The 13th Generative Linguistics in the Old World in Asia (GLOWin Asia XIII) 2022 Online Special
Dates: August 4-7, 2022
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Keynote Speakers- Main Session:Željko Bošković (University of Connecticut)
Ayesha Kidwai (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Caterina Donati (UniversitéParis Cité)
Rajesh Bhatt (University of Massachusetts Amherst)- Workshop: Workspace, MERGE, and Labelling
Mamoru Saito (Notre Dame Seishin University)

Hosted by
Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

With the support of Faculty of Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

GLOW in Asia XIII Organizing Committee
Victor Junnan Pan
Yuqiao Du
Zhuo Chen
Xiangyu Li
Zetao Xu
Acknowledgement
This conference could not have been possible without the participation and assistance of somany people, especially our anonymous reviewers, whose names may not all be enumerated
here. Their contributions are sincerely appreciated and gratefully acknowledged. Also, theorganizers of GLOW in Asia XIII would like to express our special gratitude to the session
chairs (not in any particular order): Masao Ochi (Osaka University), Dongwoo Park (Korea
National Open University), Niina Ning Zhang (National Chung Cheng University), Thomas
Hun-tak Lee (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Michael Barrie (Sogang University), Jong
Un Park (Hansung University), Jen Ting (National Taiwan Normal University), Hedde
Zeijlstra (Georg August University in Göttingen), Sze Wing Tang (Chinese University ofHong Kong), Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai (National Tsing Hua University), Duk-Ho An (Konkuk
University), Daeho Chung (Hanyang University), Yosuke Sato (Tsuda University), SunWoong Kim (Kwangwoon University), Myung-Kwan Park (Dongguk University), Hee-Don
Ahn (Konkuk University), Nobu Goto (Toyo University), Hideki Kishimoto (Kobe
University).
Finally, we would like to give our heartful thanks to the following colleagues: Prof. Mamoru
Saito from the University of Notre Dame, Prof. Anoop Mahajan from University ofCalifornia Los Angeles, Prof. Željko Bošković from the University of Connecticut, Prof.
Myungkwan Park from Dongguk University, and Prof. Michael Barrie from Sogang
University; The conference would not have enjoyed such a smooth progress without theiraltruistic contributions with the organization.

Proceedings of the 13th Generative Linguistics in the Old
World in Asia (GLOW in Asia XIII) 2022 Online Special

First published in 2022
Published by Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

PREFACE
This volume contains regular talks and flash-talks presented at the 13th Generative
Linguistics in the Old World in Asia (GLOW in Asia XIII) 2022 Online Special, Hong
Kong, on August 4-7, 2022.
Following the successful hosting of GLOW in Asia VI at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong in 2007, we are once again honored to host GLOW in Asia XIII. Although theconference had to opt for an online mode due to the pandemic crisis, we received asubstantial number of abstracts from all over the world. A total of 23 regular and 15
flash-talk presentations were selected and presented during the three-day Main Sessionof the conference, and 9 regular talks were delivered during the Workshop on Workspace,
MERGE and Labeling. All of the talks represented most up-to-date research findings ina wide range of subfields in generative linguistics.
We were privileged to have five distinguished scholars to present their research as the
keynote speeches (in presentation orders): Željko Bošković (University of Connecticut),Ayesha Kidwai (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Caterina Donati (UniversitéParis Cité),Rajesh Bhatt (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Mamoru Saito (Notre Dame Seishin
University).
The conference drew over 400 participants and we had excellent discussions throughout
the four days. We thank the Chinese University of Hong Kong for their generous funding;we would also like to thank Prof. Mamoru Saito from the University of Notre Dame, Prof.
Anoop Mahajan from University of California Los Angeles, Prof. Željko Bošković fromthe University of Connecticut, Prof. Myungkwan Park from Dongguk University, andProf. Michael Barrie from Sogang University, as well as other GLOW executive members
for sharing their expertise and assisting the organization GLOW in Asia XIII. Finally, we
express our deepest gratitude to the abstract reviewers who have contributed to theoverall quality of the conference.

