This paper examines honorific mismatches between the allocutive marker and a 2P pronoun within a clause in Japanese. Unlike allocutive languages such as Tamil, Punjabi, Magahi, among others, which require obligatory matching in honorificity (and phi-features) between the allocutive marker and a 2P pronoun in a clause, Japanese allows the honorific allocutive marker to also occur with a non-honorific 2P pronoun. These mismatching structures can be interpreted both literally and sarcastically. We provide a two-step analysis to explain such mismatches: first, we claim that 2P pronouns in Japanese are lexical items, which cannot participate in syntactic binding to inherit their honorific features from a left-peripheral honorific head (e.g., c). Instead, they enter syntax with pre-specified honorific information. Allocutive markers, by contrast, obtain their honorificity in syntax, typically via agreement. Consequently, nothing in syntax forces matching between 2P pronouns and allocutive markers. Secondly, mismatching instances are also not ruled out in the pragmatic component because the meanings encoded by the 2P pronouns and the allocutive marker in Japanese are not comparable, and contribute independently to the meaning of the entire sentence. The honorific information encoded in pronouns is the speaker’s positive/negative attitude towards the addressee based on his/her evaluation of the addressee, while the allocutive marker encodes the speaker’s intent to be polite, irrespective of the evaluation of the addressee, who may even remain unidentified. It is possible for these two meanings to be expressed simultaneously in select conversational set-ups, leading to felicitous mismatching structures in the language.
This paper discusses honorific mismatches between an allocutive/addressee agreement marker and a 2P pronoun within the same clause. Allocutive languages can be divided into two groups based on whether or not they allow mismatches between allocutivity and 2P pronouns. Languages such as Punjabi ban any mismatch between the allocutive marker and the 2P pronoun. An illustration is given in (1). Punjabi uses its plural forms as singular honorific forms. Subsequently, the plural allocutive marker
(1)
Maa
mother.
{twaa/*
2
bulaa
call
rayii
‘Mother is calling you.’
(2)
{
2
wakar-anai
understand-
‘You do not understand (this).’
In view of this variation in mismatches across Punjabi and Japanese, this paper aims to answer two questions:
(3)
a.
Where in grammar are honorific mismatches between pronouns and allocutive markers ruled out — in the syntactic or in the pragmatic component?
b.
How does Japanese permit various combinations of the honorific allocutive marker with honorific/non-honorific 2P pronouns?
With regard to the first question, there are two existing approaches in the literature. According to the first approach, which we label as the syntactic approach, honorificity is encoded on a functional projection cP in the clause-periphery, via a feature (e.g., [status]). This projection is responsible for licensing honorificity on all 2P items in the clause — via binding on 2P pronouns and via agreement on allocutive markers (
Examining honorific mismatches in Japanese, this paper argues that the insights of the two approaches are essentially on the right track. However, the syntactic approach does not generalize to all languages, and the pragmatic approach requires revisions relating to whether or not the meanings of 2P pronouns and allocutivity are comparable across all languages. A crucial premise of the syntactic binding based account is that pronouns are functional (and not lexical) items that can be bound. More specifically, it assumes that honorificity must be a feature of pronouns akin to phi-features such as person and number, and not descriptive content. We claim that this premise of the syntactic approach to mismatches is not universal since the morphosyntax of honorific pronouns varies across languages. Honorificity on Punjabi 2P pronouns is indeed a formal feature like other phi-features. Thus, honorific 2P pronouns in Punjabi are functional items that may be construed as bound variables, forcing matching between 2P pronouns and the allocutive marker in syntax. However, honorificity on Japanese pronouns corresponds to descriptive content, making them lexical items. Following existing literature (
Even if honorificity on pronouns and allocutive markers in Japanese is independent of each other in syntax, the following question remains to be answered: why are mismatches not banned by the pragmatic requirement for consistency? As we argue in Section 4, this is because the meanings of Japanese 2P pronouns and honorific allocutivity are not only distinct, as already advocated by McCready (
Allocutivity, also known as allocutive or addressee agreement, is a phenomenon where certain languages have distinct verbal morphology that encodes the addressee of the speech act (
(4)
a.
Pette-k
Peter-
lan
work
egin
do.
di-
3
‘Peter worked.’ (said to a male friend)
b.
Pette-k
Peter-
lan
work
egin
do.
di-
3
‘Peter worked.’ (said to a female friend)
All documented allocutive languages allow allocutivity to co-occur with 2P pronouns in the main clause (
Group 1 consists of allocutive languages which allow only non-agreeing 2P pronouns with allocutivity. Furthermore, no featural-mismatch is allowed between the 2P pronoun and the allocutive marker. Languages like Basque, Tamil, Magahi and Punjabi belong to Group 1. We illustrate with Punjabi.
Punjabi has two 2P pronouns
First, there is an agreement based restriction on the co-occurrence of a 2P pronoun and the allocutive marker in this language: when
(5)
a.
2
maa-nuu
mother-
bulaa
call
raye
{o/(*je)}
be.
