SENTENTIAL COMPLEMENTATION AND
CROSS-CLAUSAL A-DEPENDENCIES IN JAPANESE *Yuta Tatsumi
Meikai University

1. Introduction
This study focuses on the nature of sentential complementation and Japanese clause-taking
predicates. A particular focus will be on the so-called exceptional case-marking (ECM)
construction. An example of the ECM construction in Japanese is given in (1). In the present
paper, I refer to the relevant construction as the ECM construction rather than the raising-toobject (RTO) construction because the former is the name of the phenomenon, but the latter isthe name of a particular analysis.
(1)

Taro-wa [ nihon-oanzen dato ] omot-teiru.
Taro-TOP Japan-ACC safe
COP C think-ASP‘Taro thinks that Japan is safe.’

The ECM construction has received continuous attention in the field of theoretical linguistics.
Three types of approaches have been proposed for the ECM construction. The first one is what
I refer to as the raising analysis, in which an exceptionally case-marked noun syntacticallymoves to the matrix clause. The second one is the non-raising analysis, where an exceptionallycase-marked noun remains in an embedded clause. The third one is the association analysis.
This is similar to the non-raising analysis in that there is no syntactic movement of an
exceptionally case-marked noun. However, this analysis assumes that two distinct nominal
expressions are base-generated in the matrix and embedded clauses, and the two nominals areassociated with each other in syntactic or semantic computations.
A detailed comparison of previous analyses of the ECM construction is not the main focusof the current paper. This paper examines the nature of clause-taking predicates that allow theECM construction. It has been observed that the ECM construction is allowed in restrictedenvironments. For instance, when a complement clause is interrogative, exceptional casemarking is disallowed (Takemura 1975, Tomoda 1976, Kitagawa 1985).

* I would like to thank the audience of Comparative Syntax, Semantics, and Language Acquisition 1
at Nanzan University for their help and comments.

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Nanzan Linguistics 18: Research Results and Activities 2023

(2)

Wh-questions (Takemura 1975)
watasi-wa [ dare-{ga | *o}kasikoi daroo ka to] omotta.
I-TOP
who-{NOM | ACC} smart MOD Q C thought‘I wondered who was smart.’(3)

Polar questions (Tomoda 1976)
Haruko-wa [ Hiroshi-{ga |*o}buzi kadooka] anzita.
Haruko-TOP Hiroshi-{NOM | ACC} safe whether worried‘Haruko worried whether Hiroshi is safe or not.’

It is important to note that the presence of the Q head (i.e., ka and kadooka) itself does notblock the ECM construction. As shown in (4), exceptional case-marking is possible with noninterrogative ka-clauses.
(4)

ECM with the non-interrogative ka (based on Kuno 1976)
Hanako-wa[ Taro-{ga | o}han-nin ka to] omotteita.
Hanako-TOP Taro-{NOM | ACC} culprit Q C think.ASP.PAST‘John thought that Mary was a culprit.’

Kuno (1976) also observes that only clause-taking verbs that take to-clauses allow the ECM
construction in Japanese. Kobayashi and Maki (2002) argue that “any transitive verb selectinga to-clause as its sole object can “exceptionally Case-mark” the embedded subject” (p.223).
Given these previous studies, a naïve expectation would be that the semantic and syntactic
types of embedded clauses are crucial for the Japanese ECM construction, and verbs that cantake a non-interrogative to-clause generally allow the ECM construction. This view further
implies that the Japanese ECM construction is not that much “exceptional”; rather, the so-called
exceptional case-marking is a general option for the subject of embedded to-clauses.
So far, we have focused on the properties of ECM clauses. However, there are also studies
focusing on the semantic/syntactic classification of ECM verbs. Pesetsky (1992) proposes sixclasses of clause-taking verbs as in (5). He reports that only two of them allow the ECM
construction in English.
(5)

Pesetsky (1992)
a. Believe-class: OKECM
b. Wager-class: *ECM
c. Hate-class: *ECM

d. Manage-class: *ECM
e. Want-class: OKECM
f. Demand-class: *ECM

Regarding the Japanese ECM construction, Goto (2016) argues that there are two types ofpredicates that implement exceptional case-marking in syntactically different ways, as
represented in (6).

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(6)

a.