The GLOW in Asia XIII Organizing Committee
Chair: Victor Junnan Pan
Members: Yuqiao Du
Zhuo Chen
Xiangyu Li
Zetao Xu

Contents
1.ON THE LOCALITY OF A-SCRAMBLING IN JAPANESE

Akihiko Arano ................................................................................................................................. 1
2.TWO DIMENSIONS OF AUSTRONESIAN VOICE
Edith Aldridge .............................................................................................................................. 17
3.DERIVING PERSON-BASED DIFFERENTIAL ARGUMENT MARKING IN IK
Penelope Danial .......................................................................................................................... 33
4.AUTO-CLASSIFIERS IN THAI: A POST-SYNTACTIC REDUPLICATION ACCOUNT
Éva Dékány .................................................................................................................................. 48
5.HYPER-RAISING AND THE SUBJECT POSITION IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE
Tarcisio Dias ................................................................................................................................ 59
6.PSEUDO-INCORPORATION VS. DIFFERENTIAL ARGUMENT MARKING IN
KOREAN
Imke Driemel and Hyunjung Lee ................................................................................................ 75
7.DISSOLVING MATCHING
Shrayana Haldar ......................................................................................................................... 91
8.ACCESSIBILITY ON RECONSTRUCTION: JAPANESE HEAD-EXTERNAL RELATIVE
CLAUSES BY FORM COPY
Norimasa Hayashi ..................................................................................................................... 106
9.THE GLOBAL LICENSING OF JAPANESE EXPLETIVE NEGATION
Shun Ihara .................................................................................................................................. 117
10.ASPECT IN HINDI-URDU AND TRANSITION BETWEEN SYNTACTIC DOMAINS
Gurmeet Kaur and Julie Goncharov ........................................................................................ 133
11.ASYMMETRY IN POSSESSOR-AGREEMENT IN MAITHILI
Preeti Kumari and Pritha Chandra .......................................................................................... 149

12.PROCESSING OF HONORIFIC AGREEMENT IN KOREAN
So Young Lee and Myung Hye Yoo .......................................................................................... 164
13.ARGUMENT ELLIPSIS AS TOPIC-MARKING AND A′-MOVEMENT IN JAPANESE
Masako Maeda ........................................................................................................................... 172
14.DERIVING THE CLITIC STRING BY SEQUENCE FORMATIONMaria Rita Manzini and Diego Pescarini ................................................................................ 186
15.THE CATEGORIAL STATUS OF EMBEDDED QUESTIONS IN JAPANESE
Norio Nasu, Takayuki Akimoto, Koji Shimamura and Yusuke Yoda ...................................... 197
16.LIGHT NOUNS AND EXTRACTION FROM NULL CLAUSAL ARGUMENTS
Shuki Otani and Yuta Tatsumi .................................................................................................. 211
17.DERIVING WORDHOOD WITHOUT WORD: WH-COMPOUND QUESTIONS IN
JAPANESE AND RENUMERATION
Yosuke Sato and Hisako Ikawa ................................................................................................. 225
18.NONRESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES AS A LIMITING CASE OF CP SEQUENCES
Yohei Takahashi......................................................................................................................... 242
19.VARIETIES OF TOUGH-CONSTRUCTIONS AND FORMCOPY
Kensuke Takita, Masako Maeda and Taichi Nakamura ......................................................... 257
20.DEFINITE EXPRESSIONS FOR TENSES: MORE ANALOGY BETWEEN PRONOUNSAND TENSES
Yusuke Yagi ................................................................................................................................ 270
21.MANDARIN BRIDGING: EXPERIMENTAL DATA AND THEORETICALIMPLICATIONS
Ziling Zhu and Dorothy Ahn ..................................................................................................... 279

Arano, Akihiko

On the locality of A-scrambling in Japanese*
Akihiko Arano
University of Connecticut

1. Introduction
Extending Mahajan's (1990) work on Hindi scrambling, Saito (1992) and Tada (1993) argue
that the notion of clause boundary plays a crucial role in the A-/A'-distinction of scrambling inJapanese. Specifically, they claim that clause-internal scrambling can be A-movement,
whereas long-distance scrambling (i.e., scrambling out of a clause) is necessarily A'-movement.
This asymmetry between clause-internal scrambling and long-distance scrambling can beillustrated, for example, by licensing of bound variable readings. Consider (1) and (2).
(1) a. * Sokoi-no syain-ga
mittu-izyoo-no
kaisyai-o
it-GEN
employee-NOM three-or.more-GEN company-ACC''Theiri employees investigated three or more companiesi.''b. [Mittu-izyoo-no
kaisyai-o]1
sokoi-no syain-ga
three-or.more-GEN company-ACC it-GEN employee-NOM"[Three or more companies]1,i theiri employees investigated t1."
(Takano 2010: 84-85)

