On the “Long-Distance” Nature of the Polite Form of Japanese Locative Demonstratives
Mioko Miyama (University of Tokyo)
Introduction
One way employed in Japanese to express honorification/politeness is honorific expressions, which
use the honorific prefix (HP) o-/go-:(1) Sensei-nogo-kazoku-ga soto-deo-mati-desu/o-mati-da/mat-tei-masu/mat-teiru.
Professor-Gen HP-family-Nom outside-at HP-wait-Polite/HP-wait-is/wait-is-Polite/wait-is‘The family of the professor is waiting outside.’
In (1) the honorific expression sensei-no go-kazoku shows that the professor is respected (cf. Sakai &Ivana (2009)). Honorific expressions are grammatical regardless of whether the verb in the sentence
has honorification/politeness or not.
In contrast to honorific expressions, the polite forms of the locative demonstratives, namely,
kotira/sotira/atira/dotira ‘here/there/there/where’ clearly interact with the honorification/politeness ofthe sentence. The aim of this presentation is to provide an analysis for their distribution. Building on
the proposal of Miyagawa (2012) about the agreement involved in sentences with desu/masu, I proposethat the items agree with the same element with which the polite items desu/masu agree.
The Polite Form of the Locative Demonstratives
The examples in (2) show that locative kotira ‘here’ can appear where the verb has a honorificprefix, the polite items desu/masu, or both (examples with kotira ‘here’ represent
kotira/sotira/atira/dotira ‘here/there/there/where’; other items behave in the same way.)(2) a. Yamada-sensei-wa kotira-ni o-sumai-desi-ta/o-sumai-dat-ta/sum-dei-masi-ta.
Y-professor-Top
here-at HP-live-Polite-past/HP-live-is-past/live-is-Polite-past‘Professor Yamada was living here.’b. * Hanako-wa kotira-ni
sum-dei-ta yo.
H-Tophere-at
live-is-past Excl
‘Hanako was living here/there.’cf.
Hanako-wa kotira-oerandayo
H-Top
this-Acc chose
Exclamative‘Hanako chose this one.’
Be careful not to confuse locative kotira ‘here’ with partitive kotira ‘this one,’ which allows the verb to
be in the plain form.
In embedded clauses, using locative kotira ‘here’ is grammatical if the embedded verb is in thehonorific form (3a), while it is not when only the matrix verb is in the honorific form (3b) (cf. theacceptability of the plain locative item koko ‘here’ in (3b).)(3) a. Taro-wa [Yamada-sensei-ga
kotira-ni o-sumai
kadooka] tazune-ta.
T-Top
Y-professor-Nom
here-atHP-livewhether ask-past‘Taro asked whether Professor Yamada is living here.’b. Yamada-sensei-wa [Taro-ga koko/*kotira-ni sum-deiru kadooka] o-tazune-ni-nat-ta.
Y-professor-Top T-Nom here/here-at
live-iswhether HP-ask-Dat-become-Past‘Professor Yamada asked whether Taro is living here.’
Kotira ‘here’ is also allowed in embedded clauses if the matrix verb is in the polite form
accompanying desu/masu, as in (4). The plain locative item koko ‘here’ does not have this differencein grammaticality.

(4)Taro-wa [Hanako-ga
kotira-ni
sum-deiru kadooka] tazune-{*ta/masi-ta}.
T-Top
H-Nom
here-atlive-iswhether ask-past/Polite-past‘Taro asked whether Hanako is living here.’cf. Taro-wa [Hanako-ga
koko -ni sum-deiru kadooka] tazune-{ta/masi-ta}.
T-Top
H-Nom
here-atlive-iswhether ask-past/Polite-past‘Taro asked whether Hanako is living here.’
The behavior of kotira ‘here’ suggests that it can be licensed in a long-distance manner by the polite
items desu/masu in the matrix clause, since kotira ‘here’ can appear in sentences with desu/masu onlyin the matrix clause (4). This contrasts with the ungrammaticality of kotira ‘here’ with only the matrix
verb in the honorific form in (3b), which is in line with previous researches that honorific agreement isstrictly local (cf. Sakai & Ivana (2009)).
Analysis
According to Miyagawa (2012), the polite forms desu/masu are instantiations of allocutiveagreement, in which an appropriate agreement marker is realized depending on the hearer. He
proposes the following structure for the C domain of sentences containing desu/masu:(5)
S(peech)A(ct)PSPEAKER
Agreements(peech)a(ct)PSA

HEARER
CPsa

TPCALLOCUTIVE PROBE
C hosts the probe of allocutive agreement and this probe raises to ‘Speech Act’ head via ‘speech act’ head.
Here, the probe agrees with the goal HEARER.
Taking into account the “long-distance” nature of desu/masu licensing, I claim thatkotira/sotira/atira/dotira ‘here/there/there/where’ undergo long-distance agreement with an item inSpeech Act P of (5) in the matrix clause, required by the existence of desu/masu. Specifically, I argue fora simultaneous agreement between the probe and the two goals: HEARER in the matrix Speech Act P andkotira/sotira/atira/dotira ‘here/there/there/where’ in the embedded clause.
This simultaneous long-distance agreement also explains the behavior of desu/masu in complement
clauses of negaw ‘hope’ observed by Uchibori (2008) (which, according to Uchibori (2008), issimultaneous long-distance licensing of desu/masu in embedded clauses and those in matrix clauses bysome modal head in the matrix clause.) The polite items desu/masu in embedded clauses are grammaticalwith occurrences of the matrix polite desu/masu, not the matrix honorific verb:(6) Oohisama-wa[ame-gahuri-masu-yoo(ni)]negai-masi-ta / ??/?* negaw-are-ta.
queen-Toprain-Nomfall-Polite-C
hope-Polite-past / hope-Honorific-past‘The queen hoped that it would rain.’
References: [1] Miyagawa, Shigeru (2012) “Agreements That Occur Mainly in the Main Clause,” Main
Clause Phenomena: New Horizons, ed. by Lobke Aelbrecht et al., 79-111, John Benjamins. [2] Sakai,
Hiromu and Adrian Ivana (2009) “Rethinking Functional Parametrization: A View from Honorification inthe Nominal Domain in Japanese,” EL 26, 437-459. [3] Uchibori, Asako (2008) “A Short Note onJapanese Politeness Verb -des/mas in Embedded Contexts,” Scientific Approaches to Language 7,103-122.