‘You are calling mother.’
b.
Maa
mother.
2
bulaa
call
rayii
{e/je}
be.
‘Mother is calling you.’
Secondly, when the two addressee-oriented expressions (i.e., a 2P pronoun and an allocutive marker) co-occur, they are not allowed to mismatch. The 2P plural/honorific form
(6)
a.
Maa
mother.
{
2
bulaa
call
rayii
‘Mother is calling you.’
b.
Maa
mother.
{
2
bulaa
call
rayii
‘Mother is calling you.’
In contrast with Group 1, Group 2 allows allocutivity with all 2P arguments, regardless of agreement and (mis)matching features. Languages such as Korean and Japanese belong to Group 2. We illustrate with Japanese.
Japanese has an honorific form of the allocutive marker
(7)
a.
2
okaasan-o
mother-
yon-dei-
call-
‘You were calling (your) mother.’
b.
Okaasan-wa
mother-
2
yon-dei-
call-
‘(Your) mother was calling you.’
Moreover, Group 2 allows featural mismatches (in honorificity) between the allocutive marker and 2P pronouns. To show this, we first present the pronominal paradigm in Japanese.
Japanese: pronominal paradigm.
1 | |
2 | |
3 |
Japanese: honorific scale for 2P pronouns.
Keeping this in mind, we examine the (mis)matching examples in Japanese. First, consider the sentence in (8a).
(8)
a.
Kare-wa
he-
2
kore-o
this-
makase-
entrust-
‘He entrusted this to you.’
b.
Kare-wa
he-
2
kore-o
this-
makase-
entrust-
‘He entrusted this to you.’
As shown in (8a), an honorific 2P pronoun
What is interesting is that it is also possible to combine the honorific allocutive marker
(9)
a.
2
dare-to
who-with
siawasena
happy
akubi-o
yawn
si-
do-
‘With whom do you give a happy yawn?’ (Lyrics by Noriyuki Makihara)
b.
[Ore,
I
tuutyoo
passbook
mite-no
see-
toori
as
okane-no
money-
kanri
management
mattaku
never
deki-nai
can-
kara]
since
2
makase-
trust-
‘Since, as you can see from my passbook, I cannot ever manage my money, I will leave it up to you.’ (
c.
Hirot-ta
pick-
yatu-o
thing-
2
osie-
teach-
‘I showed you the thing I had found.’
Most interestingly, honorific allocutivity can also occur with
(10)
a.
2
wakar-anai
understand-
‘You do not understand (this).’
b.
2
kankee
relation
nai
absent
‘This has nothing to do with you, right?’
In this way, the honorific allocutive marker
To summarise the cross-linguistic landscape, in languages such as Punjabi, mismatches are completely ungrammatical. An honorific allocutive marker can only occur with an honorific 2P pronoun. By contrast, in languages such as Japanese, the honorific allocutive marker can co-occur with 2P pronouns of distinct honorific levels. This leads us to the following question: what allows varying (non-)honorific combinations of the allocutive marker and pronouns in Japanese but not in Punjabi?
In the spirit of the Performative Hypothesis, which situates information about the speech act and its participants (speaker, addressee) in the clause-periphery (
(11)
As shown in the representation in (11), the clause-periphery hosts a projection cP. The head of cP has a valued [status] feature, among other honorificity-related features. Following Baker (
A crucial premise of the above binding based account is that pronouns are functional (and not lexical) items that can be bound. More specifically, it assumes that honorificity must be a feature of pronouns akin to phi-features such as person and number, and not descriptive content. However, as we demonstrate in the rest of this section, this assumption is not correct. The morphosyntax of honorific pronouns varies across languages. While honorificity on Punjabi 2P pronouns is indeed a formal feature, it corresponds to descriptive content on Japanese pronouns. Thus, honorific 2P pronouns in Punjabi are functional items that may be construed as bound variables, but honorific pronouns in Japanese must be treated as lexical items. The syntactic explanation to banning mismatches between 2P pronouns and allocutive markers is therefore not universal — it can only apply to systems such as Punjabi but not to Japanese.
We start with Punjabi. Unlike the Japanese pronominal paradigm in
Punjabi: pronominal paradigm.
1 | maiN | asii |
2 | tuu (NH) | tusii (H) |
3 | o (NH) | o (H) |
As is also evident from the table, Punjabi re-uses its phi-forms as honorific forms, as is well-known for many Indo-European languages like French, German, Spanish among others. Thus, in addition to its use as a plural 2P pronoun which is insensitive to the (non-)honorificity of the addressee, the form
Akin to the pronominal paradigm, the agreement paradigm in Punjabi also re-uses the phi-agreement forms. Plural pronominal forms, when used for a plural referent, trigger corresponding plural agreement. This is shown for a 2P plural honorific referent in (12a). Notably, the plural pronoun triggers plural agreement on both the verb and the predicative adjective also when used for a singular honorific addressee. This is demonstrated in (12b).
(12)
a.
