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In:Usage-based Approaches to Japanese Grammar: Towards the understanding of human language
Edited by Kaori Kabata and Tsuyoshi Ono
[Studies in Language Companion Series 156] 2014
► pp. 261–278

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Context in constructions

Variation in Japanese non-subject honorifics

Published online: 10 June 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.156.17mat
This paper illustrates the importance of context for grammar by examining discourse data of the nonsubject honorific construction o – Verb (stem) – suru.   Building upon previous studies that argued that non-subject honorifics are subject to a pragmatic condition of benefit transfer between the subject and nonsubject referents, I argue that the targeted referents of nonsubject honorification are reorganized to the two participants of the discourse: the speaker and the addressee.  The variations in the o-Verb (stem) – suru form are explained from the constructional and frame semantics perspectives as a process of cognitive and intersubjective (e.g., Traugott and Dasher 2002) reorganization of grammatical constructions motivated by contextual conditions of use and the speaker’s intention with respect to the addressee.
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