Differentiating honorific passive and potential conjugations of 出る


Given the following sentence structure, I am wondering how one differentiates
the usage of 出る in the following.

> 明日のパーティーに出られますか？

The usage of the partial に and the られる suggests a honorific passive
conjugation _Will you attend tomorrow's party?_ , but by the same token, I
suppose it could be the potential _Are you able to attend tomorrow's party?_

Also, how would this change if it was simply:

> 明日のパーティーに出ますか？




This probably isn't the answer you were looking for, but: it has to be
differentiated using context (via. the subject of the sentence, as well as
circumstance).

While this is probably pretty obvious, to break it out a little:

  * If you say 「（太郎さん、）明日のパーティーに出られますか？」 to your coworker 太郎, it is pretty unambiguously the potential.
  * If you say 「（先生、）明日のパーティーに出られますか？」 to your teacher, it is ambiguous.

This type of ambiguity is quite often resolved by context though (as one might
expect):

> 「太郎はパーティーに出るけど、次郎先生はどうかな。」  
>  「次郎先生もパーティーに出られる。」
>
> 「明日のパーティ、誰が出ますか？」  
>  「次郎先生が出られます。」

A point here is that, in the cases it is ambiguous, it is often not ambiguous
in a way that particularly matters:

  * "No I can't" logically implies "no I won't"
  * "Yes I will" logically implies "yes I can"
  * "Yes I can" usually suggests "yes I will" unless specifically stated otherwise
  * "No I won't" is probably the hardest response to deal with if you were asking about capability, and in this case you would probably just ask for clarification.




This probably isn't the answer you were looking for, but: it has to be
differentiated using context (via. the subject of the sentence, as well as
circumstance).

While this is probably pretty obvious, to break it out a little:

  * If you say 「（太郎さん、）明日のパーティーに出られますか？」 to your coworker 太郎, it is pretty unambiguously the potential.
  * If you say 「（先生、）明日のパーティーに出られますか？」 to your teacher, it is ambiguous.

This type of ambiguity is quite often resolved by context though (as one might
expect):

> 「太郎はパーティーに出るけど、次郎先生はどうかな。」  
>  「次郎先生もパーティーに出られる。」
>
> 「明日のパーティ、誰が出ますか？」  
>  「次郎先生が出られます。」

A point here is that, in the cases it is ambiguous, it is often not ambiguous
in a way that particularly matters:

  * "No I can't" logically implies "no I won't"
  * "Yes I will" logically implies "yes I can"
  * "Yes I can" usually suggests "yes I will" unless specifically stated otherwise
  * "No I won't" is probably the hardest response to deal with if you were asking about capability, and in this case you would probably just ask for clarification.

