The Korean language has a system of honorifics that recognizes and reflects the hierarchical social status of participants with respect to the subject and/or the object and/or the audience. Speakers use honorifics to indicate their social relationship with the addressee and/or subject of the conversation, concerning their age, social status, gender, degree of intimacy, and speech act situation. One basic rule of Korean honorifics is ‘making oneself lower’; the speaker can use honorific forms and also use humble forms to make themselves lower. The honorific system is reflected in honorific particles, verbs with special honorific forms or honorific markers and special honorific forms of nouns that includes terms of address. Honorific particles in an honorific sentence The Korean language can index deference or respect toward a sentence referent in subject or dative position through the application of lexical choices such as honorific particles. There is no honorific expression for inanimate '에(-e)'. The honorific version of '에게(-ege)' is '께(-kke)'. For example, while -선생님- (-seonsaengnim-) ‘teacher’ is neutral and -선생님이- (-seonsaengnimi-) denotes the role of the noun as the subject of the sentence, -선생님께서- (-seonsaengnimkkeseo-) still means ‘teacher’, but it indicates that the sentence in which it occurs is an honorific sentence and the speaker is treating the subject, -선생님- (-seonsaengnim-), courteously. Honorific pronouns and nouns In the Korean language, the honorific form of first person pronouns are humble forms, which speakers use to refer to themselves with humble pronouns and humble verb forms to make themself lower. Korean second person pronouns do not appear in honorific conversation and professional titles and kinship terms are used instead, a phenomenon known as pronoun avoidance. The most common terms of address are kinship terms, which are divided into plain and honorific levels. The honorific suffix -님 (-nim) is affixed to many kinship terms to make them honorific. Thus, someone may address his own grandmother as 할머니 (halmeoni) but refer to someone else's grandmother as 할머님 (halmeonim). Unlike the Japanese language, which allows a title to be used alone for addressing people when an honorific expression is required (e.g., 先生 (sensei) teacher, 社長 (shacho) company president, 教授 (kyojyu) professor), Korean does not allow lone titles for addressing people. It is impolite to address someone as 사장 (sajang) president, 교수 (gyosu) professor, etc. without a suffix such as the honorific suffix -님 (-nim) except when addressing social equals or those lower in status. Addressee honorification '상대