Exactly whose feelings does てしまう express?


When Vてしまう is used to express that an action is regrettable or undesirable,
does it express the opinion of the speaker or the listener? Put another way,
when one says Vてしまう, are they expressing that _they_ feel that V undesirable,
or that they are under the impression that their listener will find V
undesirable?

For example, would it be appropriate for a man to say to his wife (who he
knows does not care for her weight at all),「そんなに食べたら、太っちゃうよ！」if he thinks
weight is unsightly? He can't be looking out for his wife's feelings, because
he knows that she can't care less about getting fat.

On the other hand, would it be appropriate for a man who is wholly accepting
to say 「そんなに食べたら、太っちゃうよ！」 to a wife who has once stated a negative opinion
regarding gaining weight? In that case, he wouldn't be saying it out of
selfish regard, but for hers.




I'm posting this as an answer only because it might be an edge case in "answer
vs comment." (I'm prone to think it's not an answer, because the answer isn't
largely about Japanese but it's potentially debatable and downvotable as an
explanation if I'm wrong).

The しまう construction expresses the speaker's judgment with respect to the
outcome of the verb before しまう. Whether those are "feelings" seems debatable
to me and whether that judgment is shared by the listeners would seem to
depend wholly on the speech utterance.

I argue this based on the following truism:

> Things people say reflect things the people who say them think.

Apart from coerced speech, some really strong empathy, and communicating with
children who need all references rearranged to them, what you say is always
you.

So then it's pretty clear it is the judgment of the speaker.

* * *

The listener's judgments, however, are incidental to the use of ~しまう because

  1. the speaker does not necessarily know these appraisals when they use the construction.
  2. the speaker can use it in contexts that expect agreement, are indifferent to agreement, or even that expect the listener to take it as insulting.

