Japanese Honorifics:
Its Syntax and Morphology

by

TAKITA, Kensuke
B.A. Keio University (Human Relations), 2004

The Graduate School of Human Relations,
Keio University
Tokyo, Japan

January 2006

Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my
Faculty adviser, Yukio Otsu for his continuing guidance and his
encouragement at various stages of this thesis. I am also grateful to myco-advisers, Juko Ando and Yoshimitsu Matsuura.
For helpful comments, suggestions and discussions, I wish to thank
Masayuki Ike-uchi, Miwa Isobe, Hisatsugu Kitahara, Masatoshi Koizumi,
Masayuki Komachi, Tomoko Monou, Fumikazu Niinuma, Koichi Otaki,
Hiromu Sakai, Toru Seraku, Koji Sugisaki, Takeru Suzuki, Nobutaka
Tazawa, and the members of Coglunch. I am also grateful to the audienceof the 131st meeting of the Linguistic Society of Japan at Hiroshima
University.
Special thanks go to Hirotaka Renge and Asuka Yamashita, whokindly proofread this thesis.
Finally, I am most indebted to my parents Atsushi and Midori for
their patience and understanding regarding this study.

ii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgementsii

Table of Contentsiii

Chapter 1

Introduction

1

Chapter 2

Setting up the problems

8

2.1

Morphological Properties

8

2.2

Syntactic Properties

13

2.2.1 Subject/Object Orientation
2.2.2 Indirect/Direct Object Asymmetry
2.2.3 Peculiar Properties of RH
2.3

Summary of Chapter 2

24

Previous Studies

26

3.1

Toribio (1990)

26

3.2

Niinuma (2003, 2005)

34

3.3

Summary of Chapter 3

41

Proposal42

4.1

Honorification as Licensing

43

4.2

Configurations

46

4.3

Summary of Chapter 4

51

Subject Honorification and Object Honorification

52

HP + V, NARU and SURU

53

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 55.1

5.1.1 HP + V as Verbal Nouns
5.1.2 Two Types of Light Verbs
5.1.3 Intermediate Summary
5.2

Analysis

66
iii

5.3

Consequences

71

5.3.1 Argument/Adjunct Asymmetry in Honorification
5.3.2 Harada’s (1976) Objection
5.4

Summary of Chapter 5

77

Appendix: Ivana and Sakai (2003)

79

Chapter 6

RARE-Honorification

82

6.1

Analysis82

6.2

Consequences

94

6.2.1 Ambiguity in RH and Indirect Passive
6.2.2 Multiple Honorification
6.3

Summary of Chapter 6107

Honorification and Word Order in Japanese

108

7.1

Problem

109

7.2

Proposal

116

7.3

Consequences

120

7.4

Summary of Chapter 7

124

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Implications for Education and Language Learning 126

Chapter 9Conclusion

134

References

138

iv

Chapter 1
Introduction

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the morphological andsyntactic properties of honorifics in Japanese. More concretely, I willpropose a theory of honorifics based on the universal principles of syntax
and demonstrate that the study of honorifics, which is traditionallyconsidered asaJapanese-specificphenomenon or sociolinguistic

phenomenon, can make some contributions to the study of I-language(Chomsky 1986a).
Before moving to the specific examples, it is needed to distinguishhonorification from honorifics. Honorifics are linguistic expressions whichmake the sentences sound polite and not offensive to the addressee1. Everylanguage has some kind of honorifics although they are not productive inmany languages. Yet, some languages including Japanese have someproductive grammatical system of honorifics. Harada (1976) calls thesystem of honorifics honorification. In this thesis, I will focus on themorphological and syntactic properties of honorification.
1

For example, in German, Sie ‘you’ is used when the hearer is not familiar with the
speaker. If the hearer is familiar to the speaker, du ‘you’ is used.
1

I will investigate the morphological and syntactic properties of thefollowing three types of Japanese honorification. The sentences in (1b),(2b) and (3b) are examples of honorification. The sentences in (1a), (2a)and (3a) are their non-honorific counterparts.

(1) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom2

b. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

hon-o

yom-u

book-Acc

read-Preshon-oo-yom-ini nar-u

book-Acc

O-read-I

NI NAR-Pres3“Prof. Yamada reads a book.”(2) a. Taroo-ga

Yamada-sensei-o-Nomb. Taroo-gaProf.

tasuke-ru-Acc

Yamada-sensei-o

-Nom

Prof.

-Acc

help-Preso-tasukesu-ru

O-help

SU-Pres“Taro helps Prof. Yamada.”(3) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

b. Yamada-sensei-ga

hon-o

yom-u

book-Acc

read-Preshon-oyom-are-ru

2

Nom= nominative, Acc= accusative and Pres= present tense.
The more precise morphological analysis of the predicate will be presented in
Chapter 2.
32

Prof.

-Nom

book-Acc

read-ARE-Pres“Prof. Yamada reads a book.”

First, consider the sentences in (1). Even though both sentences in (1) havethe same logical meaning, only the sentence in (1b) has an additional
meaning: the speaker shows his honor to the referent of the subject NP.
Harada (1976) introduces a notion “Socially Superior to the Speaker”(SSS) for an NP whose referent is the target of honor, and calls this type ofhonorification Subject Honorification (SH) since the subject is an SSS. On
the other hand, in the example (2b), it is the object, not the subject that is an
SSS. This type of honorification is called Object Honorification (OH) since
the object is an SSS. These two types of honorification are studied byHarada (1976). In addition, Japanese has the third type of honorification.
The sentence in (3b) represents the third type, studied by Toribio (1990).
Although the subject is an SSS in this type of honorification, it differs fromSH in the form of the verb. Since the morpheme -(r)are appears, I will callthis type RARE-Honorification4 (RH).
Concerning the analysis of these three types of honorification,
4

Toribio (1990) calls this construction “honorific passive” since the morpheme-(r)are also appears in passive sentences. Yet, it is misreading to call it honorific passive
since it differs from passive in several respects as I will discuss in the next chapter. To
avoid this confusion, I will use RH for it.
3

traditional syntactic studies have assumed that the honorific interpretationof the sentence is due to some inherent property of an argument and causes“agreement,” changing the form of the predicate (Mikami 1970, Harada
1976).
For example, Harada (1976) assumes that some NPs like sensei‘Prof.’ have SSS as an inherent property while other NPs do not. The
following examples, however, suggest that his assumption is not correct.

(4) a. Taroo-ga

hon-o-Nom book-Acc

o-yom-ini na-ruO-read-I

NI NA-Pres

hon-o

yom-u

book-Acc

read-Pres“Taro reads a book.”b. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

“Prof. Yamada reads a book.”

The sentence in (4a) is grammatical but unnatural because the NP Taroo is
an SSS. On the other hand, the NP sensei ‘Prof.’ is not an SSS in (4b). Thisis unexpected if being an SSS is an inherent property of an NP. Rather, itsuggests that being an SSS is not an inherent property of an NP. Thus, I
claim that it is the syntactic context in which an NP appears that determines4whether the NP is an SSS or not5. That is, it is the element on the predicatethat makes an NP to be interpreted as an SSS. This is the basic idea of thisthesis.
More specifically, I will pursue the following three ideas.

(5) a. The feature which contributes to the honorific interpretation mustenter some relation with an argument to be interpreted properly if itappears on the predicate.
b. The domain in which the honorific feature enters the relation withan argument correlates with the properties of the auxiliaries nar-,su- and -(r)are.
c. The argument structure of the verb is crucial in honorification.

The theoretical background of this thesis is the Minimalist Program(Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2001) which assumes that syntax, the computational
component of I-language (Chomsky 1986a), has two interfaces LF and PF,
and each element on the relevant interface levels must be interpreted (the5As Niinuma (2003) noted, I assume that it is syntax that determines which NP is an
SSS while it is the extra-linguistic factors that determine whether it is appropriate that
the NP is an SSS in a particular context. Since the primary concern of this thesis is toinvestigate the morphological and syntactic properties of Japanese honorification, I will
focus on the syntactic aspects and put aside the precise nature of extra-linguistic factors.
5principle of Full Interpretation, Chomsky 1986a). Therefore, if the intuitionof this thesis in (5a) is on the right track, the feature which is involved withhonorification also obeys the principle of Full Interpretation, which ispresumably one of universal principles. This is a surprising result since
many traditional descriptive/taxonomic Japanese grammarians consider
honorification as lexical phenomenon or Japanese-specific phenomenon.
The goal of this thesis is to reduce the properties of honorification to theinteraction of the property of the syntactic feature (=5a) and the propertiesof lexical items (=5b and 5c).
If the ideas in (5) are correct, this thesis has important implications
for language learning: the learners need not learn these three types ofhonorification separately. That is, once the learner acquires the lexical
items which appear in honorification, the learner, guided by the generalprinciples of syntax, can determine what argument is an SSS at least forthese three types of honorification. What the learners must learn are thefeature which contributes honorific interpretation, the properties of theauxiliaries (nar- /su- /-(r)are), and the argument structures of verbs. In fact,
since acquiring the argument structures of the verbs is unavoidable, theonly experiences which the learners must gain are those on the honorificfeature and the auxiliaries. This reduces serious burden of learners.
6

The organization of this thesis is as follows. Chapter 2 discusses themorphological and syntactic properties of honorification which is dealt by
this thesis. Chapter 3 reviews the previous studies. In Chapter 4, I proposea theory of honorification to explain the properties. Based on the proposalsof Chapter 4, Chapter 5 presents the analysis of SH and OH. Chapter 6
extends the theory to the analysis of RH. In Chapter 7, I will make aproposal on the basic word order of unaccusative verbs based on theanalysis of honorification. Chapter 8 presents implications for educationand language learning. Chapter 9 concludes the thesis.

7Chapter 2
Setting up the Problems

In this chapter, I will examine the morphological and syntactic
properties of honorification and set up several problems. Section 2.1 is an
overview of the morphological properties of the predicate. In Section 2.2, I
will review the syntactic properties. Section 2.3 is a summary of thischapter.

2.1. Morphological Properties

First of all, I discuss the morphology of the predicate. Below are thetypical examples of SH, OH and RH.

(1) a. SH: o-watas-i ni nar-u ‘hand over’/ go-happyoo ni nar-u ‘announce’b. OH: o-watas-i su-ru ‘hand over’/ go-syuppatu su-ru ‘leave’c. RH: watas-are-ru ‘hand over’

8As shown in examples in (1a) and (1b), the verbs of SH and OH have acommon prefix, o-/ go-1, which is called the “honorific prefix” (HP). In SH
and OH, the verbs appear with a suffix -i. The nouns like happyoo‘announcement’ and syuppatu ‘departure’ belong to Verbal Noun(henthforth VN, see Kageyama 1993). One of the characteristics of VN isthat it has both nominal and verbal aspects. Roughly speaking, VN
corresponds to Grimshaw’s (1990) complex event nominal. Note that SH
and OH differ in only one point; in SH it is nar- ‘become’ that follows thesequence HP + verb +-i2 while it is su- ‘do’ that follows HP + verb + -i in
OH. On the other hand, the verb stem appears in RH and it is followed by-(r)are.
The morphological properties of the predicates are summarized
schematically in (2). V stands for the verb stem.

(2) a. SH: HP + V-i3 ni nar-u/ HP + VN ni nar-ub. OH: HP + V-i su-ru/ HP + VN su-ru

1

It depends on the lexical item which one is realized. I assume that it is specified as
one of the lexical information.
2
I assume that the particle ni, which appears between HP + V and nar- ‘become’, is a
dative Case marker.
3
The part HP + V-i corresponds to Harada’s (1976) HP + INF (= the infinitive formof a verb). For the reasons I will present below, Harada’s (1976) assumption that theverbs of SH and OH are infinitive is not correct. Hence, I will use the notation HP + V-i.
9

c. RH: V + -(r)are-ru

Let us discuss the difference between SH/OH and RH. Besides thedifference of ni nar- ‘become’ (NARU4), su- ‘do’ (SURU) and -(r)are(RARE), one of the differences between SH/OH and RH is that HP does
not appear in RH. The form of the verbs are also different between SH/OH
and RH. In (2), the morpheme -i follows the verb stem in SH/OH5, whilethe verb appears without -i in RH. As shown in (3), V must be followed by-i when it is combined with HP.

(3) a. o-kaer-i
HP-go home-I

6

b.*o-kaer-u
HP-go home-Pres

In (3b) V is followed by the present tense morpheme -(r)u, not -i, so thatthe example is ungrammatical. On the other hand, V cannot be followed by
4

The notation NARU includes both ni and nar-.
The morpheme -i becomes phonologically null if the verb stem ends with a vowel
as the following example illustrates.
i) home-ru ‘praise’o-home-φ ni naru
6
-I stands for the morpheme -i in the gloss. When the presence/absence of themorpheme is irrelevant to the argument, I will omit it from gloss.
510

-i in RH as the following contrast demonstrates.

(4) a. kaer-are-ru
go home-RARE-Pres

b. *kaer-i-rare-ru
go home-I-RARE-Pres

In connection with the sequence HP + V-i, only SH/OH allow HP +VN to appear in front of NARU/SURU. This suggests that HP + V-i andnouns have the same distribution, as Kuno (1989) and Suzuki (1988) claim.
Following examples from Ivana and Sakai (2003) illustrate this point.

(5) a. Daigakusee

desuuniversity student be-ka-Question“Are you a university student?”
b.*Kaer-u

desu

go home-Pres be-ka-Question“Will you go home?”c. O-kaer-i
HP-go home-I

desu

-ka

be

-Question

11

“Will you go home?”

In (5a), the noun daigakusee ‘university student’ appears in front of the
copula desu-ka ‘be + Question’. On the other hand, the example in (5b)illustrates that the finite verb kaer-u ‘go home’ cannot appear in theposition. That is, only nominal elements can appear in the position. The
fact that the example in (5c) is grammatical indicates that HP + V-i canappear in the position. From this observation, Ivana and Sakai (2003)
conclude that the sequence HP + V-i shares the same distributional property
with nouns, but not with verbs. Hereafter, I will use the notation HP + V torefer to both HP + V-i and HP + VN.
To sum up, in this section, I have discussed the morphologicalproperties of honorification. Especially, the following generalizations havebeen obtained.

(6) Properties of main verbs
a. The distribution of HP + V in SH/OH is identical with nouns.
b. V which appears in RH is in the stem form.

122.2. Syntactic Properties

This section reviews the syntactic properties of honorification. I
will discuss the following three properties.

(7) a. The subject/object orientationb. The indirect/direct object asymmetry in OH
c. Peculiar properties of RH

2.2.1. Subject/Object Orientation
The first property is the subject/object orientation. Consider theexamples in (8).

(8) a. Yamada-sensei-ga7 Taroo-ni
Prof.

hon-o

-Dat8 book-Acc-Nomo-watas-i

ni nat-ta

HP-hand over9

NARU-Past“Prof. Yamada handed over the book to Taro.”
b. #Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-ni
-Nom

7
8
9

Prof.

-Dat

hon-o

o-watas-i

ni nat-ta

book-Acc

HP-hand over NARU-Past

Throughout this thesis, the NP which is interpreted as an SSS is underlined.
Dat= dative.
Hereafter, I will omit the morpheme -i from gloss.
13

“Taro handed over the book to Prof. Yamada.”c. *Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-ni
-Nom

Prof.

-Dat

hon-o

o-watas-i

ni nat-ta

book-Acc

HP-hand over NARU-Past“Taro handed over the book to Prof. Yamada.”

The sentence in (8a) is grammatical and the subject NP Yamada-sensei‘Prof. Yamada’ is an SSS. In (8b), the NP Taroo appears in the subject
position. In this case, the NP Taroo is an SSS, and the sentence is marked#10. The ungrammaticality of (8c) indicates that it is impossible to obtain
the interpretation that the object NP is an SSS even if the object NP can bequalified as an appropriate SSS. The same pattern of grammaticality isfound in RH (see Toribio 1990).

(9) a. Yamada-sensei-ga Taroo-ni
Prof.

-Nom

aw-are-ta-Datmeet-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada met Taro.”
b. #Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-ni
-Nom

Prof.

aw-are-ta

-Dat

10

meet-RARE-Past

In this thesis, following Niinuma (2003), the context is restricted to the one inwhich only professors can be qualified as an appropriate SSS for clear judgments. I will
use the symbol # for the inappropriateness of the SSS.
14

“Taro met Prof. Yamada.”c. *Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-ni
-Nom

Prof.

aw-are-ta-Datmeet-RARE-Past“Taro met Prof. Yamada.”

The grammaticality of the sentence (9a) and the inappropriatenessof the sentence in (9b) indicate that the subject NP is an SSS. As in the caseof SH, it is impossible to interpret the object NP as an SSS. Let us call thisproperty as subject orientation.
On the other hand, the inverse pattern is found in OH. Consider thefollowing examples.

