J East Asian Linguist (2008) 17:247–271
DOI 10.1007/s10831-008-9026-8

N¢-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in Chineseand Japanese
Mamoru Saito Æ T.-H. Jonah Lin Æ Keiko Murasugi

Received: 14 July 2007 / Accepted: 2 May 2008 / Published online: 17 July 2008
 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract It has been widely assumed since Kitagawa and Ross (Linguist Anal 9:
19–53, 1982) that noun phrases in Chinese and Japanese are quite similar in structure.
They are N-final in surface word order, they employ ‘‘modifying markers’’ (de in
Chinese and no in Japanese) extensively, and they require classifiers for numeral
expressions. In this paper, we argue that, contrary to appearance, they have quitedistinct structures. We examine N¢-ellipsis in the two languages and present supporting evidence for the hypothesis argued for by Simpson (in: Tang and Liu (eds.)
On the formal way to Chinese languages, 2003), among others, that Chinese nounphrases are head-initial. According to this hypothesis, de is D, and a classifier heads
another projection within DP. Japanese noun phrases, on the other hand, are headfinal. No is a contextual Case marker, as proposed by Kitagawa and Ross (Linguist
Anal 9: 19–53, 1982), and classifier phrases are adjuncts modifying nominal projections. Our discussion shows that Kayne’s (The antisymmetry of syntax, 1994)
analysis of N-final relatives applies elegantly to Chinese but not to Japanese. It thus
suggests that Japanese relative clauses are head-final throughout the derivation.

M. Saito (&)
Department of Anthropology and Philosophy, Nanzan University,
18 Yamazato-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466–8673, Japane-mail: saito@nanzan-u.ac.jp
T.-H. J. Lin
Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Tsing Hua University,
101, Section 2, Guangfu Road, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
e-mail: jonahlin@mx.nthu.edu.tw
K. Murasugi
Department of British and American Studies, Nanzan University,
18 Yamazato-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466-8673, Japane-mail: murasugi@nanzan-u.ac.jp

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Keywords Noun phrase Æ Modifying marker Æ N¢-ellipsis Æ Head parameter Æ
Determiner phrase Æ Classifier Æ Relative clause
1 Introduction
In this paper, we pursue a comparative syntax of noun phrases in Chinese andJapanese. Noun phrases in these two languages look quite similar on the surface. For
example, they are both N-final, and they both employ ‘‘modifying markers’’
extensively, as shown in (1)–(2).
(1)

Chinesea. Laowang de chede car‘Laowang’s car’b. yong shitou de gongji
with stone de attack‘an attack with stones’(2)

Japanesea. Haruki no kuruma
no car‘Haruki’s car’b. isi -de no koogeki
stone -with no attack‘an attack with stones’

Furthermore, Chinese and Japanese are both classifier languages. This is illustratedin (3) and (4).
(3)

Chinesesan -ben shu
three -CL book‘three books’(4)Japanesesan -satu no hon
three -CL no book‘three books’

In this paper, we argue that despite these apparent similarities, the noun phrase
structures in Chinese and Japanese are radically different. We compare the distributions of the Chinese ‘‘modifying marker’’ de and its Japanese counterpart no andalso examine the patterns of N¢-ellipsis observed in these languages. Based on this,
we present evidence that Chinese is head-initial, where de is D, and a classifier isalso a head in the nominal projection. Japanese, on the other hand, is head-final, andno is a contextual Case marker. The analysis that we arrive at for Chinese is similar
to the one proposed in Simpson (2003), and that for Japanese is more or less the
traditional one. The comparative study shows that Kayne’s (1994) antisymmetry123

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theory, which entertains the hypothesis that phrase structure is universally
head-initial, accounts elegantly for relative clauses in Chinese but not for those inJapanese. This paper suggests then that Japanese relative clauses are generated
head-final from the initial point of the derivation.
In the following section, we review the similarities as well as the differences in the
distrubutions of de and no. In Sect. 3, we argue for the head-initial analysis of Chinese
and the head-final analysis of Japanese. We show there, based on the examination ofN¢-ellipsis, that the constituent that precedes de is always in DP Spec while noaccompanies phrases in a variety of positions. In Sect. 4, we summarize our proposals, comparing our analysis of Japanese noun phrases with Watanabe’s (2006).
2 The distributions of de/no and Kitagawa and Ross’s (1982)
Mod-Insertion rule
As noted above, de and no show similarities in their distributions. More examples
are listed in (5) and (6) to illustrate this point.
(5)

Chinesea. Luoma de huimie
Rome de destruction‘Rome’s destruction’b. mingtian de tianqi
tomorrow de weather‘tomorrow’s weather’c. yu Laowang de huimienwithde interview‘an interview with Laowang’(6)Japanesea. Rooma no hakaiRome no destruction‘Rome’s destruction’b. asuno tenki
tomorrow no weather‘tomorrow’s weather’c. Haruki-to
no intabyuu-with no interview‘an interview with Haruki’(5c) and (6c), in particular, show that the distributions of de/no are wider than thatof ’s in English. Given this, Kitagawa and Ross (1982) hypothesized that de and noare general modifying markers and proposed the following insertion rule to accountfor their distributions:(7)

Mod-Insertion[NP … XP Na] ﬁ [NP … XP Mod Na], where Mod = de/no.

This rule inserts de/no after any constituent that is a sister of a projection of N.

