The Syntax of 'Subjects'

Linguists who work on the Japanese language have disagreed about the notion of subject with respect to Japanese; many linguists argue that there is no formal syntactic position for the subject in Japanese. Tateishi does deeper research on the surface syntax of the subject, and looks in particular at the syntax of the subject and phenomena which have been treated as S-adjunctions. These two have been identified with each other on many occasions in the history of Japanese linguistics and are of interest with respect to the debate over configurationality in the language, which has been revived in different forms following the emergence of the VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis, the merits of which Tateishi discusses at length.

Tateishi's main claim is that despite all the non-configurational characteristics found in the language, Japanese is in a sense more configurational than the so-called configurational languages. Japanese allows more types of hierarchies to be involved in the subject-predicate relation than English allows, as Japanese does not have the same kind of restrictions on the phrase structure as the configurational languages have.

Koichi Tateishi is a professor of linguistics at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.

Preface

1 Introduction

1.1 The Purpose of the Book
1.2 Japanese Phrase Structure and Subjects
1.3 S-Adjunctions
1.4 ‘Non-Configurationality’ and Theories of Parameters
1.5 Theoretical Assumptions
1.4 The Organization of the Book
Appendix: LF WH-Movement and QR

2 Strong SPEC(IP) Subject Hypothesis

2.1 Strong SPEC(IP)-Subject Hypothesis
2.2 Multiple Subject Construction
2.3 Major Subject and Pure Topic
2.4 Apparent Problem on Naze Questions in the Pure Topic Construction
2.5 Conclusion

3 Strong SPEC(VP) Subject Hypothesis

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Soo Suru
3.3 VP-Movement
3.4 Conclusion

4 Weak SPEC(VP) Subject Hypothesis and SPEC(AGRP) Subject Hypothesis

4.1 Introduction
4.2 Unaccusative and NP-Trace
4.3 Kitagawa's ECP Argument for the VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis
4.4 Conclusion: SPEC(AgrP) Subject Hypothesis
Appendix: A Side Issue on Passives in Japanese

5 The Syntax of Topics

5.1 Where Are We Now?
5.2 Major Subject and Pure Topic
5.3 What Is YP?
5.4 Topic Effects
5.5 Conditional Topic
5.6 Conclusion
Appendix: Conditional Topic and Q-Marked Topic

5 Does -WA in Syntax?

6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Syntax of the -Wa Phrase in the Ordinary Context
6.3 The Syntax Category of -Wa
6.4 Remarks on the Meaning -Wa
6.5 Conclusion
Appendix: CP-wa and the Topic/Contrast Distinction

7 The Genetive Raising Construction

7.1 Introduction
7.2 Genetive Raising Construction
7.3 Scrambling of the Subject
7.4 Analysis of the Multiple Subject Construction
7.5 Scrambling and Reconstruction: DP-Scrambling vs. VP-Scrambling
7.6 The Previous Theories

7.6.1 ‘S-Adjunction’ Analysis
7.6.2 Tateishi (1988)

7.7 Note on the ‘Subjectivization’ from Locative
7.8 Conclusion
Appendix: Reconstruction from Scrambling of CP

8 Conclusion

Bibliography

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ISBN (Paperback): 1881526453 (9781881526452)
ISBN (Cloth): 1881526461 (9781881526469)

The Syntax of ‘Subjects’

Contents