Phrase Structure and Movement in Japanese

Japanese exhibits some unique features with respect to phrase structure and movement. It is well-known that its phrase structure is strictly head-final. It also provides ample evidence that a sentence may have more complex structure than its surface form suggests. Causative sentences are the best-known example of this. They appear to be simple sentences with verbs accompanying the causative suffix, -sase. But the causative suffix is an independent verb and takes a small clause vP complement in the syntactic representation. Japanese sentences can have a rich structure in the right periphery. For example, embedded clauses may contain up to three overt complementizers, corresponding to Finite (no), Interrogative (ka), and Report/Force (to). Matrix clauses may end in a sequence of discourse particles, such as wa, yo, and ne. Each of the complementizers and discourse particles has a selectional requirement of its own. More research is required to settle on the functional heads in the nominal structure. Among the controversial issues are whether D is present and whether Case markers should be analyzed as independent heads. Various kinds of movement operations are observed in the language. NP-movement to the subject position takes place in passive and unaccusative sentences, and clausal comparatives and clefts are derived by operator-movement. Scrambling is a unique movement operation that should be distinguished from both NP-movement and operator-movement. It does not establish operator-variable relations but is not subject to the locality requirements imposed on NP-movement. It cannot be PF-movement as it creates new binding possibilities. It is still debated whether head movement, for example, the movement of verb to tense, takes place in the language.

Attributive subcomparatives in Japanese

This paper aims to explain the difference in grammaticality between Japanese attributive subcomparatives with quantity adjectives (e.g., ooku/takusan ‘many’) and those with non-quantity adjectives (e.g., omosiroi ‘interesting’). My analysis assumes that Japanese clausal comparatives involve degree abstraction (Shimoyama 2012, see also Bhatt and Takahashi 2011). Degree abstraction is generally assumed to require movement of a null degree operator. In the case of attributive clausal comparatives, the movement takes place from the left branch position. If no operation that alleviates a left branch island violation is available, we would expect that the resulting sentences would be ungrammatical. I propose that in Japanese, quantifier float can play a role in ameliorating extraction out of the left branch islands. More specifically, I argue that (i) Japanese attributive subcomparatives with quantity adjectives involve quantifier float of the quantity adjectives, and that (ii) quantifier float carries the degree operators associated with the adjectives to a position where degree operator movement can originate.

Relative nominals and event nominals in Hiaki

In ‘Relative nominals and event nominals in Hiaki’, Harley discusses an interesting formal overlap between nominalizations which create relative-clause like structures and nominalizations which create event nominals in Hiaki (Yaqui). The nominalizer which usually derives a subject relative nominal, when applied to an argumentless predicate such as a weather verb or an impersonal passive, also derives an event nominal. Harley argues that this is because the event argument IS the ‘subject’ of an argumentless predicate, the only accessible argument for the nominalizer to reify. In the process of proposing a uniform semantics for the relative nominalizers and the event nominalizer, a detailed analysis of both is provided. The nominalizers are argued to select an AspP complement. In entity-referring relative nominals, null operator movement is involved; in the event-referring event nominals, no operator is needed or possible. The syntax and morphology of the relative nominalizers is worked out in detail, with particular attention to the genitive-marked subjects of object, oblique, and locative relative nominals. <163>

Inside the noun phrase and on the edge of the sentence

This chapter discusses the structure of the noun phrase, arguing that it is tightly parallel to the structure of the sentence, with C-movement within the extended nominal projection forming nP, followed by argument merge of locative and genitive arguments, then long spinal movement of nP across the arguments, into the left periphery. The focus then turns to the left edge of nominals, examining the determiner and case particles. It is argued that the proper-common feature is the only feature remaining from the Proto-Tongic determiner system, but that the D position remains in Niuean, housing occasional determiner or linkers, and hosting quantifiers or possessors in its specifier. Number, aspect, and nominalization are also explored. The second part of the chapter explores the tense, aspect, mood particles in the CP domain, arguing for three positions. The chapter concludes with a discussion of operator movement, arguing that there is no wh-movement in Niuean.

Exploring Merge: A new form of sideward movement

This paper explores Merge and proposes a new form of sideward movement (double sideward movement) carried out by a new application of External Merge. Double sideward movement occurs in the following way: given a syntactic object S containing XP and YP, Merge applies to XP and YP, and creates {XP, YP} outside S, thus causing XP and YP to undergo sideward movement at the same time. It is argued that multiple clefts (cleft sentences with multiple phrases in the focus position) in Japanese are derived by double sideward movement of the multiple focus phrases and that this derivation is responsible for certain surprising properties of Japanese multiple clefts, some well known and others newly discovered, including the lack of island effects and the presence and absence of clausemate effects. Other consequences are discussed for the nature of operator movement and scrambling as well as for restrictions on the application of Merge.

Origins of verb-second in Old High German

This chapter investigates the characteristics of the left sentence periphery in Old High German. In the earlier OHG prose texts we still find some archaic characteristics of a non- or pre-verb-second grammar. These include residual and partly productive features of a non-conflated C-domain arguably inherited from Proto-Germanic or even Proto-Indo-European. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that the precursor of the so-called prefield position already existed in OHG and that it was already a target for both operator movement and Stylistic Fronting. All these phenomena shed interesting light on the question of which syntactic steps the language had to take in order consolidate its verb-second grammar.