THREE TYPES OF THE “OVERGENERATED NO”
IN THE ACQUISITION OF JAPANESE NOUN PHRASES *Keiko Murasugi1,2, Tomomi Nakatani1 and Chisato Fuji
Nanzan University1 and University of Connecticut2

1.

Introduction

It is very well known that Japanese-speaking children around ages one to four
overgenerate no between the sentential modifier and the head NP, as shown in (1).
(1)

a. howasi
ookii * nochopstick bigNOhowasi (= ohasi)
chopstick(2;1)‘chopsticks, the big ones, chopsticks’
b. maarui * noround NO

(Nagano 1960)

unti (2;0)
poop‘a round poop’c. Yuta-ga
Yuta-Nomasyon-deru * noplaying-isNO(Yokoyama 1990)
yatyu
thing

wa kore, kore
Top this this(Yuta 2;3)‘The thing that Yuta (I) is playing with is this (train).’In (1a) and (1b), children insert no between the adjective (e.g., ookii (big) and marui (round))and the head nominal (e.g., howasi (chopsticks) and unti (poop)) at around two years of age.
Later, at two to four years of age, as in (1c), Japanese-speaking children insert no between thesentential modifier Yuta ga asyon-deru (Yuta is playing) and the head nominal yatyu (thing).
In adult Japanese, there are mainly three types of no.

* This is a revised version of the paper we presented at JK 19 (2009) at the University of Hawaii. We
would like to thank the organizers, participants and the anonymous reviewers of JK 19, and scholars
involved in the activities of Center for Linguistics at Nanzan University, especially Michiya Kawai,
Tomoko Hashimoto, Mamoru Saito, Koji Sugisaki, and Daiko Takahashi, for valuable discussions on
the topic discussed in this paper. The research presented here was supported in part by Nanzan
University Pache Research Grant I-A (2011), JSPS Grant-in-Aid at Nanzan University (#23520529),
and National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (Collaborative Research Project on
Linguistic Variations within the Confines of the Language Faculty: A Study in Japanese First
Language Acquisition and Parametric Syntax).
Nanzan Linguistics 8, 69–87©2012 Keiko Murasugi, Tomomi Nakatani and Chisato Fuji

Nanzan Linguistics 8: Research Results and Activities 2011 ~ 2012

(2)

a. [Yamada]

no
Gen

hon
book

(Genitive Case marker)‘Yamada’s book’
b. akaired (+present)noone(Pronoun)‘the red one’c. Emi-ga
hazimeterobusutaa-o
Emi-Nom for the first time lobster-Acc
da(Complementizer)
Copulatabe-ta no
wa Bosuton deateComp Top Boston in‘It is in Boston that Emi ate a lobster for the first time.’(2a) is the genitive Case marker, which roughly corresponds to ’s or of in English. (2b) is apronoun, which roughly corresponds to one in English. A complementizer in (2c) is the headof the presuppositional phrase in the cleft sentence, which corresponds to that in English.
In the history of Japanese acquisition, three contradictory analyses, the Pronoun
Hypothesis, the Genitive Case Hypothesis, and the Complementizer Hypothesis, have been
proposed regarding the syntactic status of the overgenerated no. Accordingly, the age children
overgenerate no is contradictory: Some say it happens when children are one year old (e.g.,
Nagano 1960), but some say it lasts until four years old (e.g., Murasugi 1991).
In this paper, mainly based on our longitudinal study with a Japanese-speaking child,
Yuta, and the corpus analysis of CHILDES (Sumihare and Jun), we argue that the
mysteriously long overgeneration phenomenon of no, in fact, stems from three distinct
sources, as proposed by Murasugi, Nakatani and Fuji (2009). We argue that the mysterious“overgeneration of no” is not a single phenomenon in Japanese acquisition, and show thatthree contradictory hypotheses (i.e., Pronoun, Genitive Case, and Complementizer) proposedin the past acquisition researches are basically all correct. First, a pronoun no is used due tothe limit in production at the two-word stage. Second, the genitive Case marker no is inserted
because of the miscategorization of adjectives as nominals. Third, a complementizer no isovergenerated due to the parameterization in the structure of relative clauses. The
overgeneration of no, which looks like a single phenomenon, is reanalyzed as a trihedralphenomenon, and each face represents one of the crucial developmental stages in language
acquisition.
2.

