KNOWING HOW IN JAPANESE*
Yu Izumi, Shun Tsugita, and Masaharu Mizumoto
Nanzan University, JSPS/Nagoya University and JAIST

1. Introduction
Epistemology or theory of knowledge occupies a special place in the traditions ofphilosophy, and not surprisingly, our talk of knowledge has been a recurring theme inepistemology over many centuries. One contemporary instantiation of the theme is the topic ofascribing knowledge-how. 1 Roughly put, there are two competing views of the nature ofknowledge-how. On the one hand, according to ‘intellectualism’ about knowledge-how,knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that, and possessing knowledge-how (such as
knowing how to swim) amounts to standing in a certain relation to some proposition (Stanley
and Williamson 2001, Stanley 2011a, Pavese 2015, among others). On the other hand, ‘antiintellectualism’ denies that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that, claiming that there
is some element in knowledge-how—which is characterized in various ways using notions
related to ‘capacity’ and ‘ability’—that is irreducible to the possession of propositional
knowledge (Ryle 1946, 1949; Markie 2015; Habgoot-Coote, 2018 among others). What isinteresting about the philosophical debate on the nature of knowledge from a linguistic
perspective is that a major argument for intellectualism is based on the semantic considerationsof the structure know how to V, a control construction.
The gist of the linguistic argument for intellectualism, most notably put forward byphilosopher Jason Stanley (Stanley and Williamson 2001, Stanley 2011a,b), can besummarized as follows. Ascriptions of knowledge-how, such as (1a), make use of wh-infinitival
clauses as the complement of the verb know; standard syntactic and semantic theories analyze
wh-infinitival clauses in general along the lines of (1b)–(1c) and (2b)–(2c).
(1) a.
b.
c.

Hana knows how to swim.
Hana knows [how PRO to swim]
For some way w, Hana knows that she can swim in way w.

*

We would like to thank Masahiko Takahashi for helping us navigate the literature on Japanese
infinitives, and Shintaro Hayashi for useful comments on Japanese data. This research was in part
supported by Nanzan University Pache Research Subsidy 1-A-2 for the 2018 academic year, and by
JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 18K12194, JP18J00778.
1

For example, see the articles collected in (Bengson and Moffett 2012).

-9-

Nanzan
Linguistics
Research
Results
Activities
2018
NanzanLinguistics
14: 14:
Research
Results
and and
Activities2018㹼2019(2) a.
b.
c.

Hana knows where to buy an Italian newspaper.
Hana knows [where PRO to buy an Italian newspaper]
For some place p, Hana knows that she can buy an Italian newspaper at place p.
(Stanley 2011b, p.209)

As the paraphrase (2c) clearly indicates, to know where to buy an Italian newspaper is to knowa certain proposition expressed by the that-clause. Likewise, since (1b) and (2b) represent
perfectly analogous syntactic structures, to know how to swim is also to know a certain
proposition, as illustrated by (1c). Assuming that ascriptions of knowledge-how provide usefulguidance regarding the metaphysical or conceptual facts about knowledge, Stanley concludes
that knowledge-how is a species of propositional knowledge.
Several objections have been leveled against the linguistic argument for intellectualism.2
For example, there is a methodological concern about the use of linguistic considerations as a
guide to metaphysical and epistemological theorizing.3 The focus of the current paper, however,is on the linguistic side of the argument. Some theorists have questioned the crosslinguistic
generality of the argument, which depends on the characteristics of know how to V. If theargument depends on some idiosyncratic features of the English language, then it might fail toprovide sufficient grounds for intellectualism construed as a thesis about knowledge and thehuman mind, not as a thesis about a particular natural language.
Being fully aware of this concern, Stanley (2011a, chapter 6; 2011b) surveys the patterns
of knowledge-how ascriptions across the world’s languages—discussing seven different
languages to cover five patterns of knowledge-how ascriptions—and argues that the observed
structural variation does not amount to a semantic difference. Stanley concludes that his
intellectualist analysis of English know how applies to different languages with minor
modifications. Besides Stanley’s own discussion of Afrikaans, Cantonese, Defaka, Finnish,French, German, and Russian, philosophers arguing for or against intellectualism have also
examined various languages including French (Rumfitt 2003), German and Russian (Wiggins
2012, Ditter 2016), Turkish (Ditter 2016), and Modern Greek (Douskos 2013).
The purpose of this paper is to add yet another language, Japanese, to the list of languages
that can be considered in evaluating the linguistic argument for intellectualism. Our goal is toanswer the following questions: ‘Which construction in Japanese is comparable to know how
to V in English?’ and ‘What are the differences between the know how to V construction andits counterparts in Japanese?’ Below, for the first question, we will identify four different typesof knowledge ascriptions in Japanese: three of them embed wh-‘how’-clauses, and the fourth
involves reference to ‘ways’ of performing actions. To address the second question, we willclaim that the knowledge-how ascriptions in Japanese are substantially different from know
how to V. An important finding to be reported here is that Stanley’s intellectualist analysis of2

See (Pavese 2017) for an overview.

3

See (Noë 2005) and (Devitt 2011) for methodological objections and (Brown 2012) for a rejoinder.

