Spring Forum of the Japan English Linguistic Society
April 22-24, 2011
At the crossroads of language theory and practice: the case of argument structure in Japanese
Wesley M. Jacobsen
Kyoto University/Harvard University
Perhaps no linguistic phenomenon is as central to the interface of sentence structure (syntax) andmeaning (semantics) as that of argument structure—the notion that a predicate form is associated with a set
constellation of nouns that must be present in order for its meaning to be coherent. Yet exactly what
constitutes argument structure is a question that is often taken for granted in the linguistic literature—orallowed to be determined by theory-internal considerations—and rarely put to an empirical test. This canhave counterintuitive consequences such as the assumption commonly made in the GB literature that agent
subjects do not form part of argument structure (Kale and Heyser 2002, but see the more recent work in theminimalist vein of Bowers 2010). In the case of a "pro-drop" language such as Japanese, where argument
slots are not necessarily realized on the surface, argument structure plays a particularly crucial role as an"invisible" structure supporting discourse production and comprehension, and raises challenging questions
as to how such invisible structures are acquired, either in first or second language acquisition.
This presentation will attempt to provide a more solid empirical foundation to the fundamental
question of what constitutes argument structure in Japanese. After considering strengths and weaknesses ofprior tests for argument structure proposed by Shibatani (1990) and Teramura (1994), an alternative test
will be proposed that follows from the notion that arguments are entities that must be conceptualized by aspeaker uttering a predicate in such a way that s/he be able to provide a linguistic expression of them ifcalled upon to do so. Thus, a speaker uttering Taroo ga tukutta rasii "It appears Taro made (it)," upon
being asked Nani o? "What?", could not answer Siranai "I don't know," although Siranai would be apossible response to being asked Doko de? "Where?", pointing to the argument status of NP-o, but not NPde in this use of the predicate tukuru "make." A consistent application of this test—the so-called shiranai
test—to a wide range of predicate types leads to some possibly surprising conclusions, one being that socalled third arguments have a very shaky status as arguments, possibly due to a conceptual preference forargument valency limited to two places. An empirically defensible conception of argument structure also
makes possible a natural way of defining the role of subject in Japanese grammar, as the test points to atleast one argument slot for every predicate, a slot that is normally realized with nominative case marking.
Solutions will be proposed to apparent difficulties for this view presented by so-called zero valency
predicates (Samui desu ne "it's cold, isn't it") and so-called multi-nominative constructions (Zoo ga hana ga
nagai (koto) "Elephants have long noses"). Finally, some thoughts will be presented on the place ofargument structure in the analysis and acquisition of predicate morphology in Japanese.