The Complementizer Hypothesis: Relative Clause Parameter (Murasugi 1991)

Murasugi (1991), based on her longitudinal and experimental study withJapanese-speaking children at two to four years of age, proposes that the overgenerated no is a

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Three Types of the “Overgenerated No” (K. Murasugi, T. Nakatani and C. Fuji)

complementizer. According to her analysis, a structure of a sentential modifier isparameterized; either CP or TP depending on the languages. Murasugi argues that sentential
modifiers in adult Japanese (and Korean) are TPs, unlike CP relatives in English. However,Japanese-speaking children initially hypothesize that Japanese relative clauses are CPs, andovergenerate a complementizer between the sentential modifier and the head nominal.
Children’s first complex NPs are found after two years of age, and they are usually afixed expression without overgeneration (Murasugi and Hashimoto 2004). Our subject Yuta’s
first complex NPs were also fixed expressions. The relevant examples are shown in (3).
(3)

a. Tottan-ga
katte kure-ta
father-Nom buy gave

purezento
presentda
Copula

yo
Int

(2;0)

‘(This is) the present that my father bought (for me).
b. Kore, Yuki-tyan-ga
this, Yuki-tyan-Nom

kure-tagave

purezento
present

na
Copula

no
Int

(2;0)

‘This is the present that Yuki-tyan gave (to me).’In (3), the verbs were limited to katte kureru (buy and give) and kureru (give) only. The head
NP was also limited to the NP, purezento (present).
Later, some children overgenerate no on sentential modifiers. Yuta started toovergenerate no productively not only in complex NPs as in (4a) and (4b), but also after
adjectives as in (4c), after 2;2.
(4)

a. Kare-teru
wither-is* noNOhana daflower Copula

yo
Int

(2;2)

‘(I have) a withered flower.’b. Yuta-ga
Yuta-Nomasyon-deru * noplaying-is
NO

yatyu
thing

wa
Top

kore,
this

kore
this

(2;3)

‘The thing that Yuta (I) is playing with is this (train).’c. Kore nagai * no
this
long
NO

yatyu
one

da
Copula

ne
Int

(2;3)

‘This is a long one.’
In (4a), Yuta inserted no between the modifier kare-teru (is withered) and the head nominal
hana (flower). Similarly, in (4b), Yuta (playing with a train in front of the box with thepicture of the train, and comparing the toy and the picture of it), overgenerated no between thesentential modifier Yuta-ga asyon-deru and the head NP, yatyu. In (4c), he overgenerated noafter the adjective nagai (long).

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Nanzan Linguistics 8: Research Results and Activities 2011 ~ 2012

Murasugi (1991) reports that children at around two to four years of age overgenerate acomplementizer no between the head NP and all types of sentential modifiers, as exemplified
in (5).
(5)a. tigau * nodiffer NO

outi (3;0)
house‘the different house’b. Emi-tyan-ga
Emi-tyan-Nom

kai-ta * nodrew NOsinderera (2;11-4;2)
Cinderella’‘the Cinderella that Emi drew’c. ookii * no
big
NO

tako
(2;11-4;2)octopus‘a big octopus’(Murasugi 1991)

In (5a), no is inserted between the inflected verb, tigau (differ) and the head nominal, outi
(house), and in (5b), it is inserted between the sentential modifier and the head nominal. In(5c), no is overgenerated after the adjective, ookii (big), as well.
Crucially, however, she reports that those children, who overgenerated no, sometimes
undergenerated the genitive Case marker on PPs, as in (6), although they can correctly insert
it between two NPs, as in (7).
(6)

Tokyo

made [φ]to*(Gen)

basu
bus

(3;2)

‘the bus to Tokyo’(7)(Murasugi 1991)

a. Emi-nohon (Emi 2;9)Emi-Gen book
‘Emi’s book’
b. megane-no
glasses-Gen

ozityanman(Miki 2;4)‘the man with eye glasses’(Murasugi 1991)

Thus, the overgeneration takes place when the genitive Case marking is not fully acquired.
One piece of direct empirical evidence for the Complementizer Hypothesis was found in
Toyama dialect in Japanese as in (8a) and Korean as in (8b).

