CAUSATIVE ALTERNATION IN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE: A CLOSER LOOK

Advances in the theory of the lexicon, 2006

On peut classifier les prédicats complexes japonais du type "Nom Verbal + suru ('faire') (i) comme unités lexicalisées ou bien comme comme constructions syntaxiques, et (ii) comme mots composés activés à un niveau morphologique ou bien syntaxique. Les prédicats-suru se présentent sous deux formes: NV-suru et NV-o suru (-o étant une marque d'accusatif). L'examen d'une série de paramètres permet de conclure que comme degré de lexicalisation les deux constructions occupent une même position intermédiaire entre les mots composés et les structures syntaxiques. En même temps, les construction NV-suru sont plus proches des mots composés activés morphologiquement, les constructions NV-o suru des mots composés originés de la syntaxe. MOTS-CLÉS - Japonais, verbe support, lexicalisation, mots composés, formation de mots composés.

Periphrasis poses a serious challenge to morphological and syntactic theory. The mor-phosyntactic properties a periphrastic form encodes are not necessarily equal to composition of those of its individual members, and their internal syntax is not always reduced to a simple head-complement relation. This paper illustrates that seemingly straightforward verb clusters involving lexical, auxiliary, and copula verbs in Japanese in fact exhibit both mono-clausal and bi-clausal properties in syntax. Further, a close inspection shows that one specific type of periphrasis realising the past, negative, polite features is employed because of the absence of a corresponding synthetic form. We show how those diverse patterns of periphrasis can be captured in the projection architecture of Lexical Functional Grammar. In essence, the morphological dependency relations are encoded in morphosyntactic structure, while syntactic clausality is encoded in functional structure. The interaction of those structures is constrained by feature specifications of individual members of periphrasis. The analysis also adopts a newly developed morphological component in the framework where a lexical entry is defined in terms of a set of relations, and we argue that the paradigmatic nature of periphrasis found in one type of the periphrasis can be formulated in this component.

Open Linguistics, 2019

Drawing on the layered verb phrase hypothesis, the unexpected adversity imposed on the subject of causative-passives in Japanese will be explained by the loci of-sase and-rare, both of which may instantiate more than one functional heads. This hypothesis also gives an account of the marginal status of passive-causatives whose passivized subject (=causee) is animate. Turning to Korean, /Hi/ is univocally causative, and its apparent use as passive is the result of Voice-Cause bundling. Furthermore, the possible and impossible use of /Hi/ and /Hu/ as passive morphology results from their selectional properties.

1994

this paper, we sketch a strictly lexical theory of Japanese causatives that deals withthe evidence offered for a complex phrasal analysis. The conclusions we will reach are givenin (1) on the handout:(1) a. Japanese causatives must be treated as single verbal forms with complex morphologicalstructure. b. The construal phenomena that seem to motivate an analysis of Japanese causativesin terms of embedded constituent structures can be explained in terms of hierarchicallexical argument structures. c.

Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 2004

Ditransitive verbs such as send and give appear in two distinct structures in English, the double object and the to-dative constructions. It is well known that the two differ semantically and syntactically. In some recent works, it is suggested that the semantic differences observed by ), Oehrle(1978) and others, and the structural properties noted by , , and others, can both be captured by postulating an extra head for the DOC (e.g., . This head, which corresponds to the applicative head in Bantu languages, takes the goal as its specifier, and relates it to the VP that contains the verb and the theme (Marantz 1993), or directly to the theme (Pylkkänen 2002). The applicative head contributes the meaning distinct to the DOC and it gives rise to the hierarchical structure noted by Barss and Lasnik. This applicative head is missing in the todative, so that this construction has an argument structure distinct from the DOC. In this paper, we will look at the corresponding construction(s) in Japanese. Unlike English, Japanese appears only to have one structure, in which the goal is marked with the dative and the theme with the accusative case marking. The goal-theme order is assumed to be the basic order , 2003). The only variation is that the theme can occur before the goal, but this is viewed simply as an instance of optional scrambling. We will give arguments that the difference between English and Japanese is only apparent. With close scrutiny, we find that the two argument structures corresponding to the DOC and the to-dative in English exist in Japanese.