-10-Knowing
Shun Tsugita
Tsugita andand Masaharu
Masaharu Mizumoto)
Mizumoto)
Knowing How
How inin JapaneseJapanese (Yu(Yu Izumi,
Izumi,Shunknow how extends to Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions, but it does so in an unexpected
way: Japanese knowing how constructions express a different type of modality than theirEnglish counterparts, and the ascriptions of knowledge-how in Japanese are not directly related
to ability or skill possessed by an agent.
Focusing on linguistic issues in the current paper, we will not draw any implications ofphilosophical significance. However, theoretical and experimental investigations of theJapanese language can make a significant contribution to the debate over intellectualism andanti-intellectualism. Furthermore, the discussion here may pave the way toward serious crosslinguistic theorizing in epistemology (Mizumoto et al. 2018).
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we will introduce four different
types of constructions in Japanese that may be construed as similar to know how in English,
while pointing out some apparent difficulties in seeking wh-infinitival clauses in a language
like Japanese, the verbal system of which may not have the infinitival form. In section 3, we
will examine the candidates for ‘knowing how’ in Japanese introduced in section 2, showingthat none of them are obligatory control constructions. If it is legitimate to assume that English
interrogative infinitives form an obligatory control construction, then the syntactic observation
here establishes a major difference between English and Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions.
In section 4, we will argue that there is also a semantic difference between Japanese knowledgehow ascriptions and the English counterparts. Knowing-how constructions of these two
languages express different types of modality: an occurrence of Japanese knowledge-how
ascription expresses deontic (or teleological) modality, not ability or disposition modality
unlike English. Section 5 provides further evidence for the difference by expanding thediscussion to embedded interrogatives in general.
2. Four Candidates for ‘Know How’ in Japanese
The four types of Japanese sentences to be discussed below are ‘similar’ to English know
how to V only in an inexact sense. No well-defined notions of equivalency would help incomparing the two natural languages. For example, truth-conditional equivalency would be
useless as a criterion for the counterparthood of two distinct expressions because, if used, any
two truth-conditionally equivalent expressions would be a counterpart of each other, regardlessof their lengths and grammatical structures. We also cannot expect a one-to-one
correspondence between the constituents of comparable sentences from two languages. The
sentences below are what competent Japanese speakers might use in the place of know how to
V according to the judgments of the authors.
(i) First, Japanese has sentences that are structurally very similar to know how to V.
Compare (3a) and (3b) below:-11-

Nanzan
Linguistics
Research
Results
Activities
2018
NanzanLinguistics
14: 14:
Research
Results
and and
Activities2018㹼2019(3) a.

Hana knows how to swim.

b.

Hana-wa doo oyogu
Hana-Top how swim.Prs

ka sitteiru.
Q know.Prs‘Hana knows how to swim.’
As in (3b), knowledge-how can be ascribed in Japanese by means of the knowledge verb sitteiru
followed by the ‘wh’-word doo and the embedded verb for the activity in question.4 ka is amorpheme—call it ‘Q’—that obligatorily appears with a ‘wh’-word in embedded interrogatives
and optionally in nonembedded interrogatives. An important difference here is that theembedded verb in (3b) is inflected for tense. If ‘infinitives’ are merely defined in terms of thelack of tense inflection, (3b) does not embed a ‘wh’-infinitival clause. This by no means implies
that (3b) is not a counterpart of (3a). First, as noted above, we cannot simply expect there to bea word-by-word correspondence between analogous sentences of two different languages.
Perhaps knowledge-how ascriptions are finite constructions in some languages and non-finite
in others. Second, it is not obvious whether we must adopt such a definition for infinitives(Wurmbrand 2001, pp.85–91). The embedded ‘wh’-clause in (3b) may be as much infinitival
as how to swim in (3a) in some definition.5 At any rate, (3b) is structurally most analogous to(3a), and so it is justifiable to consider it to represent a Japanese counterpart of know how to V,
even if the rest of the sentence types below are set aside as irrelevant constructions.
(ii) The second type of Japanese sentences that may be used in the place of know how to V
involves a morpheme that forms a conditional sentence, ba or ra.
(4)

ka sitteiru.
Hana-wa doo sure-ba/sita-ra oyog-eru
Hana-Top how do-if/did-if
swim-can.Prs Q know.Prs
Roughly: ‘Hana knows what to do in order to swim.’
Respecting the logical structure: ‘Hana knows a way x such that if she swims in way x,
she can swim.’

The expressions ba and ra are combined with a verb to form the antecedent of a conditional
sentence, and they often appear with a sentence-initial adverb that indicates the existence ofsome supposition, such as mosi and mangaichi (Masuoka and Takubo 1992), as shown by
example (5) below.

4

The presence of the two aspect morphemes -te- and -i- is also a distinctive characteristic of theJapanese knowledge verbs in comparison with know (Izumi 2013). Since the roles of these expressions
are not important for present purposes, we represent sitteiru as a single word.

5

It is worth noting that Japanese may lack the verbal category of ‘infinitive’ altogether unlike
languages such as English and French, as suggested by the fact that the present (or non-past) tense
marker -ru is always attached to the dictionary form of a verb (Fujii 2012, p.6).

