Japanese honorifics expressed by affixive methods in some literary works of Natsume Souseki

Abstract

The affix method is the main method to express honorifics in Japanese. Three famous literary works by the great Japanese writer Natsume Souseki used many Japanese honorifics. The honorifics used in these works demonstrated many typical features of Japanese honorifics in the early years of the twentieth century, a period of strong development of Japanese honorifics. The affix methods involves combining prefixes, suffixes or both prefixes and suffixes with real Japanese words such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs to denote respect, humility and polite language. Among the above-mentioned methods, the use of prefixes accounts for the highest proportion, which shows that prefixes play an important role in forming Japanese honorific forms.