An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

3.3. FORMALITY: HUMBLE/HONORIFIC SPEECH PATTERNS 147

do

know

see

eat

[

means ’summon’ here]

drink

sleep

think

[normal honorific paĴern also possible]

wear (on the body)

refers to clothing here]

For compound verbs consisting of a noun paired with , the

noun gets prepended with the honorific , pronounced , and is

either replaced by or :

verb meaning honorific counterpart

pay aĴention to or

guide (someone) or

contact (someone) or

When using a copula while being honorific, rather than using the
polite , the properly honorific copula, in the form
is used instead:

”How old is your child(/son/daughter)?”

In this sentence, is an honorific for the noun , ”child”, and
the honorofic form of. The word , meaning
”how old” in this sentence, can only be used for children that are (or seem)
younger than ten (the reason for this beaing that it is a question word used
for counting statements using the counter , which can only count up to

and including nine. Anything higher uses the counter

, also wriĴen ,

with the corresponding question word

). Given this information, we

see that the sentence is actually identical (in meaning) to the following,