[Context: A student is appreciating her teachers. She says:]
2
(saare)
all
syaane
smart.
o.
be.
‘You (all) are smart.’
b.
[Context: A granddaughter is appreciating her grandfather. She says:]
2
(*saare)
(*all)
syaane
smart.
o.
be.
‘You (*all) are smart.’
Contrast with singular agreement, which obtains only with the singular form
(13)
2
syaanaa
smart.
ẽ.
be.
‘You are smart.’
The same pattern is maintained with the 3P plural form, which always triggers 3P plural agreement, even when used to refer to a singular honorific 3P, as shown in (14a). Singular agreement obtains only with the singular 3P pronoun, as in (14b).
(14)
a.
3
syaane
smart.
ne.
be.
‘They are smart.’ OR ‘(S)he (honorific) is smart.’
b.
3
syaanaa
smart.
e.
be.
‘He is smart.’
In summary, Punjabi only has a two-way distinction in honorificity available only for 2P and 3P. This is easily analyzable by positing positive and negative values of a feature such as [HON]. However, since there is no unique morphology separating the honorific feature from phi-features either in the pronominal or in the agreement make-up, it is worth asking if honorificity even constitutes a distinct feature in Punjabi or if it is purely a matter of interpretation that the plural forms can be interpreted as honorific. We argue that [HON] is a distinct formal feature in the language, where ‘formal’ is defined as follows:
(15)
A feature is formal if it is involved “[…] in inflectional paradigms, or trigger syntactic movement or agreement, or play some other demonstrably formal role” (
Evidence for a formal encoding of honorificity in Punjabi comes from syncretism in agreement in the feminine paradigm. In Punjabi, the copula only shows person and number inflection. The verbal form inflected for aspect shows gender and number inflection. We show the perfective verbal forms for the verb ‘go’ in
Punjabi: perfective verb forms for ‘go.’
singular | gayaa | gayii |
plural | gaye | gayiyaaN |
honorific singular | gaye | gaye |
As shown in
(16)
a.
Tuu
2
bajaar
market
gayii
go.
s
be.
‘You went to the market.’
b.
Tusii
2
bajaar
market
gayiyãã
go.
so.
be.
‘You all went to the market.’
c.
Massii-jii,
aunt-
tusii
2
bajaar
market
{gaye/*gayiyãã}
go.
so.
be.
‘Aunt, you went to the market.’
As expected, a singular non-honorific feminine subject triggers singular agreement as in (16a), and its plural counterpart, regardless of honorificity, triggers plural agreement, as in (16b). With a singular honorific feminine subject, we expect the feminine plural form
The same pattern is observed across differing aspectual forms of the verb, as well as with predicative adjective. We argue that an analysis of the above-mentioned syncretism between feminine singular honorific and masculine plural agreement necessitates an honorificity based feature in morpho-syntax. To see this, consider an account where morpho-syntax lacks an honorific feature. In such a scenario, the masculine paradigm can be derived in a straightforward way. Regardless of its (non-)honorific interpretation, a nominal specified as masculine plural in syntax triggers plural agreement. This generates the same agreement form across-the-board, regardless of whether it is interpreted as masculine plural honorific, masculine plural non-honorific or masculine singular honorific. In contrast, a noun specified as masculine singular in syntax triggers singular agreement.
(17)
a.
[m.sg]
b.
[m.pl]
However, the same analysis cannot explain the feminine paradigm. Consider (18), where a noun specified as feminine singular in syntax triggers singular agreement, which is correct. However, for a feminine noun specified as plural in syntax, the account only generates
(18)
a.
[f.sg]
b.
[f.pl]
We propose an alternative solution which employs a (non-)honorific feature in syntax. Two revisions are proposed: first, feminine is the marked gender feature with masculine being unmarked. Secondly, in addition to their phi-specifications, the nominal and agreement forms also bear honorific specifications via a [HON] feature. In Punjabi, it can have two possible values: + or –, where the former indicates that the addressee is honorific to the speaker, while the latter shows that he/she is not. Given these two modifications, consider the following rules of Vocabulary Insertion/VI for masculine agreement forms.
(19)
a.
[sg, -HON]
b.
[pl, +HON]
c.
[pl, –HON]
d.
[sg, +HON]
For the feminine agreement forms, the following VI rules apply.
(20)
a.
[f, sg, –HON]
b.
[f, pl, –HON]
For the [f, sg, +HON] bundle, we propose that the marked feminine feature is deleted in the presence of the [sg, +HON] bundle. This is shown via the impoverishment rule in (21). The only lexical item that can be inserted to realise the subsequent feature bundle is
(21)
*[FEM] on the same complex node as [sg, +HON]
(22)
[sg, +HON]
Thus, unless we assume that Punjabi has a distinct formal [HON] feature visible in morpho-syntax, the syncretism between feminine singular honorific agreement and masculine plural/honorific agreement cannot be explained. This feature can be positively or negatively specified, yielding a two-way honorificity distinction.