“Think”-type predicates (e.g., omou ‘think,’ kanziru ‘feel’)… [vP NP1 [VP [CP NP1 … ] V ] v ]b. “Conclude”-type predicates (e.g., dantei-suru ‘conclude,’ kimetsukeru ‘assume’)… [vP NP1 [VP [CP pro1 … ] V ] v ]According to Goto (2016), the “think”-type predicates derive the ECM construction by the
movement of an embedded subject to the matrix clause. On the other hand, the “conclude”type predicates implement exceptional case-marking by semantic coreference between two
nouns. Goto (2016) assumes that the characteristics of clause-taking verbs play an importantrole in the ECM construction.
Based on the previous studies of the Japanese ECM construction, the present paper
examines whether there are common properties among clause-taking predicates that allow theECM construction. This paper is organized as follows: section 2 introduces the main data of
the current survey. Section 3 then shows the results of the survey. Section 4 discusses issues
regarding the survey results. Section 5 is the summary.
2.

Data

In the present survey, I collected 100 clause-taking predicates that can appear with toclauses. It has been observed that there are two types of to-clauses. Fujita (2000) observes thattwo kinds of to-clauses can be distinguished by using the proform soo.
(7)

To-complement
Taro-wa [ mousiwakearimasen to ] zyoosi-ni ( soo ) ayamatta.
Taro-TOP sorry.HON
C boss-tosoapologized‘Taro apologized to his boss, saying “I’m sorry.”’(8)

To-adjunctTaro-wa [ mousiwakearimasen to ] heya-ni ( *soo ) haitte-kita.
Taro-TOP sorry.HON
C room-tosoenter-came‘Taro came into the room, saying “I’m sorry.”’

In the present paper, I refer to the to-clause in (7) as to-complements and the one in (8) as toadjuncts. To-complements can co-occur with the adverbial proform soo, while to-adjuncts
cannot. The distinction needs to be kept in mind. In the present survey, however, I do not
distinguish them, and pseudo-randomly collected clause-taking predicates that can co-occur
with a to-clause.
The clause-taking predicates are examined based on several syntactic or semantic tests.
The first test is the continuation of a true/false statement. The second test is tense alternationof an embedded clause. The third test is the ability to have an overt embedded subject. In what-45-

Nanzan Linguistics 18: Research Results and Activities 2023

follows, I introduce details of these tests.
2.1. True/False statements
Based on observation from James Higginbotham, Pesetsky (1992) offers a test todifferentiate irrealis complements from propositional complements. As shown in (9)a, a
statement about truth or falsity cannot be predicated of irrealis complements, in contrast tocomplements of believe- and wager-class verbs given in (9)b.
(9)

a. *Mary wanted Sue to read books, which was true.
b. Mary believes Bill to read books, which is true.

(Pesetsky 1992:27)

I assume that a similar test effectively delineates a classification of Japanese clause-taking
verbs. Importantly, the test identifies the semantic properties of an embedded clause, andclause-taking predicates exhibit different outcomes according to the interpretation of anembedded clause. For example, the verb iwu ‘say’ allows the continuation of a true/false
predicate when the matrix subject and the embedded subject are not coreferential, as in (10).
The same predicate disallows the continuation of a true/false predicate when a matrix subject
and an embedded subject refer to the same person, as in (11). In this case, John expressed his
determination, and the verb iwu is interpreted more like swear or declare.
(10) John-wa [ Mary-ga
tabako-oyameru to] itta ga, sore-wa machigai datta.
John-TOP Mary-NOM tobacco-ACC stop
C said but it-TOP false
COP.PAST
Lit. ‘John said that Mary would stop smoking, but it was false.’
yameru to] itta ga, sore-wa machigai datta.
(11) *John1-wa [ Δ1 tabako-oJohn-TOP
tobacco-ACC stop
C said but it-TOP false
COP.PAST
Lit. ‘John said that he would stop smoking, but it was false.’
It should be noted that the absence of an overt embedded subject per se is not the cause of theunacceptability of (11). When a to-clause contains a modal expression yooni, which typicallyoccurs in control clauses, the true/false continuation becomes infelicitous, even if the embedded
clause has an overt subject.
(12) *John-wa [ Mary-ga
heya-ni
iru yooni to] negatta
John-TOP Mary-NOM room-LOC be MOD C hoped
sore-wa machigai dat-ta.
it-TOP
false
COP-PAST

ga,but

Lit. ‘John hoped that Mary would be in the room, but it was false.’
It should be noted that the continuation of true/false statements in Japanese picks up predicates-46-

