Abstract
This paper discusses syntactic regulation of possible word orders of Japanese honorific predicate constituents based on a version of recent phrase structure grammar formalism. First, it is shown that possible word orders of non-“te”-form honorific auxiliary verbs (like “o…ni naru”, “o…suru” and “…masu”) can be automatically derived from their subcategorization information. Then, by syntactically distinguishing the two usages (i. e. indirect and direct) of the “te”-form benefactive auxiliary verb “…te morau” in accordance with the non-uniform theory of Japanese passives, it is explained how the possibility of its postpositioning to a respect-word is restricted. The subcategoriza tion description of two other classes of benefactive auxiliary verbs (“…te yaru” and “…te kureru”) is also given. This reflects the syntactic similarities of, and differences between, “…te yaru”&“…te kureru”, and non-“te”-form condescending-word auxiliary verbs. Finally, it is briefly shown that our approach also explains possible word orders of Japanese propositionallevel auxiliary verbs in general.