In contrast with Punjabi, pronouns constitute an open class in Japanese — there are numerous 2P forms that vary for honorificity, as we saw earlier in Section 2.2. In this section, we show that honorificity on pronouns in Japanese corresponds to descriptive content, in sharp contrast with the Punjabi system.
Recall from
To this end, we first try to identify one (or more) suitable honorificity-related feature(s). Distinct values of the honorific features should differentiate all forms of 2P pronouns. If this is not tenable, it would indicate that Japanese pronouns are lexical items — they consist of the person feature, and honorificity as descriptive content. As is evident, a feature like [HON] employed for honorific systems like Punjabi cannot be extended directly to Japanese. This is because [HON] is limited to two values (i.e., positive/negative), which yields only two distinct pronouns. Therefore, we adopt the [status] feature from Kim-Renaud & Pak (
Japanese: [status] in pronouns.
kisama | 2 | Sp>Adr |
temee | 2 | Sp>Adr |
omae | 2 | Sp>Adr |
anta | 2 | Sp>Adr |
kimi | 2 | Sp>Adr |
sotti | 2 | Sp>/=Adr |
sotira | 2 | Sp>/<Adr |
anata | 2 | Sp>Adr |
Thus, [status] alone does not suffice to demarcate the 2P forms from each other. Let us entertain the possibility of an additional feature [politeness], which, regardless of the [status] of the speaker, encodes his/her intent to be polite to the addressee. It has two possible values: [Politeness: +/–], where + encodes the intent of the speaker to show respect and – indicates the lack of this intent. Various combinations of [status] and [politeness] would yield 10 distinct possibilities of spell-out, which should be enough to accommodate 8 pronouns. However, even this does not suffice to demarcate the pronouns, as shown in
Japanese: [status] and [politeness] in pronouns.
kisama | 2 | Sp>Adr | – |
temee | 2 | Sp>Adr | – |
omae | 2 | Sp>Adr | – |
anta | 2 | Sp>Adr | – |
kimi | 2 | Sp>Adr | – |
sotti | 2 | Sp>/=Adr | +/– |
sotira | 2 | Sp>/<Adr | + |
anata | 2 | Sp>Adr | + |
We can keep trying this experiment with more honorificity-related features. However, it is worth noting that the meanings that can disambiguate 2P pronouns valued identically for [status] and [politeness] do not seem translatable into a non-descriptive feature at all. To illustrate, consider
Prima facie, this finding seems incompatible with the syntactic nature of object honorification/OH, which bears all characteristics of Agree. We make a small digression in the following subsection to show that the descriptive nature of honorificity on pronouns can be reconciled with OH.
Japanese has an OH construction, which is used when the object refers to a person who is respected by the speaker (
(23)
Object-honorific construction
a.
John-ga
John-
Akira-o
Akira-
sagasi-masi-ta.
look for-
‘John looked for Akira (non-honorific).’
b.
John-ga
John-
sensei-o
teacher-
look for.
‘John looked for the teacher (honorific).’
As shown by Ikawa (
In the presence of a speaker and a subject that honor the referent denoted by the object, there are several structural requirements that must be met for OH to obtain (
(24)
Complement-adjunct distinction
a.
Taroo-wa
Taroo-
anata-to
2
oaisi-ta.
meet.
‘Taroo met you.’
b.
Taroo-wa
Taroo-
anata-to
2
Hanako-o
Hanako-
{#otasukesi/tasuke}-ta.
help.
‘Taroo helped Hanako with you.’
In (24a), the verb
The second structural factor that OH is sensitive to pertains to the phase condition. OH in the matrix verb cannot associate with an honorific object argument in the embedded clause, as shown in the following example from Ikawa (
(25)
Phase condition
Taroo-wa
Taroo-
[
2
o-kirei
da-to]
{*
think.
‘Taroo thought (OH) [you were beautiful].’
Finally, object honorifics (OH) in Japanese are sensitive to intervention effects in ditransitives (
(26)
a.
Hanako-ga
Hanako-
gakkaikaizyoo-ni
conference room-
2
take.
‘Hanako took (OH) you to the conference room.’
b.
#Hanako-ga
Hanako-
doroboo-ni
thief-
2
introduce.
‘Hanako introduced (OH) you to the thief.’
We should note that the presence of an honorific argument in the IO position, with the DO being non-honorific can also generate OH. For instance, if
(27)
Hanako-ga
Hanako-
2
thief-
introduce.
‘Hanako introduced (OH) the thief to you.’
Given that the target of honorification is sensitive to several syntactic factors, it is reasonable to conclude that OH involves
To elaborate, following Ikawa & Yamada (
(28)
The feature on HON0 are interpretable, which allows them to survive the syntactic derivation. They are parts of the semantic representation of HON0, as shown below.
