Apologies if I’ve missed something obvious, but I don’t think I’ve come across the grammar point for this yet (part way through N3 currently):
What kind of ~て form is being used in the stock word for “you’re welcome”, “どういたしまして”? It doesn’t seem to make sense for it to be a ‘regular’ conjunctive…?
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It’s a 反問 sentence ending particle that turns the sentence into a question. Basically what you’re saying is “Did I do something [worthy of your gratefulness]?” I think it’s pretty archaic too. Anyway, I don’t remember hearing this phrase ever said as a question (with a raise at the end).
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Thanks for the response!
Is there a grammar point on that, or is it perhaps a bit too esoteric? 
This まして ending is basically a polite て form. It’s the equivalent of the ます form of the て form, if you will.
However, this acts more as a (…) equivalent in English, where there’s not supposed to be anything afterward まして (as far as I understand), so it doesn’t function like the plain form て form. It’s just an unfinished sentence ending, where the second part is understood. That’s the difference.
In the case of the phrase どういたしまして, I found this post that further explains it:
In the case of はじめまして, this is a simplified version of はじめてお目にかかりまして, which literally means: “It is my first time seeing you…”, where the “nice to meet you” part is implied.
I remember running into this last year, but I had completely forgotten about it, lol. Good question!!
HTH!
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The Stack Exchange points to wiktionary that says the て is 反問的用法の終助詞. If you then go to the wiktionary entry for て you can find:
I also found this: Breakdown of Japanese greetings/set phrases : r/LearnJapanese (reddit.com)
て is being differentiated here as a sentence ending particle rather than being simply the て form of ます.
Forgot to answer.
Is there a grammar point on that?
No, there is none. I suppose it’s too obscure for JLPT. Frankly there is no grammar point for what Jose has said either, which is a much, much more common usage of the て form that you will see everywhere.
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Interesting .
I’m going by the information provided by these two sites, which present まして as the polite て form:
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I don’t doubt that it is just that, a て form of a verb. However the て has so many interpretations it’s mind boggling (I mean just look at the wiktionary entry for it: て). Some of it’s usages still give me trouble when I see it in the wild and sometimes the […] explanation doesn’t make sense to me. But that is my default go-to interpretation when I don’t understand something completely.
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You’re making it harder than it really is. Or maybe I’m just used to the constant recycling that happens in Japanese, lol.
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I’m just being precise. I’m not satisfied with an answer that doesn’t compute in my brain. As I have already said the definition you provided does not always work, as is in this case, at least to me, because どういたしまして is a complete sentence that could mean どういたしましたか if we strip it of its nuance (they are not interchangeable since the former is a set phrase that everyone knows to interpret in one way only and has a particular connotation that the latter one doesn’t) and nothing is unspoken here. It’s very different from saying something like すまない、忙しくて…(来られなかった), etc. I like this comment about this topic as I think it explains the concept of 反問 really well if you’re curious: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/18nchcv/comment/kejl6qh/
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First of all, what you’re probably referring to is 反語 = Rhetorical Question. At least that’s the Kanji being used by the person from the link you posted.
Second, if you examine the phrase どういたしまして, it literally means “In what way have I acted (to merit a thanks from you). The part in parentheses is the implied part. Same with はじめまして, meaning “It is my first time seeing you…”, where “nice to meet you” is implied, as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts. In this sense, these sentences are indeed left hanging, like suggested in both of the links I gave.
Hope that makes more sense 
.
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First of all, what you’re probably referring to is 反語 = Rhetorical Question. At least that’s the Kanji being used by the person from the link you posted.
I’m pretty sure you’re nitpicking here.
Second, if you examine the phrase どういたしまして, it literally means “In what way have I acted (to merit a thanks from you). The part in parentheses is the implied part. Same with はじめまして, meaning “It is my first time seeing you…”, where “nice to meet you” is implied, as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts. In this sense, these sentences are indeed left hanging, like suggested in both of the links I gave.
I think you misunderstand this usage of て. It’s used when the unspoken part would be normally spoken, but everyone knows it’s there, so it’s not being spoken, like in the example I provided. It “physically” is possible to say the unspoken part in such cases. It’s not however used when something is implied by the sentence in general, like a hidden meaning or something, in the case of どういたしまして. The meaning that is implied doesn’t follow in words after the て. I hope that makes sense.
Also I’m not sure what are we arguing here. The wiki is clear on this, the internet agrees on this too.
Even in the last link you posted, the implied meaning of どういたしまして is vaguely translated:
“『お手数をおかけしました』『いえいえ、どういたしまして』“I’ve caused you trouble.” “No, no, not at all.” (Sanseidou Kokugo)”.
