-まして form in Beginner lesson #152

[jmignot]

Hi, みなさん
I have one grammar question about Beginner Lesson 152 (I first posted it to the Comments section but nobody seemed to be listening…)

In the sentence:
ごめいわくをかけてしまいましてもうしわけございません。
what form exactly is しまいまして ?
It looks like a -て form constructed on the ます form of しまう。
Does such a form really exist? I do not remember seeing it introduced in previous lessons. The sentence sounds like very polite Japanese. But I thought the politeness level was marked only by the termination of the last verb in the sentence, not in the connective forms appearing before.

Could anybody clarify this point ?

Thanks for helping,

Jean-Michel

[Bueller_007]

ます is just a regular す-verb suffix with some す-verb conjugations. まして is its て form.

i.e., past tense:
落とす->落とした
食べます->食べました

te-form:
落とす->落として
食べます->食べまして

しまう->しまいます->しまいまして

[jmignot]

Thanks. This is what I imagined. But then, how about the nuance in using this form.
Is :
ごめいわくをかけてしまってもうしわけございません
also possible? Less polite ?

Jean-Michel

[Bueller_007]

Thanks. This is what I imagined. But then, how about the nuance in using this form.
Is :
ごめいわくをかけてしまってもうしわけございません
also possible? Less polite ?

Jean-Michel

Yes. Also possible. Less polite.

[jmignot]

ありがとうございます。