-12-Knowing
Shun Tsugita
Tsugita andand Masaharu
Masaharu Mizumoto)
Mizumoto)
Knowing How
How inin JapaneseJapanese (Yu(Yu Izumi,
Izumi,Shun(5)(Mosi)
ame-gahure-ba/hutta-ra, ie-ni
kaeroo.
(hypothetically) rain-Nom fall-if/fell-if,
home-to return.let’s.
‘Let’s go home if it rains.’(4) differs from (3b), a simpler ‘know how’ sentence, in that the former contains an explicit
ability modal expression –eru (or dekiru), which is analogous to can or be able in English.
(iii) The third way of ascribing knowledge-how in Japanese differs from (ii) only in that it
includes an evaluative term instead of an ability modal.
(6)

ka sitteiru.
Hana-wa doo oyoge-ba/oyoida-ra ii
Hana-Top how swim-if/swam-if
good Q know.Prs
Roughly: ‘Hana knows what she’s supposed to do when swimming.’
Respecting the logical structure: ‘Hana knows a way x such that if she swims in way x,
it would be good (for achieving some implicit goal).’Sentences of Type-(ii) and Type-(iii) are similar to know how to V to the extent that they
attribute knowledge to the subject with embedded ‘how’-interrogative clauses, and therefore,
they are definitely ‘know how’ ascriptions. As the conditional structures of the sentencessuggest, however, it is not obvious whether they are counterparts of know how to V. In the next
section, we will discuss examples suggesting that they are not obligatory control constructions
unlike know how to V.
(iv) In the fourth type of Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions, the complements are nouns
roughly corresponding to way or method in English with which the embedded verbs areconjoined.
(7)

Hana-wa oyogi-kata-ositteiru.
Hana-Top swim-way-Acc know.Prs
Literally: ‘Hana knows swim-way.’ (‘Hana knows a way to swim.’)

In (7), the matrix verb sitteiru (‘know’) takes as its direct object a nominalized variant of theaction verb oyogu (‘swim’), and so it includes no ‘wh’-question word. As such, (7) is aknowledge ascription but not a knowledge-how ascription. Nevertheless, there are two reasonsfor at least considering whether the sentences of the form of (7) are counterparts of know how
to V. First, the V-kata (‘way to V’) construction is sometimes used in translating an occurrenceof know how to V. Second, more importantly, this pattern may be shared with the Niger-Congo
language Defaka, which is discussed in Stanley’s survey of the world’s languages. In Stanley’s
analysis, English know how to V introduces quantification over ‘ways’ of doing something.
Thus, Stanley would find the explicit use of ‘way’ in (7) amenable to his own analysis. Stanleystates, “languages such as Defaka also provide good evidence for this analysis [which involves
quantification over ways], since they bear this analysis on their sleeves” (Stanley 2011a, p.137).

-13-

Nanzan
Linguistics
Research
Results
Activities
2018
NanzanLinguistics
14: 14:
Research
Results
and and
Activities2018㹼2019

In what follows, we will examine the four types of knowledge ascriptions introduced here.
First, in section 3, we will determine whether they are obligatory control constructions. It turns
out that none of them behaves analogously with know how to V with respect to obligatory
control. Second, in section 4, we will turn to the modal profiles of the ascriptions and argue
that they are not merely structurally different from know how to V, but they express
substantially different semantic contents. The four types do not attribute to the subject an ability
to perform the action in question. Even though Type-(ii) explicitly contains an ability modal
expression, none of Types-(i-iv) is analogous to the infinitival know how to V construction in
English, which is typically concerned with the subject’s capacity to do the described action.
Regardless of the presence of an ability modal expression, Japanese knowledge-how
attributions are understood as expressing deontic (or teleological) modality.
3. ‘Know How’ and Control
In this section, we will apply two of the familiar diagnostic tests for obligatory control(Landau 2010, 2013) to the four types of Japanese knowledge ascriptions introduced in theprevious section.
First, ‘long-distance’ control—where the argument co-referring with PRO is not in theclause that immediately contains an infinitive—is impossible in an obligatory control
construction, as suggested by (8).
(8) *Maryi knew that John dared [PROi to perjure herself]. (Landau 2000, p.34)
Fujii (2006, 2012) establishes that Japanese koto-complements of some verbs also disallow
long-distance control. For example, kangaeru (‘think’) allows a long-distance antecedent,
whereas tikau (‘swear’) does not.
(9) a.

Mary-no titioya-wa [ø sono byooin-de syussansu-ru koto]-o kangaeta.
Mary-Gen father-Top [ø that hospital-at give.birth-Prs C]-Acc thought‘Mary’s father thought about her giving birth in that hospital.’b. # Mary-no titioya-wa [ø sono byooin-de syussansu-ru koto]-o tikatta.
‘Mary’s father swore to give birth in that hospital.’ (Fujii 2012, p.6)
Just as the translation suggests, (9b) only permits the odd reading that Mary’s father swore
about himself giving birth to a child. The silent element in (9b), whatever it turns out to be,cannot take Mary to be its antecedent, unlike the silent element in (9a). Likewise, Takita (2012)
observes that ‘wh’-complements can exhibit the same pattern with verbs such as mayotteiru(‘hesitate’), where the embedded verbs are inflected with yoo, a morpheme signifying the willof the subject. Takita’s observation can be extended to ‘wh’-complements that contain simple,
present-tensed verbs.

