お～になる - Grammar Discussion

Grammar Points
#21

Yes! Remember that the key to Keigo is that the more distance, the more respectful/honorific/humble you’re being. I go into a bit more detail over at this post.

Your answer, while not grammatically wrong, in context its super weird to go all the way with Keigo like that just to use the 普通形 of いらっしゃる at the end. Not wrong, but ambiguous.

(Laughs in Keigo) There’s no such thing as too honorific if the situation demands it.
Take a look at this example:

「食べている」の敬語表現は、下記の順で敬意の度合いが高くなります。

・「食べている」

・「食べています」（「います」は「いる」の丁寧語）

・「召し上がっています」（「召し上がって」は「食べて」の尊敬語）

・「召し上がっていらっしゃる」（「いらっしゃる」は「いる」の尊敬語）

・「召し上がっていらっしゃいます」（「います」は「る」の丁寧語）

Like always, it’s dependent on the context, but being so formal its ungrammatical isn’t a thing. Keigo on!

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#22

Just for the sake of how ridiculous Keigo can get:
https://townwork.net/magazine/knowhow/manners/baito_manners/13309/

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#23

Man, keigo is a ridiculous rabbit hole!

I found this article that mentions combining お〜になる with 召し上がる and apparently it’s an acceptable use, even though it does look like 二重敬語.

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#24

Don’t sweat it! Remember that if its taking twice the syllables to say the same thing, it’s probably keigo. :rofl:

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#25

This grammar point is driving me nuts. Up until now I’ve broadly associated plain form with casual and -ます form with polite, and here comes おーになる to destroy that simple connection.

Can anyone explain historically how Japanese ended up with an honorific form that looks and acts like a casual form we’re told not to use in polite conversation?

Historically or linguistically rather than grammatically, which I understand thanks to an answer up thread - the trick I think is to stop thinking of “short form” as “casual form”.

It boggles the mind that one ought to be polite with strangers but that polite form is optional in honorific speech.

#26

You’re mixing up two different concepts.

  • です・ます expresses politeness vs. the person we’re speaking with, regardless of the content of the conversation.
  • おーになる expresses respect vs. the person we’re talking about and who’s doing an action.

These can be the same person, but they don’t have to be the same person.

"Miku read a manga" polite vs. listener respectful vs. Miku
ミクさんは漫画を読んだ no no
ミクさんは漫画を読みました yes no
ミクさんは漫画をお読みになった no yes
ミクさんは漫画をお読みになりました yes yes

Additionally, polite forms generally only appear at the end of a sentence. Respectful (and humble) forms can appear anywhere someone does something, including the middle of a sentence three layers of relative clauses down. For example, we can talk about the manga that Miku read as ミクさんがお読みになった漫画 anywhere in the sentence and still show respect to Miku.

As for the history, I don’t know the details of how and when all the respectful forms emerged. But even though in this case, these two forms do something different, there absolutely are other cases where multiple forms that accomplish the same thing exist too. I don’t think that’s particularly strange though, since most languages sometimes have more than one way to say the same thing.

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