A Vp Constituent and Case-Assignment in Japanese.

This thesis aims to analyze Japanese within the framework of the government and binding theory proposed by Chomsky (1982), focusing on a verb phrase constituent and Case-assignment. A VP constituent has traditionally not been an important theoretical category in Japanese generative grammar. One argument against the VP node lies in the relatively free word-order of Japanese, which employs morphological particles. If such particles give all information about grammatical functions, we might argue that we do not need to look at syntactic network in determining the grammatical functions in Japanese. One recent trend in Japanese grammar is, therefore, to see Japanese, unlike English, as having no phrase structure rules in the sense of the X-bar theory. Hale's dichotomy of languages into configurational and non-configurational languages contributes a supporting theory to this hypothesis. However, regardless of the differences between them on the surface, Japanese has some configurational properties. Evidence is presented from nominalization that Japanese has a rather fixed word-order. The existence of a VP is supported by clefts, topicalization and the sika-nai construction, all of which are used here as constituency tests. The finding of a VP node in Japanese has some interesting consequences for the analysis of Japanese. Grammatical Case-assignment then falls under government theory along the lines of GB, although there are some differences between Japanese and English in the details. The double object marker constraint in Japanese can be given proper explanation within the GB framework. This finding requires a new analysis of the Japanese double-subject construction. It has been argued that ga has two functions. One is focus ga and the other is subject ga. It is further argued that Japanese and English passives are Move- constructions and that a Japanese causative is a control construction. It is finally suggested that the well-attested X-bar theory is applicable to Japanese, and , thus, that GB theory may be part of Universal Grammar.Ph.D.LinguisticsUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/160594/1/8512506.pd

National trends in the outcomes of subarachnoid haemorrhage and the prognostic influence of stroke centre capability in Japan: retrospective cohort study

Objectives To examine the national, 6-year trends in in-hospital clinical outcomes of patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) who underwent clipping or coiling and the prognostic influence of temporal trends in the Comprehensive Stroke Center (CSC) capabilities on patient outcomes in Japan.Design Retrospective study.Setting Six hundred and thirty-one primary care institutions in Japan.Participants Forty-five thousand and eleven patients with SAH who were urgently hospitalised, identified using the J-ASPECT Diagnosis Procedure Combination database.Primary and secondary outcome measures Annual number of patients with SAH who remained untreated, or who received clipping or coiling, in-hospital mortality and poor functional outcomes (modified Rankin Scale: 3–6) at discharge. Each CSC was assessed using a validated scoring system (CSC score: 1–25 points).Results In the overall cohort, in-hospital mortality decreased (year for trend, OR (95% CI): 0.97 (0.96 to 0.99)), while the proportion of poor functional outcomes remained unchanged (1.00 (0.98 to 1.02)). The proportion of patients who underwent clipping gradually decreased from 46.6% to 38.5%, while that of those who received coiling and those left untreated gradually increased from 16.9% to 22.6% and 35.4% to 38%, respectively. In-hospital mortality of coiled (0.94 (0.89 to 0.98)) and untreated (0.93 (0.90 to 0.96)) patients decreased, whereas that of clipped patients remained stable. CSC score improvement was associated with increased use of coiling (per 1-point increase, 1.14 (1.08 to 1.20)) but not with short-term patient outcomes regardless of treatment modality.Conclusions The 6-year trends indicated lower in-hospital mortality for patients with SAH (attributable to better outcomes), increased use of coiling and multidisciplinary care for untreated patients. Further increasing CSC capabilities may improve overall outcomes, mainly by increasing the use of coiling. Additional studies are necessary to determine the effect of confounders such as aneurysm complexity on outcomes of clipped patients in the modern endovascular era