-14-Knowing
Shun Tsugita
Tsugita andand Masaharu
Masaharu Mizumoto)
Mizumoto)
Knowing How
How inin JapaneseJapanese (Yu(Yu Izumi,
Izumi,Shun(10) a.

Hana-no titioya-wa [dokode ø syussansu-ru ka] kangaeta.
Hana-gen father-Top [where ø give.birth-Prs Q] thought‘Hana’s father wonders where she should give birth.’b. # Hana-no titioya-wa [dokode ø syussansu-ru ka] mayotteiru.
‘Hana’s father cannot decide where to give birth.’
Again, (10b) is compatible only with the reading that the father worries about his own labor.
The pattern remains the same with a doo (‘how’) interrogative complement. Suppose that there
are multiple childbirth options available to Hana (such as a scheduled C-section or a homebirth). The available interpretation of (11b) is that the father is undecided about the method of
his own labor, not of Hana’s. These considerations show that interrogative complements
occurring in Japanese knowledge ascriptions—those embedding present-tensed verbs—
sometimes exclude long-distance control.
(11) a.

Hana-no titioya-wa [doo ø syussansu-ru ka] kangaeta.
Hana-Gen father-Top [how ø give.birth-Prs Q] thought‘Hana’s father wonders how she should give birth.’b. # Hana-no titioya-wa [doo ø syussansu-ru ka] mayotteiru.
‘Hana’s father cannot decide how to give birth.’
Now, let us consider the knowledge verb sitteiru, which turns out to be more analogous tokangaeru (‘think’) than to mayotteiru (‘hesitate’). Type-(i) example (12a) and a ‘where’interrogative complement in (12b) clearly permit long-distance antecedents.
(12) a.

Hana-no titioya-wa [doo ø syussansu-ru ka] sitteiru.
Hana-Gen father-Top [how ø give.birth-Prs Q] know.Prs‘Hana’s father knows how she will give birth.’b.

Hana-no titioya-wa [dokode ø syussansu-ru ka] sitteiru.
‘Hana’s father knows where she will give birth.’

The rest of Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions, Types (ii)–(iv)—represented by (13a)–(13c)respectively, are also compatible with the interpretations that the subject matter of the father’s
knowledge is Hana’s childbirth, not his own.
(13) a.

Hana-no titioya-wa [doo sure-ba ø syussan-dekiru ka] sitteiru.
Hana-Gen father-Top [how do-if ø give.birth-can.Prs Q] know.Prs‘Hana’s father knows how she can give birth.’-15-

Nanzan
Linguistics
Research
Results
Activities
2018
NanzanLinguistics
14: 14:
Research
Results
and and
Activities2018㹼2019b.

ka] sitteiru.
Hana-no titioya-wa [doo ø syussansure-ba ii
Hana-Gen father-Top [how ø give.birth-if
good Q] know.Prs‘Hana’s father knows how she should give birth.’c.

Hana-no titioya-wa [syussan-no-si-kata/syussansuru-hoho]-ositteiru.6
Hana-Gen father-Top [childbirth-Gen-do-way/give.birth-method]-Acc know.Prs‘Hana’s father knows a way to give birth.’

We do not scrutinize English data in the current paper, but as (14) illustrates, there is goodevidence that long-distance control is generally impossible in interrogative infinitival
complements in English (Landau 2000, pp.39–42).
(14) * Maryi knew that it wasn’t clear to John [how PROi to perjure herself].
(Landau 2000, p.42)
The observed contrast here points to a difference between Japanese and English knowledgehow ascriptions.
The second diagnostic test for obligatory control is based on ellipsis. The (a) examples
below only permit ‘sloppy’ readings, in which the referents of the pronominal elements are
distinct, whereas the (b) examples permit both sloppy and ‘strict’ readings—the pronominal
elements in the second conjuncts co-refer with the antecedents in the first conjuncts.
(15) a.

b.
(16)

Maryi expected [PROi to attend the ceremony], and Suej did too expect [PROj/*i toattend the ceremony] (Landau 2013, p.30)
Mary smiled at her child, and Sue did too.
Mary-wa [ø sigoto-o tuzuke-rukoto]-o {a. tikatta, b. kangaeta}.
Mary-Top [ø work-Acc continue-Prs C]-Acc {a. swore, b. thought}
Butyoo-mo da.
manager-also Cop.Prs‘Mary {a. swore to continue her work, b. thought about continuing her work}. And the
manager, too.’ (adapted from Fujii 2012, p.7)

(17)

Hana-wa [doo/dokode ø syussansu-ru ka] {a. mayotteiru, b. kangaeteiru}.
Hana-Top [how/where ø give.birth-Prs Q] {a. hesitating, b. thinking}.