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However, it is also known that there are differences in the contexts where de andno appear. One case, noted by Kitagawa and Ross (1982), is when the XP in (7) is arelative clause. De is obligatory after a relative clause while no is never premitted
in this position, as shown in (8)–(9).
(8)

Chinese[wo zuotian kanjian] *(de) ren
I yesterday seede person‘the person I saw yesterday’(9)

Japanese[watasi-ga
kinoomita] (*no) hito
I
-NOM yesterday saw
no person‘the person I saw yesterday’

As (7) has no specification on XP, it predicts the Chinese pattern. Kitagawa andRoss (1982) postulate the following Japanese-particular Mod-deletion rule toaccount for non-occurrance of no after relative clauses:1(10)

Mod-Deletion (Japanese)[NP … XP(+tense) Mod Na] ﬁ [NP … XP(+tense) Na], where Mod = no.

Another context where the distributions of de and no differ is when a noun
is quantified by a numeral. As already shown in (3)–(4), no appears after
numeral + classifier but de does not. The examples are repeated in (11)–(12).2

1

One can parameterize the formulation of (7) as in (i) for Japanese and obtain the same effect.

(i) [NP … XP(-tense) Na] ﬁ [NP … XP(-tense) Mod Na], where Mod = no.
It is not obvious why tense should be relevant for the distribution of no. An anonymous reviewer points
out that the effect may be morphological because no shows up in examples like (ii), where tense isarguably covert.
(ii) [Taroo-ga
syuzinkoo] no monogatari-NOM protagonist no story‘a story in which Taroo is the protagonist’
We leave this question open.
2

The situation with Chinese is slightly more complex. Cheng and Sybesma (1998) make a distinction
between genuine classifiers and ‘‘massifiers,’’ which are measure words such as bei ‘cup’ and bang‘pound’. Notably, the latter can be followed by de, as shown in (i).
(i)a.

san-bei (de) shui
three-cup de water‘three cups of water’b. san-bang (de) rou
three-pound de meat
‘three pounds of meat’
The examples discussed in the text all involve genuine classifiers.

123N¢-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases(11)

Chinesesan -ben (*de) shu
three-CLde book‘three books’(12)Japanesesan -satu *(no) hon
three-CLno book‘three books’

251

In addition, no follows nominal adjuncts and apparently licenses them, as in (13),while de never appears in this context, as (14) shows.
(13)Japanesea. ame no hi
rain no day‘rainy day’b. gakusei no hito
student no person‘a person who is a student’(14)

Chinesea.*yu de tianrain de day‘rainy day’b.*xuesheng de ren
student de person‘a person who is a student’Chinese would employ compounds or relative clauses to express (14), as shown in (15).
(15)

Chinesea. yu -tianrain-dayb. [shi xuesheng] de renbe student
de person

In the following section, we examine N¢-ellipsis in Chinese and Japanese andargue that no is a contextual Case marker, as in Kitagawa and Ross’s (1982)
analysis, while de is a D head, as proposed by Simpson (2003). We show that this
explains the differences between de and no noted in this section.
3 The grammatical status of de and no
The argument based on N¢-ellipsis that no is a contextual Case marker is alreadypresented in Saito and Murasugi (1990). We summarize this in the following

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subsection. Then we present our argument for the analysis of de as D in Sect. 3.2.
Finally, we discuss the structure of Chinese relative clauses in Sect. 3.3.
3.1 No as a contextual Case marker
Let us briefly discuss the general properties of N¢-ellipsis before we examine therelevant Japanese data. As noted in Jackendoff (1971), N¢-ellipsis is possible only
when it strands a genitive phrase. Thus, the following contrast obtains:(16)a.

I have read Bill’s book, but I haven’t read [DP John’s [NP book]]b. *I have edited a book, but I haven’t written [DP a [NP book]]c. *I have seen the book, but I haven’t had a chance to read [DP the [NP book]]

Saito and Murasugi (1990), and Lobeck (1990) consider this an instance of a wider
generalization that is observed in three well-known deletion phenomena, namely,N¢-ellipsis, VP-ellipsis, and sluicing. These deletion phenomena all involve functional heads (D, T, C) and in each case, the deletion of the complement is allowed
only when the Spec position is filled.3 This is illustrated in (17).
(17)

a. N’-ellipsis

b. VP-ellipsis

c. Sluicing

DP

TP

CP

XP

D′
D

XP
NP

T′
T

XP
vP

C′
C

TP

Thus, the so-called N¢-ellipsis is NP-deletion within DP, and it is licensed only when
a genitive phrase occupies the DP Spec position. Sluicing is TP-deletion within CP,
and it takes place only when a Wh-phrase moves into CP Spec. Contrasts of thefollowing kind, noted by Ross (1969), exemplify this generalization:
John bought something, but I don’t know [CP what [TP he bought t]]b. *John insisted that he turned in his homework, but I wasn’t sure
[CP whether [TP he turned in his homework]]c. *John insisted that he turned in his homework, and Bill reported to Mary
[CP that [TP he turned in his homework]](18)a.

(18b) does not meet the condition illustrated in (17c) if whether, like that, is not in
CP Spec but is a C head. Similarly, VP-ellipsis is deletion of vP within TP, as shownin (17b). This general pattern can be extended to examples like (19), where anumeral appears in an argument position by itself.

3

More precisely, the works cited propose that the deletion of the complement is allowed only when theSpec agrees with the head.

