Page 462 - Basic Japanese
P. 462
polite speech it is inflected only for the imperfect -masu, the
perfect -mashita, and the tentative -mashō. But in honorific
speech, -masu is inflected for all categories except the
infinitive. These polite forms are used at the end of
sentence fragments, and also in the middle of sentences
instead of the usual plain forms, to make the entire
expression a bit more honorific:
Soko e irasshaimashite… You go there and…
Soko e irasshaimashitara… If you go there …
Please go there.
Soko e
irasshite
kudasaimase.
Here are the inflections of the polite verb -masu:
Imperfect: -masu
Tentative: -mashō
Infinitive: --
Provisional: -maseba
Imperative: -mase
Perfect: -mashita

