Abstract
This paper quantitatively examines the alternation between the two negative addressee-honorific constructions in contemporary Japanese; -mas-en (the prescriptive form) and nai desu (the new form). Based on the interpretation of the best statistical model, this paper makes two novel observations. First, presence of the epistemic suffix -yoo is the strongest in effect size, favoring the new form. Second, although previous studies hypothesized that stative predicates (e.g., wakar- ‘understand’ and deki- ‘ can’) are prototypes for the new form (Noda 2004; Kawaguchi 2014), they do not show a systematic, strong preference when important fixed effects are all controlled. Instead, this paper identifies the prototypes for each construction by looking at the estimated value of the random effect, revealing that -tai ‘ want’ is a prototype of the nai desu form and nega-e- ‘ can wish’ is a prototype of the -mas-en form.