(10) a. Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-ni
-Nom

Prof.

-Dat

hon-o

o-watas-i

si-ta

book-Acc

HP-hand over SURU-Past“Taro handed over the book to Prof. Yamada.”b. #Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

Taroo-nihon-o-Dat book-Acc

o-watas-i

si-ta

HP-hand over SURU-Past“Prof. Yamada handed over the book to Taro.”c. *Yamada-sense-ga
Prof.

-Nom

Taroo-nihon-o-Dat book-Acc

15

o-watas-i

si-ta

HP-hand over SURU-Past

“Prof. Yamada handed over the book to Taro.”

In (10a), it is the object NP Yamada-sensei ‘Prof. Yamada’ that is an SSS.
The example in (10b) illustrates that if the NP Taroo appears in the object
position, Taroo is interpreted as an SSS, so that the sentence is marked #. It
is impossible to interpret the subject NP as an SSS as the sentence in (10c)indicates. Let us call this property as object orientation.
Is the word order responsible for the interpretation of an SSS?
Examples in (11) are the scrambled version of (8a), (9a), and (10a)respectively.

(11) a. Taroo-ni

Yamada-sensei-ga

-Dat

Prof.

-Nom

hon-o

o-watas-i

ni nat-ta

book-Acc

HP-hand over NARU-Past“Prof. Yamada handed over a book to Taro.”b. Taroo-ni

Yamada-sensei-ga

-Dat

Prof.

-Nom

aw-are-ta
meet-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada met Taro.”c. Yamada-sensei-ni Taroo-ga hon-o
Prof.

-Dat

-Nom book-Acc

o-watas-i

si-ta

HP-hand over

SURU-Past“Taro handed over a book to Prof. Yamada.”16

As shown in (11), scrambling does not affect the interpretation of an SSS.
Therefore it seems that it is the notion like subject and object that isrelevant to be interpreted as an SSS.
From these observations, the following descriptive generalization
can be postulated.

(12) The subject/object orientation
a. SH/RH have the subject orientation.
b. OH has the object orientation.

2.2.2. Indirect/Direct Object Asymmetry
Let us consider the detail of the object orientation. Harada (1976)
points out that there is an asymmetry between an indirect object and a
direct object in OH. He observes that if a predicate takes both an indirect
object and a direct object, it is not the direct object but the indirect object
that is interpreted as an SSS. Harada’s (1976) following examples illustrate
this point (Harada 1976, p. 530).

(13) a. Yamada-sensei-ni

otooto-o17

go-syookai

si-ta

Prof.

-Dat

brother-Acc HP-introduction SURU-Past“I introduced my brother to Prof. Yamada.”b. #Otooto-ni Yamada-sensei-o go-syookai
brother-Dat

si-ta

Prof. -Acc HP-introduction SURU-Past“I introduced Prof. Yamada to my brother.”c. *Otooto-ni Yamada-sensei-o go-syookai
brother-Dat

si-ta

Prof. -Acc HP-introduction SURU-Past“I introduced Prof. Yamada to my brother.”Among these sentences, they differ only in one point; the indirect object is
Yamada-sensei ‘Prof. Yamada’ in (13a) while it is otooto ‘brother’ in (13b)and (13c). In (13a) and (13b), the indirect object is interpreted as an SSS,
so that only (13b) is marked #. The ungrammaticality of the sentence in(13c) illustrates that it is impossible to interpret the direct object
Yamada-sensei ‘Prof. Yamada’ as an SSS.
Of course, if a predicate takes only one object, it is interpreted as an
SSS, as exemplified in (14).

(14) a. Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-ni
-Nom

Prof.

-Dat

18

o-aw-isi-ta

HP-meetSURU-Past

“Taro met Prof. Yamada.”b. Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-o o-tasuke-NomProf. -Acc HP-help

si-ta
SURU-Past“Taro helped Prof. Yamada.”

Even though the object is marked by the dative Case marker in (14a) andby the accusative Case marker in (14b), both sentences are grammatical.
Therefore, it is not the case that the asymmetry stems form the fact that an
accusative NP cannot be an SSS.
Therefore, the following generalization can be obtained.

(15) The indirect/direct object asymmetry11
If a predicate of OH has both an indirect object and a direct object, then11

Niinuma (2003) and Boeckx and Niinuma (2004) provide more data that indicate
not only the indirect object but also other arguments (in fact, PPs) block the direct
object from being an SSS. Some of their examples are presented below (Niinuma 2003
pp. 17-20, slightly modified).
i) Taroo-ga Tanaka-sensei-kara/#Mary-kara hon-oo-kar-isi-ta-NomProf.-from/-frombook-Acc HP-borrow

SURU-Past“Taro borrowed the book from Prof. Tanaka/from Mary.”ii) Taroo-ga Tanaka-sensei-to/#Mary-to Hanako-nituiteo-hanasi si-ta-Nom

Prof.-with/-with-about“Taro talked to Prof. Tanaka/to Mary about Hanako”iii) Taroo-ga Tanaka-sensei-e/#Mary-e Hanako-no hon-o-NomProf. -to/-toHP-talk

SURU-Past

o-okur-i si-ta-Gen book-Acc HP-send SURU-Past“Taro sent Hanako’s book to Prof. Tanaka/to Mary.”
Yet, as Niinuma (2003) and Boeckx and Niinuma (2004) assume, I assume if atheory can explain the indirect/direct object asymmetry, it can also explain their datastraightforwardly. I will return this issue in Chapter 5.
19the indirect object blocks the direct object from being an SSS.

2.2.3. Peculiar Properties of RH
This subsection discusses the properties of RH comparing withdirect passive and indirect passive, since all the three constructions sharethe same morpheme -(r)are. First, I discuss the relation between Case andtheta-roles in RH. Consider the sentences in (16).

(16) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

gakusee-o home-ta
student-Acc praise-Past“Prof. Yamada praised the student.”b. Gakusee-ga
student(Yamada-sensei-ni)

-Nom

Prof.

-by

home-rare-ta
12

praise-Pass -Past“The student was praised by Prof. Yamada.”c. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

gakusee-o home-rare-ta
student-Acc praise-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada praised the student.”

The sentence in (16a) is a transitive sentence in which the nominative NP
12

I will use Pass for the passive morpheme to distinguish the morpheme from RARE
in RH.
20

Yamada-sensei ‘Prof. Yamada’ is the Agent argument and the accusative NP
gakusee ‘student’ is the Theme argument. As the direct passive sentence in(16b) indicates, if the passive morpheme -(r)are appears on the verb, theTheme NP is marked by the nominative Case marker and the Agent NP issuppressed. This suggests that the relation between Case and theta-roles
changes in direct passive. Yet, the relation does not change in RH; asshown in (16c), the nominative NP Yamada-sensei “Prof. Yamada” is still
the Agent argument and the accusative NP gakusee ‘student’ is the Themeargument. Hence, it is found that RARE does not change the relation
between Case and theta-roles while the relation changes in direct passive.
Let us now compare RH with indirect passive. One of the properties
of indirect passive is that all types of verbs (transitive, unergative andunaccusative) can appear in front of the morpheme -(r)are. Consider thefollowing examples.

(17) a. Taroo-ga Hanako-ni
-Nom

-Dat

otooto-ohome-rare-ta (transitive)

brother-Acc praise-Pass-Past“Taro was affected by Hanako’s praising his brother.”b. Taroo-ga Hanako-ni

waraw-are-ta-Nomlaugh-Pass-Past

-Dat

21

(unergative)

“Taro was affected by Hanako’s laughing.”c. Taroo-ga

Hanako-ni-Nomkorob-are-ta-Dat(unaccusative)

tumble-Pass-Past“Taro was affected by Hanako’s tumbling.”

These verbs can also appear in RH. The next three sentences illustrate thispoint.

(18) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

Hanako-o

-Nom

-Acc

home-rare-ta (transitive)praise-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada praised Hanako.”
b. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

waraw-are-ta(unergative)

laugh-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada laughed.”c. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

korob-are-ta(unaccusative)

tumble-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada tumbled.”

These observations seem to suggest that RARE and the passive morphemeof the indirect passive behave in the same way. Yet, it is not correct since
22they have totally different thematic relation. Consider the sentences
presented below.

(19) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

gakusee-ni

hon-o

ur-are-ta

student-Dat

book-Acc

sell-Pass-Past“Prof. Yamada was affected by the student’s selling the book.”b. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

gakusee-ni

hon-o

ur-are-ta

student-Dat

book-Acc

sell-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada sold the book to the student.”

As the translations of each sentence suggest, these sentences have totallydifferent meanings although the sentences consist of the same words.
Particularly, the nominative NP is the “affectee” argument and the dative
NP is the Agent (in the case of transitive/unergative verbs) or Theme (in thecase of unaccusative verbs) argument in indirect passive while thenominative NP is the Agent/Theme argument in RH and there is no“affectee” argument.
From these observations, the following descriptive generalizations
can be obtained.

23

(20) Peculiar properties of RH
a. The same relation between Case and theta-roles holds in RH and its
non-honorific counterpart.
b. All types of verbs can appear in RH.

2.3. Summary of Chapter 2

In this chapter, I have examined the morphological and syntactic
properties of honorification. As a result, following generalizations are
obtained.

(21) Properties of main verbs
a. The distribution of HP + V in SH/OH is identical with nouns.
b. V which appears in RH is in the stem form.
(22) The subject/object orientation
a. SH/RH have the subject orientation.
b. OH has the object orientation.
(23) The indirect/direct object asymmetry
If a predicate of OH has both an indirect object and a direct object, thenthe indirect object blocks the direct object from being an SSS.
24

(24) Peculiar properties of RH
a. The same relation between Case and theta-roles holds in RH and its
non-honorific counterpart.
b. All types of verbs can appear in RH.

In the next chapter, I will review two previous studies and revealthat they have some theoretical and empirical problems. After the review ofprevious studies, I will propose a theory of honorification to explain thesegeneralizations in Chapter 4.

25

Chapter 3
Previous Studies

In this chapter, I will review two previous studies (Toribio 1990 and
Niinuma 2003, 2005). Toribio (1990) is the first attempt to provide a
uniform explanation for SH, OH and RH in terms of Spec-Head agreement.
Against Toribio’s (1990) Spec-Head approach, Niinuma (2003, 2005)
updates Harada’s (1976) work and tries to explain the properties of OH via
Agree (Chomsky 2000, 2001). Discussing their analyses, I will point out
that they have some empirical and theoretical problems.

3.1. Toribio (1990)

In this section, I will discuss the analysis by Toribio (1990), whichclaims that honorification can be explained by Spec-Head agreement andtries to provide a unified theory of honorification. First, I will review her
theory of SH, OH and RH, and then I will point out that her analysis has
several critical problems.
26

Toribio (1990) proposes that NARU in SH is a raising verb while
SURU in OH is a control verb. The structure in (1b) is proposed for asentence of SH in (1a).

(1) a. Yamada-sensei-ga-Prof.

-Nomo-waraw-i

ni nat-ta

HP-laugh

NARU-Past“Prof. Yamada laughed.”b.

TP
Yamada-senseii-ga

T’

PrP

T

ti

Pr’

natk-ta

VP

Pr

ti

V’

tk

DP
ti

V
D’

tk

PrP
ti

D
Pr’

o-waraw-ij-ni

VP

Pr

V

tj

tj
27

In (1b), Pr stands for the category proposed by Bowers (1988, 1993), whichtakes lexical phrasal projections like VP, AP and NP as its complement andintroduces an external argument in its specifier position. In this structure,
the head D (Abney 1987) takes the lower PrP as its complement andnominalizes it. Toribio (1990) claims that the noun-like distribution of HP+ V can be explained by regarding the HP + V as DP.
She proposes that when an NP moves to [Spec, DP] and enters into
Spec-Head relation with D, it triggers Spec-Head agreement and as a result,
HP appears on the verb, which has already moved to D via head movement.
Note that her analysis attributes the subject orientation of SH to theraising nature of NARU. She assumes that the subject NP, which isbase-generated in embedded [Spec, PrP], moves to [Spec, TP]
successive-cyclically to check its Case feature, through [Spec, DP]. Hence,
it is only the subject that can trigger Spec-Head agreement with D. In thisway, the subject orientation of SH can be explained.
Let us now turn to her analysis of OH. The structure in (2b) is
proposed for a sentence of OH in (2a).

(2) a. Otooto-ga

sensei-oo-tasuke28

si-ta

brother-Nom

Prof.-Acc

HP-help

SURU-Past“(My) brother helped the professor.”b.

TPotootoi-ga

T’
PrP

T

ti

Pr’
VP

Pr

DP

V

sensein-osik-ta

D’

tk

tk

PrP

D

PROi

Pr’
VP

tn

Pr
V’

tn

o-tasukej

tj
Vtj

Because SURU is a control verb, the subject otooto ‘brother’ isbase-generated in matrix [Spec, PrP] and controls PRO which isbase-generated in embedded [Spec, PrP].
In this structure, it is the object that moves to [Spec, DP] and29

triggers agreement with D through Spec-Head configuration. On the other
hand, the subject is base-generated in the position higher than [Spec, DP],so the subject cannot enter the Spec-Head configuration with D. Therefore,
her analysis can account for the object orientation of OH, attributing thisproperty to the control nature of SURU.
Note that she stipulates [Spec, DP] as an A’-position to avoid the
movement of the object over PRO to violate Relativized Minimality (Rizzi
1990). This stipulation is crucial in the discussion below.
Toribio (1990) tries to explain the indirect/direct object asymmetryby locality consideration. She assumes the following structure.

(3)

VP
X

indirect object

V’direct object

V

She argues that since the indirect object is base-generated in the position
higher than the position in which the direct object is base-generated, themovement of the direct object over the indirect object violates Relativized
Minimality, so that the presence of the indirect object blocks the agreement
between the direct object and D.
30

Yet, Toribio’s (1990) analysis has several serious inconsistencies.
The first problem concerns the indirect/direct object asymmetry. Consider
the structures in (2b) and (3). Since she assumes that [Spec, DP] is an
A’-position, the movement of the direct object over the indirect object does
not violate Relativized Minimality, in the same way the movement of theobject over PRO does not cause the violation, as Niinuma (2003) correctly
points out. This means that her theory predicts that the direct object can be
an SSS even if the indirect object is present, contrary to the fact.
The second problem, which also stems from the assumption that[Spec, DP] is an A’-position, concerns with SH. Toribio (1990) claims thatthe subject moves from lower [Spec, PrP] to [Spec, TP] through [Spec, DP]
in SH. This movement is a kind of improper movement (Chomsky 1986b),
since both the departure site lower [Spec, PrP] and the landing site [Spec,TP] are A-positions, but the intermediate position [Spec, DP] is an
A’-position by her assumption. Yet, to revise [Spec, DP] to be an A-position
to avoid this problem causes another problem: the movement of the object
over PRO in OH violates Relativized Minimality. Therefore, the object
cannot be an SSS in OH.
Let us now consider Toribio’s (1990) analysis of RH. Extending heranalysis, Toribio (1990) claims that RARE in RH is also a raising verb and31

proposes the following structure for RH.

(4) a. Yamada-sensei-ga-Prof.

ik-are-ta-Nom

go-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada went.”b.

TP
Yamada-senseii-ga

T’
PrP

T

ti

Pr’

ik-arek-ta

VP
ti

Pr
V’

DP
ti

V
D’

PrP
ti

tk

tk
D

Pr’

tk

VP

Pr

V

tk

tk

Since ik- ‘go’ is an unergative verb, the subject Yamada-sensei ‘Prof.
32

Yamada’ is base-generated in embedded [Spec, PrP] and moves to [Spec,TP] to meet its Case requirement. Toribio (1990) claims that when thesubject moves to [Spec, DP], it agrees with the verb which has already
moved to D. In this way, the subject orientation of RH can be explained.
She also argues that “[t]he lack of honorific morphology [=HP] in passive
constructions is predicted since the verb is not nominalized” (Toribio 1990
p. 548).
What Toribio (1990) argues, however, is not consistent with what
the proposed structure indicates. The first point is that since she argues that“the passive predicate -(r)are takes a PrP complement” (Toribio 1990 p.
548), she would suppose that RARE is a D. Nonetheless, the index on theverb in (4b) indicates that RARE appears in lowest V together with theverb ik- ‘go’. Even if the indexing is a mistake, the claim that RARE is a D
is presumably wrong since RARE is a verb. This point is confirmed by thefact that RARE is immediately followed by past tense morpheme -ta.
The second point is that Toribio (1990) attributes the lack of HP to
the absence of nominalization of the verb, despite of the presence of D in
(4b). Although the presence of D is necessary for her because D is the locusof the honorific agreement, its presence makes it impossible to explain thefact that the verb appears without nominalization in RH. In addition, if D
33

has nominalized the verb, there is no reason to assume HP cannot appear on
the verb. Therefore, her analysis should predict that HP appears on the verb
in RH, contrary to the fact.
For these reasons, Toribio’s (1990) analysis cannot be maintained,
although her attempt to construct a unified theory of honorification andintuition that the difference of orientation between SH, OH and RH is dueto the difference of the verbs are interesting.

