17655
In a novel I'm reading (「キッチン」 by 吉本{よしもと}ばなな), there's this situation where
the door opens and a woman enters the room asking for the main character by
name. The main character, being surprised and not knowing the woman, asks her
who she is:

> 失礼ですが、どちら様 **でした** か？

My question is: why the past form of です is used in 「どちら様でしたか？」? Those two
people are standing there talking to each other, so why the past form? Would
it be possible to ask 「どちら様ですか？」?
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2014-07-03T23:31:27.730
17649
2014-09-21T23:34:50.263
2014-09-21T23:34:50.263
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question
grammar copula
「どちら様でしたか？」 - why past form?
When you have never met someone (or have no way of knowing the person, e.g. on
the phone), どちら様ですか is how to enquire for someone's name/identity. When the
circumstances/your memory suggest that you have met before, but you simply
don't recall who they are, どちら様でしたか is more natural.

(Note that, by extension, you can also use どちら様でしたか in the first case by
defaulting to the situation that you simply didn't remember any encounter,
assuming a fault in your memory. Putting yourself (and your family) down is
considered polite in many other situations. どちら様でしたか also less direct (it's
referring to a possibly hypothetical past event) than どちら様ですか and thus can be
considered more polite.)

Here, どちら様でしたか "Excuse me, but who were you again?" is slightly more polite
than どちら様ですか "Excuse me, but who are you?", because it allows for the main
character to simply not remember the previous encounter.

This is especially true since the circumstances seem to suggest that the main
character met the woman before, since she seems confident enough to call him
by his name (rather than asking すみませんが、X様ですか).

Asking どちら様ですか is more direct and might be (mis)understood to be carrying the
nuance of "I definitely don't know you" suggesting that the woman is rude by
not introducing herself first.

In a word, the main character is handling the situation in the most courteous
manner possible.
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2014-07-04T00:04:53.970
17650
2014-07-04T12:27:55.783
2014-07-04T12:27:55.783
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17649
answer
It's used for politeness. Here's what Martin writes in his 1975 _Reference
Grammar of Japanese_ , p.603:

> **Sometimes the perfect is used more for politeness than for time
> reference** : あなたはどなたでした = お名前は何とおっしゃいましたか 'What did you say your name was?'
> ( **when the person has actually not yet said** ); 判子をお持ちでしたね 'You have your
> chop (= signature-seal) with you, I presume'.

Note that Martin refers to the 〜た form as the "perfect" rather than "past
tense" form. This usage of た with present time reference is usually only in
questions, as noted by Hasegawa in her paper [_Tense-Aspect Controversy
Revisited: the -ta and -ru forms in
Japanese_](http://hasegawa.berkeley.edu/Papers/Hasegawa99.pdf) (1999), which
was pointed out by Tim in the comments section.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-04T04:06:21.993
17655
2014-07-04T04:06:21.993
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answer