Sentential Complementation and Cross-Clausal A-dependencies in Japanese (Yuta Tatsumi)

other than the ones that take irrealis complements. For instance, the continuation of true/false
statements is incompatible with factive verbs, as in (13).
(13) *John-wa [ Mary-ga
sono-toki heya-ni
itato] sitteiru ga,
John-TOP Mary-NOM that-time room-LOC was C knew but
sore-wa machigai dat-ta.
it-TOP
false
COP-PAST
Lit. ‘John knows that Mary was in the room at that time, but it was false.’
2.2. Tense alternation
The second test is tense alternation in embedded clauses. It has been argued that ECM
complements and control complements differ in the feature specification of the T head in an
embedded clause (Pesetsky 1992, Ormazabal 1995, Bošković 1997). Fujii (2006) shows thatJapanese embedded clauses exhibit similar distinctions. Relevant examples are given in (14)and (15).
(14) John1-wa
John-TOP[ Δ1 tabako-o{yameru | *yameta} to] tobacco-ACC stop
stopped C

ketsui-sita.
decision-did‘John decided to quit smoking.’(15) John1-wa
John-TOP[ Δ1 tabako-o{yameru | yameta} to]tobacco-ACC stop
stopped C

happyoo-sita.
announce-did‘John announced that he would quit smoking.’
I examine whether the availability of tense alternation correlates with exceptional case-marking
in Japanese.
2.3. Overt embedded subjects
The last test concerns the realization of an embedded subject. As shown in (16) and (17),clause-taking verbs behave differently in the ability to have an overt embedded subject.
(16) *John-wa[ Mary-ga
zettaini
John-TOP Mary-NOM never

warawanai to] chikatta.
laugh.NEG C swore‘John swore that Mary would never laugh.’(17) John-wa
John-TOP[ Mary-ga
zettainiMary-NOM never

warawanai to] itta.
laugh.NEG C said

‘John said that Mary never laughs.’-47-

Nanzan Linguistics 18: Research Results and Activities 2023

Note that the resulting sentence sounds natural when an embedded subject refers to the same
individual as the matrix subject.
(18) ?John1-wa
John-TOP[ zibun1-ga
self-NOM

zettaini
neverwarawanai to] chikatta.
laugh.NEG C swore‘John1 swore that he1 would never laugh.’In the current survey, I check whether clause-taking verbs can co-occur with an embedded
subject that is not coreferential with the matrix subject.
3.

Results

The result of the present survey is summarized in Table 1. Here, each cell is marked withan asterisk when the resulting sentence is ungrammatical.

Table 1
34 predicates out of 100 (34%) disallow the continuation of true/false statements. Among thosepredicates, 21 predicates (21/34, 62%) do not allow tense alternation in embedded clauses.
Lastly, 18 predicates out of the predicates that disallow tense alternation cannot overtly realizea nominative embedded subject. Importantly, table 1 shows that the predicates that cannot cooccur with an overt nominative embedded subject do not allow exceptionally case-marked-48-

Sentential Complementation and Cross-Clausal A-dependencies in Japanese (Yuta Tatsumi)

subjects. The generalization is thus that predicates that can co-occur with a to-clause allow theECM construction in Japanese if they can include an overt subject phrase.
Furthermore, Table 1 shows an implicational hierarchy regarding the ECM predicates. If
a clause-taking predicate disallows the ECM construction, to-clauses appearing with the same
predicate never allows tense alternation. Similarly, if a to-clause disallows tense alternation, it
must disallow the continuation of a true/false statement.
4.