3.2. Niinuma (2003, 2005)

In this section, I will review the theory proposed by Niinuma (2003,
2005). Adopting the recent Probe-Goal system proposed by Chomsky(2000, 2001), Niinuma (2003, 2005) proposes that the properties ofhonorification can be explained in terms of Agree between an NP and afunctional category. Specifically, he claims that a feature [+human]constitutes the phi-features of Japanese and when the functional category
has the uninterpretable phi-features, it probes its c-commanding domain
and agrees with an NP which has [+human]. If the relevant functional
category is T, the form of the verbs changes to “HP + V ni nar-”, and if it is34

v, the form of the verb changes to “HP + V su-”. The NP which is involvedin Agree is interpreted as an SSS.
The most interesting point of his proposal is that the indirect/direct
object asymmetry can be explained as an instance of “defective
intervention effects” (Chomsky 2000). The configuration where defective
intervention arises is shown schematically in (5). X is a head, which probes
its c-commanding domain to meet its featural requirement. In this structure,
YP asymmetrically c-commands ZP.

(5) X […YP ... [… ZP …]]
X

Suppose that both YP and ZP can meet X’s requirement, but YP is“defective” in some sense. In this case, X cannot enter Agree relation with
ZP due to the intervention of YP.
Niinuma (2003) explains the indirect/ direct object asymmetry byassuming the structure in (6), where the indirect object asymmetrically
c-commands the direct object (Hoji 1985).

35

(6) v [… indirect object … [… direct object …]]1
X

Given that being an SSS is a reflex of Agree with v, this structure clearly
explains why the indirect object must be interpreted as an SSS when thepredicate is a ditransitive verb. That is, the presence of the indirect object
blocks Agree between the direct object and v.
Yet, Niinuma’s (2003, 2005) analysis is also not without problems.
The first problem is empirical. Since the fact that a subject is an SSS andthe appearance of NARU is related in terms of Agree with T, his theory
cannot explain why the subject is an SSS in RH, even though RARE, not
NARU, appears on the predicate. Although it is possible to assume that if
Agree between T and an NP takes place, the verb can change to either “HP+ V + ni nar-” or “V-(r)are” to account for the facts, this is just a
stipulation.
The second problem is that Niinuma (2003, 2005) does not offer
any morphological considerations of the predicate2. That is, he simply
keeps assuming that the sequence “HP + V + ni nar-/su-” constitutes a verb
as a whole. Thus, he cannot account for the noun-like distribution of HP +1
2

The order is irrelevant.
Bobaljik and Yatsushiro (2004) also note this point.
36

V. One related question is the following: why does NARU appear when
Agree with T takes place and SURU appear when Agree with v takes
place?
The third problem concerns the mechanism of honorification.
Although he claims that the relevant mechanism is Agree, his system has
serious problems concerning Case. This problem has two aspects. One of
the aspects of the problem is that honorification is an “optional”
phenomenon. Consider the examples in (7).

(7) a. Taroo-ga-Nom

Yamada-sensei-ni

hon-oo-watas-i-Prof.

book-Acc

HP-hand over SURU-Past

-Dat

si-ta

“Taro handed over a book to Prof. Yamada.”b. Taroo-ga-Nom

Yamada-sensei-ni

hon-o

watas-i-ta.

-Prof.

book-Acc

hand over-Past-Dat“Taro handed over a book to Prof. Yamada.”

The sentence in (7a) is OH and the one in (7b) is its non-honorificcounterpart. Note that both sentences are grammatical. If Niinuma’s (2003,
2005) view is correct, Agree between the indirect object and the functional
category v has taken place in (7a) while it has not in (7b). Therefore he37

should say that v in (7a) has the phi-features but v in (7b) does not havethem. This point is crucial, because agreement and Case are “the two sidesof the same coin” (Boeckx 2004). The mechanism of Agree which is
widely assumed is the following: the functional categories haveuninterpretable phi-features, and NPs have interpretable phi-features and an
uninterpretable Case feature. When a functional category which has theuninterpretable phi-features probes its domain and finds its goal, namely, an
NP which has the interpretable phi-features, Agree takes place and deletes
the uninterpretable phi-features of the probe and the uninterpretable Casefeature of the goal. If Agree does not take place, then the uninterpretablephi-features and the uninterpretable Case feature remain, and the derivationcrashes.
To see how the mechanism works, consider the next sentences.

(8) a. John loves Maryb. *John love Mary

In (8a), the functional category T, which has the uninterpretablephi-features, probes its domain and finds the NP John, which has theinterpretable counterparts. Then, Agree deletes the uninterpretable38phi-features on T and the uninterpretable Case feature on John, and thederivation converges. On the other hand, in (8b), Agree does not take placeas the morphological form of the verb love indicates. If Agree does not takeplace, then the uninterpretable phi-features on T and the uninterpretable
Case feature on John cannot be deleted, and the derivation crashes. This is
the reason why the sentence in (8b) is ungrammatical. The same situation
holds for the relation between v and an object NP.
Let us now reconsider the sentences in (7). In (7b), because of theabsence of the phi-features on v, Agree cannot take place, and theuninterpretable Case feature on the object Yamada-sensei ‘Prof. Yamada’remains. Therefore, the derivation should crash, contrary to the fact.
The second aspect of the problem concerns with the value of Case.
Following Chomsky (2000, 2001), suppose that the accusative Case marker
is the reflection of Agree between an NP and v. Therefore, Niinuma’s (2003,
2005) theory predicts that an SSS should always be marked by theaccusative Case marker. Yet, the prediction is not true. Consider the pair of
the sentences in (9).

(9) a. Taroo-ga-Nom

Yamada-sensei-nio-aw-isi-ta-Prof.

HP-meetSURU-Past

-Dat

39

“Taro met Prof. Yamada”
b. Taroo-ga

Yamada-sensei-oo-tasuke

si-ta-Prof.

HP-help

SURU-Past

-Nom

-Acc

“Taro helped Prof. Yamada.”

As shown in the sentence (9a), the fact that the dative NP can be an SSS
poses a serious problem. One way to avoid this problem is to assume thatwhen an NP agrees with v, the NP is marked by the dative Case marker at
least in Japanese. As the example in (9b) indicates, however, an accusative
NP can also be an SSS. That is, the fact that an NP which is an SSS can bemarked by either the accusative Case marker or by the dative Case marker
suggests that Agree is not appropriate mechanism to explain honorification.
Since these problems are so serious and unavoidable, I conclude that Agree
is not the correct relation to explain the properties of honorification.
In this section, I have reviewed Niinuma’s (2003, 2005) theory
focusing on the mechanism which he proposes to explain the properties ofhonorification. Yet, it is revealed that his theory has serious theoretical andempirical problems.

40

3.3. Summary of Chapter 3

In this chapter, I have discussed two previous studies. Toribio(1990) argues that the properties of SH, OH and RH can be explained interms of Spec-Head agreement. What is the most interesting point of her
analysis is that she attributes the subject/object orientation to the differenceof the verb NARU, SURU and RARE, although her analysis has several
serious inconsistencies. Niinuma (2003, 2005) proposes that themechanism Agree is involved in honorification and claims that theindirect/direct object asymmetry can be explained as an instance of thedefective intervention effect. Yet, it is revealed that Agree is not appropriate
to explain the properties of honorification.

41

Chapter 4
Proposals

In the previous chapter, I have concluded that traditional syntactic
approaches, namely “agreement” approaches, are not correct. Besides theempirical and theoretical problems, their analyses have one conceptual
problem. Their idea that honorification is an instance of agreement has topresuppose that both arguments and predicates (in fact, some functional
categories) have some common features (for example, Niinuma’s
interpretable/uninterpretable phi-features). Yet, I have argued that there is
no reason to assume that arguments have some features which contributethe honorific interpretation.
Against their agreement view, I will propose an alternative theory ofhonorification, based on the idea that the element on the predicate is due tothe interpretation of an SSS. Section 4.1 presents the hypotheses and in
Section 4.2, I will illustrate how the mechanism works by discussing someschematic structures. Section 4.3 is a summary of this chapter.

42

4.1. Honorification as Licensing

In this section, I claim that licensing of an element on the predicate
is adequate to explain the properties of honorification. Specifically, I willpropose the feature [Honorific] ([H]) on the predicate and the following
hypotheses.

(1) a. [H] is licensed iff it binds an XP in the closest1 theta-position.
b. If [H] is not licensed, the derivation crashes.
c. An XP is interpreted as an SSS iff it is bound by [H].

The proposals restrict the position which is relevant in honorificlicensing to theta-positions to make the theory restrictive2, as stated in the
hypothesis (1a). This restriction seems natural because honorification andtheta-positions are both concerned with semantic interpretation.
The hypotheses (1b) and (1c) can explain the apparent optionality
1

The notion of closeness is defined as follows.
i) Y is closer to X than Z iff;a. X c-commands both Y and Z,
b. Y c-commands Z, andc. Z does not c-command Y.
2
I will return to this restriction in Chapter 5, 6 and 7. I will argue that this restriction
not only makes the theory restrictive but also enables the theory to make an empiricallycorrect analysis.
43

of honorification. If [H] appears in a derivation, it has to bind a closest XP,or the derivation will crash by (1b). If [H] does not appear, no XP will bebound by [H]. Therefore, no NP is interpreted as an SSS. The absence of[H] has no effect on the rest of the derivation. Thus, the fact that bothhonorific sentence and its non-honorific counterpart are grammatical can be
explained.
The similar situation is found in indeterminate pronoun binding (seeKuroda 1965, Kishimoto 2001, among others). In Japanese, indeterminate
pronouns (dare ‘anyone’, nani ‘anything’ and so on) function as wh-words,
as shown in (2).

(2) Taroo-wa nani-o-Top what-Acc

kawa-nakat-ta (-no)?
buy -Neg-Past

3-Q“What didn’t Taro buy?”

These indeterminate pronouns, however, can serve as negative polarity
items when a particle mo appears on the verb4. Consider the following
3

Top=topic marker, Neg=negation and Q=question marker. Even if Q is absent, thesentence can be interpreted as a question.
4
The particle mo can also be attached to the indeterminate pronoun directly.
Consider the following example.
i) Taroo-wa nani-mo
kawa-nakat-ta-Topanything-MO buy -Neg -Past
44

example.

(3) Taroo-wa nani-o-Top anything-Acc

kai-mo-si-nakat-ta
buy-MO-do5-Neg-Past“Taro did not buy anything.”

Kishimoto (2001) argues that the particle on the verb binds theindeterminate pronoun, and the bound pronoun is interpreted as a negative
polarity item. Thus, his analysis supports the proposals of this thesis on the
independent ground.
Turning to the proposals of this thesis, it is necessary to consider thetiming of the licensing. When does the licensing take place? Chomsky(2000, 2001) proposes that a derivation proceeds by phase-by-phase. Basedon his idea, I propose the hypotheses in (4).

(4) Licensing takes place when the strong phase where [H] is introduced
completes.

“Taro did not buy anything.”
If the particle mo appears, the verb su- ‘do’ is inserted between the verb andnegation. I do not pursue the reason of this insertion.
545

Following Chomsky (2000, 2001), I assume that C and v*, which
introduces an external argument, constitute the strong phase6. On the other
hand, I assume that v, which takes unaccusative/passive VP as its
complement, is the weak phase. The completion of phase is defined as thefollowing:(5) A phase completes iff;a. a new head is merged to the phase, orb. no more head is selected from numeration.

(5b) is necessary for a matrix CP phase to complete.
Based on the hypotheses, I will discuss in what configuration thehonorific licensing takes place in the next section.

4.2. ConfigurationsFirst, I will deal with the cases in which one [H] appears. Consider
the configuration in (6).
6This point plays a crucial role in the analysis of SH and OH in Chapter 5 and theanalysis of RH in Chapter 6.
46

(6)

YP
Y

FP
aP

F’
F

XP
bP

X’
X [H]

cP

In this structure, aP, bP and cP are the arguments and receive
theta-roles in the respective positions. In addition, X has [H] and F is astrong phase head. Suppose that no head movement takes place, and X
remains in situ. When the phase completes (=the new head Y is merged toFP), licensing takes place, then cP is bound by [H] since it is the closest
element in a theta-position. Thus, in this case, cP is interpreted as an SSS.
Suppose that X moves to F via head movement and then, a head Y
is merged to FP, so that the phase completes. In this case, X c-commandsbP and cP when the phase completes 7 . Since bP asymmetrically7

I assume that head movement creates adjunction structure, so that the moved head(=Y) c-commands the sister of adjoined head (=YP).
i)
XP
X
Y

YP
X

… t…

47

c-commands cP, bP is closer to [H] than cP. Therefore, bP is interpreted as
an SSS in this case.
If X is moved to Y via further head movement, [H] c-commands aP,
bP and cP. Yet, [H] cannot bind aP even if it is the closest maximal
projection in a theta-position, since licensing has already taken place when
the head Y was merged to the phase. Further head movement to Y takes
place presumably after the merge of Y and FP. Thus, aP cannot beinterpreted as an SSS.
Let us next consider the following configuration in (7), slightly
different from (6).

(7)

YP
Y [H]

FP
aP

F’
F

XP
bP

X’
X

cP

In this structure, Y has [H]. Suppose F is the strong phase. Following
Chomsky (2000, 2001), I assume the Phase Impenetrability Condition
48

(PIC). PIC is formulated as follows; for strong phase HP with head H,(8) The domain of H is not accessible to operations outside HP; only H and
its edge are accessible to such operations. (Chomsky 2001, p.13)

The domain of H is its complement and the edge is its specifier (andelements adjoined to HP). Thus, in (7), the domain of F is XP and the edge
of FP is aP. Since the head Y is outside FP, [H] on Y binds only aP. If theposition in which aP appears is a theta-position, aP is interpreted as an SSS.
If not, [H] can bind nothing. Then, [H] cannot be licensed, and thederivation crashes.
Next, consider the case in which two [H]s appear, as shown in (9).

(9)

YP
Y [H]

FP
aP

F’
F

XP
bP

X’
X [H]

49

cP

Suppose that F is a strong phase. In this case, either bP or cP is interpreted
as an SSS, depending on the head movement of X. If X moves to F, bP is
bound by [H] on X. Otherwise, cP is bound by [H] on X. Since [H] on Y
binds only aP by PIC, aP is interpreted as an SSS. Thus, there are two SSSs
in this case.
Suppose that F is not a strong phase and aP is absent (or the position
is not a theta-position). In addition, X moves to F via head movement. Thiscase is illustrated in (10).

(10)

YP
Y [H]

FP

F
X [H]

XP
F

bP

X’
tX[H]

cP

[H] on X c-commands bP and cP. Since bP is closer to X than cP is, bP is
bound by [H] on X. Besides, [H] on Y also c-commands bP and cP and bP
is the closest to Y. Therefore, both [H] on X and [H] on Y bind bP, and thus
only bP is interpreted as an SSS in this case.

50

4.3. Summary of Chapter 4

In this chapter, I have proposed a new theory of honorification. In
this theory, [H] binds the closest XP in a theta-position and the bound XP isinterpreted as an SSS. Based on the theory, I have demonstrated that how
the proposals work in some configurations.

51

Chapter 5
Subject Honorification and Object Honorification

In this chapter, I will provide an analysis of SH and OH based on thetheory proposed in Chapter 4. Specifically, I will demonstrate that the three
generalizations that (i) the distribution of HP + V is identical to nouns, (ii) the
subject/object orientation and (iii) the indirect/direct object asymmetry can be
explained.
In Section 5.1, I will propose the auxiliary hypotheses on the nature of
the elements which appear in SH and OH, namely HP + V, NARU and SURU.
Based on these auxiliary hypotheses, I will claim that SH and OH are kinds ofLight Verb Constructions (Grimshaw and Mester 1988) and provide thesyntactic structures of SH and OH respectively. Then, in Section 5.2, I will
demonstrate that the theory of honorification proposed in Chapter 4 explains thegeneralizations. Section 5.3 argues the consequences of the proposed analysis.
Section 5.4 summarizes this chapter.