tyoosasita.
investigatedt1

tyoosasita.
investigated(2) a. * Sokoi-no sotugyoosei-ga [Ken-ga mittu-izyoo-no
daigakui-ni
syutugansita to]
it-GEN graduate-NOM Ken-NOM three-or.more-GEN university-DAT appliedComotta.
thought"Theiri graduates thought that Ken applied to three or more universitiesi."b. * [Mittu-izyoo-no
daigakui-ni]1
sokoi-no sotugyoosei-ga [Ken-ga t1 syutugansita to]three-or.more-GEN university-DAT it-GEN graduate-NOM Ken-NOM applied C
omotta.
thought"[To three or more universities]1,i theiri graduates thought that Ken applied t1."
In (1) and (2), there are pronouns soko within (matrix) subjects and they can potentially bebound by QP like 'three or more NPs' under the c-command relationship. (1) shows that theobject QP can bind them as a result of clause-internal scrambling. (2), on the other hand, showsthat long-distance scrambling cannot license the bound variable reading. This contrast in (1)and (2) suggests that clause-internal scrambling can be A-movement, which feeds a boundvariable reading, whereas long-distance scrambling has to be A'-movement.
This A-/A'-dichotomy regarding Japanese scrambling has been widely accepted but it hasoften been observed that there are certain exceptions to this generalization: it has been observedthat there are licit cases of long-distance A-scrambling (see Nemoto 1993, Takano 2010,
Yoshimoto 2012, Funakoshi 2015, Branan 2018). Based on these works, this paper aims to*

I would like to thank anonymous reviewers, audience at GLOW in Asia XIII and especially Željko Bošković fortheir comments and discussion. Any errors are, of course, my own.
1Arano, Akihikoestablish a new generalization regarding the locality of A-scrambling in Japanese. Specifically,
the paper argues for (3), a generalization regarding long-distance A-scrambling.
(3) XP can undergo long-distance A-scrambling above its next higher overt argument but no further.
The paper further suggests that the generalization in question holds not only in long-distancescrambling but also in clause-internal scrambling, that is, it holds for scrambling in general.
(4) XP can undergo A-scrambling above its next higher overt argument but no further.
(5) illustrates three abstract configurations relevant to the generalizations. In (5), Arg(ument)3 c-commands Arg-2, which in turn c-commands a trace of Arg-1, and Arg-1 has undergone
A-scrambling.
(5) a.

[Arg-1 Arg-2

tArg-1]b.

*[Arg-1 Arg-3

Arg-2

tArg-1]c.

[Arg-1 Arg-3

Arg-2

tArg-1](5a) shows that Arg-1 may undergo A-scrambling to cross Arg-2. This is licit since, for Arg-1,
its next higher overt argument from its base-position is Arg-2, which is expressed by a box.
The status of A-scrambling will be evidenced by showing that the scrambled Arg-1 can license
a bound variable reading for a pronoun inside Arg-2 (arrows express binding relations). (5b)shows that Arg-1 cannot undergo A-scrambling to cross Arg-3 (that is, the scrambled Arg-1
cannot bind into Arg-3), since its next higher overt argument is Arg-2. (5c) shows that if Arg2 is covert, which is shown by shading, the scrambled Arg-1 can bind into Arg-3 since, in (5c),the next higher overt argument for Arg-1 is Arg-3, given that Arg-2 is covert. I argue that thecovertness of Arg-2 can ensue by being PRO or pro.
I develop an analysis of A-scrambling to account for the generalization in (4). I argue thatthe patterns in (5a, b) can be accounted for by claiming that A-scrambling is subject tointervention effects caused by intervening arguments and that application of A-scramblingneeds motivations. It is also shown that the pattern in (5c), when combined with the account of(5a, b), can be subsumed under the generalization in Bošković (2011) that traces and elided
elements do not count as interveners.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we investigate scrambling outof control clauses and finite clauses. Based on Nemoto (1993), Takano (2010), and Yoshimoto(2012), it is shown that scrambling out of control clauses is subject to the generalization in (3).
I also present data from Funakoshi (2015) and show that scrambling out of finite clauses is also
subject to the generalization in (3). I also discuss long-distance scrambling of subjects to givea further support for the generalization. In Section 3, I discuss binding possibilities in Multiple
Subject Constructions to show that there is a reason to maintain (4). In Section 4, I present ananalysis of the generalization I advocate. Section 5 concludes.

