Phrases of politeness

[Luke Kundl Pinette]

Hello all,
I'm curious as to whether there's been any research done on systematics 
of standard terms of politeness, in the same was as for color or 
evidentiality.

Most materials for learning languages seem to assume that each language 
has distinct terms for hello, goodbye, good 
morning/afternoon/evening/night, please, thank you, I'm sorry, and 
excuse me/pardon.  This make things interesting in cases like Korean, 
which uses one greeting for all times of the day but distinguishes 
formality, or Hawaiian, which uses the same term for "hello" and 
"goodbye."  (My Arabic teacher also claimed that "you're welcome" and 
"sorry" are the same term in Modern Standard Arabic, though every Arabic 
speaker I've met claims this isn't the case in their variety of spoken 
Arabic.)

On the other hand, it seems reasonable to assume that some languages 
might have more such distinctions.  I have a few examples, but I don't 
speak more than a few phrases of any of these languages, and haven't had 
the opportunity to interrogate native speakers.

  *   I've been told by English speakers of Korean that there are two
    forms of "goodbye" depending on whether the speaker is staying or
    going going "anyeongikaseo" and "anyeongikeseo." (I forget which is
    which.)
  * I think that the Japanese term "sumimasen" which can mean "thank
    you" or "I'm sorry" might roughly correspond to "thanks, and I'm
    sorry for the trouble," as opposed to "gomen nasai" (sorry) or
    "arigatoo" (thanks), but the one Japanese speaker I asked told me
    it's just a three-way distinction an English speaker won't be able
    to make.
  * Wikitravel claims that Georgian has four forms of pardon/excuse
    me/sorry, which appear to making distinctions not present in
    English, though I won't even try to speculate on the exact glosses.
    /uk'atsravad/ (excuse me: pay attention), /map'atiye (excuse
    me/pardon)/ /bodishi, (//excuse me/pardon/sorry), //vts'ukhvar/ (sorry)


So I guess my questions are:
1. Can anybody confirm, deny, or correct the above examples?
2. Does anybody know other such additional distinctions in other languages?
3. Does anyone know if there's been research into the systematics of 
politeness.  (E.g. A language that distinguishes "sorry" and "excuse me" 
will also distinguish "hello" and "goodbye" or somesuch.)

Thanks and regards (and a happy early New Year's),
Luke