Re: Distal / polite

Ben Bullock wrote:
> No one on Wikipedia seems to know this, so I'll try asking here.
>
> This is related to a new (recently merged) page on Wikipedia:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics
>
> I am trying to fix up a rather messy merge of two pages. One of the
> pages (the old Japanese honorifics) I had already done a lot of work on
> when I found another, similar page written in the same style as the
> Japanese grammar page,
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_grammar.
>
> Although it is a "featured page" on Wikipedia, meaning it is supposed to
> be exceptionally well written or something, I'm not much of a fan of the
> Japanese grammar page. In my view it is rather robotic and doesn't seem
> to be written with a lot of insight or intuition into the language. It
> is more like a maths text or something. Anyway, the page "Politeness and
> respect (Japanese language)" was merged into that one by someone else,
> but I'm concerned about a few points. The main thing which bothers me is
> the "distal" thing on that page. I don't want to just delete something
> without any discussion, but I'm not sure "distal" is a very meaningful
> category. It seems to be just an artifact introduced to separate "de
> gozaimasu" from "desu" to me. Before I start trying to edit that page,
> I'd like to ask opinions from others. Attempts to edit the page would
> also be very welcome of course, since it is Wikipedia.
>
> yorosiku onegai simasu (or "yorosiku bouya" as we say in my house.)

"Distal" is a fairly well-used term. I may have learned it from a
Jorden textbook; I'm no longer sure. To my surprise, the word is
referenced only once, in "distal deictic (-a)," in the index in Martin
(RGoJ). But it has come in my mind to be essentially a name for the
desumasutai, as opposed to the "intimate" datai. I can't be sure at the
moment that I haven't somewhat redefined it in terms easy for myself to
understand. It seems an appropriate term for a form of language
designed to keep people at a distance.

I was much more bothered by "Verbs may be substituted by more polite
ones." I can't get used to the idea that one verb can substitute
another verb, and even if it could, what would it substitute that other
verb *for*?

There were a number of things I would quibble about in the article, but
nothing I'd be willing to edit. I was surprised by the statements that
はっ is informal for "yes" and formal is しかり. I think I'd have put
しかり in the "you've got to be kidding" row, and moved はっ to formal.
(Of course, the equation with "yes" of any of these is only a rough
estimate, and quibblable as well.)

In the main grammar section I was liking the discussion of 文節 until he
spoiled it with "a more basic concept of word (単語 tango) forms the
atoms of sentences." Not atoms, *particles* like electrons and neutrons
which go together to make up the atoms (words) which go together to make
up the molecules (sentences). Might as well call the "s" in "dogs" or
the "ly" in "quickly" "words."

So far I have been afraid to look at the section on the "copula."

Bart
.