(29)
In summary, honorificity on Japanese pronouns is descriptive content, which is inactive in syntax. This finding is not at odds with the syntactic nature of OH if OH is treated as agreement in the index feature, in line with Ikawa (
So far, we have seen that honorificity in Punjabi pronouns is a formal feature on par with phi-features, while it is descriptive content in Japanese pronouns. Given the composition of Punjabi pronouns, which contain only formal features (person, number and honorificity), we propose that they are functional items. More specifically, we follow the analysis of Abney (
(30)
Punjabi
In contrast with Punjabi, honorificity on 2P pronouns in Japanese is treated as descriptive content. We follow Noguchi’s (
(31)
Japanese
The N-pronoun analysis for 2P pronouns in Japanese predicts nominal-like behavior of 2P pronouns in Japanese, which is borne out. First, some Japanese 2P pronouns clearly show an etymological relation with common nouns. For example,
(32)
a.
ano
that
kasikoi
smart
you
‘that smart you’
b.
ano
that
[atama-ga
head-
ii]
good
you
‘that you who is smart’
Thus, based on the formal v/s descriptive nature of honorificity on pronouns, 2P pronouns in Punjabi are DPs but those in Japanese are NPs. If our D versus N-pronoun analysis of Punjabi and Japanese pronouns is on the right track, we expect to see differences in their binding patterns. The functional (D/phi) versus lexical status of 3P pronouns has been tied to their binding ability in the literature (
(33)
Everyonei likes hisi father.
(34)
[Xwexwéyt]i
all
re
swet
who
xwis-t-0-és
like-
[newt7-s]i
re
qe7tse-si.
father-3.
‘Everyonei likes hisi father.’ (
(35)
*Daremoi-ga
everyone-
karei-no
he-
hahaoya-o
mother-
aisite-iru.
love-
‘Everyonei loves hisi mother.’ (
Since the 2P pronoun in Japanese is lexical, it should not be possible to construe these pronouns as bound variables. For Punjabi, the prediction is not so clear since being a functional item is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for an item to be construed as a variable. To see what a bound variable reading of 1P/2P pronouns looks like, consider the following illustration from English in (36) (
(36)
Only you did your homework.
Referential paraphrase: Nobody else did your homework. Bound variable paraphrase: Nobody else did their homework.
We observe that Japanese 2P pronouns cannot obtain a bound variable reading. As shown in (37), the possessive 2P pronoun can only receive a referential interpretation. To obtain a bound reading, the reflexive
(37)
a.
2
2
heya-ni
room-in
i-ru.
be-
‘Only you stay in your room.’ (
b.
2
self-
heya-ni
room-in
i-ru.
be-
‘Only you stay in your room.’ (
(38)
2
[
2
heya-ni
room-in
i-ru]
be-
yuitu-no
only-
ningen
man
da.
‘You are the only person who is in your room.’ (
In Punjabi, sentences such as ‘only you did your homework’ with a 2P possessive pronoun do not allow a bound reading; a reflexive is needed instead.
(39)
a.
?Sirf
only
tuu
2
teraa
2
kamm
work
kittaa
do.
e.
be.
‘Only you have done your work.’ (
b.
Sirf
only
tuu
2
apnaa
self
kamm
work
kittaa
do.
e.
be.
‘Only you have done your work.’ (
However, there are certain instances, where the bound construal of a 1P/2P pronoun is available. Consider the following example with a 1P plural pronoun, based on Rullman (
(40)
Saanuu
1
lagdaa
feel.
e
be.
ki
that
asii
1
syaane
smart
ãã.
be.
Referential reading: ‘Each of us feels that we (speaker and his/her associates) are smart.’
Bound variable reading: ‘Each of us feels that he/she is smart.’
To summarise, 2P pronouns in Punjabi are functional items that may participate in syntactic binding. This makes the syntactic approach a live possibility to explain the ban on honorific mismatches in the language.
However, the syntactic approach to banning mismatching honorificity (
If the difference in honorific mismatching were purely due to syntax, the contrast between Punjabi and Japanese would be easy to explain: in Punjabi, pronouns need to be syntactically bound by c, which also licenses allocutivity, making matching obligatory. In contrast, in Japanese, there is no syntactic binding of pronouns, allowing 2P pronouns to mismatch with honorific allocutivity.
However, this is not such a simple matter: it remains unexplained why the two distinct honorific meanings from a non-honorific 2P pronoun and an honorific allocutive marker in Japanese do not conflict in pragmatics. To see this problem better, consider the sentence in (41).
(41)
#I am 2 inches taller than my father, and I am also 2 inches shorter than my father.
This sentence is grammatical, but is infelicitous, because each clause delivers contradicting information. As an analogy, even if the mismatch in Japanese is syntactically allowed, we would predict that the mismatching sentence containing a non-honorific 2P pronoun and an honorific allocutive marker is filtered out post-syntactically. Nevertheless, a mismatch is allowed in Japanese. Why is this language so flexible?
In the formal semantics literature on honorificity, researchers have proposed a consistency rule to explain matching among honorific items in a clause (
(42)
Under this view, “high and low-level items cannot be used together, though combinations of high and mid-level items are possible, as are combinations of mid- and low-level items (ibid., 508).”
McCready (
To see the implementation of her system for Japanese, consider the following example:
(43)
2
1-
titioya
father
‘You are my father.’