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Three Types of the “Overgenerated No” (K. Murasugi, T. Nakatani and C. Fuji)(8)a. Anpanman(a character)tui-toru* ga
attaching-is GA

koppu
cup

(Ken 2;11)‘the cup which is pictured with “Anpanman”’
b. Acessi otopai
tha-nun *kes
uncle motorcycle riding-is KES(Murasugi 1991)

soli
yasound is(2-3 years old)

‘Lit. (This) is the sound that a man is riding a motorcycle.’(Kim 1987)

The overgenerated item is a complementizer, for instance, ga in Toyama dialect, and kes in
Korean, but not the genitive Case marker (no in Toyama dialect nor uy in Korean).
Thus, not only Japanese-speaking children but also Korean-speaking children initiallyhypothesize that their relative clauses are CPs, and overgenerate a complementizer between
the sentential modifier and the head nominal.
Murasugi and Hashimoto (2004), however, argue that the Complementizer Hypothesis
alone cannot fully explain the overgeneration phenomenon of no. In fact, the overgenerationof no is observed with very young children, even at around the age of one, when they start
producing two-word utterances. Crucially, then, not only T or C related items, but also, eventhe genitive Case marker is not produced. Murasugi and Hashimoto point out that it is very
unlikely that the same type of overgeneration lasts for four years, and conclude that there are
two types of overgeneration of no: A pronoun and a complementizer.
3.
3.

The Pronoun Hypothesis in Addition to the Complementizer Analysis (Nagano
1960, Murasugi and Hashimoto 2004, 2006)

The Pronoun Hypothesis was in fact originally proposed by Nagano (1960) fifty years
ago. His argument is very simple and clear: The overgenerated no cannot be the genitive Case
marker, because the overgeneration takes place when there is no genitive Case marker foundin the child production, but only pronoun no is produced. Examples in (9) are cited from
Nagano (1960).
(9)a. howasi
chopstickookii * nobigone

howasi (= ohasi) (2;1)
chopstick‘chopsticks, the big ones, chopsticks’
b. Amuna (= Harumi)

tittyai * nosmall one

Amuna

‘Harumi, the small one, Harumi’(2;1)(Nagano 1960)

In (9a) and (9b), no looks like to be erroneously inserted between the adjective (e.g., ookii(big) and tiisai (small)) and the NP (e.g., howasi, which is ohasi (chopsticks) and Amuna,which is Harumi) at 2;1. The overgeneration in question appears just after the pronoun no- 73 -

Nanzan Linguistics 8: Research Results and Activities 2011 ~ 2012

starts to be correctly produced at 2;1, as in (10), but before the genitive Case marking is fullyacquired, as in (11).
(10)

a. ookii no
big
one

(2;1)

‘the big one (= bus)’
b. tittyai
small

no
one

(2;1)

‘the small one (= leaf)’(11)(Nagano 1960)

ke… mama[φ]ke, mama[φ]hair Mommy *(Gen) hair Mommy *(Gen)ke, mama(2;0)
hair Mommy‘hair…Mommy’s hair, Mommy’s hair, Mommy’(Nagano 1960)

In (11), the child omitted the genitive Case marker no, although it should be inserted between
mama (Mommy) and ke (hair) in the adult grammar. It is only one month later, at 2;2, that thegenitive Case marker appears in the natural production, as shown in (12).
(12)

Papa-nobuton (= zubon) (2;2)
Daddy-Gen pants‘Daddy’s pants’(Nagano 1960)

The parallel developmental stage was observed by Murasugi and Hashimoto’s (2004)
longitudinal study with Akkun, and our longitudinal study with Yuta. Both subjects started
overgenerating no before the genitive Case marker was inserted between NPs.
(13)

a. Akai
red

no
one

at-ta
(2;3)
there-was‘(I) found the red one’b. Akkun

no. Akkun [φ] ohuton
one.
bed

(2;3-2;5)‘(This is) Akkun’s. Akkun(’s) bed.’(Murasugi and Hashimoto 2004)

Furthermore, both Akkun and Yuta put a brief pause between the NP headed by the
pronoun no and the referential NP. (14) shows Akkun’s data taken from Murasugi and
Hashimoto (2004).

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Three Types of the “Overgenerated No” (K. Murasugi, T. Nakatani and C. Fuji)(14)

a. Akkuntiityainosmall-is one

konkonkon
hammer(2;4)‘Akkun’s (/My) small hammer’b. [Akkun //pause// [tiityai no] //pause// konkonkon]
They argue that the utterance consists of two parts (i.e., tiityai no (small one) and konkonkon(hammer)), and this is very different from the overgeneration of a complementizer.
Similarly, the subject we examined in the present study, Yuta, started overgenerating noat around 1;10, when he just started combining two words in the utterances. An example isgiven in (15).
(15)

a. Hon, atarasii
book new

no,
one

hon
book

da
(1;10)
Copula‘a book, a new one, (this is) a book’
b. [hon //pause// [atarasii no] //pause// hon da]
The analysis of Praat1 clearly shows that there is a pause between no and the reference
NP, thereby confirming Murasugi and Hashimoto’s (2004) observation.
Figure 1: A Pause Found between No and the Referential NP
pronoun_mov_mono
2.3177259

