The origin and architecture of existential indeterminates in Okinawan

In a number of languages, an indeterminate is combined with various particles to yield different indefinite pronouns. This has been called an indeterminate system (Kuroda 1965, Cheng 1991, Haspelmath 1997, Jayaseelan 2001). As Haspelmath (1997) and Jayaseelan (2001) observe, existential indeterminates are often built with disjunction markers. On the other hand, a disjunction particle and a question particle are often morphologically identical cross-linguistically (see Hagstrom 1998, Jayaseelan 2001). Thus, a question that I ask here is whether the alleged homophony between a disjunction marker and a marker that forms an existential quantifier is principled (Jayaseelan 2001, Szabolcsi et al. 2014) or coincidental (Haspelmath 1997, Cable 2010). In this paper, I argue that the observation about homophony is misguided and hence support Haspelmath’s hypothesis, based on the data obtained from my fieldwork on Okinawan, an endangered Ryukyuan language. I propose an analysis where existential indeterminates in Okinawan have a clausal structure of an embedded question and are derived by deletion

The Faculty of Language Integrates the Two Core Systems of Number

Only humans possess the faculty of language that allows an infinite array of hierarchically structured expressions (Hauser et al., 2002; Berwick and Chomsky, 2015). Similarly, humans have a capacity for infinite natural numbers, while all other species seem to lack such a capacity (Gelman and Gallistel, 1978; Dehaene, 1997). Thus, the origin of this numerical capacity and its relation to language have been of much interdisciplinary interest in developmental and behavioral psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and linguistics (Dehaene, 1997; Hauser et al., 2002; Pica et al., 2004). Hauser et al. (2002) and Chomsky (2008) hypothesize that a recursive generative operation that is central to the computational system of language (called Merge) can give rise to the successor function in a set-theoretic fashion, from which capacities for discretely infinite natural numbers may be derived. However, a careful look at two domains in language, grammatical number and numerals, reveals no trace of the successor function. Following behavioral and neuropsychological evidence that there are two core systems of number cognition innately available, a core system of representation of large, approximate numerical magnitudes and a core system of precise representation of distinct small numbers (Feigenson et al., 2004), I argue that grammatical number reflects the core system of precise representation of distinct small numbers alone. In contrast, numeral systems arise from integrating the pre-existing two core systems of number and the human language faculty. To the extent that my arguments are correct, linguistic representations of number, grammatical number, and numerals do not incorporate anything like the successor function

Sluicing cannot apply in-situ in Japanese

Ross (1969) proposed that sluicing in English is derived by wh- movement and deletion. The wh-movement analysis, however, is not straight- forward in wh-in-situ languages like Japanese. A number of studies argued that sluicing in Japanese is based on wh-cleft structure with much empirical evidence. More recently, however, Kimura (2010) and Abe (2015) have proposed an in-situ analysis of sluicing in Japanese, which deletes everything but a wh-phrase (and the Q-complementizer) in situ, without movement. In this paper, building on immobile elements, I will provide decisive evidence against the in-situ deletion analysis of sluicing and for the wh-cleft analysis of sluicing

Animacy hierarchy and case/agreement in Okinawan

In languages like Japanese and Okinawan, morphological evidence for agreement is scarce, which has led to the long-standing controversy as to its existence. In this article, I argue that while φ-agreement is not morphologically realized on the predicates in Okinawan, it is nevertheless indirectly detectable in the form of animacy agreement in differential case-marking

Bare indeterminates in unconditionals

Indeterminates in Japanese have been studied extensively since Kuroda (1965) and all the previous works share the descriptive generalization that indeterminates must co-occur with overt quantificational particles such as ka and (de)mo. We present novel data indicating that the Japanese indeterminates are licensed "bare" without the presence of an overt particle to associate with. Conversely, we also point out data in which the mere presence of mo fails to license an indeterminate. We argue that our long-standing understanding of indeterminates has been misguided and that what truly licenses a bare indeterminate is a covert Q-morpheme. Our analysis that a covert Q-morpheme is the licensor of bare indeterminates departs from the traditional view that indeterminates require the overt licensing particle ka or (de)mo

