Definition
An addressee honorific is an honorific in a system in which a level of status of the addressee relative to the speaker is expressed through a choice made among linguistic alternants, irrespective of whether the alternants refer to the addressee.
Examples
(Javanese)
In Javanese, the following alternants all mean ‘house’:
- omah
- grija
- dalem
Each form in the list successively expresses a higher status of the person spoken to.
Sources 3
- Geertz 1960, 248
- Levinson 1983, 90
- Comrie 1976a