500

2.79506207

400
300
200
75

hon

atarasii nohon da0.8025

3.5Time (s)In Figure 1, the pitch contour shows that there is a pause of 0.48 seconds between no and thereferential NP, hon (a book). Thus, this result indicates that the utterance consists of twoparts.
In contrast, as for the overgeneration of a complementizer given in (4b) found after two
years of age, there is no pause between no and the head NP.

1

Praat is a program for doing phonetic analyses and sound manipulations (Boersma and Weenink2009).

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Nanzan Linguistics 8: Research Results and Activities 2011 ~ 2012

Figure 2: No Pause Found between No and the Head NP with the Overgeneration of a
Figure 2: Complementizer
6.33160622

500

comp_asyonderu_mov_mono
7.18130213

400
300
200
75

Yuta gaasyonderu no yatyu

wa

kore

kore

5.678

8.53
Time (s)The Praat analysis in Figure 2 indicates that there is no separation of any kind, and asyonderu(ashon-deru) no yatyu is produced as a unit.
Hence, Murasugi and Hashimoto (2004, 2006) argue that Nagano’s (1960) Pronoun
Hypothesis is supported, and the overgenerated no at the age of one and early age of two is apronoun. They analyze that this no is, in fact, not an error, but reflects the production strategy
of very young children to combine two elements. When children cannot create themodification structure, they produce an NP headed by the pronoun no (one) first, to provide aframe for an NP, and the modifier, or the head nominal is realized as the second independent
NP. Children use this strategy since the genitive Case marker is not yet acquired at the
beginning of the two-word stage. Murasugi (2009) further proposes that this stage reflects theearliest morphological realization of the operation of merger, and that the onset of the merger
starts with the phrases headed by the smaller category (no (one) as N′) with less semantic
content. This hypothesis holds as there is a pause between the pronoun no and the second NP.
The argument given so far shows that there are at least two sources for the apparently
same “overgeneration” phenomenon. The one observed in ages one and two is a pronoun, andthe other observed in ages two through four is a complementizer.
However, another empirical problem arises. No is overgenerated when children havealready acquired the genitive Case marker, have no problem in combining two elements, andproduce no relative clauses. The mysterious no associated with those characteristics is
exemplified in (16).
(16)

a. atarasii * no
new
NO

kami
paper

(Yuta 1;11)

gohan
rice

(Yuta 2;0)‘a new paper’
b. siroi * nowhite NO
‘white rice’- 76 -

Three Types of the “Overgenerated No” (K. Murasugi, T. Nakatani and C. Fuji)

c. Tiisai * no
small
NO

buubuucartoottapassedyo
Int(Sumihare 1;11)‘A small car passed.’
Crucially, the overgeneration is found after the two-word stage, at around the age of two, withlimited adjectives such as color, size, shape, and state.
At this mysterious stage, the genitive Case marker between two NPs is productively andcorrectly used. For example, as in (17), Yuta started to produce the genitive Case marker
between NPs at 1;11, and Sumihare started at 2;0.
(17)

a. Ko otoosan-no hanasi dayothis father-Gen story Copula Int(Yuta 1;11)‘This is a story of father.’b. Ringo-no
apple-Gen

ozityan-ga…
man-Nom(Sumihare 2;0)‘The man (who sells) apples is…’
Praat analysis reveals that unlike the case of a pronoun, there is no pause found between no
and the NP following it. In Figure 3, no separation has been made between siroi no (whiteone) and gohan (rice), and they are produced as a unit.
Figure 3: No Pause Found between No and the Head NP with the Mysterious Overgeneration
Figure 3: of No
genitive_siroi_mov_mono
13.1916106

500
400
300
200
75

siroi no gohansiroi no gohan

11.27

14.36
Time (s)The facts shown above cannot be explained by the Complementizer Hypothesis either.
This mysterious no is produced by children who have not acquired complex NPs yet, and thecleft sentences are hardly observed. Moreover, as noted above, the overgeneration is foundonly with the present-tensed adjectives of color, size, and state.
In the next section, we argue that children, at around the age of two, have difficulties inacquiring “the category of adjectives,” and some adjectives are treated as nominals, and some,as verbs. Those “nominal-like adjectives” never inflect with tense, and children, who alreadyknow the genitive Case marker insertion between the nominal projections, correctly insert thegenitive Case marker between the “nominal-like adjectives” and the head nominal. This
would be the mysterious stage of overgeneration of no found before a relative clause is- 77 -

Nanzan Linguistics 8: Research Results and Activities 2011 ~ 2012acquired. (See Murasugi (2009) for details.)
4.