52

5.1. HP + V, NARU and SURU

5.1.1. HP + V as Verbal NounIn this subsection, I will propose that the sequence HP + V is a VN.
Since VNs are kind of nouns, their distributions are presumably identical tonouns. Therefore, the generalization that the distribution of HP + V is identicalto nouns can be explained. In addition, I will propose that the formation of HP +V takes place in the lexicon.
As I have discussed in Chapter 2, HP + V consists of two subclasses, HP+ V-i (for example, o-yom-i ‘read’) and HP + VN (for example, go-syookai‘introduction’). The proposal that HP + V is a VN is natural for HP + VN typesince prefixation does not change the category of the word in general (forexample, correct-incorrect). On the other hand, to claim that HP + V-i is also a
VN, some justification seems to be needed. Thus, I will give some evidence thatindicates HP + V-i and VN behave to their arguments in the same way.
First, consider the following examples.

(1) a. Gakusee-tati-no
student1-Plu-Gen1

ronbun-no

happyoo

(-ga

paper

announcement(-Nom good-Past)-Gen

Plu=plural, Gen=genitive
53

yokat-ta)

“Students’ presentation of papers (was good.)”b. Taroo-no

Tookyoo-kara-no syuppatu (-ga

-Gen

Tokyo

-from-Gen departure

okure-ta)(-Nom delay-Past)“Taro’s departure from Tokyo (was delayed.)”c. Taroo-no

tomodati-Gen friend“Taro’s friend”

The fact that VNs are followed by the nominative Case marker suggeststhat they are used as nouns in (1a) and (1b). In these cases, the arguments of
VNs are marked by the genitive Case marker. As shown in (1c), this is theproperty of nouns. At this point, consider the following examples.

(2) a. Yamada-sensei-e-no
Prof. -to-Gen

hon-noo-watas-i2(-ga

book-Gen

HP-hand over(-Nom delay-Past)

okure-ta)“Handing over the book to Prof. Yamada (was delayed.)”b. Yamada-sensei-no nimotu-no
Prof.
2-Gen package-Gen

o-okur-i(-gaokure-ta)

HP-send(-Nom delay-Past)

Note that not all HP + V-i behave in this way. Consider the example below.
i) *Yamada-sensei-no hon-no
o-yom-iProf. -Gen book-Gen

HP-read“Prof. Yamada’s reading the book”
What causes this difference is not obvious and I do not go into this matter.
54

“Prof. Yamada’s sending the package (was delayed.)”The same behavior is found in HP + V-i. Thus, this provides evidence for theclaim that HP + V-i is a VN.
Meanwhile, when VNs are followed by the verb su- ‘do’3, they behave as
if they are verbs.

(3) a. Taroo-ga-Nomronbun-ohappyoo

si-ta

paper

announcement

do-Past-Acc“Taro presented a paper.”b. Taroo-ga-NomTookyoo-kara syuppatu si-ta
Tokyo-from departure

do-Past“Taro departed from Tokyo.”

In these examples, the arguments are marked by the nominative Case marker orby the accusative Case marker and PP is not marked by the genitive Case marker.
These sentences are called as Light Verb Construction (henthforth, LVCs, see
Grimshaw and Mester 1988, Saito and Hoshi 2000). The same pattern of Case
marking is found when HP + V-i is followed by SURU. The following examples
3

In fact, I will claim that this su- ‘do’ and SURU are the identical lexical item in Section
5.1.2.
55

illustrate this point.

(4) a. Taroo-ga-Nom

Yamada-sensei-ni
Prof.

-Dat

o-aw-isi-ta

HP-meetSURU-Past“Taro met Prof. Yamada.”b. Taroo-ga-Nom

Yamada-sensei-kara hon-o
Prof.

-from

book-Acco-uketor-i si-ta
HP-receive SURU-Past“Taro received the book from Prof. Yamada.”

From these observations, it turns out that HP + V-i and VN behave in thesame way. Therefore, the hypothesis that the syntactic category of the sequence
HP + V is a VN is justified.
Then, the next question is that how HP + V is formed. I propose that they
are formed in the lexicon by the following steps:(5) Step 1: a verb is nominalized in the lexicon, and its category is turned into
VN.
Step 2: [H] is attached to VN.
Step 3: [H] is realized as o-/go-, depending on the item to which it attaches4.
4

Although it is possible to regard the third process as a PF-process, this does not affect the56

For the formation of HP + VN, the first step is simply absence. I assume
that the morpheme -i nominalizes the verb5. This assumption seems to be natural
since the suffixation changes the category of the word in general (RighthandHead Rule, see Williams 1981). For example, the suffix -tion changes verbs tonouns (introduce-introduction).
If it is assumed that the affixation of [H] takes place during the syntactic
derivation, [H] would take VP (or nominalized VP) as its complement andprojects to “HonorificP” since [H] is not argument of VN. That is, it has to be
assumed that HP constitutes a kind of a functional category6. Yet, there is no
reason to assume such an arbitrary functional category. Thus, I will claim theformation of HP + V takes place in the lexicon and HP + V constitute a word asa whole.
It is necessary that the nominalization of the verb precedes theattachment of [H] to the verb since [H] can be attached to only [+N] category(Toribio 1990). In addition, this ordering can explain the following contrast
which I have argued in Chapter 2.

argument.
5
Kuno (1989) and Suzuki (1988) have reached the same conclusion independently.
6
In fact, Ivana and Sakai (2003) provide such an analysis. On the criticism of their analysis,
see appendix.
57

(6) a. o-kaer-i
HP-go home-I

b.*o-kaer-u
HP-go home-Pres

The absence of the nominalizer -i indicates that the word kaer ‘go home’ is averb. The example in (6b) is ungrammatical since HP is attached to the verb.
In this subsection, I have proposed that the syntactic category of HP + V
is a VN and the formation of it takes place in the lexicon. As a result, thegeneralization that the distribution of HP + V is identical to nouns is explained.
In the next subsection, I will discuss the nature of NARU and SURU.

5.1.2. Two Types of Light Verbs
In this subsection, I will propose that both NARU and SURU are lightverbs (Grimshaw and Mester 1988) in the sense that they have no theta-role andtake VNPs as complements. That is, I will claim that SH and OH are kinds of
LVCs. I will start the argument on SURU since this verb generally appears in
LVCs in Japanese (and other languages). Then, I will claim that NARU is also akind of light verbs but it differs from SURU in the position in which an externalargument of VNP is base-generated. I will also argue that the difference stems
58

form the NARU’s unaccusative nature.
First of all, I propose that SURU in OH is a transitive light verb. To see
this, let us consider the following sentences.

(7) a. Taroo-ga-Nomtomodati-ni

otooto-ofriendbrother-Acc introduction su-Past-Datsyookaisi-ta“Taro introduced the friend to his brother.”b. Taroo-ga-Nom

Yamada-sensei-ni
Prof.

-Dat

otooto-ogo-syookai

si-ta

brother-Acc HP-introduction SURU-Past“Taro introduced his brother to Prof. Yamada.”c. Taroo-ga-Nom

Yamada-sensei-ni
Prof.

-Dat

hon-o

o-watas-i

si-ta

book-Acc

HP-hand over

SURU-Past“Taro handed over the book to Prof. Yamada.”

The sentence in (7a) is a typical LVC, in which a light verb su- ‘do’ follows a
VN syookai ‘introduction’. The sentences in (7b) and (7c) are examples of OH.
As I have shown in the previous subsection, the categorical status of HP + V is a
VN, and they are followed by SURU. This suggests that OH is a kind of
LVCs7,8.
7Hereafter, the notation SURU includes su- ‘do’ in non-honorific LVCs.
59

Following Karimi-Doostan (2005), I assume that light verbs aresemantically bleached verbs (that is, they have no theta-role) and they should be
distinguished from v. More specifically, I claim the following hypotheses.

(8) The nature of SURU
a. SURU takes VNP as its complement.
b. SURU is a V, and selected by v* (Chomsky 2000, 2001).
c. An external argument of VN is base-generated in [Spec, v*P] of SURU,
and receives a theta-role of VN there.

Since SURU is presumably transitive, it is natural that v* appears above the VP
as I have claimed in (8b).
To clarify this point, I will compare SURU with the verb nar- ‘become’.
First of all, consider the following examples.

(9) a. Taroo-ga-Nom

si-ta-no-wa

ronbun-o kai-ta

koto-dado-Past-thing-Top

paper-Acc

fact-Pres

write-Past“What Taro did is to write the paper.”b. Taroo-ga
8

si-ta-no-wa

hasit-ta

koto-daBobaljik and Yatsushiro (2004) also suggest this idea and provide some evidence.
60

-Nom

do-Past-thing-Top

run-Past

fact-Pres“What Taro did is to run.”c. *Taroo-ga-Nom

si-ta-no-wa

sin-dakoto-dado-Past-thing-Top

die-Past

fact-Pres“(Lit.) What Taro did is to die.”The example in (9a) illustrates that the subject of a transitive verb like kak‘write’ can appear in the context x-ga si-ta-no-wa … koto-da ‘what x did is that…’. In addition, the subject of an unergative verb like hasir- ‘run’ can appear
there as in (9b). Yet, as shown in (9c), the subject of an unaccusative verb likesin- ‘die’ cannot appear there. This difference stems from their base-generated
position of the subject; a VP-external position (= [Spec, v*P]) for transitive
verbs and unergative verbs, and a VP-internal position for unaccusative verbs.
That is, it is only the argument which is base-generated in [Spec, v*P] that canappear in the context.
Next, consider the following examples. The sentence in (10a) is an
example of LVCs. The verb nar- ‘become’ is used in the example in (10b).

(10) a. Taroo-ga si-ta-no-wa-Nomgakkai-de

happyoosi-ta

koto-dado-Past-thing-Top symposium-at announcement SURU-Past fact-Pres
61

“What Taro did is to present the paper at the symposium.”b. *Taroo-ga-Nom

si-ta-no-wa

sensei-ni nat-ta

koto-dado-Past-thing-Top

teacher-Dat become-Past

fact-Pres“(Lit.) What Taro did is to become a teacher.”

The fact that the sentence in (10a) is grammatical suggests that the subject of
SURU is base-generated in [Spec, v*P]. This observation supports the
hypothesis in (8c). On the other hand, the fact that the example in (10b) isungrammatical indicates that the subject of nar- ‘become’ is base-generated not
in [Spec, v*P] but in some VP-internal position. I assume the relevant position
as [Spec, VP]. This observation suggests that the verb nar- ‘become’ is a kind of
unaccusative verbs.
Another evidence of the unaccusativity of the verb nar- ‘become’ comesfrom takusan ‘much/many’-modification (Kageyama 1993).

(11) a. Takusan

hon-omuch/many book-Acc

yon-da(transitive)

read-Past“Someone read many books /*many people read the book.”b. Takusan

umare-ta(unaccusative)

much/many be born-Past
62

“Many babies were born.”c. Takusan

ason-damuch/many

play-Past(unergative)“Someone played plenty of time /*many people played.”

In (11a), what takusan ‘much/many’ modifies is the object, not the subject. As
shown in (11b), the subject of an unaccusative verb can be modified by takusan‘much/many’. It is possible since the subject of unaccusative verbs isbase-generated in the VP-internal position. The example in (11c) suggests thatwhat takusan ‘much/many’ modifies is not the subject but the quantity of theevent. These observations suggest that only VP-internal elements can be
modified by the modifier takusan ‘much/many’.
Then, consider the example in (12).

(12) Takusan
much/many

byooki-ni nat-ta
sick-Dat

become-Past“Many people became sick.”

The fact that the subject of this sentence can be modified by takusan‘much/many’ suggests that the argument is base-generated in some VP-internal63

position. Therefore, it is plausible to assume nar- ‘become’ is an unaccusative
verb9.
At this point, I propose that NARU is an unaccusative type light verb10.
That is, I assume that the verb nar- ‘become’ has two usage, namely as a mainverb and as a light verb, and that the unaccusative property of nar- ‘become’ isinherited when it is used as light verb NARU. More concretely, I propose thenature of NARU as follows:(13) The nature of NARU
a. NARU takes VNP as its complement.
b. NARU is a V and selected by v (Chomsky 2000, 2001).

9

The following example supports that the subject of SURU is base-generated in [Spec,v*P].
i) takusan
hakkensi-tamuch/many

discovery

SURU-Past“Someone discovered many things/*Many people discovered the thing.”
In fact, Karimi-Doostan (2005) argues that languages like Kurdish, Korean and Persian
have the become-type light verbs. The become-type LVCs in these languages, however, aredifferent from NARU in one point. Consider the following examples from Persian. The
sentence in i) is an example of the do-type LVCs while the sentence in ii) is an example of the
become-type LVCs.
i) Columbus ʔamrika-ra kašf
kard
10

Americadiscovery“Columbus discovered America.”ii) ʔa:mrika: (tavasote Columbus)
Americabydo-pastkašf

šod

discovery

become-past“America was/got discovered by Columbus.”
In these languages, become-type LVCs form passive-like clauses with respect to do-type
LVCs. This pattern is not found in Japanese. I leave this cross-linguistic difference for futurestudies. The important point is that become-type light verbs in these languages also haveunaccusativity.
64

c. An external argument of VN is base-generated in [Spec, VP] of NARU,
and receives a theta-role of VN there.

These hypotheses state that NARU and SURU are very similar except for thetype of v which appears above them and that the position in which the externalargument of VN is base-generated. These two differences can be reduced to themore basic difference of them; unaccusativity of NARU and transitivity of
SURU.

5.1.3. Intermediate Summary
To sum up, I have discussed the nature of HP + V, NARU and SURU
respectively. They are summarized as follows:(14) a. HP + V is a VN to which [H] is attached in the lexicon.
b. NARU is an unaccusative light verb.
c. SURU is a transitive light verb.

Based on these auxiliary hypotheses, I will provide an analysis of SH
and OH and demonstrate how the proposals in Chapter 4 explain the propertiesof them.
65

5.2. Analysis

In this section, I will present the syntactic structures of SH and OH
respectively. First, I propose the following structure for the sentence of SH in(15a).

(15) a. Sensei-ga Taroo-ni
Prof.

-Nom

-Dat

hon-o

o-watas-i

ni nar-u

book-Acc

HP-hand over

NARU-Pres“The professor hands over the book to Taro.”
TP11

b.
vP

T

VP

v[H]

DP
VNP

DP

V
VN’

Taroo-ni DP
hon-o

11

[v [V [VN o-watas-i]i ni nar-]j φ]V’sensei-ga

-u

tj
VN
ti

The irrelevant aspects (higher structure like CP, and so on) are omitted for simplicity.
66

In this structure, the internal arguments Taroo and hon ‘book’ is base-generated
internal to VNP while the external argument sensei ‘Prof.’ appears in [Spec, VP].
I assume that VNP cannot project an external argument in its own projection,
because of its nominal property. On the other hand, the unaccusative nature of
NARU requires that all the arguments are projected internal to VP. Therefore, itfollows that the external argument is generated in [Spec, VP].
Let us turn to the predicate. In this structure, the VN o-watas-i ‘hand
over’ incorporates12 (Baker 1988) to NARU, which is generated in V, and thenthe VN assigns its external theta-role to the external argument13. Following
Kishimoto (2001), I assume that v in Japanese has a strong V-feature since itlacks visible morphological form (shown as φ in the structure above), so that
V-to-v movement takes place obligatorily. Therefore, the feature [H], which has
been attached to VN, has reached v.
It is controversial whether or not there is V(v)-to-T movement inJapanese (For an argument for V-to-T movement, see Koizumi 2000; forarguments against it, Sakai 2000, Fukui and Sakai 2003 and references citedtherein). Suppose that there is no v-to-T movement in Japanese. Since the12

Following Baker (1988) and Kageyama (1993), I assume that incorporation takes place tocheck VN’s Case. In this sense, the appearance of dative Case-marker ni seems to be
problematic. Yet, because the status of ni in Japanese is still unclear (see Sadakane andKoizumi 1995 and references cited therein), I keep this assumption and leave the precise
nature of ni for future studies.
13
For the derivational theta-assignment, see Saito and Hoshi (2000).
67

numeration of the sentence in (15a) presumably includes C but not v*, thelicensing takes place when the matrix CP completes. Since [H] still remains in v,
the closest element is the subject NP sensei ‘Prof.’14, and it is bound by [H].
Thus, the subject NP is interpreted as an SSS. Conversely, suppose that there is
v-to-T movement, so that [H] moves to T. Since v is not a strong phase by
hypothesis, [H] on T can access the domain of v (=VP) and bind the closest
element, namely the subject when the CP phase completes. Therefore, in either
case, the subject orientation can be explained, if it is assumed that licensing
takes place when the phase completes and the relevant phase is CP and v*P, not
vP. This provides an empirical support for the distinction between v*P and vP(Chomsky 2000, 2001).
Let us now turn to the structure of OH. I propose that the sentence of OH
in (16a) has the following structure.

(16) a. Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-ni
-Nom

Prof.