Indeterminates in comparatives as free choice items

Japanese indeterminate pronouns have different interpretations depending on a particle that they appear with. Indeterminates may appear “bare” in the yori comparative, which leads to questions of whether they are existential quantifiers, negative polarity items (NPIs), universal quantifiers, or free choice items (FCIs), and of how they are licensed. We examine each possibility and argue that they are FCIs. We then provide novel evidence that the yori comparative has some properties of unconditional clauses, which corroborates our previous claim that indeterminate- based FCIs in Japanese are unconditional clauses

Syntax of reduplication and negative-polarity items in Buli

Negative-polarity items in Buli, a Mabia (Gur) language spoken in Ghana, exhibit a mixed behavior between NCIs and NPIs (or between strong NPIs and weak NPIs). Thus, Buli presents a counterexample to Vallduvı's generalization that negative-polarity items come in two kinds. Adopting and extending the framework of Collins & Postal (2014) and Collins et al. (2017), we will show that the apparently mysterious mixed behavior of negative-polarity items in Buli can be explained by articulating an unary-NEG structure and syntax of reduplication

The singularity of indeterminates: Number specification without classifiers

Japanese does not have number morphology or agreement. Thus, a bare noun like inu ‘dog’ can refer to a single dog or more than one dog, depending on contexts. This fact has raised much controversy about whether grammatical number exists in Japanese and has led some researchers to regard Japanese as a language lacking number specification in bare nouns (Chierchia 1998; Martin 1975; Nakanishi & Tomioka 2004; Nomoto 2013) and abstract number/phi agreement (Fukui 1986, 1995, Kuroda 1988; Fukui and Sakai 2003, Saito 2007, 2017, among others). Recently, however, Watanabe (2017) has provided strong evidence against such views, based on partitive interpretations of bare nouns. In this paper, I uncover yet another novel piece of evidence for grammatical number specification in Japanese from indeterminates. Surprisingly, they are obligatorily specified for singular despite the lack of number morphology or classifier

Dimensions of symmetry in syntax : agreement and clausal architecture

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-373).(cont.) are, then, determined at phase levels by late insertion of categorial features. One crucial aspect of the proposed theory of structural symmetry involves interweaving effects, which emerge as categorial determination of different sizes and types. The present thesis discusses three such cases: Nominative-Genitive Conversion, Head-Internal Relative Clauses, and Predicate Cleft Constructions. It is further argued that Agreement Symmetry and Structural Symmetry interact with the Case theory and bring far-reaching implications for aspects of syntactic phenomena.This thesis is a theoretical investigation of various dimensions of symmetry exhibited in human language. I discuss two kinds of symmetry: AGREEMENT SYMMETRY and STRUCTURAL SYMMETRY. Building on these types of symmetry, the chapters develop and articulate theoretical explanations for a variety of phenomena within the framework of the Minimalist Program and provide empirical verification backed up by a cross-linguistic study. AGREEMENT SYMMETRY manifests itself under Case and agreement phenomena in natural languages. In the literature, there have been various theoretical proposals to capture the mechanism of Case and agreement (e.g. Government, Spec-Head Agreement, Feature Checking etc.). I argue for a theory of Multiple Agree as a feature valuation theory. Under Multiple Agree, a probe P Agrees with all matching goals simultaneously. Given that valuation is in essence bi-directional, Multiple Agree reveals two natural probe-goal relations: Mirrorsymmetry and Centrosymmetry. Further, I also propose that a syntactic derivation allows Derivational Simultaneity and that syntactic operations apply simultaneously at a probe level. I call this the Probe Theory of Parallel Derivation (PTPD). It is demonstrated that Multiple Agree and the PTPD explain intricate agreement patterns in Icelandic and other languages. STRUCTURAL SYMMETRY is exhibited in geometric parallelism between clauses and nouns. Building on observations of CP/DP parallelism sporadically made in the literature, I argue that their symmetric properties are subsumed under the Supercategorial Theory of the CP/DP Symmetry. The supercategorial theory views "clausal" and "nominal" structures as arising from a category-neutral supercategorial structure. The categorial differencesby Ken Hiraiwa.Ph.D