Discussion

The results summarized in Table 1 have some implications for theoretical approaches to
the Japanese ECM construction. Firstly, it seems difficult to maintain a naïve interpretation of
Kobayashi and Maki’s (2002) analysis, in which all predicates that can appear with a to-clausegenerally allow the ECM construction. In the present survey, 18 predicates never allow theECM construction but can still occur with a to-clause. Moreover, all of the 18 predicates cantake a to-complement. (Recall the distinction between to-complements and to-adjunctdiscussed in section 2.) We must explain why these 18 predicates cannot license the ECM
construction.
We cannot simply claim that the 18 predicates are control predicates based solely on thefact that they do not allow tense alternation. This is because three predicates never allow tense
alternation but still can license the ECM construction: inor(-u) ‘pray,’ nega(-u) ‘wish’ andwasurer(-u) ‘forget.’ According to Fujii (2006), these predicates exhibit a property of control
predicates. However, they can still license the ECM construction, as shown in (19) and (20).
(19) John-wa
John-TOP[ Mary-{ga | o}buzi dearu yooni to] {inotta | negatta}.
Mary-{NOM | ACC} safe COP MOD C {prayed | wished}‘John {prayed/wished} that Mary would be safe.’(20) John-wa [ Mary-{ga | o}kikonsyadato] wasure-teita.
John-TOP Mary-{NOM | ACC} married.person COP C forget-ASP.PAST‘John had forgotten that Mary was married.’
Whatever the theoretical analysis of the Japanese ECM construction, we need to explain why
the 18 predicates never license the ECM construction in contrast to the other clause-taking
predicates.
Before concluding the present paper, some caveats regarding the results of the survey are
in order here. As Kusumoto (2017) discussed, the verb setsumei-suru ‘explanation-do’ canassign an accusative case to a nominal explanandum argument, which expresses a situation to
be explained. A relevant example is given in (21). In addition, the same verb can take tocomplement, as shown in (22). (See Saito (2015) for similar data.)-49-

Nanzan Linguistics 18: Research Results and Activities 2023

(21) Taro-wa[ Hanako-ga
chikoku-sita koto]-osetsumei-sita.
Taro-TOP Hananko-NOM late-did
thing-ACC explanation-did‘Taro explained that the reason for his tardiness was because the bus was late.’(22) Taro-wa [ basu-ga
okureta to] setsumei-sita.
Taro-TOP bus-NOM delayed C explanation-did
Lit. ‘Taro explained that the bus was late.’
Given that Japanese has this kind of clause-taking predicates, which can take nominal andclausal arguments, one may consider including such a predicate in the data set may ruin the
results of the survey because the configuration in (23), where nominal and clausal argumentsco-occur in a single sentence, would be possible. (Note also that Table 1 contains the verb
setsumei-suru.)(23) Subj NP-o [ … to ] setsumei-sita.
In this respect, I checked whether an exceptionally case-marked subject can appear after a toclause. If a nominal phrase followed by the accusative case particle is independent of a toclause, the word order of the two phrases should be changeable by scrambling. However, thisprediction is not borne out, as shown in (25).
(24) Taro-wa Aiko-ni [ Mary-o
Taro-TOP Aiko-to Mary-ACC

tadano tomodachi dato] setsumei-sita.
justfriendCOP C explanation-did‘Taro explained to Hanako that Mary was just a friend.’
setsumei-sita.
(25) ?*Taro-wa Aiko-ni [ tadano tomodachi da to] Mary-o
Taro-TOP Aiko-to justfriendCOP C Mary-ACC explanation-did‘Taro explained to Hanako that Mary was just a friend.’
Note that when the nominal expression koto is inserted before the accusative case particle, theresulting sentence is acceptable, as in (26).
(26) Taro-wa Aiko-ni [ tadano tomodachi da to] [ Mary-no koto]-osetsumei-sita.
Taro-TOP Aiko-to just friend
COP C Mary-GEN thing-ACC explanation-did‘Taro explained to Hanako that Mary was just a friend.’
In general, when an exceptionally case-marked subject is followed by koto, the resulting
sentence tends to become acceptable for many native speakers. However, the amelioration
effect may arise because the sentence is analyzed as a double object construction like the onein (26). Given this, the present survey checked only cases where exceptional case-marking-50-Sentential Complementation and Cross-Clausal A-dependencies in Japanese (Yuta Tatsumi)

attaches to a bare nominal argument. Furthermore, I marked OK in Table 1 only when clausetaking predicates can license the ECM construction with a fixed word order, excluding the
double object construction like the one in (26).
5.

Conclusion

This study focuses on the nature of sentential complementation and the Japanese ECM
construction. In particular, I examined whether there are common properties among clausetaking predicates that allow the ECM construction. Although I did not offer a theoreticalanalysis of the data, the present study revealed some issues we must explain. Firstly,
exceptional case-marking is not a general phenomenon observed with predicates that can taketo-clauses. Secondly, the present paper observed an implicational hierarchy among clausetaking predicates. If a clause-taking predicate disallows the ECM construction, to-clauses
appearing with the same predicate never allows tense alternation. Similarly, if a to-clausedisallows tense alternation, it must disallow the continuation of a true/false statement.

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