Another Look at Unaccusative Mismatches in Japanese

Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on The Role of Learnability in Grammatical Theory (1996

Toward a Taxonomy of Loanword Prosody

Building on previous works (e.g. Kubozono 2006, and Kang 2010), this article attempts to establish a taxonomy for loanword prosody, referring specifically to the patterns of stress, tone, or pitch-accent that are found in loanwords. Toward a taxonomy, we consider the following factors: (i) whether the pronunciation of the word in the source language influences the assignment of prosody in the borrowing language; (ii) whether prosody assignment is aided by rules (or constraints) that are specific to loanwords; and (iii) whether segmental features or suprasegmental features play a role. Exemplification of languages instantiating the taxonomy will be provided with discussion regarding issues that arise from the proposed taxonomy.Partint de treballs previs (p.e. Kubozono 2006, i Kang 2010), aquest article intenta establir una taxonomia de la prosòdia dels manlleus, amb especial referència als patrons d'accent, de to o d'accent tonal que s'hi poden trobar. Amb aquest objectiu, s'han tingut en compte els factors següents: (i) si la pronunciació de la paraula en la llengua d'origen influeix en la prosòdia de la llengua del préstec; (ii) si l'assignació prosòdica fa servir regles (o requeriments) específics per als manlleus; i (iii) si els trets segmentals o els suprasegmentals hi juguen algun paper. L'article presenta els exemples classificats i discuteix els problemes que sorgeixen de la taxonomia proposada

A COMPREHENSIVE THEORY OF SWITCH-REFERENCE (TAIRORA, HOPI, WARLPIRI).

Switch-Reference (SR) is a phenomenon in which the coreferentiality of two (or more) subjects in a complex sentence is indicated by a morphological device. The purpose of this dissertation is to discuss recent work which deals with SR within the Government and Binding Theory, and propose an alternative analysis to it. The framework I will adopt for such an alternative analysis of SR is Categorial Grammar. A basic notion underlying Categorial Grammar is that an expression is divided into a functor and an argument, and each functor and argument are further divided into a functor and an argument until the division reaches to an undividable element. Given the assumptions that a functor and its argument must be compatible and that a functor has some subcategorization properties, I argue that "Agreement" phenomenon (subsuming agreement and disagreement) can be handled insightfully. Furthermore, I propose that such a treatment of "Agreement" can be extended to SR systems in general if we consider the "same subject" and "different subject" phenomena as cases of agreement and disagreement, respectively. I claim that a composite in which a SR morpheme appears forms a functor which takes another composite as its argument, and that the relation between the functor and its argument and the relation between some parts of the functor and its argument are characterized as "agreement" or "disagreement": The functor and the argument must be compatible as assumed above, and the nature of compatibility (whether "agreement" or "disagreement") is controlled by the subcategorization properties of the SR morpheme associated with the functor (i.e., if "same subject", the relation is agreement, and if "different subject", it is disagreement). By treating SR in this fashion, I intend to provide a unified analysis for apparently different SR systems in three diverse languages, namely, Tairora, Hopi, and Warlpiri

On the Interpretation of 'Null Anaphora' in Japanese

Published as Coyote Papers: Working Papers in Linguistics from A-Z, Studies on Native American Languages, Japanese and SpanishThe Coyote Papers are made available by the Arizona Linguistics Circle at the University of Arizona and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] with questions about these materials

Mimetic Verbs and Innovative Verbs in the Acquisition of Japanese

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On Wh-Movement from Subject Position