2

Arano, Akihiko

2. Locality of long-distance A-scrambling
As reviewed in the introduction, the notion of clause-boundary plays a crucial role in the
traditional generalization on scrambling. It has, however, been observed that certain types ofcross-clausal scrambling shows A-properties. Nemoto (1993), Takano (2010), and Yoshimoto(2012) discuss such scrambling out of control clauses, and Funakoshi (2015) discusses such
scrambling out of finite clauses. In this section, I synthesize the observations made in theprevious literature and argue that the generalization in (3) holds for the locality of long-distanceA-scrambling. It is shown that all of the patterns in (5) are observed.
Before discussing cases of long-distance scrambling, I first show that the examples which
motivate the traditional generalization are subject to the generalization in (4). Hereafter, when
discussing scrambling in a particular configuration, I also show the abstract representation of
linguistic examples. Moved phrases are always QPs and do binding from their landing site. The
next higher overt argument of a moved phrase (from its base-position) is boxed and the binding
relation is expressed by arrows. (6) is the structure of (1b) and it shows that Obj crosses Subj
(its next higher overt argument) and Obj binds a pronoun inside Subj successfully, conforming
to the generalization in (4) (pattern (5a)):(6) Clause-internal scrambling[Obj1 Subj t1 V]

The case of long-distance scrambling ((2b)) is represented in (7), in which the object of theembedded clause undergoes long-distance scrambling. Since its next higher overt argument is
the subject of the embedded clause, the binding into the matrix subject fails (pattern (5b)).
(7) Scrambling out of finite clauses[Obj1 Subj [FIN Subj t1 V]V]

2.1 Scrambling out of control clauses
Nemoto (1993) is the first systematic study which investigates scrambling out of
nonfinite/control clauses in Japanese. Building on Mahajan's (1989) work on Hindi, Nemotoclaims that scrambling out of control clauses patterns with clause-internal scrambling, that is,scrambling out of control clauses is not regarded as long-distance scrambling. Takano (2010),
however, argues that facts are more complicated than Nemoto's claim. Takano shows thatscrambling out of control clauses sometimes shows A-properties, sometimes not.
Consider first the subject-control construction. Example (8) shows the scrambling out ofcontrol clauses involving subject-control, and the extracted object from the embedded clausecan bind into a matrix subject.
(8) [Mittu-izyoo-no
daigakui-ni]1
sokoi-nosotugyoosei-ga [PRO t1 syutugansi-yoo
three-or.more-GEN university-DAT that.place-GEN graduate-NOM
apply-willto] sita.
that did''[To three or more universities]1,i theiri graduates tried to apply t1.''
3

Arano, AkihikoThis fact is an instantiation of the pattern in (5c). Since the embedded subject is PRO andtherefore covert, the next higher overt argument of the embedded object is the matrix subject.
The scrambled object can thus bind into the matrix subject.
(9) Scrambling out of control clauses with subject-control predicates[Obj1 Subji [N.FIN PROi t1 V]V]Let us now turn to object-control constructions. Takano (2010) shows that there is anasymmetry between matrix subjects and matrix objects regarding binding into them. As (10)shows, when the object is scrambled out of control clauses, it can bind a pronoun inside amatrix object, but not a pronoun inside a matrix subject:(10) a. Binding into Subj?*[Mittu-izyoo-no daigakui-ni]1 sokoi-no sotugyoosei-ga Ken-ni [PRO t1 syutugansuru
three-or.more-GEN university-DAT it-GEN graduate-NOM Ken-DAT
apply
yoo(ni)] susumeta.
Crecommended''[To three or more universities]1,i theiri graduates recommended to Ken that he apply t1.''
b. Binding into Obj?[Mittu-izyoo-no
daigakui-ni]1 Ken-ga sokoi-no sotugyoosei-ni [ PRO t1 syutugansuru
three-or.more-GEN university-DAT Ken-NOM it-GEN graduate-DAT
apply
yoo(ni)] susumeta.
Crecommended'' [To three or more universities]1,i Ken recommended to theiri graduates that they apply t1.''(Takano 2010: 87, 88)
As Takano (2010) points out, this contrast shows that it is not the case that control clauses are
simply transparent for A-scrambling. If they were, both of the examples in (10) would be
acceptable. The contrast in question falls under the generalization I advocate. In the objectcontrol construction, there are a matrix object as well as a matrix subject. Therefore, the next
higher overt argument of the object in the embedded clause is a matrix object, and only thebinding into it is allowed.
(11) Scrambling out of control clauses with object-control predicates[Obj1 Subj Obji [N.FIN PROi t1 V]V][Obj1 Subj Obji [N.FIN PROi t1 V]V]Let us turn to the third type of control construction, a promise-type. It is a subject-control
construction with a matrix object. Structurally speaking, this construction has the samestructure as the object-control construction, and, as my generalization expects, they show thesame properties regarding binding. As Yoshimoto (2012) observes, the extracted object out of4

