[Lexicog] Digest Number 193 (Honorifics)

[Patrick Chew]

At 04:57 PM 9/6/2004, "Benjamin J  Barrett" <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In Korean, post-positions have honorific forms (ek'e I think is the
>subject particle corresponding to i/ga) as well. In contrast to the dual
>da/desu system in Japanese, I have read that Korean has six constrasts
>from ni for infants to imnida for very polite situations.

         Korean has:
         -an honorific (nominal) suffix -nim (seonsaeng-nim 'teacher'-HON;
puch'yeo-nim 'Buddha'-HON; hyeong-nim 'older brother'-HON; and
morph-conflated forms like abeonim 'father'-HON < abeoji, eomeonim
'mother'-HON < eomeoni, etc.),
         -has an honorific verbal suffix -shi (po-shi- 'see'-HON, ka-shi
'go'-HON, etc.),
         -has various suppletive honorific verb forms (plain/honorific:
meok-/chapsushi- 'eat', cha-/chumushi- 'sleep', manna-/poep- 'meet', etc.),
         -has various pragmatic honorific distinctions:
(plain/honorific~humble) mal/malsseum 'speech', nai/yeonse 'age', sal/se
'age (in years)', pap/shiksa 'meal'; muos i- [lit: "what is..."]/otteohke
toe- [lit.: "how does it become..."] 'what is (your name/age/etc.)', etc.
(a large portion of this registral distinction is marked by use of native
Korean versus Sino-Korean, akin to the use of Latinate/Greek/Norman forms
in English),
         -has various pronominal forms for honorofic/humble distinctions
(vulgar/informal/formal: --/na/cheo 1p; ni/neo/tangshin (or other referent)
2p; etc.), and, of course,
         -has various levels of speech discourse verbal morphology
-pan-mal, used amongst friends, intimates, and chondae-mal
'formal/respectful' speech... so far as I can tell, the middle 'polite form
doesn't have a distinct name in common currency since it seems to be the
default.

         For the various levels of verbal inflection, off the top off my
head I can think of the following (where the honorific -shi- can be used, I
have included it; use is roughly noted, since I would want to double-check
what others've detailed the levels' uses as... if others would be so kind
as to add emendations, it would be appreciated):

ha- 'do'
         ha-ni                   (rough; used for infants and very  very
close friends)

         ha-e                    (rough; polite ending -yo omitted)
                 ha-s-e
         ha-o                    (rough? used most often by older men to
those younger)
                 ha-shi-o

         ha-n-da         (polite, informal)
                 ha-shi-n-da
         ha-e yo         (polite, formal)
                 ha-s-e yo

         ha-mnida                (polite, honorific/extremely formal)
                 ha-shi-mnida

cheers,
-Patrick
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