6

The verb syussansuru (‘give birth’) is a compound of the noun syussan (‘childbirth’) and the lightverb suru, and it cannot be conjoined directly with kata (‘way’); that is why the no morpheme is inserted
between ‘childbirth’ and ‘do’. The verb, however, can be directly conjoined with hoho (‘method’) in
the present tense form.

-16-Knowing
Shun Tsugita
Tsugita andand Masaharu
Masaharu Mizumoto)
Mizumoto)
Knowing How
How inin JapaneseJapanese (Yu(Yu Izumi,
Izumi,Shun

Mari-mo da.
Mari-also Cop.Prs‘Hana is {a. wondering how/where to give birth, b. thinking about how/where sheshould give birth}. And Mari, too.’
The knowledge verb again behaves analogously to kangaeru (‘think’) allowing strict readings.
For example, (18a) can mean that Mari, the subject of the second sentence, knows in what way
Hana should give birth to Hana’s child. The same observation holds with respect to Types (ii)(iv) knowledge-how attributions, as in (18b)–(18d).
(18) a.

Hana-wa [doo ø syussansu-ru ka] sitteiru. Mari-mo da. (Type-i)
Hana-Top [how ø give.birth-Prs Q] know.Prs Mari-also Cop.Prs‘Hana knows how she should give birth. And Mari, too.’b.

Hana-wa [doo-sure-ba ø syussan-dekiru ka] sitteiru. Mari-mo da. (Type-ii)
Hana-Top [how do-if ø give.birth-can.Prs Q] know.Prs Mari-also Cop.Prs‘Hana knows how she can give birth. And Mari, too.’c.

Hana-wa [doo ø syussansure-ba ii ka] sitteiru. Mari-mo da. (Type-iii)
Hana-Top [how ø give.birth-if good Q] know.Prs Mari-also Cop.Prs‘Hana knows how she should give birth. And Mari, too.’d.

Hana-wa [syussan-no-si-kata/syussansuru-hoho]-ositteiru.
Hana-Top [childbirth-Gen-do-way/give.birth-method-Acc know.Prs
Mari-mo da. (Type-iv)
Mari-also Cop.Prs‘Hana knows a way to give birth. And Mari, too.’

Again, if Landau is correct in that sentences such as (19) do not allow strict readings,(19)

John remembered when [PRO to leave], and Bill did too. (Landau 2000, p.42)

then (18) shows a clear contrast between English and Japanese knowledge-how attributions.
The examples in this section strongly suggest that Japanese knowledge-how attributions ingeneral, despite their structural variation, do not constitute an obligatory control construction.
If English knowledge-how attributions are obligatory control constructions (as assumed by
Stanley 2011a), we have identified a substantial difference between the knowledge-how
attributions in the two different languages.

-17-Nanzan
Linguistics
Research
Results
Activities
2018
NanzanLinguistics
14: 14:
Research
Results
and and
Activities2018㹼2019

4. Detaching Ability Implications
A typical English know how sentence such as (20) implies that the subject has a physicalability to perform the described action. For example, it is often difficult to attribute knowledgehow to an agent when the knowledge in question derives solely from book learning, as in (21).
(20)

Hana knows how to ski.

(21)

[Context: Hana carefully studied three skiing 101 books for her first skiing vacation inher entire life.]# Hana knows how to ski, but she is unable to do so.7

Given the difficulty of removing an implication that the agent has the relevant physical ability,
it may be reasonable to assume an ability implication to be a part of the semantic content
expressed by the use of know how to V. Stanley associates know how to V with the “ability or
dispositional” modal force (Stanley 2011a, p.114). According to Stanley, if Hana knows how
to ski, then she knows that she can ski in a certain way. To be more precise, Hana knows how
to ski just in case she knows that she would succeed in skiing by the way she is familiar within some contextually relevant range of circumstances that allow her to ski (Stanley 2011a,
chapter 5).
As emphasized by Stanley (2011a, pp.126–129), the kind of modality associated with know
how to V is not exactly the same as the kind of modality expressed by could or be able: know
how to V sometimes allows one to detach an implication that an agent can perform the describedaction. That is, knowing how to do something does not necessarily require being (physically)
able to do so (Stanley and Williamson 2001, Snowdon 2003, among others). One example
Stanley discusses is the following:(22)[Context: Carl can lift 200 lbs off the floor. When he trains, his 8-year old son always
watches him do so.]Carl’s son knows how to lift 200 lbs off the floor, but he is unable to do so.
(Stanley 2011a, p.127, originally in Ginet 1975, p.8)

There is a sense in which Carl’s son knows how to lift 200 lbs off the floor, although he has no
ability to do so. Stanley accounts for this detachability of the ability implication by introducing
a structural ambiguity between PRO and PROarb into know how to V, where the latter purports
to capture the knowledge-how reading that does not imply ability. 8 According to antiintellectualists, the non-ability or non-disposition sense of English know how needs to be put
aside, because it is not the kind of phenomenon with which anti-intellectualists (and therefore
7

Glick (2012, pp.130–1) makes the same observation in an analogous case.

8

According to Landau (2000, 2013), it is wrong to assume English interrogative infinitives to be nonobligatory control constructions, which would allow genuine occurrences of arbitrary PRO. We will not
debate the correctness of Stanley’s intellectualist analysis of know how to V—we do not have to do so,given the goal of the current paper.