Arano, Akihikocontrol clauses can bind into a matrix object but not into a matrix subject:1,2(12) a. Binding into Subj?*[Mittu-izyoo-no
kaisyai-o]1
sokoi-no syain-ga
Ken-to [PRO t1
three-or.more-GEN company-ACC it-GEN employee-NOM Ken-withtyoosasuru to]yakusokusita.
investigate that promised''[Three or more companies]1,i theiri employees promised Ken to investigate t1.''
b. Binding into Obj[Mittu-izyoo-no
kaisyai-o]1
Ken-gasokoi-no syain-to[PRO t1
three-or.more-GEN company-ACC Ken-NOM it-GEN employee-withtyoosasuru to]yakusokusita.
investigate thatpromised''[Three or more companies]1,i Ken promised theiri employees to investigate t1.''(13) Scrambling out of control clauses with promise-type predicates[Obj1 Subji Obj [N.FIN PROi t1 V]V][Obj1 Subji Obj [N.FIN PROi t1 V]V]

To summarize so far, I have investigated the binding possibilities in the control
constructions in detail. What we found can be stated as in (14):(14) An XP can undergo long-distance A-scrambling out of control clauses above its next higher overt
argument but no further.
In the next section, we turn to cases of long-distance scrambling out of finite clauses. Drawing
on Funakoshi (2015), I argue that the same generalization holds in those cases as well. I alsopresent arguments from long-distance scrambling of subjects to support the generalization.
2.2 Scrambling out of finite clauses
As we have seen in (2b), long-distance A-scrambling is not allowed from an embedded clausewith an overt subject. Because of the presence of the embedded subject, the next higher overt
argument for the embedded object is the embedded subject. Funakoshi (2015) argues thatdifferent patterns emerge when subjects of embedded clauses are covert. Funakoshi also notesthat the presence or absence of matrix datives makes a difference here. Consider first caseswith a matrix dative argument. When there are a covert subject in the finite embedded clause
and a dative in the matrix clause, the matrix dative allows binding into it but the matrix subject
does not. This is shown in (15) (For concreteness, I represent empty arguments as pro):In the promise-type construction presented in (12), the matrix object is marked by -to 'with' (rather than by -ni'to'). This is what Fujii (2006) calls the comitative-marked "promise." He argues that this type of promise displays
the diagnostic properties of obligatory control.
2This pattern poses a problem to the generalization Takano proposes regarding scrambling out of control clauses.
His generalization is (i):(i)Scrambling out of a control clause makes variable binding possible only if the pronominal is contained in thecontroller.
In (12), the controller of PRO is the subject but only the binding into the matrix object is allowed.
1

5

Arano, Akihiko(15) a. Binding into Subj*[Mittu-izyoo-no
daigakuii-o]1
sokoii-no sotugyooseii-ga Keniii-ni [proi,iv (izure) t1
three-or.more-GEN university-ACC it-GEN graduate-NOM Ken-DAT
soon
tyoosasuru-tumori-da to]itta.
investigate-will-COP that said''[Three or more universities]1,i theiri graduates said to Ken that pro will investigate t1.''
b. Binding into Obj?[Mittu-izyoo-no
daigakuii-o]1
Ken-gasokoii-no sotugyooseii-ni [proi,iv (izure) t1
three-or.more-GEN university-ACC Ken-NOM it-GEN graduate-DAT
soon
tyoosasuru-tumori-da to] itta.
investigate-will-COP that said''[Three or more universities]1,i Ken said to theiri graduates that pro will investigate t1.''(Funakoshi 2015: 326, 379)
This pattern is illustrated in (16).
(16) Scrambling out of finite-clauses with matrix datives and covert embedded subjects[Obj1 Subji Obj [FIN pro t1 V]V][Obj1 Subji Obj [FIN pro t1 V]V](16) conforms to my generalization, and it is quite similar to what we have seen in the objectcontrol and promise-type constructions ((11) and (13)). In all of these cases, subjects in theembedded clauses are phonologically empty and the matrix dative is the next higher overt
argument of the embedded object.
Having looked at the cases with matrix datives, consider cases without them. The absenceof matrix datives and the covertness of embedded subjects make the matrix subject the next
higher overt argument of the embedded object. Thus, when the embedded object is scrambled
above the matrix subject, binding into it is possible:(17) ?[Mittu-izyoo-no
kaisyaii-ni]1[sokoii -no
raibaru-gaisya-no syaini]-ga
three-or.more-GEN company-DAT that.place-GEN rival-company-GEN employee-NOM[proi,iii (izure) t1 oobosuru-tumori-da to] omotteiru.
soon apply-will-COP
C think''[To three or more companies]1,i employees of theiri rival companies think that pro will apply t1.''(adapted from Funakoshi 2015: 328)
(18) Scrambling out of finite clauses with no matrix objects or overt embedded subjects[Obj1 Subj [FIN pro t1 V]V]Note that this is the same situation as we saw in the subject-control construction ((9)), if weabstract away from types of embedded clauses and embedded covert subjects.
Finally, as another kind of support for the generalization, I consider long-distancescrambling of subjects. Its structure is shown below:

