Grammaticalization in the System of Japanese Predicate Honorifics

Description

Recent studies (e.g. Heine et al. 1991, Hopper and Traugott 1993, and Bybee et al. 1994) have recognized synchronic and diachronic correlates of grammaticalization at various levels of language structure. This dissertation applies principles and methods of the study of grammaticalization to the lexico-grammatical system of Japanese predicate honorifics. In addition to shedding light on the synchronic organization of that system and its diachronic development, the present study contributes a framework that defines grammatical status according to an originally formulated gradient distinction between referential and nonreferential function.When applied separately to deictic and nondeictic components of honorific meaning, the referential-nonreferential distinction yields four honorific categories, all of which are instantiated in Modern Japanese. The categories are found to have properties that are recognized to correlate with differing degrees of grammatical status. This approach thus provides a consistent organizing principle for the taxonomies of Japanese honorifics by Tuzimura (1967), Ooisi (1983), and others. The present study further uses prototype semantic theory (cf. Coleman and Kay 1981) to develop original analyses of the deictic meaning structures of Japanese predicate honorifics. The analyses are shown to capture the canonical patterns of use of honorifics in Modern Japanese.Through a comprehensive investigation of empirical data from the recorded history of Japanese, the dissertation analyzes patterns of semantic-pragmatic development in the acquisition of honorific status and changes of honorific function by Japanese predicate honorifics. Paths of change are found to lead unidirectionally toward increasingly grammaticalized status along two clines. In one, honorific lexical items become derivational formulas for marking honorification on other lexical items. Another cline leads humiliative lexical items to polite (addressee honorific) function and from that status to nonreferential function as honorific discourse markers. The present study then investigates the diachronic grammaticalization of the verb suffix-masu. Major semantic-pragmatic processes of change are revealed to include semantic generalization, subjectification, semanticization of pragmatic associations, and the acquisition of new nonreferential functions as well as the loss of referential meaning.