Published as Coyote Papers: Working Papers in Linguistics from A-Z, Exploring Language: Linguistic Heresies from the DesertAmong the current approaches to universal grammar, those within the framework of the Extended Standard Theory have been considered as promising by a number of transformationalists. In this theory, the transformational component "Move " maps D- structures onto S- structures leaving behind traces which are coindexed with the roved elements. "Move a" represents both "Move NP" and "Move wh-phrase ". In this framework, a large number of phenomena involving WH-Movement and traces have been accounted for. One interesting case is the to contraction phenomenon in English. A familiar example of the phenomenon can be seen in the contraction of "want + to → wanna", and the following are, according to Chomsky and Lasnik (1977), the cases which involve traces (indicated as t) left behind by WH- Movement (i.e., (3) , (4)) : (1) I want to meet John. (2) I want Mary to meet John. (3) Who do you want to meet t? (4) Who do you want t to meet John? (5) Who do you wanna meet t? (6) *Who do you wanna meet John? where sentences of the type in (3) and (4) are derived from sentences like (1) and (2), respectively, (ignoring the difference in subjects) by WH- Movement. The contraction in question is observed in (5) and (6), which are the contracted versions of (3) and (4), respectively. WH- Movement leaves traces in (3) and (4) as shown in (7) and (8): (7) [who [do you want [to meet t] ] ] (8) [who [do you want [t to meet John]]] Chomsky and Lasnik claim that the trace left by WH- Movemrent in (8) intervenes between want and to, which makes the contraction impossible. On the other hand, the trace in (7) does not cone between want and to, hence, contraction may take place (cf. (5)). 142 Jaeggli (1980) refines this account for to contraction phenomena by distinguishing between two kinds of traces, i.e., Case-marked versus non-Case-marked trace. Only Case-marked traces, i.e., traces of WH- Movement, prevent contraction, whereas traces which are not Case- marked allow the contraction. The crucial cases of the latter involve contraction in semiauxiliaries, where the trace is left by Raising.' At this point, we should ask the question: can contraction phenomena be generalizable within the framework of trace theory? In other words, can trace theory be extended to account for contraction phenomena in general? If we assume that contraction phenomena cannot be generalized, the to constraction phenomenon would be an idiosyncratic feature, and could be treated in the lexical domain by considering the contracted forms as independent entries in the lexicon. On the other hand, if we assume that the phenomena can be generalized, trace theory should account for other contractions such an auxiliary contraction as well as the to contraction phenomenon. Although the choice between the two assumptions seems to be theory -dependent, we will take the latter assumption in this paper; that is, contraction phenomena can be generalized. Given this assumption, we encounter a problem with auxiliary contraction phenomena. Consider the following: (9) a. Who t has seen John? b. Who's seen John? where t in (9a) is the trace of WH-Movement, and (9b) is the contracted version of (9a). While trace theory accounts for the contraction phenomenon in (5)-(6) on the one hand, it would wrongly predict that the trace in (9a), which is left behind by WH-Movement, prevents the contraction between who and has on the other hand, since the trace in (9a) is Case - marked, and is supposed to prevent the contraction. Provided that we continue assuming trace theory can account for contraction phenomena in general, we might posit the contraction revealed in (9) is attributed to other assumptions underlying the derivation of the sentences of (9). One such assumption I would like to examine in this paper has to do with WH-Movement from subject position. Thus far, when we assume "Move wh-phrase" in core grammar for English, we have also assumed movement from subject position as in (9) as well as from object position (e.g. (3)). On the other hand, if we suppose that WH- Movement does not apply to subject position in a root sentence, preserving the generalization of contraction phenomena within the framework of trace theory, the problem with regard to the auxiliary contraction as seen in (9) does not arise, since no trace intervenes between the two elements to be contracted. Besides the problem stated above, WH- Movement from this position raises other problems, which I will discuss in Section 3. Given the above outline of the discussion, in Section 2, I would like to propose the hypothesis that WH- Movement does not apply to subject position in a root sentence (call it the No WH-Movement Hypothesis). The rest of the discussion consists of the following two sections: in Section 1, a set of counterexamples are presented to the trace theory account for contraction phenomena, assuming the phenomena are generalizable, and some attempts are made to solve the problem with respect to the auxiliary contraction as in (9), under the assumption that WH-Movement takes place in subject position; in Section 3, I will formulate a constraint on "Move wh-phrase" in order to prevent WH-Movement from subject position. Throughout this paper, I mean by subject position, the position in a root sentence.The Coyote Papers are made available by the Arizona Linguistics Circle at the University of Arizona and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] with questions about these materials

A Construction-Based Approach to Phrasal Adjuncts in Japanese

The adverbial phrases consisting of NP-o NP-ni in Japanese exhibit a set of properties that are not apparent from each of the elements comprising them. There is no source for the Accusative Case and the constituents cannot be scrambled internal to the phrase. Furthermore, the phrase has a general meaning that provides the circumstantial background for the event described by the main clause. This article presents a construction-based approach to the adverbial phrases which recognizes them as a grammatical construction to which a set of unpredictable syntactic and semantic properties should be attributed

Another Look at Unaccusative Mismatches in Japanese

Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on The Role of Learnability in Grammatical Theory (1996

Language Change in Progress: Evidence from Computer-Mediated Communication

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Expressing silence: where language and culture meet in Japanese/ Natsuko Tsujimura.

Includes bibliographical references and index."In Expressing Silence: Where Language and Culture Meet in Japanese, Natsuko Tsujimura discusses how silence is conceptualized and linguistically represented in Japanese. Languages differ widely in the specific linguistic and rhetorical modes through which vivid depictions of silence are achieved. In Japanese, sounds coming from insects, small animals, ocean waves, and leaves all evoke silence, and onomatopoeia plays an important role in simulating silent scenes. These linguistic mechanisms mediate the perception of the symbiotic relationship between sound and silence, a perception deeply embedded in the Japanese cultural experience. Drawing from a wide variety of rhetorical samples, Expressing Silence brings the tools of both linguistic and cultural analysis to bear in examining the remarkably rich array of representations of silence in Japanese language and culture. She finds that depictions of silence through language cannot be understood without exploring what sound or silence mean to the speakers. She analyzes a cluster of sounds in nature and onomatopoeic vocabulary for verbal portrayals of silence, consistent with a cultural pattern of practices that value sensate and affective reactions"--Expressing voids -- The sound of silence -- Mimetics and silence -- Epilogue.1 online resourc