Both ditransitive verbs and causative transitive verbs in Japanese are linked with the two
verbal arguments: the dative phrase and the accusative phrase. Despite this similarity, the
syntax of these verbs is in sharp contrast: the ditransitive verb construction involves the
mono-clausal structure, whereas the transitive causative construction contains the bi-clausal
structure (Kuroda 1965b, Saito 1982; 1985, Hoji 1985, Miyagawa 1989, among others). One
crucial instance for such distinction is the behavior of the dative phrase of the two types of
construction with respect to the ‘subjecthood’. The subject-oriented anaphor in Japanese
(e.g., zibun ‘self’) can take the dative phrase of the transitive causative verb as its antecedent,
whereas it cannot the dative phrase with the ditransitive verb as its antecedent (Kuroda
1965b).
Notwithstanding the difference, this thesis attempts to proposes a unified account for
these two types of dative-accusative constructions in terms of the Phase Theory within the
framework of Generative Grammar (Chomsky 2000; 2001). Investigating four subcategories
of dative-accusative verbs (i.e., spray/load verbs, give verbs, causative transitive
verbs and causative motion verbs), I claim that there are two types of Dative Case
Assignment in Japanese: the In-situ Assignment and the Assignment after Movement. The
former type of assignment is manifested in VP of give verbs and in that of transitive
causative verbs; on the other hand, the latter type of assignment is identified in VP of
spray/load verbs and in that of causative motion verbs.
In the Phase theory, the probe-goal relation between the functional head and its ccommanding
goal(s) (i.e., (Multiple) Agree) governs Case-licensing mechanism. In standard
assumptions, the Accusative Case domain is the c-command domain of the light verb v
(Chomsky 2004). Following these assumptions, I claim that the two types of Dative Case
Assignment can be ultimately attributed to the two distinctive Case features on the functional
head v of the four types of dative-accusative constructions: vacc[+multiple] and vdat. If vacc[+multiple]
is selected by Merge, the Dative Assignment after Movement is implemented, whereas if vdat
is selected, the In-situ Dative Assignment is induced. Hence, the difference in Dative Case
Assignment is predicted at which Select picks up vocabularies from the Lexicon in order to
set up a reference set for a derivation of the dative-accusative construction.
The in-situ dative assignment for the ditransitive construction has been proposed in
the literature (e.g., Miyagawa 1996); however, no proposal of a movement-based dative
assignment for the ditransitive construction has been made. This is one of the important
outcomes of my thesis. However, the most important consequence of my two types of Dative
Assignment is the link between two hitherto unrelated phenomena: Dative Case Assignment
and the condition on argument alternation. Argument alternation has attracted much attention
in the literature of lexical semantics, being independently analyzed from most of the
syntactic properties of these ditransitive verbs that I examine in the thesis (Kageyama 1980;
1996, Levin 1993, Kishimoto 2001c, Iwata 2008). However, I show that the condition on
argument alternation can be written solely by the syntactic terms without any stipulation of
constructional meaning; namely, when vdat is selected in a numeration of a ditransitive verb,
the derived verb is never licensed to participate in argument alternation, whereas when vacc
[+multiple] is selected, the complex verb is licensed to participate in the alternation. A further
contribution of my thesis is to accommodate a new pair within the causative-ditransitive
paradigm in Japanese in addition to its already-existing membership between transitive
causative verbs and give verbs (Kuno 1973, Miyagawa 1996): a pair of causative motion
verbs and spray/load verbs. This new pairing further strengthens the existence of the
causative-ditransitive paradigm as a natural class in Japanese. The pairing is solely
motivated by the Dative Case Assignment that I propose