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(19)

253

John bought [QP three [NP books]], and Mary bought [QP five [NP books]]

If a numeral occupies the Spec position of the functional head Q, this case also falls
under the pattern in (17).4
Saito and Murasugi (1990) examine the noun phrase structure in Japanese on thebasis of the generalization on N¢-ellipsis illustrated in (17a). There is a complicationin this language because it is not obvious what phrase occupies the DP Spec
position. In English, we know that a genitive phrase is in DP Spec. But the distribution of no, which corresponds to ’s in many cases, is wider than the English
genitive, as noted above. For example, a Japanese noun phrase can contain multiple
no-phrases, as shown in (20).
(20)a. yuubokumin no tosi no hakai

nomadsno city no destruction‘the nomads’ destruction of the city’b. Taroo no Yooroppa-e no ryokoo
no Europe -to no trip
‘Taroo’s trip to Europe’
Are the no-phrases all in DP Spec or just some of them? Saito and Murasugi argue
that N¢-ellipsis provides an answer to this question.
It seems that Japanese allows N¢-ellipsis sometimes but not always in similar
contexts. Thus, (21a–b) contrast sharply with (22a–b).5(21)a. [Taroo no taido] -wa

yoi ga,[Hanako no taido] -wa yokunai
no attitude-TOP good though
no attitude-TOP good-not‘Though Taroo’s attitude is good, Hanako’s isn’t.’b. [Rooma no hakai]-wa [Kyooto no hakai]-yorimo hisan
datta
Rome no destruction-TOP
no destruction-than miserable was‘Rome’s destruction was more miserable than Kyoto’s.’(22)a. *[Hare no hi] -wa

yoi ga,[ame no hi] -wa otikomu
clear no day-TOP good though rain no day-TOP feel-depressed‘Clear days are OK, but I feel depressed on rainy days.’b. * Taroo-wa iti -niti-ni [san -satu no hon] -oyomu ga,-TOP one -day-in three-CL no book-ACC read though
Hanako-wa [go -satu no hon] -oyomu-TOP five-CL no book-ACC read
‘Taroo reads three books in a day, but Hanako reads five.’(21a–b) are fine with or without ellipsis, but ellipsis makes (22a–b) ungrammatical.
4This generalization on ellipsis remains to be explained. See Richards (2003) for an attempt to derive itfrom the mechanism of linearization. Unfortunately, it requires further work to make his proposal
compatible with the discussion in this paper.

5

See Saito and Murasugi (1990) for detailed discussion of these and other relevant examples. As noted
there, there is a homonym no, which corresponds roughly in meaning to the pronoun one in English, and
it is necessary to construct examples that exclude this interpretation of no in order to pinpoint the possible
contexts for N¢-ellipsis.

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The comparison of (21a–b) and (22a) leads us to a clear generalization. The
stranded no-phrase is a subject in (21a) and an object in (21b). That is, they arearguments. In (22a), on the other hand, ame ‘rain’ is an adjunct. The generalization,
then, is that argument + no licenses the ellipsis of the following material, but
adjunct + no does not. And there is indenpendent suggestive evidence that arguments can move to DP Spec, but adjuncts cannot. Thus, (23a) contrasts with (23b).
[TP John seemed yesterday [TP t to be sick]]b. *[TP Yesterday seemed t [CP that John was sick]](cf. [TP It seemed yesterday [CP that John was sick]])(23)a.

These examples show that an argument can move to TP Spec to satisfy the EPP
requirement of T while an adjunct cannot. This is not surprising because if an
adjunct is raised to TP Spec, the movement will be an improper movement from anA¢-position to an A-position. And this naturally extends to movement to DP Spec
as well.
The contrast between (21a–b) and (22a), then, is what we expect. In (21b), forexample, Kyooto, being an object, can move to DP Spec and license the deletion ofNP, as shown in (24a).
(24)

a.

b.

DP

D′

Kyooto noNPD′

ame no
NP

D
N

t

DP

hakai

t

D
NP
N
hi

Ame in (22a), on the other hand, cannot move to DP Spec because it is an adjunct.
Hence, the example cannot satisfy the licensing configuration of N¢-ellipsis in (17a).
This is illustrated in (24b). Thus, N¢-ellipsis in Japanese follows the general patternin (17).
The grammatical examples in (25) appear to be problematic for the analysis justpresented.
(25)a. [Kyoo no ondo]-wa [kinoo
no ondo]-yorimo takai
today no temperature-TOP yesterday no temperature-than high‘Today’s temperature is higher than yesterday’s.’b. [Kyoo no Bagudaddo no bakugeki]-wa
today no Baghdad
no bombing -TOP[kinoono Bagudaddo no bakugeki]-yorimo nagaku tuduita
yesterday no Baghdad no bombing -than longcontinued‘Today’s bombing of Baghdad continued longer than yesterday’s.’123

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255

If kinoo ‘yesterday’ in these examples is an adjunct, it should not be able to move to
DP Spec, and hence the N¢-ellipsis should be illicit. However, the following English
examples show that temporal and locative phrases can appear in DP Spec:(26)a. yesterday’s temperatureb. last year’s protest against war
c. Taipei’s weather
Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases can be base-generated in
the Spec position as ‘‘extended possessors’’ at least when the head noun is concrete.
We assume here that those phrases, generally, can be merged directly at DP Spec.6(25a–b), then, are correctly predicted to be grammatical.
The analysis of N¢-ellipsis discussed above has implications for the status of noand numerals within Japansese noun phrases. Let us first consider the distribution of
no. According to the analysis presented, ame ‘rain’ in (13a), repeated below as (27),cannot move to DP Spec because it is an adjunct, and this is the reason why
N¢-ellipsis is illicit in (22a).
(27)