For the at-issue meaning, we obtain the proposition that the addressee is the father of the speaker (
(44)
In the above example,
(45)
a.
#
2
tensai
genius
‘You are a genius (intended).’
b.
She explains: “the fact of a high register implies that the speaker should behave formally, given ordinary social obligations […]; this is not compatible with the content of [
If this is the case, why are the mismatching examples in (10) (repeated below in (46)) felicitous? This comparison is the subject matter of the next subsection.
(46)
a.
2
wakar-anai
understand-
‘You do not understand (this).’
b.
2
kankee
relation
nai
absent
‘This has nothing to do with you, right?’
In McCready’s work, the mismatch between a 2P pronoun and the allocutive marker is at the heart of a non-literal/sarcastic reading. Although the sarcastic interpretation is not detailed upon in her work, we entertain a possible sarcastic interpretation, naturally derived from her analysis. Consider the following example from English
(47)
Do you want to go to San Francisco? I think that it is a very ugly and boring place.
(shrugging) Okay, I’ll drive you to beautiful San Francisco tomorrow.
In the above example, the meaning contributed by ‘beautiful’ (which is arguably not-at-issue, ‘beautiful’ being non-restrictive here) is the opposite of that contributed by the use of ‘ugly’ in the first part of the speaker’s utterance. This makes the whole utterance inconsistent at the level of literal meaning. However, the use of ‘ugly’ clarifies that the speaker is using ‘beautiful’ sarcastically, not being committed to its truth (opting out from the Gricean Quality maxim). The sentence is thereby consistent under a sarcastic reading.
On a par, the use of
Although plausible at first, this line of reasoning is not correct. It predicts that in the case of a mismatch, the meaning of one of the honorific items (typically, the one positively specified for honorificity, i.e.,
(48)
Available sarcastic reading
(i)
You are not a genius. (the at-issue meaning)
(ii)
The speaker expresses a negative attitude towards the addressee, and the speaker is higher in social status than the addressee (<
(iii)
The speaker is polite. (<
This shows that a mismatching 2P pronoun and allocutive marker are in principle compatible under their sincere meanings in a clause. Instead, it is the presence of ‘genius’ which gives rise to sarcasm, potentially because it denotes the extreme end of a normatively-loaded scale, and is thereby a natural target for sarcasm. Sarcastic inversion applied to ‘genius’ like items contributes a value at the scale’s extreme other end (e.g.,
If we are on the right track and sarcasm is not due to the mismatching pronoun and allocutive marker, we make three predictions: (a) we should optionally obtain a literal reading for (45a) (
First, let us begin with a context where (45a) can be used literally.
(49)
Available literal reading
(i)
You are a genius. (the at-issue meaning)
(ii)
There is a negative attitude towards the addressee, and the speaker is higher in social status than the addressee (<
(iii)
the speaker is polite. (<
Secondly, a sarcastic reading also obtains with the predicate ‘genius’ in a sentence containing two expressions that match in honorificity, such as
(50)
2
tensai
genius
‘You are a genius.’
Finally, we show that replacing the evaluative predicate with a non-evaluative one in a mismatching sentence yields literal readings freely. Consider our examples in (51a), which contain a non-evaluative predicate such as ‘understand’, which is standardly not taken to evoke normative scales. The sentence in (51a) is a mismatching example, with
(51)
a.
2
watasi-no
1
kuroo-wa
struggle-
wakar-anai
understand-
‘You will never understand my struggles.’
b.
2
watasi-no
1
kuroo-wa
trouble-
wakar-anai
understand-
‘You will never understand my struggles.’
If the mismatch between
In summary, this section has shown that in structures with mismatching honorific items, sarcastic readings may seem prominent in the presence of evaluative predicates. However, literal readings are available too. In
Literal readings across (mis)matching structures with different predicates.
Honorific | Non-honorific | Non-evaluative | Y |
Honorific | Honorific | Non-evaluative | Y |
Honorific | Non-honorific | Evaluative | Y |
Honorific | Honorific | Evaluative | Y |
The obvious question that arises is as follows: what allows the sincere co-occurrence of the honorific allocutive marker with a non-honorific 2P pronoun in the pragmatic component of Japanese?
To explain the grammatical co-occurrence of
(52)
a.
The meanings of 2P pronouns and honorific allocutivity are distinct in Japanese.
b.
The meanings of 2P pronouns and honorific allocutivity are incomparable in Japanese.
The first bullet in (52a) is what is already assumed in McCready (
A natural question that needs to be answered is: how do
A speech act usually consists of two speech act participants: a speaker and an addressee. We label an addressee who the speaker is talking to directly at utterance time
First of all,
(53)
[Context: The speaker is walking alone asking himself what he will cook for dinner.]
Kyoo-wa
today-
nani-ni
what-
{sur-u/?*si-
do-
‘What will I cook today?’
However, the notion of the addressee expressed via
(54)
Can a teacher/president (someone with a higher social status) use the honorific form to a student/employee (someone with a lower social status) without intentionally violating the expectation in the society?
