Questions about 敬語

[chryuop]

My wife got me for Christmas few Japanese books and one of them is a book that is only about 敬語.
In one of the exercises it says to get rid of one of the 3 choices:
＜部下が上司に＞
鳥田部長はご兄弟が｛おりますか・おありですか・いら っしゃいますか｝
For sure it is good いらっしゃいますか. I would get rid of おりますか being that a humble solution. Even though I had never seen before the other 敬語 expression with です and assuming it is actually honorific, it uses ある and not いる for a living person???
<大勢の前で説明する＞
。。。後ろの方で見にくい方がいらっしゃいましたら、 前の方へ｛いらっしゃい・おいでください｝。
Even here I would get rid of the humble, but the verb いらっしゃい used like that seems...I don't know, naked? Doesn't look like a suggestion or a request, not even a command.
Last thing. In one of the exercises it asks to write down the humble and honorific of special verbs. It puts in it also the verb 尋ねる, but I have never heard of any...I thought the 敬語 forms were the usual お尋ねになる and お尋ねする.
Thank you.

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by chryuop

My wife got me for Christmas few Japanese books and one of them is a book that is only about 敬語.
In one of the exercises it says to get rid of one of the 3 choices:
＜部下が上司に＞
鳥田部長はご兄弟が｛おりますか・おありですか・いら っしゃいますか｝
For sure it is good いらっしゃいますか. I would get rid of おりますか being that a humble solution. Even though I had never seen before the other 敬語 expression with です and assuming it is actually honorific, it uses ある and not いる for a living person???
<大勢の前で説明する＞
。。。後ろの方で見にくい方がいらっしゃいましたら、 前の方へ｛いらっしゃい・おいでください｝。
Even here I would get rid of the humble, but the verb いらっしゃい used like that seems...I don't know, naked? Doesn't look like a suggestion or a request, not even a command.
Last thing. In one of the exercises it asks to write down the humble and honorific of special verbs. It puts in it also the verb 尋ねる, but I have never heard of any...I thought the 敬語 forms were the usual お尋ねになる and お尋ねする.
Thank you.

Only おりますか would be inappropriate for the first question. You wouldn't say that to anyone, let alone to your boss.

ある is pefectly correct to use there in the polite form. You must be thinking about 人がいる vs.　花がある, correct? This excercize is different in that one discusses who are in his family, not who are in the room or car. When talking about who you have as family members, you can use ある.　

The important thing is that in that sentence, ご兄弟is not the suject of the sentence. The suject is 　鳥田部長. This ある means "to own", not "to exist". That is the difference. In the phrase 公園に人が３人いる, 人 is the subject; therefore, you cannnot use ある.

I'm not clear on what the next question is. What are the three choices? I only see two. And where is this "humble" you talk about?

Not too sure of the last question but one can say the following:

尋ねる：
謙譲　＝　うかがう、お尋ねする
尊敬　＝　お尋ねになる、尋ねられる

[chryuop]

Thank you very much. Yes you are right, I was thinking about the verb of existence. Now I know there is actually a difference between the 2.

Forget the second one, when I read your reply I kinda slapped myself LOL, I had confused おいで with まいる...I guess I really need to use more the 敬語 if I do make this errors My question was due to the fact that いらっしゃい was used with that form which doesn't look like a request or an order. Like saying 読み or 飲み to tell someone please read or please drink...a form I had never seen before.

As per the third question, there was a list of verbs and asked the 謙譲 and 尊敬 of those verbs. They are all the special verbs as in the ones that have a different form (見る、行く、食べる、知る and so on). The last one was 尋ねる so I thought it had a different way to make it humble/honorific. It might be that they wanted as reply うかがう (which I didn't know).