ame no hi
rain no day‘rainy day’But (27) is grammatical as it is. Thus, ame must be able to appear within NP(as opposed to DP), accompanied by no. It follows that no-marked phrases are notnecessarily in DP Spec and that no serves as a ‘‘modifying marker’’ within NP.
That is, Kitagawa and Ross’s (1982) Mod-Insertion rule correctly accounts for the
distribution of no.7 Note that (25b) provides an additional piece of evidence that nois inserted within NP as a contextual Case marker. In this example, the temporalphrase kinoo ‘yesterday’ is in DP Spec and licenses N¢-ellipsis. On the other hand,the object Bagudaddo ‘Baghdad’ remains within NP and is elided with the headnoun. The structure of this DP is shown in (28b), together with its antecedent for
deletion in (28a).
(28)a. [DP kyoo no [NP Bagudaddo no bakugeki]]

today noBaghdadno bombingb. [DP kinoo
no [NP Bagudaddo no bakugeki]]yesterday no
Baghdad no bombing

6

A piece of evidence for this is presented in Sect. 3.2 below.

7

Or the revised formulation of the rule in Fn 1. If possessors as in (2a), repeated below in (i), andtemporal and locative phrases are merged directly at DP Spec as suggested in the text, no-insertion should
apply in the projections of D as well as N, as proposed in Saito and Murasugi (1990).
(i)

Haruki no kuruma
no car‘Haruki’s car’

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This clearly indicates that an object with no need not be in DP Spec but can bewithin NP.
Second, the ungrammaticality of (22b), repeated in (29), suggests that numerals
are adjuncts within Japanese noun phrases.
(29)*Taroo-wa iti -niti-ni [san -satu no hon] -oyomu ga,-TOP one-day-in three-CL no book-ACC read though
Hanako-wa [go -satu no hon] -oyomu-TOP five-CL no book-ACC read
‘Taroo reads three books in a day, but Hanako reads five.’

If go-satu ‘five-CL’ is in DP Spec or QP Spec, N¢-ellipsis should be allowed exactly
as in the English (19), repeated in (30).
(30)

John bought [QP three [NP books]], and Mary bought [QP five [NP books]](29), then, shows that numeral + classifier + no is not in a Spec position. On theother hand, if it is an adjunct and is adjoined to a projection of N, (29) is correctlypredicted to be ungrammatical. Like ame ‘rain’ in (22a), it cannot move to a Spec
position, and hence (29) fails to meet the licensing condition on ellipsis. Thus, thecontrast between (29) and (30) indicates that numerals occupy different positions inJapanese and English.
We have shown in this section that Japanese follows the general conditions on
A-movement and ellipsis. Its language-specific properties include the no-insertion
rule, which determines the distribution of no as a contextual Case marker. Anotherrelated peculiarity of the language is that numeral + classifier is licensed by no as
an adjunct to a projection of N. These properties of Japanese are responsible for thepattern of N¢-ellipsis it exhibits. In the following subsection, we turn to the Chinese
de and argue that it is quite unlike no and is a D.
3.2 De as the head of DP
Simpson (2003) proposes that de is D in his pursuit of the antisymmetry analysis ofChinese relative clauses. In this section, we present two pieces of direct evidence forthis proposal.
First, recall that de, unlike Japanese no, can never follow a nominal adjunct.
The relevant examples in (14) are repeated below in (31).
(31)a. *yu

de tianrain de day‘rainy day’b. *xuesheng de ren
student de person‘a person who is a student’123N¢-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases

257This fact follows directly if de is D and the phrases that precede de are in DP Spec.
It was shown in the discussion of Japanese N¢-ellipsis that adjuncts, as opposed toarguments, cannot move to the DP Spec position. Thus, (31a–b) are excluded by theillicit movement of yu ‘rain’ and xuesheng ‘student’ to DP Spec.
Secondly, both Chinese and Japanese allow multiple de/no phrases within asingle nominal projection, as shown in (32) and (33), but the two languages exhibit adifference here as well.
(32)

Chinesea. Zhangsan de Chiaomusiji de shu
de Chomsky
de book‘Zhangsan’s book by Chomsky’
b. qu-nien liu-yue de xuesheng de kangyi
last-year Junede student de protest‘last June’s protest by the students’(33)Japanesea. Taroo no Tyomusukii no honno Chomsky
no book‘Taroo’s book by Chomsky’
b. kyonen roku-gatu no gakusei no koogi
last-year Juneno student no protest‘last June’s protest by the students’

In Japanese, two arguments can appear with no. The subject and the object are both
followed by no in (34).
(34)

yabanzin no Rooma no hakaibarbarian no Rome no destruction‘the barbarians’ destruction of Rome’On the other hand, Chinese does not allow multiple arguments with de. (35a–b) are
grammatical, but the Chinese counterpart of (34) in (36a) as well as its variant in(36b) are not.
(35)a.

b.

(36)a.

b.

