Mermaid construction in Modern Japanese

National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistic

Morpho-lexical evidence for Proto-Korean-Japanese

The hypothesis that Japanese and Korean share a common linguistic origin remains highly controversial, with detractors such as Vovin (2010) criticizing a lack of shared functional morphemes and phonological problems in proposed cognate vocabulary. Expanding on the analysis in Ratte (2015), this paper proposes concrete correspondences in the grammar and vocabulary of Old Japanese to Middle Korean. By analyzing the form and function of verbs in Old Japanese texts (Man'yōshū), this paper proposes a functional element *(w)o- that reveals striking correspondences in Japanese and Korean noun-modifying structures, and a verb *pə- that shows that identical verb-compounding structures exist in both languages. This paper also provides revisions of four important vocabulary items in previous literature whose correspondences have proven problematic, and improves the strength of the common origin hypothesis by proposing new cognate pairs. In so doing, this paper seeks to address deficiencies in the theory of Korean-Japanese common linguistic origin in order to demonstrate that the theory of proto-Korean-Japanese is stronger than has previously been assumed

Mermaid construction : An introduction and summary

National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistic

Prefixal articles across domains: Syntactic licensing in Albanian

In this article we venture to elucidate the origin of the Albanian subjunctive marker të-. We contend that this marker is historically linked to a morphosyntactic device which is traditionally described as linking article and which licenses nominal syntactic units as constituents of larger syntactic units. Based on the observation that there is a substantial distributional, functional and semantic overlap between nonfinite verbal forms marked with të- and finite subjunctive predicates, we propose that the subjunctive marker spread across host classes from nominals to nonfinite predicates and to finite subjunctive predicates. The spread into the finite verbal domain is areally fostered, while the licensing device itself is an independent Albanian development that possibly picks up a vertical, Indo-European signal

How comparative concepts and descriptive linguistic categories are different (draft)

This paper reasserts the fundamental conceptual distinction between language- particular categories of individual languages, defined within particular systems, and comparative concepts at the cross-linguistic level, defined in substantive terms. The paper argues that comparative concepts are also widely used in other sciences, and that they are always distinct from social categories, of which linguistic categories are special instances. Some linguists (especially in the generative tradition) assume that linguistic categories are natural kinds (like biological species, or chemical elements) and thus need not be defined, but can be recognized by their symptoms, which may be different in different languages. I also note that category-like comparative concepts are sometimes very similar to categories, and that different languages may sometimes be described in a unitary commensurable mode, thus blurring (but not questioning) the distinction. Finally, I note that cross- linguistic claims must be interpreted as being about the facts of languages, not about the incommensurable systems of languages

The acquisition of Japanese nominal modifying constructions by non native speakers

Esta tesis trata de la adquisición de los modificadores nominales en japonés como segunda lengua (L2) y de un fenómeno que se observa en el proceso de la adquisición en el que los aprendices de L2 ocasionalmente insertan un no entre el modificador oracional y el sustantivo núcleo. Dicho fenómeno es interesante porque se manifiesta en distintas construcciones, los hablantes que producen el no no nativo proceden de distintas lenguas maternas (L1) y porque los niños japoneses también producen un no no nativo en los mismos contextos durante una etapa de la adquisición de L1. Se ha propuesto una explicación teórica sobre el caso en L2 y se ha especulado sobre su semejanza con el caso en L1. La tesis consta de dos partes: una parte teórica y una parte experimental. En la parte teórica se han revisado los estudios previos sobre la construcción genitiva, la frase adjetival y los modificadores oracionales. Se ha identificado la “forma adnominal” como un elemento clave y se han propuesto dos hipótesis para dar cuenta de su presencia y de la distribución complementaria de la partícula no: una versión revisada de la Clasificación de Cláusulas (cf. Cheng 1991) y la formación de unidades fonológicas. En la parte experimental, se han realizado dos estudios: un análisis de datos de los aprendices de L1 inglés y L1 coreano y una prueba de producción guiada de los aprendices de L1 español. Los resultados demuestran que los modificadores oracionales se adquieren en un cierto orden. En cuanto al fenómeno de la inserción de no, se observan dos fases. Se ha atribuido la primera fase a la adquisición de la Clasificación de Cláusulas y la segunda fase a la formación de unidades fonológica

Development of nominalizers in some East Asian languages.