-Dat

hon-o

o-watas-i

su-ru

book-Acc

HP-hand over

SURU-Pres“Taro hands over the book to Prof. Yamada.”

14

I assume that even if the subject moves to higher position, it leaves a trace (or copy) of it,
and that [H] can be licensed by binding the trace/copy of the argument.
68

b.

TP
v*P

T

DP

v*’

Taroo-ga

VPv*[H]V [v*[V [VN o-watas-i]i su-]j φ]

VNP
DP

VN’

Yamada-sensei-ni DP

-ru

tj
VN

hon-o

ti

The internal arguments of the VN Yamada-sensei ‘Prof. Yamada’ and hon ‘book’
are base-generated internal to VNP. By hypothesis, SURU requires that theexternal argument is base-generated in [Spec, v*P]. Hence, the subject NP Taroo
is base-generated there. This is the crucial difference between SH and OH.
The VN o-watas-i ‘hand over’ incorporates to the verb SURU, and thenthe amalgamated element [[o-watas-i] su-] moves to v* as in the case of SH. In
this position, the VN assigns its external theta-role to the subject.
By hypothesis, licensing takes place when v*P is merged to T since v* isa strong phase head. This analysis immediately explains the object orientation of
OH independently of the possibility of v-to-T movement. The subject is outside
the c-commanding domain of v*, so that the subject cannot be c-commanded by69

the VN which has [H]. For the subject to be c-commanded by the VN, it isnecessary that the VN moves to T via the v-to-T movement. The relevant
movement, however, takes place just after the v*P phase completes. Therefore,
there is no chance that the subject is bound by [H]. On the other hand, internalarguments can be c-commanded by the VN when the v*P phase completes. Thus,
only internal arguments are the candidates that can be bound by [H] andinterpreted as an SSS.
Then, following Hoji (1985), I assume that the indirect object
asymmetrically c-commands the direct object in their base-generated positions.
This makes it possible to explain the indirect/direct object asymmetry without
father assumptions. As shown in (16b), since the indirect object is closer to [H]than the direct object by the definition of closeness, [H] binds only the indirect
object, and it is interpreted as an SSS. If there is no indirect object, that is, thepredicate is a transitive verb, the direct object is bound by [H]. It is irrelevant
whether the object is marked by the accusative Case marker or by the dative
Case marker.
In summary, I have demonstrated that the generalizations (i) the
subject/object orientation and (ii) the indirect/direct object asymmetry can be
explained by the proposals in Chapter 4 and the independently motivatedauxiliary assumptions.
70

5.3. Consequences

In this section, I will provide some consequences of the analysis. I will
discuss (i) the argument/adjunct asymmetry in honorification and (ii) Harada’s(1976) objection to the noun-like property of the sequence HP + V anddemonstrate that the proposed theory can explain these observations
straightforwardly.

5.3.1 Argument/Adjunct Asymmetry in Honorification
Since the proposed theory restricts the position which concerns
honorification to theta-positions, it predicts that only arguments can beinterpreted as an SSS while adjuncts cannot. The following examples illustrates
that the prediction is right.

(17) a. Taroo-ga otooto-no-maede Yamada-sensei-o-Nom brother-in front ofProf.

o-tasuke si-ta-Acc HP-help SURU-Past“Taro helped Prof. Yamada in front of his brother.”b. #Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-no-maede otooto-o
-Nom

Prof.

o-tasuke-in front of brother-Acc HP-help“Taro helped his brother in front of Prof. Yamada.”
71

si-ta
SURU-Past

c. *Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-no-maede otooto-o
-Nom

Prof.

o-tasuke-in front of brother-Acc HP-help

si-ta
SURU-Past“Taro helped his brother in front of Prof. Yamada.”(18) a. Taroo-ga otooto-to Yamada-sensei-o o-tasuke-Nom brother-with

Prof. -Acc HP-help

si-ta
SURU-Past“Taro helped Prof. Yamada with his brother.”b. #Taroo-ga-Nom

Yamada-sensei-to
Prof.

-with

otooto-oo-tasukesi-ta

brother-oHP-help

SURU-Past

otooto-oo-tasukesi-ta

brother-oHP-help

SURU-Past“Taro helped his brother with Prof. Yamada.”c. *Taroo-ga-Nom

Yamada-sensei-to
Prof.

-with

“Taro helped his brother with Prof. Yamada.”

The pairs of sentences in (17a, b) and (18a, b) suggests that the presence of
adjuncts does not block the direct object from being bound by [H]. In addition,
the fact that the examples in (17c) and (18c) are ungrammatical indicates thatadjuncts cannot be interpreted as an SSS.
Note that PPs can be bound by [H] if they are arguments, as Niinuma(2003) and Boeckx and Niinuma (2004) observe. Below are the relevant
examples (they are slightly modified from the original examples in Niinuma
72

2003, pp. 17-18. See also the footnote 11 of Chapter 2).

(19) a. Taroo-ga Tanaka-sensei-kara
-Nom

Prof.

-from

hon-o

o-kar-isi-ta

book-Acc

HP-borrow SURU-Past“Taro borrowed the book from Prof. Tanaka.”
b. #Taroo-ga-Nom

Mary-kara hon-oo-kar-i-from book-Acc

si-ta

HP-borrow SURU-Past“Taro borrowed the book from Mary.”(20) a. Taroo-ga Takana-sensei-to Hanako-nituite
-Nom

Prof.

-with

-abouto-hanas-i si-ta
HP-talk

SURU-Past“Taro talked to Prof. Tanaka about Hanako.”b. #Taroo-ga

Mary-to

-Nom

-with

Hanako-nituite-abouto-hanas-i si-ta
HP-talk

SURU-Past“Taro talked to Mary about Hanako.”

The sentences in (18a) and (20b) are particularly interesting. Even if the same
preposition to ‘with’ appears in both sentences, the PP blocks the lower
argument from being an SSS if it is an argument (=20b) while it does not if it isan adjunct (=18b). These observations can be explained if it is assumed that only
theta-positions are relevant to honorification.

73

5.3.2 Harada’s (1976) Objection
Let us now turn to the second consequence. Harada (1976) argues
against the noun-like property of HP + V based on the observations that thesequence HP + V cannot be anaphorically deleted, relativized and clefted.
Relevant examples are following (they are slightly modified from the original
examples in Harada 1976, p. 525).

(21) Anaphoric deletion
a. A: Sumisu-san-wa

moo

zyo-kyoozyu-ni

nar-i-masi-ta kaSmith-Mr.

yetassociate professor-Dat

become-be-Past Q-Top“Has Mr. Smith become an associate professor yet?”
B: Ee, nar-i-masi-ta
yes become-be-Past“Yes, he has.”b. A: Yamada-sensei-wa moo
Prof.

-Top yetkono-hon-o o-yom-i ni nar-i-masi-ta ka
this-book-Acc HP-read“Has Prof. Yamada read this book yet?”
B: *Ee,nar-i-masi-ta

Yes

NARU-be-Past.

“Yes, he has.”74

NARU-be-Past

Q(22) Relativization
a. Taroo-ga-Nom

nat-tayaku-wa

Hamuretto-da

become-Pastrole-Top

Hamlet-Pres“The role Taro played is that of Hamlet.”b. *Yamada-sensei-ga

kono-hon-onat-tao-yom-i-wa

Prof. -Nomthis-book-Acc

NARU-Past HP-read-Top…

“(Lit.) Reading that Prof. Yamada did this book is …”(23) Cleftinga. Sumisu-san-ga
Smith -Mr.

-Nom

kondo

nat-ta-no-wa

kyoozyu-da

this time

become-Past-thing-Top

professor-Pres“What Mr. Smith has become is a professor.”b. *Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof. -Nomkono-hon-onat-ta-no-wa

o-yom-i ni-da

this book-Acc

NARU-Past-thing-Top HP-read NI-Pres“(Lit.) What Prof. Yamada has become this book is reading.”

The predicate of the sentences in (21a), (22a) and (23a) is a main verb nar‘become’ while that of the examples in (21b), (22b) and (23b) is a light verb
NARU. Harada (1976) argues that the sequence HP + V is not a noun, since itcannot undergo above three operations.
What these observations suggest, however, is not that HP + V is not a75

noun, but that the sequence “HP + V ni nar-” constitutes a word in some sense.
In general, syntactic operations cannot be applied inside words (lexical integrity).
Consider the following examples from Ito and Sugioka (2002, p. 7, slightly
modified).

(24) a. Hanako-e-no [meeru-kaki]-to-Gen mail-writing“Writing a mail to Hanako”
b. *Meerui
mailHanako-e-no[ti -kaki]-to-Genwriting

The example in (24b) is ungrammatical since meeru ‘mail’ which is a part of thecompound meeru-kaki ‘mail-writing’ is separated from the compound by
scrambling.
Thus, Harada’s (1976) observations can be explained if the sequence“HP + V ni nar-” constitutes a word. This is what the proposed analysis predicts
since it assumes that HP + V incorporates to NARU, and incorporation is a kindof word formation. The fact that incorporated elements cannot undergo thesyntactic operations is found in the following non-honorific LVCs.

76

(25) a. *Kokuhakui, Taroo-ga Hanako-ni
confession

-Nom

ai-o

-Dat

ti

love-Acc

si-ta
do-Past“Taro confessed his love to Hanako.”b. *Taroo-ga Hanako-ni
-Nom

-Dat

ai-o

si-ta-no-wa

kokuhaku-da

love-Acc

do-Past-thing-Top

confession-Pres“(Lit.) What Taro did his love to Hanako is confession.”In the example in (25a), the VN kokuhaku ‘confession’ is topicalized and it isrelativized in (25b). Since the VN kokuhaku ‘confession’ is arguably a noun, theungrammaticality of these examples is due to the application of syntactic
operations inside words.

5.4. Summary of Chapter 5

In this chapter, I have provided a new analysis of SH and OH based on
the theory of honorification proposed in Chapter 4. To explain the three
generalizations, (i) the distribution of HP + V is identical to nouns, (ii) the
subject/object orientation, and (iii) the indirect/direct object asymmetry, I haveproposed the following auxiliary hypotheses.
77

(26) a. HP + V is a VN to which [H] is attached in the lexicon.
b. NARU is an unaccusative light verb.
c. SURU is a transitive light verb.

Then, I have provided the syntactic structures of SH and OH respectively
and demonstrated how the proposed theory explains the generalizations. Finally,
I have discussed that the adjunct/argument asymmetry and Harada’s (1976)
objection to noun-like property of HP + V can be explained as a consequence of
the analysis.

78

Appendix: Ivana and Sakai (2003)

In this appendix, I will criticize an analysis by Ivana and Sakai (2003).
They argue that HP is a functional head which takes a nominal complement andthat NARU and SURU are both light verbs. According to their analysis, theexample in (27a) has the structure like (27b).

(27) a. Sensei-ga

hayakugakkoo-kara

Prof.

early

university-from HP-go home-Nomo- kaer-i

ni nat-ta
NARU-Past“The professor went home from the university early.”
b.

S
NP

VP

sensei-ga

PP
HonorificP15
NP

Honorific

VP
AdvP

PP

N
V

V
P nat-ta
ni

o-

-i

hayaku gakkoo-kara kaer

15

Although Ivana and Sakai (2003) use “H/HP” for the category label of the prefix o-, I willuse “Honorific” for it to avoid confusion.
79

In this structure, the nominalizer -i constitutes an NP, taking VP as its
complement. The functional category “Honorific” selects this NP as acomplement. They also assume that some transformations adjust the sequencekaer-i o- into the surface order o-kaer-i.
They seem to assume the same structure for SH and OH, and attributethe difference between SH and OH to the aspectual difference between NARU
and SURU. Yet, their explanation is not explicit. Furthermore, even if their
explanation based on the aspectual difference is correct, it cannot explain theindirect/direct object asymmetry in OH: the asymmetry cannot be reduced to thelexical difference since in OH, the same light verb SURU appears.
In addition, there is another problem. Although they propose this analysis
to account for the noun-like distribution of HP + V, it seems that their analysis
does not work. Even if transformations adjust its surface word order, thesyntactic category of the sequence HP + V is still an “HonorificP”, not an NP. To
avoid this problem, they speculate that “Honorific” in Japanese corresponds to D
in English. Following examples illustrate that HP can attach to nouns in general.

(28) o-tya “tea”, o-kane “money”, o-kasi “confectionery”

If Ivana and Sakai’s (2003) speculation is correct, HP would be able to be80attached to all NPs. Yet, consider the following examples.

(29) *o-akanboo “baby”, *o-oosama “king”, *o-sensei “professor”

These examples suggest that some NPs refuse to be attached by HP. This is
unexpected if “Honorific” corresponds to D16. Thus, it seems that to consider HP
to be an independent functional category is implausible. This suggests the
hypothesis of this thesis that HP is a realization of [H] which has been attached
to nouns in the lexicon is more plausible. In addition, the presence of the gap
found in (29) is natural if the attachment of [H] takes place in the lexicon, not insyntax17.
In this appendix, I have reviewed the analysis proposed by Ivana andSakai (2003) and argued that it is empirically incorrect to consider HP to be afunctional category which takes an NP as its complement; they incorrectlypredict that there is no gap in the affixation of HP. On the other hand, I havedemonstrated that it is natural that there exists such a lexical gap if it is assumed
the affixation of HP takes place in the lexicon.

16

The other way to avoid this problem is to stipulate that the distributions of “HonorificP”
and NPs are identical, but this explains nothing.
17
For example, Ito and Sugioka (2002) claims that the suffixation of -mi, which
nominalizes the adjectives, is applied in the lexicon, so that the following gap is observed.
i) atataka-mi “warmth”*samu-mi “coldness”ii) yawaraka-mi “softness”*kata-mi “hardness”
81Chapter 6
RARE-Honorification

The aim of this chapter is to extend the proposed theory of honorification
to the analysis of RH. The following four generalizations are subject of the
explanation; (i) main verbs appear in the stem form, (ii) RH has the subject
orientation, (iii) the same relation between Case and theta-roles holds in RH and
its non-honorific counterpart and (iv) all types of verbs can appear in RH.
First, I will provide a hypothesis on the verb RARE and present ananalysis of RH in Section 6.1. In Section 6.2, I will discuss the consequence of
the analysis. Section 6.3 is a summary of this chapter.

6.1. Analysis

First, I propose the following hypothesis on the nature of RARE.

(1) RARE has the feature [H].

82

The hypothesis (1) is natural since the presence/absence of RARE is the minimal
difference of RH and its non-honorific counterpart, and the honorificinterpretation of the sentence correlates with the presence/absence of RARE.
This point is illustrated by the following examples.

(2) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

gakusee-o home-ta
student-Acc praise-Past“Prof. Yamada praised the student.”b. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

gakusee-o home-rare-ta
student-Acc praise-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada praised the student.”

To reveal the nature of RARE, it is worth comparing RH with indirect
passive. First, let us consider the following RH sentences.

(3) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

Hanako-o-Acchome-rare-ta(transitive)praise-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada praised Hanako.”
b. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

waraw-are-ta
laugh-RARE-Past
83(unergative)

“Prof. Yamada laughed.”c. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

korob-are-ta-Nom(unaccusative)

tumble-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada tumbled.”

These examples suggest that all types of verbs can appear in RH. This property
is found in indirect passive as discussed in Chapter 2. Below are the relevant
examples.

(4) a. Taroo-ga

Hanako-ni

-Nom

-Dat

otooto-ohome-rare-ta(transitive)-Acc praise-Pass-Past“Taro was affected by Hanako’s praising his brother.”b. Taroo-ga

Hanako-ni

waraw-are-ta

-Nom

-Dat

laugh-Pass-Past(unergative)“Taro was affected by Hanako’s laughing.”c. Taroo-ga

Hanako-ni

-Nom

-Dat

korob-are-ta(unaccusative)

tumble-Pass-Past“Taro was affected by Hanako’s tumbling.”

In addition, indirect passive has an “affectee” argument as its subject.
84

Consider the following examples.

(5) Taroo-ga Yamada-sensei-ni
-Nom

Prof.

-Dat

otooto-ohome-rare-ta

brother-Acc praise-Pass-Past“Taro is affected by Prof. Yamada’s praising his brother.”In this sentence, the subject Taroo is affected by the event that Prof. Yamada
praised Taro’s brother. To explain these observations on indirect passive, Hoshi(1999) proposes that the passive morpheme in indirect passive takes a verbal
predicate as its complements and an “affectee” argument in its specifier position,
as the following structure illustrates (although the structure below is not
identical to what Hoshi 1999 assumes, the crucial point is preserved).

