I know that languages, in general, can denote honorifics, especially with second person pronouns (T/V distinction, etc), and I imagine that the Japanese system of honorifics is probably an extension of that into other persons with more granularity. However, did the Japanese system evolve a thousand years ago? Two thousand? Are the honorifics derived from nouns or verbs or some other class of words?
asked Jun 21, 2020 at 14:43
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1The system of Javanese politeness registers is even more complex than Japanese (but then of course Java is even more crowded than Japan).– jlawlerCommented Jun 22, 2020 at 2:21
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2Stating that Japanese has pronouns is already a controversial statement.– MichaelyusCommented Jun 25, 2020 at 11:49
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1 Answer
As a partial answer, this dissertation by K. Russell reconstructs verbal morphology of proto-Japonic. Certain morphemes are reconstructed (ch. 4) at the level of proto-Japonic, but others are only reconstructed at a later level such as Old Japanese. The honorific morphemes -as-, -imas-, -tamap- is reconstructed to OJ. No honorific morphemes are reconstructed to proto-Japonic, although Ryukyuan languages have honorifics.
