2

こんなちなみを ・・ ・・
ユルしてはいただけませんの？

I'm playing Ace Attorney 3 (逆転裁判３), and there's a girl in the dock (ちなみ) giving evidence. She's just been found to be lying about something and is asking for forgiveness.

I've seen the pattern ～ていただけませんか as a humble request, but why has she put a は after the て?

MisterM2402
  • 471
  • 3
  • 9
  • possible duplicate of [Why is the topic marker often used in negative statements (ではない, ～とは思わない)?](http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1077/why-is-the-topic-marker-often-used-in-negative-statements-%e3%81%a7%e3%81%af%e3%81%aa%e3%81%84-%ef%bd%9e%e3%81%a8%e3%81%af%e6%80%9d%e3%82%8f%e3%81%aa%e3%81%84) – dainichi Jul 28 '14 at 23:36
  • 1
    @dainichi I notice in [BCCWJ](http://www.kotonoha.gr.jp/shonagon/) that てはいただけませんか has only 3 results, but ていただけませんか (without は) has 317. It doesn't seem like は *is* often used here, so I was trying to figure out what it might add to the sentence. –  Jul 29 '14 at 01:48
  • @snailboat, good find and good point. I've retracted my close vote, but will leave the comment, since I believe it's related and relevant. – dainichi Jul 29 '14 at 04:39
  • @dainichi Oh, sorry, I didn't see that question before creating this one. I searched for「ては」and「てはいただけません」, but didn't think to search for は with negatives in general. It's sometimes difficult to know what to search for. Thanks for the link. – MisterM2402 Jul 29 '14 at 11:03
  • I think this question should be left open, not closed as a duplicate, since there's doubt as to whether it's completely explained by the other answer (several of us have chosen not to close as duplicate). –  Jul 29 '14 at 15:40

1 Answers1

3

When you see a 「は」 in the following structures, it emphasizes the preceding verb, adjective or noun.

"[連用形]{れんようけい} (conjunctive form) or the て-form of a verb + 「は」"

"連用形 of an adjective + 「は」"

"Noun + 「で」 + 「は」"

「ユルして + は + いただけませんの？」 fits the first pattern above and in the phrase, the speaker is subtly adding emphasis to her petition for mercy. Without the 「は」, she could sound pretty arrogant. She could sound like she takes it for granted that she will be forgiven. 　

Community
  • 1
  • 1
    Are you sure it's emphasising the -preceding- verb? It sounds to me like it's emphasising the -following- verb (いただく) by -de--emphasising the preceding verb. Am I wrong to think about it this way? – Sjiveru Jul 29 '14 at 03:51
  • @Sjiveru: Perhaps you're thinking about the difference between は and が when it comes to emphasis, as in 今日は休みだ　vs. 今日が休みだ, are you? I think the important phrase in the above answer is "in the following structures" which are then listed, and all of which have て or で occurring just before the は. In other words, different rules are at work here. – chigusa Jul 29 '14 at 05:47
  • 1
    @Sjiveru, one of my pet peeves is how I feel "emphasis" is used as a catch-all to explain away many things in language. What does it mean to "emphasize" ユルして? Forgive very strongly? Forgive completely? Forgive in contrast with some other action? The meaning of emphasizing いただけません seems even vaguer to me, since it's used as an auxiliary verb here. – dainichi Jul 29 '14 at 06:29
  • @Sjiveru I think you're right to make the point. Although the point of dainichi is good, too. What happens in the example is that いただけませんの is focused by defocusing ユルして. In my understanding of the (extremely limited) context, that would indeed make the final verb, in particular its very modest form, the focus. – Thomas Gross Jul 29 '14 at 06:36
  • 1
    @dainichi Can we emphasize auxiliaries? - Yes, we CAN! – Thomas Gross Jul 29 '14 at 06:37
  • @dainichi Interesting point of view. I do agree with how the notion of emphasis fails in regard to いただけませんの。However, in general I think "emphasis" is adequate because it corresponds so many times with the actual strengthening of the voice when saying a sentence, e.g. "ForGIVE me!" as opposed to the flat "Forgive me," in which case the meaning is clear from the context: forgive me completely ("Forgive very strongly" you say? No such concept exists, does it?), forgive me rather than condemning me. In other words, "emphasis" is adequate as a concept, and I think you might be splitting hairs. – chigusa Jul 29 '14 at 06:41
  • @ThomasGross, heh, good one, point taken. But in this case, what would emphasizing いただけません mean? Can you not forgive ME? – dainichi Jul 29 '14 at 14:42
  • @chigusa, if emphasis=strengthening-of-voice, then I'm having a hard time seeing what the above はs have to do with emphasis, since for example I can say both 面白くは**ない** or **面白く**はない. One obvious reading of the above はs is contrastive-は. The problem with the OP example, though, is that it doesn't seem contrastive (although we do not have full context), so it's a bit more subtle than that. – dainichi Jul 29 '14 at 14:50
  • 1
    @dainichi I think you're quite right about the vagueness of 'emphasise'. I think Thomas Gross is right to put it in terms of topic/focus, where ゆるして is the topic because the speaker is kind of assuming the listeners know she'll be asking for forgiveness, and いただけません is the focus because she's trying to draw attention to how humbly she's asking. – Sjiveru Jul 29 '14 at 15:15
  • 2
    @dainichi The issue here concerns _Information Structure_. In some languages that is expressed syntactically (topic-fronting, etc.), or morphologically (by having focal affixes), or phonologically (prominence, etc.). Many languages combine these instruments. The point is always to distinguish between old or presupposed information and new information. The latter is in the focus. Focusing いただけませんの then means marking this word as highly relevant in communicative and informative terms. What that may mean in a concrete situation, must be resolved by the context, i.e. pragmatically. – Thomas Gross Jul 29 '14 at 15:40
  • @ThomasGross, I find topic-focus analysis a bit more hairy for contrastive-は sentences, but ignoring those here, I agree with your analysis. I was going to mention that while 許して頂けません？ is not really a question, but a request "please forgive", 許しては頂けませんの？ is a real negative question, expecting a possibly negative answer. は likes negative environments. While I can read 許しては頂けませんの？ with a non-contrastive は, I can only read 許しては頂けますの？as a contrastive は. – dainichi Jul 29 '14 at 16:13
  • @dainichi I agree 100%. – Thomas Gross Jul 29 '14 at 16:39