That “Not at all” part is not really a translation of どういたしまして, but of the next part that would follow.
The first reply in this post explains this better:
HTH!
Okay, I see there is no common ground here, so let me ask you the last question - do you agree or disagree that it is a 反問的用法の終助詞?
That is an odd question to ask. It’s like you’re simply looking for a win, rather than genuinely wanting to understand what is being discussed.
Anyway, I guess we can agree to disagree on this 
.
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You look exactly the same way to me. I provided enough resources to support my claim. You based yours off of an assumption and an Internet thread that coincidentally proved my point too. Yet you kept disagreeing. Anyway, I agree on the last part.
OK, maybe I’m misunderstanding, so let’s try again.
What I’m getting from you is that the phrase どういたしまして doesn’t have an implied part, and that it is a complete sentence, where nothing is unspoken. Is that correct?
If so, then the links I’ve provided (one of them being from a Reddit post you provided) all say that there is this unspoken part afterwards, that used to be said in the past, but now it’s simply implied.
Even in the Wiki page, it says:
語源[編集]
どう、いたし・まし・て＜「どう（どのように、何を）」+「いたす（「する」の謙譲語）」+「ます（丁寧語を造る助動詞）」+「て（反問的用法の終助詞）」）。
「何を、したというわけでもありませんよ（だから、気になさらないでください）」の意
The bold part being the implied meaning.
I mean, that’s what I’m getting from this, but I’m open to being wrong since I’m nowhere near an expert in Japanese etymology. So, where am I going wrong?
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The part where you treat どういたしまして as a shortening of a completely different sentence 何を、したというわけでもありませんよ is where you’re losing me. I explained this in my earlier post. This is not how you use て form. Yes, this part is implied, but it does not come after どういたしまして, never wqs and never will.
I’m sort of sorry this has turned out to be so controversial… but equally glad that it turns out I wasn’t asking a completely straightforward question!
Thank you for all your comments and links - this is enlightening! 
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No, I didn’t say that どういたしまして comes from the bold part in my previous post. I said
Every single link in this thread, and others online, states that どういたしまして has an implied meaning. Here are two more:
Both どういたしまして, as well as はじめまして, are incomplete sentences with implied meanings of what comes after. They are both polite て forms, which usually have something else afterwards that’s either stated or implied. In the case of this polite て form, まして, the sentence is left hanging. The Kashudo link I posted earlier says:
“As with the plain te form, the polite te form is often used in Japanese to leave a sentence ‘hanging’ (rather than ‘closing’ the sentence with a present or past tense verb).”
Again, all I’m saying is that どういたしまして has an implied part that’s not said because it’s already understood, but it’s technically an incomplete sentence.
EDIT: Just wanted to add that, while it is not 100% clear from any of the links provided, it does seem to be more plausible that どういたしまして came from a longer phrase, which has been shorten overtime to the current form (as is usually the case with pretty much any language). I was trying to find a more conclusive writing of the etymology, but I still haven’t found one.
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From the dictionary entry in this post:
［終助］活用語の連用形に付く。ガ・ナ・バ・マ行の五段活用動詞の音便形に付く場合は「で」となる。形容詞、形容詞型助動詞に付く場合は「って」の形をとることもある。
１ 質問や確かめの気持ちを表す。「あなたにもでき—」「いらしたことあっ—」
This is the usage you’re talking about, right? If we check the notes for the entry we find:
[補説]
は、くだけた表現、うちとけた会話に用いられる。いずれも接続助詞「て」によって導かれる文を表現しない言い方で、本来の質問・主張・命令などに比べると柔らかく、婉曲 (えんきょく) な表現になっている。1 ・2 は女性専用語。
(Excuse the links they just got copy and pasted in). You can see clearly that this is a shortened version of speech. Under the 終助 heading you also find the て(ください) shortened usage. I don’t think anyone would contest that 見せて or whatever is allowable as a complete sentence but also I think it’d be hard to not recognise that it is omitting something. As the dictionary note says, the omission is what makes this usage of て softer.
Regardless of the dictionary the question can also be asked from what perspective do you want to analyse this from. I personally would say て is just て and the divisions in the dictionary are something a native speaker wouldn’t think about. I would probably argue all uses of て are consistent with each other (further information follows, sometimes that information is omitted but implied) personally.
Edit added in haste: I recognise that pragmatically because this is a set phrase we’re talking about now no one expects something to come after, of course. This is true for lots of sorts of omission and set phrases (おはよう etc).
Basically I think there is no contradiction here and everyone should be friends 笑
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