A Smuggling Approach to Japanese Cleft Construction
Yuta Tatsumi
Osaka University
Hiraiwa and Ishihara (2002) point out that there is a striking parallelism between
Japanese cleft construction and the „No da‟ in-situ focus construction. Based on theparallelism, they argue that Japanese cleft construction is derived from „No da‟ in-situ focus
construction via two syntactic operations; focus movement and remnant topicalization. The
derivation is summarized in (1).
(1)

a.

b.

TopP

FocP

Top

FocP

FinP/CPFoc (-da)FinP/CP

TP... XP ...

Fin/C (-no)

c.

TopP

TP... XP ...

TopFoc (-da)

Fin/C (-no)

TopP(Topic)-wa
FocP
XP
FinP/CPTPTop

Foc (-da)Fin/C (-no)... tXP ...

As shown in (1), they assume that da in Japanese cleft construction is a focus particle.
However, da can be replaced by de aru, as shown in (2).
(2) a. [ Taro-ga
tegami-o moratta] no-wa Hanako-kara daTaro-NOM letter-ACC received C-TOP Hanako-from CPL„It‟s from Hanako that Taro received a letter.‟b. [ Taro-ga
tegami-o moratta] no-wa Hanako-kara de-aru
Taro-NOM letter-ACC received C-TOP Hanako-from de-be-PRES
Furthermore, there are contexts where da cannot be used. When a sentence appears withnegation, the only possible expression is with de, not with da, as shown in (3). The same
contrast is observed when the predicate is focused with the particle mo, as shown in (4).
(3) a. * [ Taro-ga
tegami-o moratta] no-wa Hanako-kara da-nai
Taro-NOM letter-ACC received C-TOP Hanako-from CPL-NEG„It‟s from Hanako that Taro received a letter.‟b. [ Taro-gategami-o moratta] no-wa Hanako-kara de(-wa)-naiTaro-NOM letter-ACC received C-TOP Hanako-from de(-TOP)-NEG(4) a. * [ Taro-ga
tegami-o moratta] no-wa Hanako-kara da-mo(aru)Taro-NOM letter-ACC received C-TOP Hanako-from CPL-even (be-PRES)„It‟s from Hanako that Taro received a letter.‟b. ? [ Taro-ga
tegami-o moratta] no-wa Hanako-kara de-mo-aru
Taro-NOM letter-ACC received C-TOP Hanako-from de-even-be-PRES
Since Hiraiwa and Ishihara (2002) assume that da in Japanese cleft construction is a head ofFocP, it is difficult to extend their proposal to the cleft construction with de such as (3b) and(4b). Thus, in my presentation, I offer an alternative analysis of Japanese cleft construction.
I assume, following Nishiyama (1999), that da is the contracted form of de aru and that deprojects Predicate Phrase. The derivation is shown in (5).

(5)

a.

b.

TopP

(Topic)-wa
FocP

c.

TopP

TopP
CP

Top

FocP

Top

FocP

Top

FinP

Foc

... tXP ...
(Focus)

XP
FinP

FocTP

Fin

VP

T-u

FinP
TP

FocFinCPPredP
CPPreddeV
ar-FintCP
VP... XP ...
PredP
tCP

TPT-uVar-PreddeVP
PredPtCPT-uVar-PreddeFirst, CP which is the sister of Pred is moved to Spec,TP. Second, XP undergoes focus
movement to Spec,FocP. Finally, the remnant CP is moved to Spec,TopP, and marked with a
topic marker wa. Note that if we assume, following much work on locality, that a probemust enter an Agree relation with the closest available goal, it seems fair to say that Foccannot Agree with XP before the movement of CP to Spec,TP takes place. Since de can befocused with the particle mo, as shown in (4b), de is the closest available goal. Thus, themovement of CP to Spec,TP in (5a) is a case of what Collins (2005) calls “smuggling.” Inother words, CP movement smuggles XP over PredP, so that Foc can Agree with XP.
It is worth noting that I assume that da is located in CP-domain, as Hiraiwa andIshihara (2002) argue, although it is derived from de aru. The contrast in (6) supports thisclaim.
(6) a. * Taro-ga gakusei-da zizitu
Taro-NOM student-CPL fact
„The fact that Taro is a student‟
b. Taro-ga gakusei-de-aru
zizituTaro-NOM student-Pred-be-PRES fact
Murasugi (2000) argues that sentential modifiers in Japanese pure complex NPs must be IP.
In my proposed derivation, de aru stays inside of IP, whereas da moves out of IP. Thus, thecontrast in (6) can be accounted for in a straightforward way.
In conclusion, my proposal accounts for the alternation between da and de aru inJapanese cleft construction without any unnecessary stipulation.
References
Hiraiwa, Ken and Shinichiro Ishihara. 2002. Missing Links: Cleft, Sluicing and „No da‟Construction in Japanese. In The Proceedings of Humit 2001. MIT Working Papers in
Linguistics #43, ed. by Tania Ionin, Heejeong Ko, and Andrew Nevins, 35-54. Cambridge,MA.: MITWPL.
Murasugi, Keiko. 2000. Japanese Complex Noun Phrases and the Antisymmetry Theory. In
Step by Step: Essays on Minimalist Syntax in Honor of Howard Lasnik, ed. by R. Martin, D.
Michaels, and J. Uriagereka, 211-234. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Nishiyama, Kunio. 1999. Adjectives and the Copulas in Japanese. Journal of East Asian
Linguistics 8: 183-222.