございます and ございます but I keep mixing them up when the question asks for “to be (honorific)”.

They can all mean “to be” but apparently they’re not interchangeable.

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いる → いらっしゃる(いらっしゃい(ませ))
ある → ござる(ございます)

(だ・ である)です → でござる(でございます)

 

Note that だ・である cannot attach to い-adjectives. です does though, and I believe でございます should as well (that would certainly make sense) but I can’t check right now.

At any rate, all the words in the 3rd line are copulas.

 

BTW, you might’ve noticed the atypical ~ます forms of these verbs.
This same thing happened to くださる too, which is how/why we now have ください :wink:

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Kai has it. This stuff can definitely be a tad confusing at first. Throw in おる as the humble version of いる, I’ve seen many students start getting very confused.

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