85

(6) The structure of indirect passivev*P 1
Taroo-ga

v*’
VP

v*

v*P

V

Yamada-sensei-ni

v*’

tj

VP
otooto-o-rarej (-ta)

v*
V

homei

ti

Note that the event that affects the subject argument is v*P, the complement of-(r)are. When the predicate is transitive/unergative, v*P appears as in (6), andwhen the predicate is unaccusative, vP does. Thus, Hoshi’s (1999) analysis
explains that all types of verbs can appear in indirect passive. In other words,
since the lower v*P/vP is independent of -(r)are, all kinds of verbs can appear inindirect passive. If it is assumed that RARE also takes v*P/vP as its complement,
the generalization that all types of verbs can appear in RH can be explained.
Thus, I propose the following hypothesis.

1

I assume that it is v* that appears above VP in indirect passive since the “affectee”
argument is introduced as an external argument.
86

(7) RARE takes v*P/vP as its complement.

This hypothesis also explains the morphological property of RH: the verbs in
RH appear in the stem form without HP since they are v*P/vP.
Recall that RH does not have an “affectee” argument. The passive
morpheme has the specifier position since it has to assign the “affectee” role tothe argument. On the other hand, RARE has no theta-role to assign. Thus, I
propose the following hypothesis.

(8) RARE does not have its specifier position.

Additional evidence that RARE does not have its specifier position
comes from the observations concerning the antecedent of zibun ‘self’. Takita(2005) observes the following examples.

(9) a. Tarooi-ga Hanakoj-ni
-Nom

-Dat

zibuni/j-no

heya-denak-are-ta

self

room-incry-Pass-Past-Gen“Taroi was affected by Hanakoj’s crying in selfi/j’s room.”b. Yamada-senseii-ga Tarooj-ni zinuni/*j-no
Prof.

-Nom

-Dat self87-Gen

heya-deaw-are-ta

room-inmeet-RARE-Past

“Prof. Yamadai met Taroj in selfi/*j’s room.”

In the example in (9a), both Taroo and Hanako can be the antecedent of theanaphor zibun ‘self’, which has the subject-orientation (Kuno 1973). I assume
the ambiguity in (9a) stems from the fact that indirect passive has two positions
which are counted as “subject” since it has two [Spec, v*P] positions, as shownin (6). Yet, as shown in (9b), RH does not have this ambiguity; only thenominative NP can be the antecedent of the anaphor zibun ‘self’. Thisobservation suggests that RH has only one “subject” position; it has only one[Spec, v*P]2. Suppose that it is RARE, not the main verb, that has [Spec, v*P],
where the subject is base-generated. Since the main verb is not a VN, it does nothave to incorporate to RARE, contrary to the case of SH/OH. Therefore, itcannot assign its theta-role to the subject in [Spec, v*P] of RARE, so that thederivation crashes. The only possible option is that RARE does not project its

2

In fact, there is another possibility that RH is mono-clausal; RARE merges to the mainverb directly and then, the complex head is merged to arguments, so that the clause has asingle v*P/vP.
Goro (2004), however, claims that the sentence of direct passive, which also lacks theambiguity of the antecedent of zibun ‘self’, is derived in this way. Consider the following
example.
i) Tarooi-ga Hanakoj-ni zibuni/*j-no heya-de koros-are-ta-Nom-Dat self-Gen room-in kill-Pass-Past“Taroi was killed by Hanakoj in selfi/*j’s room.”
Goro (2004) assumes that when the passive morpheme merged to v before the arguments are
merged to v, and the passive morpheme projects, it absorbs the verb’s accusative Caseassignment capacity and suppresses the verb’s external theta-role. He also assumes that thecomplex head v-(r)are assigns its complex theta-role Theme/affectee to the direct object.
88specifier.
So far, I have proposed the following three hypotheses on the nature of
RARE:(10) a. RARE has the feature [H].
b. RARE takes v*P/vP as its complement.
c. RARE does not have its specifier position.

Based on these hypotheses, I propose the following structure for RH.

(11) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

hon-o

yom-are-ta

book-Acc

read-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada read the book.”

89

vP3

b.
VP

v

v*P

V

Yamada-sensei-ga

v*’ tj-arej[H] (-ta)

VP
hon-o

v*
V

yomi

ti

In this structure, the Case features of the arguments are checked in the same way
as in the non-honorific counterparts. Firstly, let us consider how theuninterpretable Case feature of the direct object is checked. When v*, whichbears the uninterpretable phi-features, probes its domain and finds the direct
object hon ‘book’ as a goal, Agree holds between v* and the direct object. Hence,
the uninterpretable Case feature of the direct object is deleted. Given that
accusative Case is the reflex of Agree with v*, the direct object comes to befollowed by the accusative Case marker.
Secondly, let us examine how the uninterpretable Case feature of thesubject is checked. Suppose that the derivation in (11b) proceeds and T ismerged to vP. Below is the relevant structure.
3

I assume that v appears above RARE in RH since no additional argument is introduced.
See also footnote 1 of this chapter.
90

(12)

TP
vP
VP

v

v*P

V

Yamada-sensei-ga

v*’ tj
hon-o

T
-ta

-arej[H]yomWhen T, which has the uninterpretable phi-features, probes its domain and finds
the subject Yamada-sensei ‘Prof. Yamada’ as a goal, Agree holds between T andthe subject. Then, the uninterpretable Case feature of the subject is deleted.
Given that the nominative Case is the reflex of Agree with T, the subject comesto be followed by the nominative Case marker. Since the subject is on the edgeof v*P, T is allowed to access it by PIC. Note that v, which intervenes between T
and the subject, does not block Agree since it is not a strong phase head. In thecase of non-honorific sentence, the only difference is the absence of vP-VP
projections of RARE: the direct object can Agree with v* and the subject with T.
In either honorific or non-honorific sentence, the arguments are assigned
respective theta-roles in their base-generated positions. Thus, the analysis can
explain the generalization that the same relation between Case and theta-roles91holds in RH and its non-honorific counterpart.
This

structurealso

explains

thesubjectorientationofRH

straightforwardly. Since v*P is a strong phase, RARE can access only [Spec,v*P] by PIC. Thus, [H] on RARE can bind only the subject which isbase-generated there. This configuration corresponds to that of (7) in Chapter 4.
Since no more argument is introduced to this derivation until the relevant phase(=CP) completes, the subject is bound by [H].
Even if the EPP feature of v* in Japanese is strong and the direct object
must be attracted to outer [Spec, v*P], the analysis can explain the subject
orientation. Consider the structure in (13).

VP4

(13)
v*P
direct objecti

RARE [H]v*P

subjectv*’… ti …

Since the position where the direct object is adjoined is not a theta-position, [H]on RARE does not bind it. Therefore, the subject orientation can be explained
4

The vP projection of RARE is omitted for simplicity.
92when the predicate is transitive/unergative5.
Next, suppose that the predicate is an unaccusative verb. In this case, thesentence in (14a) has the structure in (14b).

(14) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

korob-are-ta
tumble-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada tumbled.”
b.

vP
VP

v

vP

V -arej [H] (-ta)

VP
Yamada-sensei-ga

v
V

tj

korobiti

This structure has only one argument, so that it is the candidate for an SSS.
Recall that vP is not a strong phase. Since there is no strong phase head below[H] on RARE, it can bind the internal argument. Therefore, the proposed theory
can explain the subject orientation of RH even if the predicate is an unaccusative

5

Even if T in Japanese also has the strong EPP feature, so that the subject must move to[Spec, TP], the trace/copy of the subject is sufficient to license [H]. See also the footnote 14
of Chapter 5.
93verb.
Note that if it is assumed that vP is also a strong phase, RARE cannot
access the domain of lower vP, so that [H] binds nothing. Therefore, thederivation must crash, contrary to the fact. Hence, this analysis provides anargument for Chomsky’s (2000, 2001) distinction between v* and v.
In this section, I have proposed that the verb RARE has [H] and takes
v*P/vP as its complement while it does not have its specifier. Based on thisassumption and the theory proposed in Chapter 4, I have demonstrated that thefour generalizations can be explained.

6.2. Consequences

In this section, I will examine what consequences the proposed analysis
has. In 6.2.1, I will argue that the proposed analysis makes it possible todiscover the new observation that there is a systematic ambiguity in RH andindirect passive. Next, I will address the “multiple honorification” phenomenon
and demonstrate that the theory proposed in this thesis can explain thephenomenon straightforwardly in 6.2.2.

94

6.2.1 Ambiguity in RH and Indirect Passive
In this subsection, I argue that there is a systematic ambiguity in RH andindirect passive. First, let us compare the schematic structure of RH with that ofindirect passive by Hoshi (1999).

(15) a. RH

b. indirect passive
VP16
VP2

Nom Acc

VP1
V1

V2

Nom

RARE

V’1
VP2

Dat

Acc

V1
V2

-(r)areIt can be seen that indirect passive has one additional position where anargument can be generated, namely, [Spec, VP1]. Given that Japanese has aphonetically null pronoun pro, these structures predict that any sentences whichhave RH-reading also have the indirect passive reading. The following example
illustrates that the prediction is right.

(16) Yamada-sensei-ga

6

hon-o

yom-are-ta

Hereafter, I will omit v*P/vP if it is irrelevant for simplicity.
95Prof.

-Nom book-Acc

read-RARE/Pass-Past

a. “Prof. Yamada read the book (SSS = Prof. Yamada).”b. “Prof. Yamada was affected by someone’s reading the book.”

The sentence in (16) has the following two representations corresponding to thetwo readings.

(17) a. RH-reading (=16a)
VP1
VP2

V1

Yamada-sensei-ga hon-o yom

RARE (-ta)

b. indirect passive reading (=16b)
VP1
Yamada-sensei-ga

pro

V’1
VP2

V1

hon-o yom-are (-ta)

Even if the verb of VP2 is a ditransitive verb, it yields this ambiguity.
Consider the following example.

96

(18) Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

Hanako-ni

hanataba-ookur-are-ta-Datbouquet-Acc

send-RARE/Pass-Past

a. “Prof. Yamada sent the bouquet to Hanako (SSS = Prof. Yamada).”b. “Prof. Yamada was affected by someone’s sending the bouquet to
Hanako.”If pro is replaced by overt nouns, however, the ambiguity disappears as thefollowing example illustrates. In (19), the RH-reading (=19b) is absence.

(19) Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

Taroo-ni

Hanako-ni

hanataba-ookur-are-ta

-Dat

-Dat

bouquet-Acc

send-Pass-Past

a. “Prof. Yamada was affected by Taro’s sending the bouquet to Hanako.”b. *“(Lit.) Prof. Yamada sent the bouquet to Hanako by Taro (SSS = Prof.
Yamada).”In this case, the four arguments must be generated inside VP2 to obtain the
RH-reading. Yet, it is impossible since the verb okur- ‘send’ is a three-placepredicate. Thus, the only available structure is that of indirect passive, and it
yields the indirect passive reading (=19a).
The systematic ambiguity in RH and indirect passive makes it possible to97

make another interesting prediction. Recall that the antecedent of zibun ‘self’ in
RH is unambiguous: only the nominative NP can be the antecedent. The relevant
example is repeated in (20).

(20) Yamada-senseii-ga
Prof.

Tarooj-ni zibuni/*j-no

heya-deaw-are-ta (=9b)-Dat selfroom-inmeet-RARE-Past

-Nom

-Gen

“Prof. Yamadai met Taroj in selfi/*j’s room.”

Since this sentence has the RH-reading, it should also have the indirect passive
reading. If it has the indirect passive reading, the antecedent of zibun ‘self’should be ambiguous in that reading. This prediction turns out to be true
perfectly. Consider the following examples.

(21) a.[VP1 Yamada-senseii-ga[VP2 proj Taroo-ni zibuni/j-no heya-de aw]-are]-ta
Prof.

-Nom

-Dat self-Gen room -in meet-Pass-Past“Prof. Yamadai was affected by someonej’s meeting Taro in selfi/j’s room.”b.[VP1 Yamada-senseii-ga[VP2 Tarooj-ni pro zibuni/j-no heya-de aw]-are]-ta
Prof.

-Nom

-Dat

self

-Gen room -in meet-Pass-Past“Prof. Yamadai was affected by Taroj’s meeting someone in selfi/j’s room”

98Since the verb aw- ‘meet’ take a dative object, there is two possible positions
where pro appears: [Spec, VP2] (=21a) or the complement of V2 (=21b). In
either case, the antecedent of zibun ‘self’ is ambiguous between the nominative
NP in [Spec, VP1] and the dative NP in [Spec, VP2].
In this subsection, I have argued that the proposed analysis of RH
predicts that there is a systematic ambiguity in RH and indirect passive, and I
have demonstrated that the prediction is correct. Besides, I have discussed theambiguity of the antecedent of zibun ‘self’ as a further consequence of thisanalysis.

6.2.2. Multiple Honorification
In this subsection, I address the following two patterns of honorificationand demonstrate that these patterns can be explained straightforwardly by thetheory I have developed in Chapter 4, 5 and 6.

(22) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

Tanaka-sensei-ni o-aw-i
Prof.

-Dat HP-meet

ni nar-are-ta
NARU-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada met Prof. Tanaka.”
b. *Yamada-sensei-ga

Tanaka-sensei-ni o-aw-i ni nar-are-tac. *Yamada-sensei-ga

Tanaka-sensei-ni o-aw-i ni nar-are-ta
99

(23) a. *Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

Tanaka-sensei-ni o-hanas-i s-are-ta

-Nom

Prof.

-Dat HP-talk

SURU-RARE-Past“Prof. Yamada talked to Prof. Tanaka.”
b. *Yamada-sensei-ga

Tanaka-sensei-ni o-hanas-i s-are-ta

c. Yamada-sensei-ga

Tanaka-sensei-ni o-hanas-i s-are-ta

The sentences in (22) are the combinations of SH and RH, and the sentences in(23) are that of OH and RH. I will call these types of honorification “multiple
honorification” since these sentences have both NARU/SURU and RARE in thesame clause. The example in (22a) has only one SSS Yamada-sensei ‘Prof.
Yamada’ and the sentence is grammatical. The fact that the examples in (22b)and (22c) are ungrammatical suggests that the neither interpretation that only thenon-subject is an SSS (=22b) nor that both the subject and the non-subject are
SSSs (=22c) is unavailable.
On the other hand, the pattern of grammaticality in (23) suggests that theinterpretation which has only one SSS, which is either subject (=23a) or
non-subject (=23b), is unavailable while the interpretation which has two SSSs(=23a) is available. To have two SSSs is, however, not the sufficient condition as
the following examples suggest.

100(24) a. *Taroo-ga Tanaka-sensei-ni Satoo-sensei-o go-syookai s-are-ta
-Nom

Prof.

-Dat

Prof. -Acc HP-introduction SURU-RARE-Past“Taro introduced Prof. Sato to Prof. Tanaka.”
b. #Taroo-ga Tanaka-sensei-ni Satoo-sensei-ogo-syookai

s-are-ta

In the example in (24a), the indirect object and the direct object are interpreted
as SSSs. The ungrammaticality of it indicates that such an interpretation isunavailable. In fact, only available interpretation of this sentence is that the
subject and the indirect object are SSSs as shown in (24b)7.
How does the proposed theory explain the observed patterns ofgrammaticality? Recall that SH contains vP and OH contains v*P as I haveproposed in Chapter 5. In addition, I have proposed that RARE takes v*P/vP as
its complement. Since nothing prevents RARE from taking vP of SH as its
complements, the sentence in (22) has the following structure. VP1 and vP1 are
the projection of RARE and VP2 and vP2 are that of NARU.

7

Since Taroo is inappropriate, the sentence marked #.
101

(25)

vP1
VP1
vP2

V1 -arek [H] (-ta)

VP2
Yamada-sensei-ga

v2 [H]

tk[v [V [VN o-aw-i]i ni nar]j φ]

V’2
VNP

Tanaka-sensei-ni

v1

V2
VN

tj

ti

This structure corresponds to the configuration (10) of Chapter 4. It
straightforwardly explains why only (22a) is grammatical. The observation
requires that only the nominative NP is bound by [H]. First, let us consider the[H] on v2. This [H] has moved with VN to this position via incorporation andV2-to-v2 head movement. Since V1 (=RARE), which takes this vP2 as its
complement, has overt morphological form, the head v2 does not have to move,so that it remains there. Since the nominative NP Yamada-sensei ‘Prof. Yamada’asymmetrically c-commands the dative NP Tanaka-sensei ‘Prof. Tanaka’, [H] onv2 successfully binds the nominative NP.
Secondly, let us examine [H] on v1. Because of NARU’s unaccusative
nature, v2 is not a strong phase, so that [H] on v1 can access the domain of v2.
102

Since the closest XP to [H] on v1 is the nominative NP, [H] on v1 can bind it.
Therefore, the pattern of grammaticality found in (22) can be explained.
Let us now turn to the pattern found in (23) and (24). What it suggests isthat two arguments must be bound by [H] and that one of them must be a subject.
To explain this pattern, I propose the following structure for the sentence in (23).
This structure corresponds to the configuration (9) of Chapter 4.

