15762
The Imperial Palace gardens were opened to the public recently to celebrate
the Emperor's 80th birthday. Can someone confirm the use of the passive voice
in the following sentence on the subject in context of using the passive form
to show respect and addressing the Emperor？（see note below).

> この特別公開は、天皇陛下が昨年１２月２３日に８０歳の傘寿を迎えられた記念として実施されたもの。

Or, in other words, is the passive voice used here to show respect to the
Emperor and aren't people supposed to use more elevated language to refer to
his activities, or at least お迎えになる which I think is more honorific than the
passive?

Note: example of normal use of 迎える：20歳の誕生日を迎える＝celebrate one's twentieth
birthday
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2014-05-05T09:34:59.957
15755
2014-05-05T14:05:07.700
2014-05-05T09:45:14.567
1556
question
grammar politeness
The use of passive voice to describe the Emperor's activities
First, 「迎えられた」 here is purely honorific, not passive voice. The two forms just
happen to be written the same way and only the context will tell you which one
it is being used for.

So, why is a seemingly rather simple honorific form like「迎えられた」 being used
when it is talking about the Emperor?

As I implied in my comment above, the reason is that this sentence's main
topic (and also its grammatical subject) is 「この[特別公開]{とくべつこうかい} = "this
special opening (of the Palace facilities)"」, not 「[天皇陛下]{てんのうへいか} = "the
Emperor"」.

Had this been a sentence announcing that the Emperor had his 80th birthday
(let us say, yesterday), using "the Emperor" as its grammatical subject, it
would have used a more elevated honorific verb form and have read something
like this:

> 「天皇陛下は[昨日]{さくじつ}８０[歳]{さい}の[傘寿]{さんじゅ}をお[迎]{むか}えになられました。」

Note: Deep down, I am hesitant in calling the original writing a "sentence"
because it ends in a noun -- 「もの」 instead of a verb but I called it a sentence
for the sake of smooth conversation.
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2014-05-05T14:05:07.700
15762
2014-05-05T14:05:07.700
15755
answer