The Genitive Case Marker Hypothesis

The Genitive Case Marker Hypothesis has been proposed by many researchers in thepast fifty years (Iwabuchi and Muraishi 1968, Harada 1980, 1984, Clancy 1985, Yokoyama
1990, Ito 1998, among others). Among those, Yokoyama’s (1990) generalization is quite
important. He argues that the erroneous no is a genitive Case marker, and it is overgenerated
only with the adjectives referring to color, size, and shape (e.g., akai (red), ookii (big), maarui(round)), but never with other adjectives (e.g., abunai (dangerous), yasasii (kind)), as shownin (18).
(18)

a. ookii * nobigNOsakana
fish

(1;8)

unti
poop

(2;0)

‘a big fish’b. maarui * noround NO‘a round poop’
Yokoyama’s apparently curious generalization is further confirmed by Murasugi and
Hashimoto (2004). They find that the adjectives of color, size, and shape do not inflect withtense, but appear only in present-tense forms.
This generalization is further supported by our longitudinal study with Yuta and also by
our corpus analysis of Sumihare. The overgeneration occurs only with the adjectives whichrefer to color, size, shape, and state, but it never occurs with such adjectives as itai (ispainful), omoi (is heavy), or kowai (is scary), which only appear in the predicative form withtense (i.e., present and past) but never in the prenominal form. As these adjectives neverappear in the prenominal form, there is naturally no chance that the overgeneration shouldtake place. Rather, these adjectives are not associated with the overgenerated no, and behave
like verbs, as in (19).
(19)

a. Oisii,delicious

kore.
this

Oisii,
delicious

kore
this

(Yuta 1;10)‘This is delicious.’b. Koko babatii
here dirty

yo
Int

ne
Int

(Sumihare 2;0)‘(It is) dirty here.’- 78 -

Three Types of the “Overgenerated No” (K. Murasugi, T. Nakatani and C. Fuji)c. Okaatyan pompo
itai
Mommy onomatopoeia acheno
Q

(Sumihare 2;0)

‘Mommy, is (your) stomach aching?’
In (19), the adjectives, oisii (delicious), babatii (dirty), itai (painful), are used as predicates,
conjugating with tense as shown in Table 1 and Table 2.
Table 1 shows that the past-tense forms of nominal-like adjectives are produced
relatively late, but those of verb-like adjectives are produced relatively early in the case of
Yuta.
Table 1: The Age of the First Appearance of the Present-/Past-tense Forms of Adjectives by
Table 1: Yuta
Nominal-like Adjectives (of Touch and Sight)
Verb-like Adjectives
Adjectives Present-tense
Past-tense
Adjectives Present-tense Past-tenseookii ‘big’
ooki-i (1;8) ookik-atta (2;0) itai ‘painful’ ita-i (1;11) itak-atta (1;11)
omok-atta
tiisai ‘small’ tiisa-i (1;11) tiisaik-atta (2;1) oisii‘delicious’ oisi-i (1;10)(1;10)
kowak-atta
kuroi ‘black’ kuro-i (2;0) kurok-atta (2;4) kowai ‘scary’ kowa-i (1;10)(2;2)
The contrast between nominal-like adjectives and verb-like adjectives is clearer in thecase of Sumihare, as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: The Age of the First Appearance of the Present-/Past-tense Forms of Adjectives by
Table 2: Sumihare (CHILDES)
Nominal-like Adjectives (of Touch and Sight)
Verb-like Adjectives
Adjectives Present-tense
Past-tense
Adjectives Present-tense Past-tenseookik-atta
itak-atta
ookii ‘big’
ooki-i (1;11)
itai ‘painful’
ita-i (1;8)
(2;9)
(2;0)
akak-atta
omok-atta
akai ‘red’
aka-i (1;11)
omoi ‘heavy’ omo-i (1;8)
(4;0)
(2;2)
sirok-atta
kusak-attasiroi ‘white’ siro-i (2;2)
kusai ‘smelly’ kusa-i (2;2)
(3;6)
(2;3)
Sumihare produced only the present forms for nominal-like adjectives, but never the inflected
forms, when he inserted no between the adjectives of touch and sight (e.g., color, size, shape,and state) and the head nominals. On the other hand, the verb-like adjectives (e.g., itai
(painful), omoi (heavy), kusai (smelly)), which are not erroneously genitive Case marked,
inflected with tense much earlier.
There are several pieces of evidence to show that the adjectives referring to the sense of
touch and sight are used as nominals. For example, as shown in (20), these adjectives are used
as referential noun phrases.