Luoma de huimie
Rome de destruction‘Rome’s destruction’manzu
de huimie
barbarian de destruction‘the barbarians’ destruction’*manzude Luoma de huimie
barbarian de Rome de destruction‘the barbarians’ destruction of Rome’*Luoma de manzu
de huimie
Rome de barbarian de destruction‘Rome’s destruction by the barbarians’

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The Japanese pattern in (34) is expected given our discussion in the preceding
section. Since no is a contextual Case marker, it can be inserted after the subject andthe object, as in (37).8
NP

(37)

N′

yabanzin no
Rooma noNhakai

So why are the Chinese (36a–b) ungrammatical? Again, the hypothesis that de is D
readily provides an explanation. Given this hypothesis, those examples are derived
as in (38).
(38)

DP
D′
DP

D

de

D′

DP1
D

NP

de
DP2

The movement of DP2 to the higher DP Spec necessarily takes place across thelower DP Spec occupied by DP1. The movement violates minimality, and (36a–b)
fail to be generated.
Note that (32a–b) are predicted to be grammatical as long as Chinese allows DP
recursion. We assumed above in the discussion of Japanese N¢-ellipsis that possessors as well as temporals and locatives can be directly merged at DP Spec. Given
this, qu-nien liu-yue ‘June, last year’ in (32b), for example, can be merged at the8

The subject may then move to DP Spec because it is an argument. This is confirmed by the following
example of N¢-ellipsis:no hihan] -yorimo(i) [Gakusei no seihu
no hihan] -wa [kyooin no seihu
student no government no criticism-TOP faculty no government no criticism-thankibisii
severe‘The students’ criticism of the government is more severe than the professors’.’123N¢-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases

259

higher DP Spec without violating any constraint on movement. Thus, the contrast
between (32a–b) and (36a–b) is correctly captured.
We have shown so far that the analysis of de as D enables us to explain two
differences between Chinese and Japanese; one concerns adjuncts, and the otherconcerns multiple arguments. The analysis is also consistent with the data on
N¢-ellipsis in Chinese. If de is D and the phrase preceding de is in DP Spec, wepredict that the material following de can always be elided. This is so because theconfiguration for N¢-ellipsis in (17a) is satisfied. The prediction is borne out by thefollowing examples:(39)a. [Zhangsan de che] bi[Lisi de che] geng guide car comparede car more expensive‘Zhangsan’s car is more expensive than Lisi’s.’b. [Luoma de huimie]bi[Bali de huimie]
geng canlie
Rome de destruction compare Paris de destruction more disastrous‘Rome’s destruction was more disastrous than Paris’s.’c. [Taipei de jiaotung] bi[Dongjing de jiaotung] geng luande traffic
compare Tokiode traffic
more messy‘Taipei’s traffic is worse than Tokyo’s.’

There are two more differences between de and no to be accounted for. One isthat only the former appears after relative clauses. This is taken up in the following
subsection. The other is that no is required but de is disallowed after numerals. The
relevant examples in (11) and (12) are repeated in (40) and (41).
(40)

Chinesesan -ben (*de) shu
three-CLde book‘three books’(41)Japanesesan -satu *(no) hon
three-CLno book‘three books’

We examine this difference in the remainder of this subsection.
Again, the Japanese pattern is correctly predicted by Kitagawa and Ross’s (1982)
Mod-Insertion rule. The case to be accounted for is the absence of de in (40). It is astandard assumption by now in the literature on Chinese noun phrases that a classifier heads its own projection and takes an NP complement, as in (42).
(42)

CLP
CL′
CL

NP

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The hypothesis was proposed by Tang (1990), and supporting arguments areprovided by Cheng and Sybesma (1999) and Li (1999), among others. The absenceof de in (40) in fact constitutes a straightforward piece of evidence for thishypothesis. San-ben ‘three-CL’ cannot be in DP Spec since if it were, it should be
followed by the D head de. On the other hand, if a classifier is an independent head
within DP, we correctly predict the absence of de.
There are two possibilities for the position of the numeral san ‘three’. Cheng andSybesma (1999) hypothesize that the numeral is also a head. The structure of (40) isthen as in (43), where Num stands for Number.
(43)

NumP
Num′
Num

CLP

san

CL′
CL

NP

ben

shu

An alternative would be to place the numeral in the Spec position of CLP, as in (44).
CLP

(44)

CL′

san
CL

NP

ben

shu

Under either analysis, the numeral and the classifier do not form a constituent. And
there is indirect evidence that this aspect of the analysis is in fact correct. Note firstthat san-satu ‘three-CL’ in the Japanese (41) is an adjunct to the noun hon ‘book’
and hence is a constituent. It is then not surprising that it can appear independently
in a position not adjacent to the noun, as shown in (45b).9(45)a. Taroo-wa

san -satu no hon -okatta-TOP three-CL no book-ACC bought‘Taroo bought three books.’b. San -satu, Taroo-wa hon -okatta
three-CL-TOP book-ACC bought

There is no parallel phenomenon in Chinese, as the total ungrammaticality of (46b)indicates.
9

This is the widely discussed ‘‘quantifier float’’ phenomenon in Japanese. See, for example, Miyagawa(1989) and Kawashima (1998) for detailed discussion of the relevant facts. The former argues that‘‘floating quantifiers’’ are secondary predicates and are licensed by predication.

123

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261(46)a.

Zhangsan mai-lesan -ben shu
buy-PERF three-CL book
‘Zhangsan bought three books.’b. *San -ben, Zhangsan mai-leshu
three-CL
buy-PERF book

This is what we expect given the structures in (43) and (44). Since the numeral andthe classifier do not form a constituent, they cannot be ‘‘displaced.’’Ellipsis provides suggestive data that distinguish between (43) and (44). Recall
the account for the English (19), repeated below as (47).
(47)

John bought [QP three [NP books]], and Mary bought [QP five [NP books]]

We suggested above that this example satisfies the context for ellipsis, as in (48).
(48)

QP
five

Q′
Q

NP
books

Q is a functional head, and its complement can be elided when its Spec positionis filled. And we argued in Sect. 3.1 that the Japanese counterpart of (47) isungrammatical because numeral + no in Japanese is an adjunct and consequently cannot occupy a Spec position. The exact Japanese counterpart of (47) isshown in (49).
(49)*Taroo-wa [san -satu no hon] -okatta ga,
Hanako-wa-TOP three-CL no book-ACC bought though-TOP[go -satu no hon] -okatta
five-CL no book-ACC bought‘Taroo bought three books, but Hanako bought five.’