The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal

One of the most widely used constructions in Korean is the so-called light verb construction (LVC) involving an active-denoting verbal noun (VN) together with the light verb ha-ta 'do'. This paper first discusses the argument composition of the LVC, mixed properties of VNs both of which have provided a challenge to syntactic analyses with a strict version of X-bar theory. The paper shows the mechanism of multiple classification of category types with systematic inheritance can provide an effective way of capturing these mixed properties. In particular, it assumes that VNs have both [N +] and [V +] features to reflect their dual properties. The paper also addresses the issue of relatedness and divergence between the VNs with an accusative argument and those without it. An implementation of the analysis within the LKB (Linguistics Knowledge Building) system also proves its feasibility and efficiency.

Chomsky (1986b) employs a feature value approach in the specification of universal lexical categories ([+V, +N]). The verbal category is identified by [+V,-N] feature combination while the noun is specified by the features; [+N,-V]. The verb is a universal category with categorical features that are in direct opposition to the categorical features of the noun. The verb is therefore understood to be exclusively verbal; void of any nominal traits just as the noun is unambiguously nominal without any verbal traits. Interestingly, evidence from our data show that the feature specification of the Edo verb does not conform to Chomsky's universal categorical distinction. We show in this paper that the Edo verb is a complex component consisting of a combination of lexical units with categorial and semantic features that complement each other to represent a single semantic verbal element. These lexical units sometimes introduce features that contrast with the standard specification of verbal features, yet

Journal of Japanese Linguistics, 1991

In an earlier experiment (reported in Vance 1987), Japanese speaker* had considerable difficulty choosing analogically correct forms of made-up godan (consonant-item) verbs. The results were interpreted as consistent with two claims: (a) that regular Japanese verb forms are stored in the lexicon; and (b) that Japanese speakers can operate with phonotactically inadmissible morphs. This paper reports the results of two new experiments. The first was a substantially revised version of the 1987 experiment, and the results, while consistent with claim (a), provide no support for claim (b). The second was a supplementary experiment designed to test whether made-up itidan (vowel-stem) verbs are easier to handle than made-up godart verbs. The results indicate that because of an unavoidable complicating factor, there is no straightforward answer to this question. 1

Japanese Slavic and East European Studies

classification of English verbs (Vendler 1967), and a semantic typology of Russian predicates (Seliverstova (ed.) 1982).2 In this article, we would like to analyze a correlation between the universal ontological basis of distinguishing aspectual classes of verbs, which reflect characteristics of named actions in reality, and a language-specific interpretation of this basis in the Russian and Japanese languages. Here, we find it important to note that diEferences in semantically distinguished properties of verbal aspectual classes are systematically conditioned and related to the key ideas of the Russian and Japanese language world-construal, i.e., it appears also in contiguous fields of the language system-in morphology, word formation, semantics, and the usage ofverbs. 2. Interpretation and fragmentation of reality in language world-construal Diffbrences in the way of interpreting dynamic situations between languages concern, first of all, dififerent ways of separating a fragment of reality present in the sight of a speaker, the choice of diffbrent semantic properties fbr its nomination, and also linguistic devices for its expression. Let us illustrate our thesis by the fbllowing examples. The JapaneseSociety forSlavic and East European Studies Aspectual classes ofverbs: universal and idioethnic features (Russian and Japanese) The Aspectual classes ofverbs: universal and idioethnic features (Russian and Japanese)

Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 2019

This paper examines argument alternation constructions in the Bantu language, Kiwoso. The data demonstrates that alternation is constrained by selectional properties of a root and its combination with different functional heads, which is language specific. The findings establish that external arguments of anticausative, passive and middle alternations are distinct in terms of syntax and semantics. The data indicates that external arguments appear as DPs in causative alternates but in anticausative, passive and middle sentences they surface as PPs, albeit with different interpretations. In passives, the PPs are introduced by a na-phrase and express event participants, while in anticausatives and middles they are introduced by a kophrase which denotes event modifiers. It is also established that anticausative, passive and middle verb constructions are related in that their sole subject argument is the object argument of their causative (transitive) variants.

A paper presented at 3rd Workshop on Altaic in Formal …, 2006