It has been observed for Korean in the literature that a superior sometimes uses an honorific marking to an inferior intentionally in order to make a certain conversational effect. For example, a mother may temporarily use an honorific allocutive marker to her son to praise his achievement (
(55)
[Context: in a lecture in an elementary school]
Dainizi
second
sekai
world
taisen-wa
war-
1945-nen-ni
1945-year-in
owari-
end-
‘The WWII ended in 1945.’
Even though the teacher is considered to have a socially higher status than the students, the sentence in (55) can be felicitously uttered without praising them; if anything, this is the unmarked speech style for teachers. Furthermore, the Emperor uses addressee-honorific markers when talking to the citizens. Thus, Japanese honorific allocutivity can be used both when the addressee has a higher or a lower social status. This can underlie two possibilities: (a) either
(56)
Can an honorific allocutive marker felicitously used in a flyer (i.e., in a situation where the writer (the speaker) cannot identify who the addressee is)?
It has previously been noted for languages such as Punjabi and Korean that they disallow (non-)honorific encoding allocutive markers in contexts that lack a specific addressee (see
(57)
a.
Garmii
summer
bimaariyãã-daa
diseases-
mausam
season
{e/#
be.
‘Summer is the season of diseases.’
b.
Natsu-wa
summer-
nettyusyo-no
heatstroke-
kisetsu
season
{da/
‘Summer is the season of heat stroke.’
These observations reveal the semantic and pragmatic profile of Japanese honorific allocutivity. First, it is assumed that there is an addressee, since allocutivity in Japanese cannot be used in a soliloquy. However, allocutivity in Japanese does not evaluate the characteristics of the addressee: it does not provide information on the hierarchical relation between the speaker and the addressee (the teacher-student test), and can be used in contexts that lack a specific addressee (the flyer test). We claim that
For non-native speakers of this language, this notion of ‘politeness’ might be hard to understand. As an analogy, an honorific allocutive marker is akin to ‘an individual’s (say X’s) choice to wear a suit.’ By wearing a suit, X can express his/her polite formal attitude to people seeing them, regardless of their own status or that of the people watching them. Of course, this is not obligatory, and X can wear a T-shirt. However, when wearing a suit, the audience would infer X’s intent to be polite/well-behaved. X can also take a picture of himself to make a poster, and he can wear a suit in that picture. It is not known who will see the poster at the time of taking the picture. But people seeing the picture receive the message of politeness on the basis of X’s decision to wear a suit, as opposed to him wearing a T-shirt, thus creating a well-behaved publicized-image of the wearer (i.e., X) (
In contrast with the allocutive markers, 2P pronouns in Japanese are lexical items that obligatorily provide information about the hierarchical relation between the speaker and the addressee. Therefore, they make reference to the Adr (and not just Adr*). Consider the use of
(58)
[Context: from a student to a teacher]
#Anata-wa
2P-
sensei
teacher
des-u.
‘You are a teacher (intended).’
Similarly, take a pronoun like
Thus, unlike
In summary, 2P pronouns and
The genuine mismatching examples are no longer a mystery. Let us revisit the mismatching examples, repeated here as (59):
(59)
a.
2
wakar-anai
understand-
‘You do not understand (this).’
b.
2
kankee
relation
nai
absent
‘This has nothing to do with you, right?’
First, the ‘honorific’ information on the pronoun
The mismatches can be derived in the following way: in line with McCready (
(60)
Since
This paper has examined honorific mismatches between the allocutive marker and a 2P pronoun within a clause across two unrelated languages, Punjabi and Japanese. Our two main contributions are as follows: first, we have argued that the syntactic approach to honorific licensing, and subsequently mismatches is not universal — it is a live possibility only in languages where honorificity is a formal feature on pronouns, as in Punjabi. Punjabi pronouns are functional items that can participate in syntactic binding to acquire their features from the same head (e.g., Adr0, c0) that licenses honorificity on the allocutive marker. This would force honorific matches in syntax. In a language such as Japanese where honorific information is encoded as descriptive content on pronouns, the syntactic approach to honorific mismatches does not apply. The lexical nature of 2P pronouns in Japanese prevents them from being construed as bound variables. Therefore, their honorific specification is syntactically independent of the honorific content on the allocutive marker, making room for mismatches. Our second contribution is to show that the honorific meaning of 2P pronouns and the allocutive marker in a language can be different, pace most pragmatic accounts, which assume uniformity of honorific meaning across different honorific expressions. Specifically, 2P pronouns and
There are many avenues for future work. The range of expressions treated in this paper can be extended. For instance, it would be very interesting to examine the various non-pronominal ways in which people can be addressed (nicknames, kinship terms, etc.) in Japanese, and whether honorific mismatches can obtain with such expressions and allocutive markers in a clause. Similarly, honorific meanings of other verbal expressions such as subject honorifics are an open issue since subject honorifics in Japanese, unlike
(61)
{
2
asita
tomorrow
daigaku-ni
university-
go.
ka?