Interestingly, Chinese patterns with English in this respect. The Chinese counterpart of (47) is grammatical.
(50)

Suiran Zhangsan mai-le[san -ben shu], dan Lisi mai-lethoughbuy-PERF three-CL book but
buy-PERF[wu -ben shu]five-CL book
‘Zhangsan bought three books, but Lisi bought five.’

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This is straightforwardly explained with the structure in (44). CL is the relevant
functional category, and its complement NP can be elided because the numeral
occupies the Spec position. We tentatively conclude then that the Chinese nounphrase structure is as in (51).10(51)a. Zhangsan de san -ben shu

de three-CL book
‘Zhangsan’s three books’
b.

DP

(51)

D′

Zhangsan
D
de

CLP
CL ′

san
CL

NP

ben

shu

3.3 Remarks on the structures of relative clauses
In this subsection, we discuss the last difference in the distributions of de and no:
the former appears after relative clauses, but the latter does not. The relevant
examples in (8) and (9) are repeated below in (52) and (53).
(52)

Chinese[wo zuotian kanjian] *(de) ren
I yesterday seede person‘the person I saw yesterday’(53)

Japanese[watasi-ga
kinoomita] (*no) hito
I
-NOM yesterday saw
no person‘the person I saw yesterday’

10
The conclusion is tentative because there are other possible structures that can accommodate theellipsis data. For example, we could maintain the number projection with a null head and place thenumeral in its Spec position, as in (i).

(i)

[NumP san [Num [Num e] [CLP [CL ben] [NP shu]]]]Then, if CL adjoins to Num, the ellipsis can be analyzed as deletion of CLP within the Num projection.
(i) is basically the structure Li (1999) proposes; she places the numeral in NumP Spec and reserves theNum head position for the plural marker -men. In addition, it is, as far as we can tell, consistent with theproposal in Cheng and Sybesma (1999) to account for the distribution of indefinite noun phrases in termsof the licensing of null Num heads.

123N¢-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases

263

We first argue that relative clauses in Chinese are in DP Spec and hence that theoccurrence of de in (52) is indeed expected. Then, we briefly review Simpson’s(2003) antisymmetry analysis of Chinese relatives, which yields the desired structure. Finally, we note some loose ends in the analysis that need to be tightened.
Let us briefly discuss the Japanese (53) before we start the examination of Chinese
relative clauses. As noted in Sect. 2, no is inserted only after a [-tense] constituent.
This is reflected in the Mod-Insertion rule for Japanese stated in Fn 1. Although thisis a stipulation, it straightforwardly accounts for the absence of no after relative
clauses. Furthermore, relative clauses are adjuncts according to the traditional
analysis. The analysis works well for Japanese. Adjuncts cannot move to DP Spec as
we have seen repeatedly, and this indeed seems to be the case with Japanese relative
clauses. Let us consider the following illicit example of N¢-ellipsis:(54)*[[Taroo-ga
kinoooatta] hito] -wa yasasii ga,-NOM yesterday saw person-TOP kind though[[Hanako-ga
kinooatta] hito] -wa kowai-NOM yesterday saw person-TOP scary‘The person Taroo saw yesterday is kind, but the person Hanako saw
yesterday is scary.’

The relative clause Hanako-ga kinoo atta ‘Hanako saw yesterday’, being an
adjunct, cannot move to DP Spec, and hence this example fails to satisfy thecondition for N¢-ellipsis.
The situation in Chinese is more complex and interesting. If Chinese relative
clauses are also adjuncts, they cannot move to DP Spec. But since they are followed
by de, they must be in DP Spec if de is D as we argued. Thus, we have an apparent
contradiction. Let us sort out this problem by first examining whether Chinese
relative clauses are in DP Spec or not.
If Chinese relative clauses are in DP Spec, then the Chinese counterpart of (54)should be grammatical. This is so since the example would satisfy the condition forN¢-ellipsis, as illustrated in (55).
DP

(55)

D′

Rel. Clause
D

NP

de

And this prediction is indeed borne out by (56).
(56)[[Wo zuotian kanjian] de nanhai] bi [[ni zuotian kanjian]
I yesterday see
de boythan you yesterday see
de nanhai] geng youqian
de boymore rich‘The boy I saw yesterday is richer than the boy you saw yesterday.’

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Thus, we have good evidence that Chinese relative clauses are in DP Spec. Relative
clauses after all do not pose a problem for our analysis of de as D.
The remaining question is how those relative clauses come to occupy the DP
Spec position. Here Simpson’s (2003) antisymmetry analysis readily provides ananswer. Kayne (1994) proposes a uniform base for N-initial and N-final relative
clauses. According to his theory, the English (N-initial) example in (57a) is derived
as in (57b).
(57)a. the book that John bought yesterdayb. [DP [D the] [CP booki [C’ [C that] [TP John bought ti yesterday]]]]A relative clause has a D-CP structure, and the head noun directly moves into CP
Spec. N-final relatives are derived with one more step. That is, the TP moves into
DP Spec, as illustrated in (58).
(58)[DP [TP John bought ti yesterday]j [D the] [CP booki [C¢ C tj]]]