(26)

vP1
VP1
v*P2

v1
V1

Yamada-sensei-ga

v*’2

tk

VP2
VNP
Tanaka-sensei-ni

v*2 [H]
V2

VN-arek[H] (-ta)[v* [V [VN o-hanas-i]i s-]j φ]tjtiFirst, [H] on VN moves to v*2 via successive-cyclic head movement. When V1(=RARE) is merged to v*P2, the phase completes and licensing takes place.
Since [H] on v*2 c-commands only the dative NP Tanaka-sensei ‘Prof. Tanaka’,the dative NP is the only available element for [H] on v*2. Thus, the dative NP
103

is interpreted as an SSS.
Next, let us consider [H] on v1. Since v*P2 is a strong phase, [H] on v1
can access only to the edge of v*P2 by PIC. Thus, [H] on v1 can bind only thenominative NP in [Spec, v*P2]. In sum, the pattern of grammaticality in (23)follows from the fact that [H] on v2 can bind only one non-subject argument
while [H] on v1 can bind only the subject.
The types of multiple honorification which I have argued so far are SH +RH and OH + RH. Yet, there are other possibilities in multiple honorification:
RH + SH, RH + OH, SH + OH and OH + SH. They are exemplified in (27).

(27) a. RH + SH: *Yamada-sensei-ga Tanaka-sensei-ni o-aw-are
Prof.

-Nom

Prof.

-Dat HP-meet-RARE

ni nat-ta
NARU-Past“Prof. Yamada met Prof. Tanaka.”
b. RH + OH: *Yamada-sensei-ga Tanaka-sensei-ni o-aw-are
Prof. -Nom

Prof.

si-ta

-Dat HP-meet-RARE SURU-Past

c. SH + OH: *Yamada-sensei-ga Tanaka-sensei-ni o-aw-i ni nar-i si-ta
Prof. -Nom

Prof. -Dat HP-meet NARU SURU-Past

d. OH + SH: *Yamada-sensei-ga Tanaka-sensei-ni o-aw-i siProf. -Nom

ni nat-ta

Prof. -Dat HP-meet SURU NARU-Past

104

It seems problematic that the examples in (27) are all ungrammatical sincemultiple honorification is possible in the cases of SH + RH and OH + RH. The
ungrammaticality of these sentences, however, follows from the selectional
properties of NARU, SURU and RARE. Below are the schematic structures for
RH + SH and RH + OH respectively8.

(28) a. RH + SH:

VP1

subject

V’1
VP2

V1

VNP

V2

objectVN [H]

b. RH + OH:

v*P1

NARU

RARE [H]subject

v*’1
VP1
VP2

V1

VNP
objectv*1

V2
VN [H]SURUiti

RARE [H]While RARE requires v*P/vP as its complement, it selects VNP as its
8

In the structures in (28), the irrelevant v*P/vPs are omitted for simplicity.
105

complement, as shown in (28a) and (28b). This is the reason why examples in(27a) and (27b) are ungrammatical.
Next, consider the cases in (27c) and (27d). Below, their structures areillustrated schematically.

(29) a. SH + OH

v*P1
subject

v*’1
VP1

v*

vP2

V1

object HP + V-NARU

tj

SURUj

VP19

b. OH + SH
subject

V’1
v*P2

V1

object HP + V-SURU

NARUj

As shown in (29a), SURU takes vP as its complement. This violates theselectional restriction of SURU since it requires VNP as its complement. Thus,
the sentence in (27c) is ungrammatical. Similarly, as shown in (29b), while
NARU also requires VNP as its complement, NARU takes v*P whose head is9

The vP projection of NARU is omitted.
106

SURU. This is the reason why the example in (27d) is ungrammatical. Therefore,
the fact that only SH + RH and OH + RH are the possible types of multiple
honorification can be explained by the theory of this thesis.
In this subsection, I have argued that the proposed theory ofhonorification explains the multiple honorification straight forwardly. First, I
have reviewed the fact that the SH + RH pattern has only one SSS, which must
be a subject, and that the OH + RH pattern has two SSSs, one of which must be
a subject. Then, I have demonstrated that the proposed theory can explain theobservations straightforwardly. I have also demonstrated that the theory can
explain why the other types of multiple honorification are impossible.

6.3. Summary of Chapter 6

In this chapter, I have proposed that RARE, which has [H], takes v*P/vP
as its complement and has no specifier. Based on this auxiliary hypothesis, I
have demonstrated that the properties of RH can be explained. Finally, I havediscussed that the proposed analysis makes it possible to discover the ambiguityin RH and indirect passive and that the patterns of grammaticality found in
multiple honorification are also explained as a consequence of the analysis.
107

Chapter 7
Honorification and Word Order in JapaneseIn this chapter, to illustrate that the study of honorification cancontribute to the study of I-language, I will investigate the basic word orderof unaccusative verbs in Japanese based on the theory of honorification
developed in the previous chapters. Specifically, against the widely held
assumption that the underlying order of all unaccusative verbs aredative-nominative (Kuno 1973), I will claim that the basic word order of
non-stative unaccusative verbs like tuk- ‘arrive’ is nominative-dative whilethat of stative unaccusative verbs like ar- ‘be’ is dative-nominative.
In Section 7.1, after the brief review of the analysis by Niinuma(2005), I will discuss that the proposed theory of honorification makes
empirically wrong prediction if it is assumed that the basic word order of
all unaccusative verbs is dative-nominative. Then, in Section 7.2, I willargue that the empirical problem is solved if it is correct that the basic word
order of non-stative unaccusative verbs is nominative-dative while that ofstative ones is dative-nominative. Finally, I will present two consequencesof the proposal in Section 7.3. Section 7.4 is a summary of this chapter.
108

7.1. Problem

Kuno (1973) concludes that the basic word order of unaccusative
verbs is dative-nominative based on the following observations.

(1) a. Dokoka-ni
somewhere-Dat

daremo-ga

i-ta

everyone-Nom be-Past“Everyone was somewhere (∃>∀, *∀>∃).”
b. Daremo-ga
everyone-Nom

dokoka-ni

i-ta

somewhere-Dat be-Past“Everyone was somewhere (∃>∀, ∀>∃).”

The contrast in (1) can be explained if the basic word order isdative-nominative and the nominative NP is moved from the position lower
than the dative NP in (1b). That is, in the sentence in (1a), the nominative
NP never c-commands the dative NP since it remains its original position,
so that the sentence is not ambiguous. On the other hand, the sentence in(1b), the nominative NP can c-command the dative NP via scrambling,leaving its trace in the position which the dative NP c-commands. Thus, thesentence in (1b) is ambiguous.
109

Kuno’s (1973) conclusion suggests that the dative NP isbase-generated in the position higher than where the nominative NP is.
Thus, for Niinuma (2005), who claims that SH is a reflex of Agree between
the highest NP and T, it is only the dative NP that can be an SSS. Yet,
Niinuma (2005) observes the following examples.

(2) a. Eki-ni

Yamada-sensei-ga

station-Dat

Prof.

-Nom

o-tuk-ini nar-u

HP-arrive

NARU-Pres“Prof. Yamada arrives at the station.”b. #Eki-ni Taroo-ga
station-Dat-Nomo-tuk-ini nar-u

HP-arrive

NARU-Pres“Taro arrives at the station.”c. *Eki-ni Yamada-sensei-ga
station-Dat

Prof.

-Nom

o-tuk-ini nar-u

HP-arrive

NARU-Pres“Prof. Yamada arrives at the station.”

The grammaticality pattern found in (2) indicates that it is the nominative
NP that is interpreted as an SSS. Niinuma (2005) tries to explain the factthat a nominative NP is interpreted as an SSS by proposing the following
derivation. First, Niinuma (2005) assumes that the nominative NP moves to110

[Spec, TP] in overt syntax to check its Case feature and it passes through[Spec, vP] along the way. The structure in (3) indicates that the nominative
NP moves to [Spec, vP].

vP1

(3)
Nom

v’
VP

Dat

v
V’

tNom

V

Then, T is introduced to the derivation, as shown in (4).

(4)

TP
vP

T

Nom

v’
VP

Dat

v
V’

tNom

V

1

Recall that Niinuma (2005) assumes that the sequence “o- … ni nar-” constitutes aword as a whole. See also Chapter 3.
111

At this point, T, which bears the uninterpretable phi-features, probes its
domain. Since the nominative NP is closer to T than the dative NP is, T
finds it as a goal. Then, Agree between the nominative NP and T holds, andthe nominative NP is interpreted as an SSS. In this way, he claims that thepattern in (2) can be explained.
Yet, Niinuma’s (2005) analysis has several problems. The firstproblem is the theoretical one. For the nominative NP to move to [Spec,vP], it has to Agree with v (Chomsky 2000, 2001). Since Niinuma (2005)
assumes that OH is the reflex of Agree between an NP and v, however, thenominative NP cannot move to [Spec, vP] without changing the predicate
to the OH form “HP + V su-”. Therefore, if the nominative NP moves to[Spec, vP] and agrees with T, the form of the predicate should be OH + SH,
contrary to the fact. In fact, as discussed in Chapter 6, the sequence OH +SH is ungrammatical. Thus, Niinuma’s (2005) solution does not work.
Besides, the analysis proposed by Niinuma (2005) makes an
empirically incorrect prediction. Since he assumes that all unaccusative
verbs share the same basic word order, namely dative-nominative, and thesame derivation in which the nominative NP agrees with T, he should
predict that the nominative NP is always an SSS. Yet, Shibatani (1978)
observes that the dative NP can be an SSS. The following examples
112

illustrate this point.

(5) a. Yamada-sensei-ni zaisan-ga

o-ar-i ni nar-uProf.

HP-be NARU-Pres-Dat fortune-Nom“Prof. Yamada is worth.”b. #Taroo-ni-Datzaisan-ga

o-ar-i ni nar-u

fortune-Nom

HP-be NARU-Pres“Taro is worth.”(6) a. Sensei-ni
Prof.

-Dat

[rippa-na ryoosin]-ga
admirableo-ar-i ni nar-u

parents -Nom HP-be NARU-Pres“The professor has the admirable parents.”
b. #Taroo-ni[rippa-na ryoosin]-ga-Dat admirable

o-ar-i ni nar-u

parents -Nom HP-be NARU-Pres“Taro has the admirable parents.”

In each sentence, the dative NP is interpreted as an SSS. The scope
ambiguity found in (7) illustrates that the verb ar- ‘be’ also has thedative-nominative order as its underlying order.

(7) a. Dokoka-ni[subete-nomono]-ga113

ar-usomewhere-Dat

all

-Gen

thing -Nombe-Pres“Everything is somewhere (∃>∀, *∀>∃).”
b. [Subete-no mono]-ga
alldokoka-ni-Gen thing -Nomar-u

somewhere-Dat be-Pres“Everything is somewhere (∃>∀, ∀>∃).”

Thus, although Niinuma’s (2005) analysis can explain the grammaticality
pattern found in (2), he cannot explain the pattern in (5) and (6).
Let us now turn to the theory of this thesis. If it is assumed that
dative-nominative is the basic order, the theory of this thesis predicts thatthe sentence of SH with an unaccusative verb has the following schematic
structure.

(8)

vP
VP
VNP
Dat

V
VN’

Nom

v [H]
[v [V [VN HP + V]i NARU]j ]

tj
VN
ti

114

Note that both the dative NP and the nominative NP are the internalarguments of the verb, so that they are base-generated VNP-internal
positions. Since dative-nominative is the basic order, the dative NP
asymmetrically c-commands the nominative NP. Therefore, this structure
predicts that the dative NP is bound by [H]. Yet, this prediction is wrong as
the examples in (2) indicate. That is, although the theory of this thesis can
explain the grammaticality pattern found in (5) and (6) can be explained, itcannot explain the pattern in (2).
At this point, let us put the data in order. The examples in (2) arerepeated in (9) and the examples in (6) are repeated in (10).

(9) a. Eki-ni

Yamada-sensei-ga

station-Dat

Prof.

-Nom

o-tuk-ini nar-u

HP-arrive

NARU-Pres“Prof. Yamada arrives at the station.”b. #Eki-ni Taroo-ga
station-Dat-Nomo-tuk-ini nar-u

HP-arrive

NARU-Pres“Taro arrives at the station.”(10) a. Sensei-ni [rippa-na ryoosin]-ga
Prof.

-Dat admirable

o-ar-i ni nar-u

parents -Nom HP-be NARU-Pres“The professor has the admirable parents.”
115

b. #Taroo-ni-Dat[rippa-na ryoosin]-ga
admirableo-ar-i ni nar-u

parents -Nom HP-be NARU-Pres“Taro has the admirable parents.”

These examples suggest that it is the nominative NP that is an SSS if theverb is tuk- ‘arrive’ type, while it is the dative NP if the verb is ar- ‘be’ type.
In the following section, I will propose a solution which makes it possible
to explain the pattern found in (9) and (10) preserving the theory of thisthesis.

7.2. Proposal

Recall that the analysis in the previous section assumes Kuno’s(1973) conclusion that all unaccusative verbs have the same basic order,
dative-nominative. If another hypothesis is adopted, the theory of thisthesis makes different prediction since what the theory states is that theargument which is closest to [H] is interpreted as an SSS. In particular, if
the basic word order of tuk- ‘arrive’ is nominative-dative and the order ofar- ‘be’ is dative-nominative, the grammatical pattern found in (9) and (10)116can be explained. This is the only way to solve the puzzle preserving thetheory.
One point where ar- ‘be’ differs from tuk- ‘arrive’ is that ar- ‘be’
has the stative meaning. In Japanese, stative verbs cannot be followed by-tei-(ru) which indicates progressive aspect (see Kageyama 1993, Ito andSugioka 2002).

(11) a. ar- ‘be’:*at-tei-ru

b. tuk- ‘arrive’tui-tei-ru

The contrast in (11) illustrates that ar- ‘be’ has the stative meaning while
tuk- ‘arrive’ has the non-stative meaning. Kishimoto (2001) proposes that T
which takes a stative predicate licenses not only nominative Case but also
dative Case, while T which appears above a non-stative predicate licenses
only nominative Case. Since stative/non-stative distinction arguably
concerns with tense, it is natural to assume two Ts corresponding to the
distinction.
I will claim that the difference of word order between ar- ‘be’ typeverbs and tuk- ‘arrive’ type verbs corresponds to the stative/non-stative
distinction. This seems natural since the basic order of another stative117

unaccusative verb i- ‘be’ (*i-tei-ru) is identical to ar- ‘be’, as the scope
ambiguity found in (1) and (7) indicates. More specifically, I propose thefollowing hypothesis.

(12) The basic order of stative unaccusative verbs is dative-nominative andthat of non-stative ones is nominative-dative.

In the rest of this section, I will demonstrate that the pattern ofgrammaticality found in (9) and (10) can be explained by the theory of thisthesis if the proposal in (12) is adopted. Let us start with the analysis of thestative unaccusative verbs. I propose the following structure for thesentence in (13a).

(13) a. Sensei-ni [rippa-na ryoosin]-ga
Prof. -Datadmirableo-ar-i ni nar-u

parents -Nom HP-be NARU-Pres“The professor has the admirable parents.”

118(=10a)

b.

vP
VP

v [H]
V [v [V [VN o-ar-i]i ni nar-]j φ](-u)

VNPsensei-ni

VN’

rippa-na ryoosin-ga

tj
VN
ti

Since the basic order of the stative unaccusative verbs is dative-nominative,the dative NP asymmetrically c-commands the nominative NP, and thedative NP is bound by [H]. Therefore, the fact that the dative NP is an SSS
in (13a) is explained.
Secondly, I propose the following structure for the sentence in (14a),which includes a non-stative verb.

(14) a. Yamada-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

eki-nio-tuk-istation-Dat HP-arrive“Prof. Yamada arrives at the station.”

119

ni nar-u
NARU-Pres

b.

vP
VP
VNP

Yamada-sensei-ga

v [H]
V

VN’
eki-ni[v [V [VN o-tuk-i]i ni nar-]jφ](-u)

tj
VN
ti

It is the nominative NP that asymmetrically c-commands the dative NP
since the basic order of the non-stative verbs is nominative-dative. Thus,
the nominative NP is bound by [H]. On the other hand, the dative NP
cannot be bound even if it is moved to the position which intervenes
between [H] and the nominative NP (for example [Spec, VP]) via
scrambling, since the position is not a theta-position. Therefore, the patternfound in the case of non-stative unaccusative predicates is explained.
In this section, I have suggested that to explain the patterns ofgrammaticality found in (9) and (10), the theory of this thesis should
require

that

the

basic

order

of

stativeunaccusative

verbs

is

dative-nominative and that of non-stative ones is nominative-dative, against
the widely held assumption that all unaccusative verbs shares the common
basic order, dative-nominative. Then, I have demonstrated that how the120

theory explains the patterns based on the proposal.

