Japanese wh-phrases as operators with unspecified quantificational force

Japanese wh-expressions appear in various kinds of operator-variable structures, including wh-questions and sentences with universal and existential quantification. The nature of the operator-variable relation is determined by an associated particle, such as the question marker ka or the universal particle mo. Given this, it has been widely assumed since Kuroda (1965) that the wh-expressions are to be interpreted as variables bound by those quantificational particles. This paper argues against this prevailing view by proposing that these wh-expressions are operators with unspecified quantificational force. Building on an insight by Nishigauchi (1990), I argue that they must covertly move to positions that allow them to probe particles and to acquire specific quantificational forces from them. I demonstrate that this analysis captures the main properties of Japanese wh-expressions as well as the differences between them and their Chinese counterparts. Huang (1982) proposed a covert movement analysis for argument wh-phrases in Chinese, which was extended to Japanese, for example, in Lasnik & Saito (1984) and Richards (2001). But Tsai (1999) has convincingly shown that they are subject to unselective binding and are interpreted in situ as variables. If the analysis for Japanese in this paper is correct, it shows that Huang’s approach can be – and should be – maintained for wh-phrases in Japanese with some refinements.

A feature-checking analysis of Japanese scrambling

This paper explains several unique aspects of scrambling. Using the scrambling feature (Σ-feature) proposed by Grewendorf & Sabel (1999), I discuss (a) what derives the difference between A-scrambling and DP-movement, (b) why scrambling shows radical reconstruction properties, while an operator–variable relation is established in wh-questions, and (c) why we find several types of scrambling. I propose a Feature Interpretation Principle, which states that a feature checking relationship established in derivation is preserved at LF. I show that the Feature Interpretation Principle, together with the multiple feature-checking parameter of Ura (1996) and the nature of heads, explains most of the unique properties of scrambling.

Yes/no questions and the relation between tense and polarity in English and Finnish

It is argued that the structure of the sentence in English as well as Finnish is C [Pol [T...]], where Pol(arity) has negative or affirmative value. Yes/no questions are derived, universally, by movement of a wh-marked Pol to C, deriving an operator-variable relation between C and Pol. No category with interpretable features can intervene between C and Pol, as it would block the crucial relation between C and Pol. It is argued, with reference to Finnish, that we do not need to assume any head with uninterpretable features such as AgrS between C and Pol, either. For English, the theory is based on Zwicky & Pullum’s 1983 arguments that the negation -n’t in English is an inflection, combined with the analysis of inflected words as derived by head movement and incorporation of a lexical head in the inflectional head.