Simpson (2003) argues that this is the correct way to analyze relative clauses
in Chinese, based on the assumption that de is D. The structure of (52) is then asin (59).
DP

(59)

D′

TPj
D

CP

wo zuotian kanjian ti

C′de reniCtj

As far as we can see, this analysis still needs some refinements. First, an issue
could arise with respect to the unbound trace ti in (59). Furthermore, the movementof TP to DP Spec apparently violates minimality. However, we believe that there
are ways to approach these problems that are not implausible. For example, it ispossible that the relative head is directly merged at CP Spec and binds pro in therelative clause.11 For the minimality problem, it is suggested in Lin et al. (2001) thatde originates in C and moves to D, making CP Spec and DP Spec ‘‘equidistant’’ for
TP in the sense of Chomsky (1993). This suggestion is based on Hsieh’s (1998)
proposal that there is a homophone de which appears as C in cleft sentences andalso in simple sentences such as (60).12

11

See Murasugi (2000) for much relevant discussion on this possible analysis.

12

If Chinese is consistently head-initial, the TP in (60) must have raised from the complement positionof de to a higher Spec position.

123

N¢-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases

(60)

265

Laowang yinggai qu Taipei deshould gode‘Laowang should go to Taipei’

In this example, de simply stands for mood that has the connotation of affirmation.
Although the role of ‘‘equidistance’’ in derivations is far from clear at this point, as
noted in Chomsky (1995), it may still be possible to solve the problem by refining
the formulation of minimality.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to pursue a precise analysis of Chinese
relative clauses. But we have argued that they are indeed in DP Spec, and we hopeto have shown that Simpson’s (2003) antisymmetry analysis is a promising possibility for the explanation of this fact. On the other hand, the comparison of Chineseand Japanese suggests that Kayne’s theory of N-final relatives cannot be maintained
for the latter. The theory places TP in DP Spec, as illustrated in (58), and this isexactly what we want for Chinese. In this language, N¢-ellipsis can strand a relative
clause, as in (56). If Japanese relative clauses, being also N-final, are derived in thesame way, we would expect the language to exhibit the same pattern as Chinese.
But (54) shows that this is not the case. Our discussion thus suggests that thetraditional head-final analysis should be maintained for Japanese.13

4 Concluding remarks
We have argued that noun phrases in Chinese and Japanese are quite different intheir internal structures. Although de and no appear to have similar distributions, wehave shown that only the latter is a modifying marker in the sense of Kitagawa andRoss (1982), presenting evidence that the former is D. Both Chinese and Japaneseare known to be classifier languages. But we have argued that a classifier in Chinese
occupies a head position in the nominal structure while numeral + classifier inJapanese is an adjunct. Finally, relative clauses are in DP Spec in Chinese and are
adjuncts in Japanese. Most of our arguments were based on the distributions of deand no and the patterns of N¢-ellipsis the two languages exhibit.
Our proposal can be made clearer by contrasting it with an alternative proposedin the literature. Before we conclude this paper, we would like to briefly consider
Watanabe’s (2006) analysis of Japanese. We start with the discussion of Simpson’s(2005) analysis of Thai because it employs massive movements similar to the ones
used by Watanabe.
Simpson first postulates the structure in (61b) for the Chinese (61a), assumingthat a demonstrative is D.

13
The straightforward conclusion that is drawn from this is that the head-parameter is an indispensable
part of UG (Universal Grammar; see Chomsky (1965, 1981, 1995)). Another possibility, if we maintain
Kayne’s theory, is that Japanese relative clauses are not relative clauses. This is pursued in Murasugi(2000), where it is suggested that Japanese relative clauses are pure complex NPs and hence, are adjoined
to a projection of N instead of having the structure in (58).

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(61)

Chinesea. zhe san zuo da fangzi
this three CL big house‘these three big houses’

(62)

b.

DP
D

NumP

this

CLP

Num
three

CL

NP

big house

Then he argues that the Thai example in (62) has an identical base structure.
(62)

Thai
baan yai saam lang nii
house big three CL thisThe word order in (62) is different from the Chinese (61). As Thai noun phrases are
assumed to be head-final, it is tempting to assign the following structure to theexample:
DP

(63)

D

CLP
NumP
NP

CL

this

Num
three

house big

However, Simpson points out that the dominance relation between CLP and NumPin (63) is inappropriate. The classifier should classify not ‘three big houses’ but just‘big houses’. To put it differently, the NP should first be individuated by theclassifier and then be assigned a number. Hence the NumP should dominate
the CLP.
Given this, Simpson assigns the same base structure to the Thai (62) as the
Chinese (61) and proposes to derive the surface order by movement. That is, starting123N¢-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases

267

from (61b), the NP moves to NumP Spec, and then the NumP moves into DP Spec.
This yields the surface word order in (62), as illustrated in (64).
(64)

DP
D′
D
this

NumP
Num′
Num

CLP

three CLNP

house big

Simpson thus accounts for the word order variation with a uniform base structureand extensive movement.
Watanabe (2006), on the other hand, is concerned mainly with word ordervariation internal to Japanese. As shown in (65), a numeral modifying an argument
can appear in various positions within a sentence.
(65)a. Taroo-wa

hon san -satu-o
katta-TOP book three-CL -ACC bought‘Taroo bought three books.’b. Taroo-wa san -satu no hon -okatta-TOP three-CL no book-ACC boughtc. Taroo-wa hon -osan -satu katta-TOP book-ACC three-CL bought(65b) is what we have been dealing with, and (65c) is an instance of ‘‘quantifier
float’’ alluded to in Fn 9. (45b), repeated below as (66), is derived from (65c) by
scrambling san-satu ‘three-CL’ to the sentence-initial position.
(66)

San -satu, Taroo-wa hon -okatta
three-CL-TOP book-ACC bought‘Taroo bought three books.’