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Nanzan Linguistics 8: Research Results and Activities 2011 ~ 2012(20)

a. *Kiiroi
yellow

to * akai toand red and(Sumihare 2;9)‘(They’re) a yellow (crayon) and a red (crayon).’(Adult form: kiiroi/akai-no (yellow/red one), kiiro/aka (yellow/red))b. * Tiisai
small

koo-teya
buy-Request Int(Sumihare 2;7)

‘Please buy a small (dog).’(Adult form: tiisai-no (small one))
In (20a), Sumihare erroneously used the adjectives kiiroi (yellow) and akai (red) to refer tothe concrete objects, a yellow crayon and a red crayon. Similarly in (20b), he used theadjective tiisai (small) to refer to a small dog.
These nominal-like adjectives appear in the argument position being Case marked aswell.
(21) *Tittyai-ga atte * maarui-ga atte...
small-Nom beround-Nom be

konna
such

* ookii-ga atte...
big-Nom be(Yuta 2;2)

‘There is (a) small (circle), (a) round (one), and such (a) big (one)…’(Adult form: Tittyai/maarui/ookii no (small/round/big one))
Yuta uttered as in (21), while he was repeatedly drawing circles. The adjectives, tiisai (small),marui (round) and ookii (big), appear in the subject position associated with the nominative
Case marker ga.
The most valid generalization to be drawn from the description so far is that theadjectives referring to the sense of touch and sight are miscategorized as nominals (Murasugi2009). Hence, those children who already know the system of genitive Case marking between
two NPs, “correctly” assign the genitive no to the “nominals” which are, in fact, adjectives inadult grammar.
Then, why do children miscategorize certain adjectives? We conjecture that adjectives
referring to color, size and shape share the properties of concrete nominals in that they are
consistent, absolute, and evidential, compared with other types of adjectives such as emotionand evaluation (cf. Berman 1988, Mintz and Gleitman 2002). And as argued by de Villiersand de Villiers (1978), a certain set of adjectives of size and shape go together as colors inchild language.
Furthermore, acquiring adjectives is difficult because it is “a fluid category” (Gassar andSmith 1998, Berman 1988, Polinsky 2005, among others). As shown in (22), the position
where the adjective big appears in adult English can be occupied with the verb dropped or thenoun a dog. Thus, the syntactic cue is ambiguous for children.

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Three Types of the “Overgenerated No” (K. Murasugi, T. Nakatani and C. Fuji)(22)

a. It’s [big]b. It [dropped]
c. It’s [a dog]

The syntactic cue is ambiguous in Japanese, too. Both adjectives and nominals can befollowed by the polite sentence-ending marker desu, as in (23), while both adjectives andverbs inflect with tense, as in (24).
(23)

a. akaidesu (Adjective)
is-red (Adj) Polite‘(It) is red.’b. akadesu (Nominal)
a red color (Nominal) Polite‘(It) is a red color.’(24)

a. ooki-i
big-Presookik-atta
big-Past(Adjectives)b. aka-i
red-Presakak-atta
red-Past

c. tabe-ru
eat-Prestabe-taeat-Past

d. nom-(r)u
drink-Pres

non-da (Verbs)
drink-Past(Adjectives)(Verbs)In this sense, the Japanese adjective is also “a fluid category,” and this could makeadjectives difficult to be acquired.
Then, when and how do children “intake” the full system of adjectives in the target
language? Kanda (2012), based on the corpus analysis of Taro in CHILDES, reports that there
is an interesting stage where a Japanese-speaking child “optionally” inserts genitive no inside
the NPs.
(25)

a. kuro kyuukyuusya
black ambulance(2;10)‘the ambulance that is black’- 81 -

Nanzan Linguistics 8: Research Results and Activities 2011 ~ 2012

b. Kuroi ozubon?
black pants(3;1)‘The black pants?’c.