-18-

Knowing
Shun Tsugita
Tsugita andand Masaharu
Masaharu Mizumoto)
Mizumoto)
Knowing How
How inin JapaneseJapanese (Yu(Yu Izumi,
Izumi,Shunintellectualists too) should be concerned (Glick 2012). At any rate, what remains puzzling isthat the ambiguity is available only to a limited range of circumstances, as shown by thecontrast between (21) and (22). Whether we can remove an ability implication seems dependent
on the choice of the embedded verb and the context of use.
By contrast, an ability implication seems almost always detachable in Japanese knowledgehow ascriptions. For example, at least for the authors, the following would not sound unnaturalat all even in the context where the ascription is given on the basis of the subject’s booklearning:(23)

Kaaru-wa doo 100 kilo-o motiageru/oyogu ka sitteiru kedo
Carl-Top how 100 kilo-Acc lift.Prs/swim.Prs Q know.Prs but
zissai-ni-wa
dekinai.
Actually-Contrast cannot‘Carl knows how to lift 100 kilos/swim, but he cannot actually do so.’

In contrast to (21), there is no oddity or surprising connotation in (23), regardless of the choiceof the embedded predicate. In Japanese a much wider range of verbs and contexts seem topermit the denial of an ability implication. Even when it is justifiable to attribute knowledgehow to an individual, the individual may or may not be able to perform the physical activity inquestion (e.g., swimming, skiing, riding a bicycle).
The example (23) above is an instance of Type-(i) Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions,but the same can be said for the other types as well. It is also worth pointing out that the presenceof the evaluative expression ii (‘good’) in Type-(iii) knowledge-how ascriptions can be
accounted for by assuming that they do not express ability or disposition modality. The Type(iii) example (6) above has the following logical form: ‘Hana knows a way x such that if she
swims in way x, it would be good.’ (6) roughly says that the agent, Hana, knows a required
way of swimming that is necessary to fulfill a contextually salient goal (‘It would be good if
Hana swims in that way’). In other words, (6) attributes to the subject knowledge of how she
ought to swim, not the ability or disposition for swimming. These considerations suggest thatJapanese knowledge-how attributions in general express the deontic (or teleological—what one
should do to achieve a certain goal) modal force rather than the ability or disposition modal
force, perhaps similarly to the English know to V construction (Glick 2012, p.125).
In fact, there is a variant of Type-(i) construction that contains the explicit deontic
expression beki (‘ought’) as follows:(24)

Hana-wa doo oyogu
beki ka sitteiru.
Hana-Top how swim.Prs ought Q know.Prs‘Hana knows how she should swim.’-19-

Nanzan
Linguistics
Research
Results
Activities
2018
NanzanLinguistics
14: 14:
Research
Results
and and
Activities2018㹼2019(24) is exactly the same as (2a), a Type-(i) sentence, except that the former contains the deontic
modal beki. (24) seems to clarify the content of (2a) by articulating its modality. Crucially,adding an explicit ability modal to (2a) would create an unacceptable sentence:
ka sitteiru.
(25) */?? Hana-wa doo oyog-eru
Hana-Top how swim-can.Prs Q know.Prs
This contrast between (24) and (25) strongly suggests that the underlying modality in (2a) isdeontic, rather than ability or disposition.
Now, returning to the detachability of an ability implication, let us consider Type-(ii) andType-(iv) examples. Because all four types of Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions areapproximately equivalent to one another, we predict that these sentences do not need to havean implication that the subject has an ability to perform the activity in question. The following
in fact do not sound infelicitous or unnatural (at least for the authors).
(26)

Kaaru-wa doo sure-ba/sita-ra 100 kilo-o motiagerar-eru/oyog-eru ka sitteiru
Carl-Top how do-if/did-if 100 kil-Acc lift-can.Prs/swim-can.Prs Q know.Prs
kedo, zissai-wa
dekinai.
but actually-Contrast cannot‘Carl knows what to do in order to lift 100 kilos/swim, but he’s in fact unable to do so.’(27)

Kaaru-wa 100 kilo-no motiage-/oyogi-kata-o sitteiru kedo,
Carl-Top 100 kilo-Gen lift-/swim-way-Acc know.Prs but,zissai-wa
dekinai.
actually-Contrast cannot
Literally: ‘Carl knows lift-100-kg-way/swim-way, but he’s in fact unable to do so.’

It may be surprising that even the Type-(ii) example (26), which has the explicit ability modal
expression -eru, fails to imply ability, but this is because the ability here is merely conditional,
and has no implication about the actual ability of the agent.
To summarize, we have good reason to think that Japanese knowledge-how constructions
are not merely structurally but also semantically different from their English counterparts withrespect to ability implications. The examples discussed thus far suggest that Japaneseknowledge-how constructions are associated only with deontic (or teleological) modality.
5. Other ‘Wh’-Phrases
The main claim put forward in the previous section is that Japanese knowledge-how
ascriptions do not semantically express the ability modality, unlike their English counterparts.
If there truly is such a semantic difference in modality between English and Japanese ‘know-20-

Knowing
Shun Tsugita
Tsugita andand Masaharu
Masaharu Mizumoto)
Mizumoto)
Knowing How
How inin JapaneseJapanese (Yu(Yu Izumi,
Izumi,Shunhow’, then we must be able to find analogous differences between English and Japanese
embedded interrogative infinitives in general.
Bhatt (2006) discusses a number of infinitival wh-phrases that can be paraphrased using
modal words such as can and should; as indicated by the examples (28a)–(28b), what particularflavor of modality is associated with a wh-phrase is partly determined by the choice of thematrix verb.
(28) a.
b.