In addition, numeral + classifier can be preceded by the associate noun and befollowed by a Case marker, as in (65a). Watanabe proposes to derive all three word
orders from a uniform base, as in (67).

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M. Saito et al.

DP

(67)

D′
QP

D
Q′

CaseP

Q

Case′
#P

Case
′

sa

o

NP

#

hon

satu

(65a) is derived when the NP moves to CaseP Spec. Next, (65b) obtains with further
movement of #P to QP Spec. Finally, when CaseP moves to DP Spec, we have theword order in (65c).
Watanabe’s analysis not only relates the three possible word orders in Japanese
but also raises the possibility that noun phrase structure is uniform across languages. Although (67) is different from the structure Simpson posits for Chineseand Thai, the similarity is striking. The analysis, however, does not seem compatible with the data discussed in this paper. Aside from the fact that it is unclear
how the distribution of no is to be acounted for, we would predict that all sorts ofellipsis are possible with the massive movements to Spec positions in (67). For
example, the derivation of (65b) places #P in the Spec position of Q, and thisshould license the deletion of the complement CaseP, which contains only hon(-o)‘book(-ACC)’. But we have seen that this kind of ellipsis is impossible inJapanese, in contrast with English and Chinese. A relevant example in (49) is
repeated below in (68).
(68)*Taroo-wa [san -satu no hon] -okatta ga, Hanako-wa-TOP three-CL no book-ACC bought though-TOP[go -satu no hon](-o)
kattafive-CL no book -ACC bought‘Taroo bought three books, but Hanako bought five.’123N¢-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases269

Our analysis implies that the universality in noun phrase structure is observed at amore abstract level.14 For example, classifiers are available in human language andare employed in Chinese and Japanese. They can be combined with NPs in two
distinct ways: classifiers phrases can serve as adjuncts to NPs, as in (69a), orclassifiers can take NPs as their complements, as in (69b).
(69)

a.

b.

NP
CLP
numeral

CLP
CL′numeral

NP

CL

CL

NP

Japanese employs the former option. This is possible in part because the language
has the Mod-Insertion rule that licenses classifier phrases as nominal adjuncts with
no. We suspect that the latter option is not available in Japanese because a classifier
has to cliticize to the associated numeral. Since the language is head-final, theintervening NP would block the cliticization, as illustrated in (70).
CLP

(70)

CL′

numeralNP

CLThis line of reasoning predicts that if a language is head-final and its classifiers areclitics on numerals, then numeral + classifier must be employed as adjuncts.
The situation in Chinese is quite different. First, since Chinese is head-initial, thenumeral and the classifier are adjacent even if the latter takes an NP complement, as
can be seen in (69b). Hence, a classifier can take an NP complement even if it has to14

Unlike Watanabe (2006), we do not have a concrete proposal for the analysis of (65a). One complication is that there is significant difference in meaning between the forms in (65a) and (65b), as
discussed in detail in Toyama (2008). Thus, (ia) and (ib) contrast in grammaticality.
(i)a.

gurando sanzyus-syuu (no tokkun)
fieldthirty -CL no special training‘(a special training of) thirty rounds of the field’

b. *sanzyus-syuu no gurando (no tokkun)
thirty-CL no fieldno special training

Similarly, the underlined part of (iia) means ‘100 pages of a book’ while that of (iib) refers to ‘a book of
100 pages’.
yonda(ii)a. Taroo-wa hon hyaku-peezi-o-TOP book 100 -page -ACC read
‘Taroo read 100 pages of a book’
b. Taroo-wa hyaku-peezi no hon -o-TOP 100yonda-page no book-ACC read

‘Taroo read a book that is 100 pages long’
See also Okutsu (1984) for detailed discussion on the interpretations of the three forms in (65).

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cliticize to the numeral. Furthermore, we have seen that the language does not allow
nominal adjuncts within a projection of N. We speculate that this is because thoseelements require a licenser like no in Japanese. That is, since Chinese lacks Modinsertion, there is no way to license nominal adjuncts within NPs. If the classifierphrase in (69a), being a nominal adjunct, requires a licenser, we have an account forwhy (69a) is impossible in Chinese and (69b) is the only option for this language.
According to our analysis, Chinese and Japanese employ similar morphemes, butthey combine them in different ways. The possible ways to construct noun phrases
with those morphemes depend not only on universal principles but also on the value
for the head parameter and the presence/absence of licensing mechanism fornominal adjuncts. This, we argued, is the source of the variation observed between
Chinese and Japanese.
Acknowledgements A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 10th Annual Meetingof the International Association of Chinese Linguistics (IACL), which was held in conjunction with the13th Annual North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL) at the University ofCalifornia, Irvine, on June 22–24, 2001. The current version was presented in syntax seminars at MIT(2005 LSA Summer Institute) and the University of Connecticut, in workshops at Nanzan University andNational Tsing Hua University, and at the International Conference on East Asian Linguistics held at the
University of Toronto on November 10–12, 2006. We would like to thank the audiences at those places,
especially Jonathan Bobaljik, I-Ta Chris Hsieh, and C.-T. James Huang, for comments and suggestions.
Thanks are also due to Edith Aldridge, Manami Hirayama, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpfulcomments on the pre-final version of this paper, and to Christine Kamprath for her thorough copyediting
work.

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