Abstract
Expressions of “prefix 0+main verb+auxiliary verb” and “prefix GO+main verb+auxiliary verb” are important verbal-honorific expressions in the Japanese language. It has been pointed out in past linguistic researches that the difference between the two types of expressions is that the main verb after “O” is a Japanese word and the one after “GO” is a Chinese word. However, there have hardly been any quantitative researches made on the differences of the two expressions so far. In this study, quantitative analyses were performed to reveal differences in the im-pressions of politeness between these two types of expressions by using Scheffe's paired comparison method and statistical tests. Results suggest that in regard to difference in politeness from a plain form, “prefix GO+verb of Chinese word+aux-iliary verb, ” is smaller than “prefix O+verb of Japanese word+auxiliary verb.” It is suggested that these results are due to the difference between these expressions as to the recognition of honorific expressions.