Kuroi * noblack NOozubon?
pants

(3;1)

‘The black pants?’
A nominal form kuro, an adjective form kuroi without being associated with genitive no, andan adjective form kuroi “erroneously” associated with genitive no, are all found at around thesame age, as shown in (25a), (25b), and (25c), respectively. The noun phrase in (25a) is only
possible as a compound noun, and the noun phrase in (25c) is ill-formed. The examples in(25b) and (25c) are in fact found in a dialogue between Taro and his mother.
(26)

MOTHER: Kuroi ozubon doko?
black pants where‘Where are the black pants?’
TARO:

Kuroi * noblack NOozubon? (= 25c)
pants

‘The black pants?’
MOTHER: Un.
yes‘Yes.’
TARO:

Kuroi ozubon? (= 25b)
black pants‘The black pants?’

The example given above is intriguing in three ways. First, the child does not merely imitate
the caretaker’s utterance. Second, the child corrects himself without any direct negative
evidence. Third, the child is in the transition period, not only with respect to thecategorization of the color adjective, but also with respect to the tense conjugation. Kanda(2012) argues that Taro, at around the time when the overgenerated no is disappearing,produces the past-tensed form of the adjective in question in a “quasi-adult” way.
(27)

kuro [pause] * kuroi-katta
black
black-Past(3;2)‘(It was) black.’- 82 -

Three Types of the “Overgenerated No” (K. Murasugi, T. Nakatani and C. Fuji)

Taro produced the utterance given in (27) when he found a black spot on his brother’s leg.
Here, the past-tense marker ‘-katta’ is attached to ‘kuroi’, not exactly in the adult way. In fact,
in adult Japanese, the form should be kurok-atta, or kuro-datta, rather than kuroi-katta. Thus,
just at the time when the color adjective ‘kuroi (black)’ was “fluid” with respect to the form
and the marking of genitive Case marker, so was the tense conjugation.
Interestingly, Kanda (2012) points out that Taro’s adjectives such as ‘yoi (good)’, which
expresses positive degree of quality of thing or person for itself, conjugate just like the verb
‘wakaru (understand)’. Taro starts attaching the past-tense affix ‘-atta’ on the stem of some
types of adjectives at around 2;11 as in (28a), just like the verb given in (28b).
(28)

a. yok-atta (2;11)
good-Past‘(It) was good.’b. wak-atta (2;11)
understood‘(I) understood (that).’

The fact that the conjugation system of verb-like adjectives is acquired earlier than that ofnoun-like adjectives is, in fact, parallel with the data of Yuta and Sumihare. The paradigm
observed in the transitional period from “child adjectives” from “adult adjectives” such as
those shown above would provide clues to the analysis of the category of adjectives.
Note here that even if we assume that children’s miscategorization of certain adjectives
causes the genitive Case marker insertion, the Complementizer Hypothesis should be still
maintained. For example, remember the overgeneration phenomena in Toyama dialect inJapanese and Korean. As in (8a) and (8b), repeated below, the overgenerated item is acomplementizer, but not the genitive Case marker.
(8)

a. Anpanman tui-toru* ga(a character) attaching-is GA

koppu
cup

(Ken 2;11)‘the cup which is pictured with “Anpanman”’
b. Acessi
uncle

otopaitha-nun * kes soliyamotorcycle riding-is KES sound is(Murasugi 1991)(2-3 years old)

‘Lit. (This) is the sound that a man is riding a motorcycle.’(Kim 1987)

Thus, the Complementizer Hypothesis we discussed in Section 2, should be maintained, andthere are three distinct stages of the “overgeneration” of no.
The hypothesis that there are three stages in the “overgeneration” of no is further
supported by our corpus analysis of Jun. First, Jun, at 2;2, produced a pronoun but not the- 83 -

Nanzan Linguistics 8: Research Results and Activities 2011 ~ 2012

genitive Case marker. He produced (29a) and (29b), where there was a brief pause between
no and the head nominals, basu (bus) and okaasan (mother). This is exactly the Pronoun stage
as is discussed in Section 3.
(29)

a. Ookii no[pause]bigN′ (one)basyu (= basu) wa?
bus
Top

(2;4)

‘(Where) is the big bus?’
b. ookii no[pause]bigN′ (one)okaasanmother(2;5)‘the big one, mother’Then, at around 2;5, when the genitive Case markers were productively used as in (30),
he inserted no between adjectives referring to color, size and shape and the head nominals,
without making any pauses, as in (31).
(30)

Kokko-nochicken-Gen

outiyahouse Int

(2;5)‘(This is) a chicken’s house.’(31)

a. Hore, ookii * no
hey
big
NO

torakku
truck

atta zo hore
was Int hey(2;6)‘Hey, there is a big truck.’b. tiisai * nosmall NO

akatyan
baby

(2;6)

