Abstract
The form -teya is used as a subject honorific expression in the dialects spoken in the western area of Toyama Prefecture (Gosei area). There are morphological and semantic differences between -teya used in the southern part of Gosei, e.g., Inami area of Nanto City, and that used in downtown of Takaoka City located in the northern part of Gosei. Semantically, -teya (Inami) denotes the continuous aspect, and -teya (Takaoka) does not. Morphologically, -teya (Inami) can be analyzed as a combination of -te and a kind of auxiliary form -ya, based on the facts that it has the negative form te(n)-nai and its accentual pattern resembles -te-V constructions as -te-yaru and -te-aru. -Teya (Takaoka), on the other hand, should be regarded as a suffix as a whole because the corresponding negative form is V-ndeya (V-NEG-teya) and its accentual pattern is the same as the te-form and to-form of the verbs. Although -teya/-tezya used in Kamigata and Chugoku dialects is analyzed as a combination of -te and copula -ya/-zya, this analysis cannot be applied to -teya in Inami and Takaoka. The Gokayama dialect spoken in the far southern area of Gosei has the subject honorific form -te-yaru, which was derived from *-te-aru (aru: existential verb) and denotes continuous aspect. This suggests the historical change *-te-aru > -te-yaru (Gokayama: continuous) > -te-ya (Inami: continuous) > -teya (Takaoka: non-continuous).
