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According to Tofugu 〜となっております means "it is a rule that" I know that となる means to become with the nuance of finality and てある is for resulting actions "in preparation for something".

The grammar of this does not thus add up for me:

お支払いは現金のみとなっております

It's our rule that we only accept cash for the payment of the bill

Cause if it were literally: :"It is becoming of only cash for the bill". Then= Wouldnt おる be humble (謙譲語) form of いる where one would refer to themselves

Can someone pls explain the grammar and with a literal translation ?

Japanese Learner
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    You wrote て[あ]{L}る is for resulting actions "in preparation for something", but are asking about ～て[お]{L}る. – istrasci Apr 13 '21 at 15:35

2 Answers2

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What you mention at first is correct, however, none of it really applies here (~てある also isn't equivalent to what's seen here since ~ておる = ~ている but I digress).

"お支払いは現金のみとなっております" is just equal to "お支払いは現金のみです." Why is this? Well, "となっております" is really just a business/part-time job form (or バイト／マニュアル敬語 as it's called in Japanese) of "です;" in fact, looking up the Wikipedia article for "manual keigo" shows this exact form.

Manual keigo is, depending on who you ask, a slightly skewed version of keigo mostly used in part-time jobs where certain expressions are used to "sound" polite despite not really being fully accepted keigo.

Now then, the keigo: おる is 謙譲語 however it is not regular 謙譲語 (i.e. 謙譲語１) but 謙譲語２ (or 丁重語). 謙譲語２ is, for all intents and purposes, just an even more polite/formal version of 丁寧語, which is also why you never use the verbs associated with it in plain form, always ます-form.

(If you want to go deeper into all things keigo, I highly recommend this YouTube playlist by a native Japanese speaker who explains all the different forms and usage cases of keigo.)

So, for a full breakdown of the sentence:

  • お支払い – payment
  • は – topic particle
  • 現金 – cash
  • となっております – is/copula

This then gives us the translation "we only accept payments in cash." Breaking the sentence down further than this isn't really necessary since it follows manual keigo basically to a tee as I see it.

As you can probably tell, I'm not really sure I agree with the translation Tofugu gave for this sentence. Why they translated it like they did I have no clue, but, if I'd hazard a guess, I'd assume it's to get across the "formality" of the keigo in the sentence in their translation. Though, for actually understanding the sentence, their translation really doesn't help much in my opinion.

suppeppo
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    you never use the verbs associated with it in plain form, always ます-form What about なっており on this page? That is a ます-form of course, but without ます itself. Doesn't that contradict your statement? – yk7 Mar 08 '24 at 02:35
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    @yk7 Well, yes and no. The verb おる has more uses than just its 謙譲語２ form of いる. If you are using it in 謙譲語２ you would not want to use it in its plain form, but when it comes to a form like なっており, then that's just literary/formal form of なっていって. This is also evident in the fact that this example comes from a Japanese Wikipedia article, since those are written in である form.

    I think Wiktionary summarizes the use of おる outside of 敬語 pretty well: 「その場に存在している。「いる」の西日本的な言い方。未然形「おら」と連用形「おり」は現代共通語でも用いられるが（後述）、それ以外の語形は、古風あるいは尊大といった印象を伴って主に小説・映画・漫画等の創作作品で用いられる。」

     – suppeppo Mar 15 '24 at 05:34
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    Your estimation of my Japanese is on the edge between what I can and can't understand. Which is probably not bad. Anyways, it supposedly means that おる is a western Japan way of saying "to exist (いる)." Its irrealis and conjunctive forms are used in standard Japanese. Other than that it sounds old-fashioned or arrogant, and mainly used in works of art. A more detailed analysis is here. – yk7 Mar 15 '24 at 10:21
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お支払いは現金のみとなっております == お支払いは現金のみです

It is just a polite (business, 謙譲語) form

rzlvmp
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