7.3. Consequences

In this section, I provide two consequences of the proposal. The
first consequence concerns the scope ambiguity. The proposal predicts that
if the predicate is a non-stative verb, and the dative-marked existential
quantifier precedes the nominative-marked universal quantifier, then thesentence must have the scope ambiguity. The following examples confirm
the prediction.

(15) a. Dokoka-ni

daremo-ga

i-ta

(=1a)

somewhere-Dat everyone-Nom be-Past“Everyone was somewhere (∃>∀, *∀>∃).”
b. Dokoka-ni

daremo-ga

tui-tasomewhere-Dat everyone-Nom arrive-Past“Everyone arrived somewhere (∃>∀, ∀>∃).”The example in (1a) is repeated in (15a). The fact that this sentence is not121ambiguous is the reason that Kuno (1973) concludes the basic order isdative-nominative. If dative-nominative is also the basic order of the verb
tuk- ‘arrive’, the sentence in (15b) cannot not have the scope ambiguity. Yet,it does have the scope ambiguity; the sentence in (15b) has the reading “forevery x, x is a person, there is some y where x arrived at”. This ambiguity
is explained if it is assumed that the dative NP is moved from the position
which is c-commanded by the nominative NP.
In addition, the proposal makes a further prediction; if the predicate
is a non-stative verb, and the nominative-marked existential quantifierprecedes the dative-marked universal quantifier, then the sentence cannot
have the scope ambiguity. Consider the example below.

(16) Dareka-ga[subete-no

someone-Nom all-Genbasyo]-ni

tui-taplace -Datarrive-Past“Someone arrived at all places (∃>∀, *∀>∃).”

This sentence does not have the reading “for all y, y is a place, there issome x who arrived at y”. Hence, only one available reading is that there is
only one person who has arrived at every place. Since it is impossible forone person to arrive at two distinct places simultaneously, the sentence122should become ungrammatical if it has an adjunct that forces such a
reading. The following example illustrates that the prediction is correct.

(17) *Kyoo-no gozen-kuzi-ni dareka-ga [subete-no
today-Gena.m.

9-at someone-Nom all-Genbasyo]-ni tui-ta
place -Datarrive-Past“Someone arrived every place at 9a.m. today.”

The fact that the sentence in (16) has no ambiguity can be explained
if there is only one c-command relation that nominative-marked existential
quantifier c-commands the dative-marked universal quantifier. This is what
the proposal predicts. Thus, these observations can be explained as aconsequence of the proposal.
The second consequence concerns Condition C of the binding
theory (Chomsky 1981). Consider the following examples.

(18) a. [Tarooi-no-Genie]-nikarei-gahouse-Dat

he

i-ta

-Nom be-Past“(Lit.) Hei was at Taroi’s house.”b. *[Tarooi-no-Genie]-nikarei-gatui-tahouse-Dat

he-Nomarrive-Past

123

“(Lit.) Hei arrived at Taroi’s house.”

Given that Condition C is “everywhere condition” (Lebeaux 1998), the factthat the sentence in (18a) is grammatical indicates that the nominative NP
kare ‘he’ never c-commands the dative NP. On the other hand, theungrammaticality of the sentence (18b) suggests that at some point in thederivation, the dative NP is c-commanded by the nominative NP. That is,the dative-nominative order in (18b) is derived from the underlying
nominative-dative order by scrambling 2 . Thus, this observation can be
explained if the hypothesis that the basic order of the stative unaccusative
verbs is dative-nominative while that of the non-stative ones isnominative-dative is correct.
In this section, I have argued that the proposal can explain the two2

Against Lebeaux (1998), Saito (2003, 2005) claims that Condition C is an “LF
condition”, based on the following observation.
i) [TP Zibunzisini-o[Taroo-ga ti seme-ta]] (koto)
self

-Acc

-Nom

blame-Past

fact“Himselfi, Taro blamed ti”(Saito 2003, p. 487, slightly modified)
He argues that if the Condition C is not an everywhere condition but applies at LF, after
the scrambled phrase is reconstructed to its initial position, the grammaticality of theexample can be explained.
Even if Saito (2003, 2005) is correct, however, this does not affect theargument. If the dative-nominative order is the underlying order of the sentence in (18b),
no reconstruction takes place, so that the ungrammaticality of the example cannot be
explained. On the other hand, suppose that the nominative-dative order is the underlying
order. At LF, the scrambled dative NP is reconstructed to the initial position, which is
c-commanded by the nominative NP. Then, Condition C applies and the sentence iscorrectly ruled out.
124

observations, both of them indicate that there is some difference between
the stative unaccusative verbs and the non-stative ones.

7.4. Summary of Chapter 7

In this chapter, I have argued that the incorrect prediction is made if
all unaccusative verbs have the common underlying word order,
dative-nominative. Then, I have claimed that the problem is solved if it iscorrect that the basic word order of non-stative unaccusative verbs isnominative-dative, although that of stative ones is dative-nominative.
Finally, I have demonstrated that the two facts, one of which concerns thescope ambiguity and the other Condition C, are explained as a consequenceof the proposal.

125Chapter 8
Implications for Education and Language Learning

In this chapter, I will discuss the implications of the present study foreducation and language learning. In particular, comparing to the descriptive
and/or taxonomic studies, I will argue that theoretical studies of language, which
include the present study, can contribute to education and language learning. I
will start examining how the present study of honorification can contribute toeducation. Then, I will argue that the theory of honorification can distinguishwhat the learners have to learn when they acquire honorification from what they
do not have to, so that the theory can reduce the burden of learners.
First, I will discuss how the present study of honorification cancontribute to education. Generally, to educate someone about something, it isnecessary to know at least the following two things.

(1) a. What properties does the object of education have?
b. What properties does the content of education have?

As far as the present study concerns, the relevant properties in (1a) are that of126

the faculty of language. That is, it is needed to clarify the knowledge oflanguage. Concerning this question, as argued in Chapter 7, the present study
claims that there are at least two types of unaccusative verbs, one of which has
the nominative-dative order as an underlying order and the other has thedative-nominative order. Since the standard analysis assumes that all
unaccusative verbs share the common underlying order, these two hypotheses
have to be compared. In this sense, theoretical study of honorification makes thestudy of the knowledge of language productive. Thus, in this way, the theoretical
study of honorification can contribute to education. On the other hand,descriptive and/or taxonomic studies of language cannot make any hypotheses
which can influence the other aspects of language, since it is not their goal.
Concerning the question in (1b), the content of education falls under theproperties of honorification itself. That is, to educate the learners abouthonorification, it is necessary to know its properties. The attempt to make aformal theory of honorification, which I have made in this thesis, makes it
possible to discover the new properties of honorification. For instance, thepresent study revealed that there is systematic ambiguity in RH and indirect
passive.
In addition, the present study has deepened theoretical understanding ofhonorification. For example, there had been no analysis why some types of the127multiple honorification (that is, SH + RH and OH + RH) are grammatical, while
the other logically possible types (that is, RH + SH, RH + OH, SH + OH and
OH + SH) are ungrammatical. In this sense, the present study can contribute toclarify the content of education. On the other hand, since the descriptive and/or
taxonomic studies do not make any predictions, it cannot find out the newproperties.
Then, I demonstrate how the theory of honorification reduces the burdenof the learners. As demonstrated in the previous chapters, the morphological andsyntactic properties of SH/OH/RH can be explained by the interaction of thesyntactic feature [H] and the properties of lexical items NARU, SURU and
RARE. This means that what the learners have to learn is the lexical propertiesof [H], NARU, SURU and RARE and the argument structure of the verbs. Thatis, once the learner acquires the lexical items which appear in SH/OH/RH, thelearner, guided by the general principles of syntax, can automatically determine
what argument is an SSS at least for these three types of honorification. Thus,
the learners do not have to learn them as separate constructions. In order toacquire the meaning of a verb, it is unavoidable to learn the argument structureof the verb. From this conclusion, what actually needs to be learned are that theproperties of [H], NARU, SURU and RARE. It is impossible to make an easier
way to learn honorification without the theoretical consideration from the128present studies. In this point, the present study can contribute to language
learning.
Concerning the reduction of the burden, it is worth discussing the“irregular” forms of honorification. So far, I have argued the properties ofhonorification, whose predicate contains NARU, SURU, or RARE. Yet, there
are some verbs which have unpredictable, irregular forms. Harada (1976) calls
them “suppletive” form. Some of them are listed in (2).

(2)

SH-form

OH-forma. ik-(u) ‘go’irassyar-(u), o-ide, o-kos-i

ukagaw-(u)b. su-(ru) ‘do’nasar-(u), asobas-(u)----c. iw-(u) ‘say’

ossyar-(u)----d. mi-(ru) ‘see’

go-ran (ni nar-u)

haiken (su-ru)

e. kik-(u) ‘hear’----

haityoo (su-ru)

f. sir-(u) ‘know’

go-zonzi

zonziage-(ru)Consider the examples in (2a). The form irassyar-, o-ide- or o-kos-i is used
when the subject of the sentence is an SSS while the form ukagaw- is used when
the object is an SSS. Even if the form o-ide and o-kos-i seem to contain HP, thestem of the verb, namely ik- ‘go’, has been changed. These examples suggest
129that some verbs have dedicated forms depending on whether the SSS is the
subject or the object.
In addition, the verb iw- ‘say’ is changed to ossyar- when the subject isan SSS while it does not have the suppletive form when the object is an SSS, as
shown in (2c). Conversely, the verb kik- ‘hear’ lacks the form for the subject.
This is one of the characteristics of suppletive forms.
I assume that in the case of suppletive forms, the information whether
the SSS is the subject or the object is encoded as part of the meaning of thelexical item. In other words, to know the meaning of the suppletive form, it isnecessary to know which argument is an SSS.
One of the most striking examples is the case of irassyar-, the suppletive
form of the verb i- ‘be’. Consider the following examples.

(3) a. Eki-ni

Yamada-sensei-ga

station-Dat

Prof.

-Nom

irassyar-u
be-Pres“Prof. Yamada is at the station.”b. #Eki-ni Taro-ga
station-Dat-Nom

irassyar-u
be-Pres“Taro is at the station.”c. *Eki-ni Yamada-sensei-ga

irassyar-u
130station-Dat

Prof.

-Nom

be-Pres“Prof. Yamada is at the station.”(4) a. Sensei-ni
Prof.

-Dat

[rippa-na ryoosin]-ga
admirable

irassyar-u

parents -Nom be-Pres“The professor has the admirable parents.”
b. #Taroo-ni[rippa-na ryoosin]-ga-Dat admirable

irassyar-u

parents -Nom be-Pres“Taro has the admirable parents.”
c. *Sensei-ni [rippa-na ryoosin]-ga
Prof.

-Dat

admirable

irassyar-u

parents -Nom be-Pres“The professor has the admirable parents.”

The pattern of grammaticality found in (3) suggests that the nominative NP isinterpreted as an SSS. On the other hand, the pattern found in (4) indicates thatthe dative NP is interpreted as an SSS. Note that the meaning of irassyar- in (3)is different from the meaning of it in (4); irassyar- in (3) has the existential
meaning while irassyar- in (4) has the possessive meaning. That is, if irassyarhas the existential meaning, the nominative NP is an SSS while if it has thepossessive meaning, the dative NP is interpreted as an SSS. This suggests thatthe meaning of the verb controls which argument is interpreted as an SSS. Thus,131

it seems plausible to assume that the information of an SSS is lexically encodedin the case of suppletive forms.
Besides, to distinguish the suppletive forms from the regular forms has
one advantage. It can explain the condition on the “double honorification”(Niinuma 2003, 2005). Below is the example of double honorification.

(5) Tanaka-sensei-ga
Prof.

-Nom

Yamada-sensei-no-otaku-ni sanjoo nasat-ta
Prof. -Gen-house-Dat

come

do-Past“Prof. Tanaka came to Prof. Yamada’s house.”(Niinuma 2005, p. 57, slightly modified)Niinuma (2003, 2005) claims that double honorification is a case of OH + SH,
which can be obtained “under the condition that the object honorific form is a
suppletive form 1 ” (Niinuma 2005, p. 56). This condition, however, is
problematic since Niinuma (2003, 2005) does not distinguish the regular forms
from the suppletive forms (see Niinuma 2003, pp. 8-10).
Yet, the condition follows from the distinction between the regular forms
and the suppletive forms, since both sanjoo ‘come’ and nasar- ‘do’ in (5) aresuppletive forms of kur- ‘come’ and su- ‘do’. The lexical item sanjoo ‘come’ has
1

In fact, the verb nasar- is also the suppletive form of su- ‘do’. Yet, this does not affect theargument.
132

the information that the object is an SSS as its meaning, and the meaning of
nasar- ‘do’ includes the information that the subject is an SSS. Since sanjoo‘come’ is a noun while nasar- ‘do’ is a transitive verb, nothing prevents nasar‘do’ from taking sanjoo ‘come’ as its object, so that the sentence is grammatical.
The distinction between the regular forms from the suppletive forms has
an important implication for language learning; the learners have to learn the
suppletive forms as independent lexical items. At this point, the present study
provides a basis for learning honorification.
In this chapter, I have discussed the implications of the present study foreducation and language learning. Although the implications of the present study
are indirect, I believe that they provide a basis for education and language
learning.

133

Chapter 9
Conclusion

In this thesis, I have pursed the idea that it is the feature [H] on thepredicate that contributes the honorific interpretation of the sentence. In
particular, I have proposed the following mechanism.

(1) a. [H] is licensed iff it binds an XP in the closest theta-position.
b. If [H] is not licensed, the derivation crashes.
c. An XP is interpreted as an SSS iff it is bound by [H].

Based on these proposals, I have provided a unified analysis of SH, OH and RH.
As a consequence of the analysis, I have claimed that the basic word order ofstative unaccusative verbs is dative-nominative, while that of non-stative ones isnominative-dative. I have also discussed the implications of this study foreducation and language learning.
There are some remaining issues. So far, I have claimed that only
theta-positions are relevant to honorification. Harada (1976), however, observedthat a possessor NP of an object NP can be an SSS. Below is the relevant134example.

(1) Taroo-ga [Yamada-sensei-no
-Nom

Prof.

-Gen

o-nimotu]-oo-mot-isi-ta

HP-baggage -Acc

HP-bring

SURU-Past“Taro brought Prof. Yamada’s baggage.”In this example, the SSS is the genitive NP Yamada-sensei ‘Prof. Yamada’,
which appears inside the accusative NP. This phenomenon is called “Possessor
Honorification” by Harada (1976). Since the genitive NP does not receive atheta-role from the verb, it seems problematic that it can be interpreted as an
SSS. Yet, I believe that the more detailed study of possessor honorification anddeeper understanding of the internal structure of NPs are necessary to reveal thenature of possessor honorification. For example, the following contrast may
provide the key.

(2) a. Taroo-ga[Yamada-sensei-no-Nom

Prof. -Geno-nimotu]-oo-mot-iHP-baggage-Acc HP-bring

si-ta

(=1a)

SURU-Past“Taro brought Prof. Yamada’s baggage.”b. ?Taroo-ga [Yamada-sensei-no-Nom

Prof. -Gen

nimotu]-oo-mot-isi-tabaggage -Acc

HP-bring

SURU-Past

135

“Taro brought Prof. Yamada’s baggage.”

Adjectives also have honorific forms. Below are the relevant examples.

(3) a. Ano kata-wa

o-utukusi-ithat person-Top HP-beautiful-Pres“He/she is beautiful.”b. *Watasi-wa Yamada-sensei-ga
I

-Top

Prof.

o-suki da-Gen

HP-like Pres“I like Prof. Yamada.”c. Yamada-sensei-wa goruhu-ga

o-suki daProf. -Top

HP-like Pres

golf

-Nom

“Prof. Yamada likes playing golf.”

These examples suggest that Adjective Honorification has the subject orientation.
Although I have not provided the analysis of it in this thesis, I believe that the
subject orientation of it can be explained by the mechanism of this thesis.
Although further study is necessary, I conclude this thesis by pointing
out that this study has the following implications for the study of linguistic
theory. Firstly, the “agreement” view to honorification is not correct from both136

empirical and theoretical point of view. Secondly, honorification is also
governed by the universal principles of syntax, contrary to the assumption of the
traditional Japanese grammars that honorification is a lexical and/orJapanese-specific phenomenon. Finally, and more broadly, this study suggeststhat the study of honorification can contribute to the study of I-language. In
particular, this study has demonstrated that the underlying order of arguments
can be investigated through the pattern of honorification.

137

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