Shin Mi-kyong.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-94).Abstracts in English and Chinese.Contents --- p.3List of Figures --- p.4List of Tables --- p.5Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.6Chapter 1.1 --- Nominalizers in some East Asian languages --- p.7Chapter 1.2 --- Forms and functions of four East Asian nominalizers --- p.8Chapter 1.2.1 --- Linker --- p.8Chapter 1.2.2 --- Pronominalization --- p.12Chapter 1.3 --- Grammaticalization of East Asian nominalizers --- p.14Chapter 1.4 --- Research questions and organization of the thesis --- p.15Chapter 1.5 --- Abbreviation --- p.16Chapter 2 --- Development of Korean nominalizing system --- p.17Chapter 2.1 --- Two distinct properties of Korean nominalizers --- p.17Chapter 2.1.1 --- "Korean Linking morphemes -n, -neun, -l" --- p.18Chapter 2.1.2 --- """Bound noun"" geot" --- p.19Chapter 2.2 --- Degrees of nominalization --- p.21Chapter 2.2.1 --- Linker to Pronominal --- p.21Chapter 2.2.2 --- Pronominal to Nominalizer --- p.24Chapter 2.2.3 --- Nominalizer to Stance marker --- p.26Chapter 2.3 --- Competition from other nominalizers --- p.28Chapter 2.3.1 --- Nominalizer -(o/u)m --- p.28Chapter 2.3.2 --- Competition with Middle Korean *-n/do/ --- p.30Chapter 2.3.3 --- Korean Linkers -eui and -n --- p.31Chapter 2.4 --- Summary --- p.33Chapter 3 --- Development of Japanese no --- p.35Chapter 3.1 --- Syntactic behavior of no --- p.36Chapter 3.2 --- Diachronic perspectives on no --- p.40Chapter 3.3 --- Summary --- p.44Chapter 4 --- Mandarin de and Cantonese ge --- p.45Chapter 4.1 --- Synchronic descriptions --- p.46Chapter 4.1.1 --- Dual properties of Mandarin de and Cantonese ge --- p.46Chapter 4.1.2 --- Zhu's classification of Mandarin de --- p.47Chapter 4.1.3 --- [Demonstrative + Classifier] structure in Cantonese --- p.49Chapter 4.1.4 --- ge insertion after Classifier in Cantonese --- p.50Chapter 4.1.5 --- Nominalization and further development in Mandarin de --- p.50Chapter 4.2 --- Diachronic perspectives --- p.53Chapter 4.2.1 --- Competition between Classifier and Demonstrative pronoun --- p.54Chapter 4.2.2 --- From Classifier to nominalizer: Cantonese go --- p.55Chapter 4.3 --- Summary --- p.56Chapter 5 --- Some solutions on their incompatibilities --- p.58Chapter 5.1 --- Definiteness in Nominalizers --- p.59Chapter 5.1.1 --- Type I Determiners: Linking morphemes --- p.59Chapter 5.1.2 --- Type II Determiners: Pronominals --- p.64Chapter 5.2 --- Nominalized complementation in Japanese and Korean --- p.68Chapter 5.3 --- Further extension to Cleft and Stance --- p.74Chapter 5.3.1 --- Unidirectional pathway view --- p.74Chapter 5.3.2 --- Sentential pronominal to Cleft construction --- p.76Chapter 5.3.3 --- Cleft to stance --- p.78Chapter 5.4 --- Tense/Aspect reflected on Adnominal systems --- p.80Chapter 5.4.1 --- Spell-outs of time in Korean linking morphemes --- p.80Chapter 5.4.2 --- Infinitival RC --- p.82Chapter 5.5 --- Summary --- p.83Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.85References --- p.8

From Physical Motion to ‘Come and Go’: A Spoken Corpus Based Analysis of Kata ‘go’-specific Constructions in Korean

I analyze one of the motion verbs in Korean, kata ‘go,’ and its argument structure constructions. The verb shows an extremely high token frequency and its argument structure constructions have been subject to a great degree of variation in terms of its emergent semantics and syntax. However, there have been recurring issues across the previous studies. First, there is the problem of the so-called “written language bias in linguistics” (Linell, 1982), such that most studies on kata have drawn upon mostly invented sentences or written language data. Secondly, previous studies on kata have focused on the verb itself and have made few efforts on examining the construal of kata as it relates to the argument structure constructions in which the verb appears. Considering what has been pointed out so far, on the basis of contemporary Korean spoken data extracted from Sejong Corpus, the current study aims to establish argument structure constructions focusing on the specification of components, i.e. the subject, the oblique phrase containing the suffix, and kata. Argument structure constructions where kata appears and their components are fully specified are called kata-specific constructions. The objective of this study is to outline the alternations of the argument structure constructions in the physical motion domain, and how and to what extent they are inherited by other semantic domains in accordance with semantic extensions. All the semantic domains are argued to be metaphorically or via constructionalization extended from the physical domain. Further, I aim to examine whether the Principle of Maximized Motivation works or not by virtue of two types of cluster analysis. The first one based on binary coding showed that the metaphorical extension and constructionalization starting from the physical motion domain is not limited to the semantic side, but it also influences how and to what extent the allowed argument structure constructions in the physical motion domain are inherited by other semantic domains. This advocates the Principle of Maximized Motivation. However, the second cluster analysis based on relative frequency showed that abstract motion inherits frequency patterns concerning alternations of argument structure constructions from physical motion to the strongest degree, which weakens the principle