On the direction of もらう


When talking about verbs of giving/receiving, textbooks tent do talk about
only the relation between 1st person and the other persons (i.e. くれる 2/3→1,
あげる 1→2/3, もらう 1←2/3), and let learners generalize the rule to the other
cases.

According to my grammar book, when talking about receiving of a 3rd person
character from another 3rd person character, the speaker should regard one of
them as the 1st person and apply the rule of [もらう 1←2/3]. What I have
understood is, the speaker needs to take the more familiar one as the 1st
person and let the other the 3rd.

Then I am confused when I do a multiple choice from JLPT N1 (2012.7):

> 川村「石田さん、ギターがほしいって言っていましたね。わたしの弟が使っていたギターがあるんですが、よければどうですか。」  
>  石田「いいんですか。」  
>  川村「はい。弟に聞いたら、弾いてくれる方がいるなら、ぜひと言っていましたので、どうぞ **もらって** （やってください）。」

In this case, _I_ want to express the receiving of Ishida (2nd) from my
brother (3rd). The suffix やってください is alright to me, but how can Ishida _morau_
something from my brother, if my brother is more familiar to me than Ishida?
My grammar book says, if a reception doesn't affect the speaker at all, the
more neutral 受け取る should be used. Here if I don't consider やってください, when just
talking about the reception, is もらう grammatically/semantically legal (e.g. a
plain narration, あなたは私の弟からギターをもらった)?




> how can Ishida morau something from my brother, if my brother is more
> familiar to me than Ishida?

In this situation, the speaker is mentally closer to Ishida-san than to the
brother. And the speaker clearly knows Ishida-san would benefit from receiving
the guitar. So もらってやってください is perfectly natural in this context.
どうぞ受け取ってやってください is also correct, but it would sound slightly "detached".

> My grammar book says, if a reception doesn't affect the speaker at all, the
> more neutral 受け取る should be used.

I don't think this is true. You can use もらった from a pure third-person's
standpoint when you're sure that the recipient is benefited. For example, it's
perfectly fine to say 昨日知らない人が小学生に道案内をしてもらっているところを見かけた ("Yesterday, I saw a
stranger being given directions by an elementary school student").




> how can Ishida morau something from my brother, if my brother is more
> familiar to me than Ishida?

In this situation, the speaker is mentally closer to Ishida-san than to the
brother. And the speaker clearly knows Ishida-san would benefit from receiving
the guitar. So もらってやってください is perfectly natural in this context.
どうぞ受け取ってやってください is also correct, but it would sound slightly "detached".

> My grammar book says, if a reception doesn't affect the speaker at all, the
> more neutral 受け取る should be used.

I don't think this is true. You can use もらった from a pure third-person's
standpoint when you're sure that the recipient is benefited. For example, it's
perfectly fine to say 昨日知らない人が小学生に道案内をしてもらっているところを見かけた ("Yesterday, I saw a
stranger being given directions by an elementary school student").