Asta knows/discovered/figured out where to get gas.
≈ Asta knows/discovered/figured out where she can/could get gas.
Asta decided/agreed where to get gas.
≈ Asta decided/agreed where she should get gas. (Bhatt 2006, pp.123–4)(28a) is judged true as long as there is at least one location known to the subject where she canget gasoline, whereas the truth of (28b) requires there to be a particular place, among thepossible locations where the subject could get gas, that is considered the most suited for asalient goal. Details aside, English infinitival wh-phrases are associated with both ability (ordisposition) and deontic (or teleological) modalities.
By contrast, embedded ‘wh’-questions in Japanese do not allow an ability interpretation
unless there is an explicit ability modal expression such as -eru.
(29) a.

Taro-wa dokode gasorin-okau
ka sitteiru.
Taro-Top where gasoline-Acc buy.Prs Q know.Prs.
‘Taro knows where he should buy gasoline.’; ‘Taro knows a wise way to getgasoline.’(Impossible reading: ‘Taro knows at least one place where he could buy gasoline.’)b.

Taro-wa dokode gasorin-oka-eruka sitteiru.
Taro-Top where gasoline-Acc buy-can.Prs Q know.Prs‘Taro knows where he can buy gasoline.’; ‘Taro knows where to get gasoline.’(29a) most naturally gives rise to the interpretation that the subject knows where he should getgasoline for some salient purpose (e.g., for the sake of saving money). (29b), which contains
an explicit ability modal, is an appropriate translation of (28), and it cannot mean the samething as (29a). Ability paraphrases are not available to simple embedded ‘when’- and ‘where’phrases such as (29a), even when their English counterparts induce such paraphrases.
The contrast between (30) and (31) below makes the same point.
(30)

Gilbert knows where/when to buy an Italian newspaper.
≈ For some place p/time t Gilbert knows that he can/should buy an INP at p/t-21-

Nanzan
Linguistics
Research
Results
Activities
2018
NanzanLinguistics
14: 14:
Research
Results
and and
Activities2018㹼2019kau
ka sitteiru.
Girubaato-wa dokode/itsu Itaria-no sinbun-o
Gilbert-Top where/when Italia-Gen newspaper-Acc buy.Prs Q know.Prs(31)≈ For some p/t Gilbert knows that he should buy an INP at p/t(30) has an interpretation that the subject knows the place in which he is able to buy an Italiannewspaper; a paraphrase that uses a can/could/be able modal is available to (30). On the other
hand, (31) has no such interpretation—an ability modal expression -eru must be added for suchan interpretation as in (32a) below—and the meaning of (31) is most naturally described using
should or ought to.
It is also worth noting that the Japanese counterpart of how (doo) sometimes excludes an
occurrence of an ability modal. If we replace dokode (‘where’) in (32a) with doo, we end up
with an ungrammatical or unacceptable sentence (32b).
(32) a.

Girubaato-wa dokode Itaria-no sinbun-o ka-eru
ka sitteiru.
Gilbert-Top where Italia-Gen paper-Acc buy-can.Prs Q know.Prs‘Gilbert knows where to buy an Italian newspaper.’b. * Girubaato-wa doo Itaria-no sinbun-o ka-eru ka sitteiru.
It is the not the case that the ‘wh’-word doo is always incompatible with an ability modal, as
we have observed in Type-(ii) ‘know how’ sentences containing an explicit ability modal, as
illustrated by (33).
(33)

ka sitteiru.
Girubaato-wa doo sure-ba/sita-ra Itaria-no sinbun-o ka-eru
Gilbert-Top how do-if/did-if
Italia-Gen paper-Acc buy-can.Prs Q know.Prs‘Gilbert knows what to do in order to buy an Italian newspaper.’In the current paper, we do not offer any systematic account of the distributional patternsof Japanese ‘wh’-phrases and modal constituents. Overall, however, the examples presented
here support the claim that Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions do not express ability (ordisposition) modality unlike their English counterparts. Rather they describe knowledge
concerning deontic (or teleological) modality—knowledge of how one ought to behave (given
some goal).
6. Concluding Remarks
In this paper, first, we identified four related but different types of knowledge-how
ascriptions in Japanese, stating their structural similarities to and differences from know how
to V. Second, we examined the four types of knowledge-how ascriptions in terms of obligatory
control; the data strongly suggest that knowledge-how ascriptions do not constitute obligatory
control. Third, we argued that Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions express only deontic (orteleological) modality as opposed to know how to V, which is also associated with ability (or-22-Knowing
Shun Tsugita
Tsugita andand Masaharu
Masaharu Mizumoto)
Mizumoto)
Knowing How
How inin JapaneseJapanese (Yu(Yu Izumi,
Izumi,Shundisposition) modality; this finding was also confirmed by the other forms of interrogativeknowledge ascriptions.
Stanley’s analysis of know how to V applies to Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions,because it encompasses both deontic/teleological and ability/disposition modalities. That is,Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions describe propositional knowledge, and ‘intellectualism’
in some weak sense is vindicated.9 The outcome, however, may not be welcomed by thoseengaging in the intellectualist and anti-intellectualist debate. The considerations in the paper
imply that Japanese knowledge-how ascriptions are not well suited to describing the key
examples in the epistemological debate (e.g., knowledge of how to swim, how to ride a bicycle).
If Hana knows how to swim (in the sense that is interesting to the whole debate), then thecorrect way to express it in Japanese is probably the following:(34)

