けっこんしていらっしゃいますか or けっこんなさっていますか

Question

I was doing an exercise in which you are supposed to change questions into honorific expressions (Genki II second ed, pg. 175 Ex. C.9.) when I stumbled upon a question which had an answer that seems contrary to the way grammar was explained previously:

• More precisely, けっこんしていますか was changed to けっこんしていらっしゃいますか.

However, according to the grammar section of the book (as well as A Dictionary Of Basic Japanese Grammar):

"honorific verbs generally take priority over ていらっしゃいます".

I was wondering why in this situation the honorific verb なさる doesn't take priority (giving けっこんなさっていますか as an answer). What's more, if you were to type both answers into google.co.jp, the ていらっしゃいます version has 200 000 hits to 5000 of けっこんなさっていますか.

Answer 1

“結婚していますか” is a forthright expression for asking whether someone is married or not. This is alright when you say “彼（彼女）は結婚していますか,” refering to the third party, but it’s impolite and blunt if you asked “あなたは結婚していますか” in face to the person whom you are not so familiar with.

The formal way of asking of “Are you married” will be either “(あなたは)結婚されていますか?” or ”結婚なさっていらっしゃいますか？” Both “…されて” and “….なさって” are honorific verbs, and I don’t find any difference of meaning and degree in the spectrum of politeness between ”結婚されていますか?” and ”結婚なさっていらっしゃいますか？, though the reduplication of the formal expression of the latter (なさって + いらっしゃる) sounds a bit redundant to me.

Answer 2

結婚していらっしゃいますか。
結婚なさっていますか。

Both sound alright to me. I think you can also say

結婚されていますか。

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honorific verbs generally take priority over ていらっしゃいます".
I was wondering why in this situation the honorific verb なさる doesn't take priority

I think by "honorific verbs" they are referring to verbs such as 召し上がる, おっしゃる, ご覧になる, ご存じだ, おいでになる, お休みになる, etc. So, for example:

食べています。 -> 召し上がっています。
言っています。 -> おっしゃっています。
見ています。 -> ご覧になっています。
知っています。 -> ご存知です。

take priority over

食べていらっしゃいます。
言っていらっしゃいます。
見ていらっしゃいます。
知っていらっしゃいます。