‘Will you go to the university tomorrow?’
ACC = accusative, ALLOC = allocutive, CL = classifier, COP = copula, DAT = dative, DECL = declarative, DET = determiner, DOM = differential object marking, EMPH = emphatic, EPI = epistemic marker, ERG = ergative, F = feminine, GEN = genitive, H = honorific, M = masculine, MH = mid-honorific, MOOD = mood, NEG = negation, NH = non-honorific, NOM = nominative, NON_PST = non-past, OBJ = object, OBL = oblique, OH = object-honorific, PFV = perfective, PL = plural, Q = question particle, POSS = possessive, PRG = progressive, PRS = present, PST = past, Q = question, SFP = sentence-final particle, SG = singular, SH = subject-honorific, SUBJ = subject, TOP = topic, TRANS = transitivizer
The data, where not cited, comes from the authors’ native speaker judgments.
We should note here that honorific allocutivity (
In Japanese, proper names can also be used to refer to the addressee (an imposter use;
Source:
In the nominative/unmarked case, the 3P singular and plural pronominal forms are homophonous. However, the difference becomes evident in oblique cases. For example, an ergative 3P plural pronoun is realized as
A reviewer points out that for OH to obtain, the subject must be the speaker, or an entity that the speaker is associated with. Thus, (i) with OH on the verb is infelicitous unless the speaker belongs to the newspaper company.
(i) Asahi-sinbun-ga Asahi-newspaper- sensei-ni teacher- gorenrakusi-ta communicate. ‘Asahi Newspaper contacted the teacher (infelicitous unless the speaker belongs to the newspaper company).’
All native speakers that we consulted judged the example as felicitous, independently of the speaker’s relation to the newspaper. Thus, at least for a set of Japanese speakers, the subject and the speaker do not need to be related in some way for OH to obtain. As long as they honor the referent of the object NP independently, OH can obtain (unlike an addressee-honorific upgrader, as discussed in
We use a # in place of an * for the judgment. This is because of the beneficiary effect (aka.
A reviewer asks if the possibility of OH with PPs in Japanese is compatible with a syntactic account. We think that it is, due to the following reasons: first, the adpositional phrases which can control agreement are all instances of (argumental) ‘datives’ selected by the verb.
(i) Ngaju-rlu I- ka-rna-ngku nyuntu you nya-nyi. see- ‘I see you.’ (Hale 1983: 18)
A reviewer points out that an item that triggers object agreement does not always participate in intervention, using the sentences below. As shown in (ia), the object-honorific marking targets the
(i) a. watasi-wa I- [ teacher- house- visit. ‘I visited the teacher’s house.’
b. watasi-wa I- [watasi-no I- uti]-ni house-to teacher- invite. ‘I invited the teacher to my house.’
We show that the difference between (ib) and (26b) wrt intervention by the
(ii) a. Watasi-wa I- [sensee-no teacher- otaku]-ni house-ni three- ukagat-ta. visit. ‘(I) made a visit to three houses of the teacher.’
b. *Watasi-wa I- [watasi-no I- uti]-ni house-to sensei-o teacher- three- oyobisi-ta. invite. ‘I invited the teacher to three of my houses (intended).’
Thus, the
(iii) Taroo-ga Taro- gakusei-ni students- 2- nimotu-o package- okutta. sent ‘Taro sent two students a package.’ (Miyagawa 1989)
Based on the above discussion, it is clear that the distinct intervention behavior seen for the
As a notational practice, we use [
We leave a closer examination of the conditions under which bound construals of pronouns in Punjabi are possible, for future work.
The ban on mismatches in Punjabi can also be explained via pragmatics — if the 2P pronoun and the allocutive marker host the same [HON] feature, pragmatics would require all tokens of that feature to have the same value in a sentence, failing which, incompatible requirements would be placed on the context, leading to a ban on mismatches.
In McCready (
In her original analysis, she uses an addressee-honorific upgrader
We would like to thank a reviewer for this example.
For Japanese speakers who may find the sentence in (45a) degraded, it is possible to add a mood marker to make the sentence more natural, as given in (i). The addition of the mood marker has no consequence for our main claim since (i), like (45a), can have both a literal and a sarcastic reading.
(i) 2 hontoni really tensai genius nan ‘You are really a genius.’
If the speaker uses
The use of honorific allocutivity where it is not necessary (e.g., in a teacher-student conversation) enhances the publicized self-image of the speaker (
For example, one component references the Adr, and another references Adr*. We leave a closer examination of the honorificity-related discourse components for future work.
This research has been supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) grant ZE 1040/11-1 and the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (#22K00507).
We are very grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their critical remarks and insightful suggestions that helped improve the paper substantially. Thanks also to our audience at the 2021 LSA annual meeting and WCCFL 39 for their feedback. Last but not least, many thanks to the editors of this volume, Miok Pak, Paul Portner and Raffaella Zanuttini, for their comments and support. All errors are our own.
The authors have no competing interests to declare.