Hana-wa (umaku) oyog-eru.
Hana-Top (well) swim-can.Prs.
‘Hana can swim well.’; ‘She’s a good swimmer.’That is, in Japanese, knowledge locutions may have to be avoided in describing the subject
matter of the debate—often referred to as ‘practical knowledge’. If ascriptions of knowledgehow may be merely contingently associated with the subject matter, then, what is the point of
scrutinizing our talk of knowledge so meticulously? More serious discussion of philosophicalimplications goes beyond the scope of the current linguistic paper. The observations here,
however, encourage reconsideration of the nature of the intellectualist and anti-intellectualist
debate.

References
Bengson, J. and M. A. Moffett eds., (2012) Knowing How, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Bengson, J., M. A. Moffett and J. C. Wright (2009) “The Folk on Knowing How,” Philosophical Studies,
142(3), 387–401.
Bhatt, R. (2006) Covert Modality in Non-finite Contexts, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.
Brown, J. (2012) “Words, Concepts and Epistemology.” In J. Brown and M. Gerken eds., Knowledge
Ascriptions, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 31–54.
Ditter, A. (2016) “Why Intellectualism Still Fails,” The Philosophical Quarterly, 66(264), 500–515.
Douskos, C. (2013) “The Linguistic Argument for Intellectualism,” Synthese, 190, 2325–2340.
Fujii, T. (2006) Some Theoretical Issues in Japanese Control, PhD dissertation, University of Maryland.
Fujii, T. (2012) “On the Calculus of Control and Lack of Overt Agreement Morphology,” Nanzan
Linguistics, 8:1–16.
Ginet, C. (1975) Knowledge, Perception, and Memory, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht.

9

See (Glick 2011) for several different senses of intellectualism.

-23-

Nanzan
Linguistics
Research
Results
Activities
2018
NanzanLinguistics
14: 14:
Research
Results
and and
Activities2018㹼2019

Glick, E. (2011) “Two Methodologies for Evaluating Intellectualism,” Philosophy andPhenomenological Research, 83(2), 398–434.
Glick, E. (2012). “Abilities and Know-How Attributions.” In J. Brown and M. Gerken eds., Knowledge
Ascriptions, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 120–139.
Habgood-Coote, J. (2018) “Knowledge-How, Abilities, and Questions,” Australasian Journal of
Philosophy, Published Online First, https://doi.org/10.1080/00048402.2018.1434550.
Izumi, Y. (2013) “Contextualism and Japanese Knowledge Attributions,” Metaphysica: The Journal of
Philosophy and Ethics, 44, 99–111.
Landau, I. (2000) Elements of Control: Structure and Meaning in Infinitive Constructions, Kluwer,
Dordrecht.
Landau, I. (2013) Control in Generative Grammar: A Research Companion. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, UK.
Markie, P. J. (2015) “The Special Ability View of Knowledge-how,” Philosophical Studies, 172(12),3191–3209.
Masuoka, T., and Y. Takubo (1992) Kiso Nihongo Bunpou (“Basic Japanese Grammar”), Kurosio
Publishing Company, Tokyo.
Mizumoto, M., E, McCready and S. Stich eds., (2018) Epistemology for the Rest of the World, Oxford
University Press, Oxford.
Noë, A. (2005) “Against Intellectualism,” Analysis, 65(288), 278–290.
Pavese, C. (2015) “Practical Senses,” Philosophers’ Imprint 15(29): 1–25.
Pavese, C. (2016) “Skill in Epistemology II: Skill and Know How,” Philosophy Compass 11(11): 650–
60.
Rumfitt, I. (2003) “Savoir Faire,” Journal of Philosophy, 99, 158–166.
Ryle, G. (1946) “Knowing How and Knowing That,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 46, 1–16.
Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind, Hutchinson & Co, London.
Stanley, J. (2011a) Know How, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Stanley, J. (2011b) “Knowing (How),” Noûs, 45: 207–38.
Stanley, J. and T. Williamson (2001) “Knowing How.”, Journal of Philosophy 98(5), 411–444.
Takita, K. (2012) “‘Genuine’ Sluicing in Japanese,” Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the
Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, 577–592.
Wiggins, D. (2012) “Practical Knowledge: Knowing How to and Knowing That,” Mind, 121(481), 97–
130.

-24-