‘a small baby’c. kuroi * noblack NOzidoosya
car

(2;6)

‘a black car’Just like Yuta and Sumihare, the overgeneration occurs only with the adjectives of touchand sight, and those adjectives are sometimes used as nominals as well.
(32)

a. *Ookii-ga
big-Nom

otiru
fall

(2;7)

‘The big (toy car) is falling.’(Adult form: ookii-kuruma-ga / ookii-no-ga)- 84 -

Three Types of the “Overgenerated No” (K. Murasugi, T. Nakatani and C. Fuji)

b. FAT: Kore-wa nan desu ka
this-Top what Cop Q‘What is this?’(Showing CHI a new toy)
CHI: Atarasii * no * akainew
NO red(2;8)‘(It’s) new red.’(Adult form: atarasii akai-no)
In (32a), the adjective ookii (big) appears in the subject position associated with thenominative Case marker ga. In (32b), he used the adjective akai (red) to refer to the concrete
object, a red toy. Hence, those adjectives are treated as nominals, and the overgenerated no in(31) is the genitive Case marker, being “correctly” inserted between two NPs.
Finally, as in (33), he started overgenerating no with relative clauses at around 2;8.
(33)

a. koware-ten
is-broken

* no
NO

yatu
thing

zidoosya
car

(2;8)

‘(This is) a broken car.’b. Omosiroi *no
funny
NO

yakiimobaked sweet potato

ya koreInt this(2;10)‘This is a funny baked sweet potato.’
In (33a), no is overgenerated between the modifier koware-ten (= teru) (is broken) andthe head nominal yatu (thing). (33b) shows that the overgeneration occurs with any kind of
adjectives at this stage. Thus, this is the Complementizer stage, where Jun hypothesizes thatJapanese relative clauses are CPs (Murasugi 1991).
Overgeneration of no at a later stage of language acquisition can be due to two different
reasons, even when they apparently look very similar. Children’s miscategorization of certain
adjectives causes the genitive Case marker insertion as shown in (32). In addition, theComplementizer Hypothesis should be still maintained to explain the overgeneration of nogiven in (33). The categorization of adjectives and the parameter-setting of the structure ofcomplex NPs are the separate issues.
If this analysis is on the right track, then we predict that the children’s erroneous no’s insuch examples as (32) and (33) do not necessarily “disappear” simultaneously. Murasugi(1991), in fact, observes that Emi, a Japanese-speaking child, kept inserting no between suchcolor adjectives as kuroi (black), or the exact color term we discussed in this paper, and thehead nominal. That is, the child kept producing “kuroi *no kuku (the black shoes),” even after
the child stopped overgenerating no on the relative clauses. Murasugi (1991) stipulates in her
dissertation that the name of the black shoes, which were worn only at a very special- 85 -

Nanzan Linguistics 8: Research Results and Activities 2011 ~ 2012

occasion, remained in the child lexicon as the name associated with overgenerated no. But the
stipulation might have been wrong. The problem left unsolved by Murasugi (1991) and themysterious overgeneration phenomenon may be naturally explained by the proposal that thecategorization of adjectives and the parameter-setting of the structure of complex NPs are theseparate issues.
5.

Conclusion

In this paper, mainly based on the longitudinal studies with Yuta, and the corpus analysis
of Sumihare and Jun (CHILDES), we argued that there are three stages of Japanese-speaking
children’s overgeneration of no, in line with Murasugi, Nakatani and Fuji (2009). The
overgeneration of no, which apparently looks like a single phenomenon includes three parts:
No as (i) a pronoun (N′) at the late age of one, (ii) the genitive Case marker at around the ageof two, and (iii) a complementizer (C) at around the age of two through four. The only casethat we can truly name as overgeneration is the third stage, or the overgeneration of C. In theother two, no is actually used “correctly”.
The sixty-year-debate in the field of Japanese acquisition has never ended because of thebelief that the overgeneration takes place for a single reason. However, in this paper, we
argued that the overgeneration of no is a trihedral phenomenon, and the hypotheses proposed
were basically all correct. The overgeneration of no is due to three independent reasons, i.e.,
the immature merge operation, the miscategorization of adjectives, and the setting of therelative clause parameter. The analysis of children’s errors informs us of the important phasesin the stages of grammar acquisition, and provides a key to understanding the nature oflanguage.

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