6Arano, Akihiko(19) Long-distance scrambling of subjects out of finite-clauses[Subj1 Subj [FIN t1 Obj V]V]Note that, for embedded subjects, the next higher overt argument is the matrix subject since
they are the highest argument in the embedded clause. My generalization then expects thatscrambled embedded subjects can bind into the matrix subject as a result of long-distancescrambling, as in (19).3 I argue that this is the case by looking at the construction discussed by
Takahashi and Uchibori (2003).
Takahashi and Uchibori (2003) discuss the alternation in (20).
(20) a. Huziko-ni(-wa) [CP Yawara-ga
kin medaru-o
toru to] omoeta.
Fujiko-DAT(-TOP) Yawara-NOM gold medal-ACC win that seemed"It seemed to Fujiko that Yawara would win a gold medal."b. Yawara-ga1
Huziko-ni(-wa) [CP t1 kin
medaru-otoru to] omoeta.
Yawara-NOM Fujiko-DAT(-TOP) gold
medal-ACC win that seemed"lit. Yawara seemed to Fujiko that t1 would win a gold medal."(Takahashi and Uchibori 2003: 302)
In (20), the verb omoe 'seem' takes a dative subject and a finite clause complement and thealternation involves displacement of the embedded subject out of the embedded clause.
Takahashi and Uchibori argue that this alternation involves movement. For example, they showthat idiomatic interpretation is retained under this alternation. Consider (21).
(21) a. Siraha-no
ya-ga
Yawara-ni
tatta.
white.feather-GEN arrow-NOM Yawara-DAT stood"Yawara was nominated."b. [Siraha-no
ya-ga]1
Huziko-ni(-wa) [t1 Yawara-ni
tatu to] omoeta.
white.feather-GEN arrow-NOM Fujiko-DAT(-TOP) Yawara-DAT stand that seemed"It seemed to Fujiko that Yawara would be nominated."(Takahashi and Uchibori 2003: 302)(21a) is an idiomatic expression siraha-no ya-ga X-ni tat, whose meaning is 'X be nominated.'
This reading is available in (21b) too, which shows that the nominative idiom chunk has been
moved out of the embedded clause.
Takahashi and Uchibori call this movement pseudoraising since, they argue, this
Saito (1985) notes that long-distance scrambling of nominative subjects is impossible in (i). The strings in (i)has to mean that Hana said that Mari ate apples, rather than Mari said that Hana ate apples, which would bepossible if the nominative subject in the embedded clause were moved from the embedded clause.
(i)*Hana-ga1
Mari-ga[t1 ringo-otabetato] itta.
Hana-NOM
Mari-NOM
apple-ACC
atethat said"lit. Hana1 Mari said that t1 ate an apple."
Saito (1985) argues that nominative subjects cannot be scrambled because of syntactic reasons. It has, however,often been suggested that unacceptability of (i) is not due to syntactic constraints, rather to a processing difficulty(see Mihara 1994, Oku 1998, Kuno 2003; see also Kuno 1980a,b). The problem is that both the matrix verb andthe embedded verb take a nominative subject. Since the first nominative phrase is likely to be interpreted as a
subject of the matrix verb, it is difficult to interpret it as the subject of the embedded clause. The construction
discussed below does not suffer from this difficulty since the matrix argument is a dative.
3

7

Arano, Akihikomovement is different from both raising and scrambling. Pseudoraising differs from raising inthat pseudoraised phrases do not show the status of derived subjects. They make this point
using the licensing of zibun and honorification. Here I repeat their arguments regarding thelicensing of zibun. Zibun is a reflexive which shows the subject-orientation (Kuroda 1965). As(22) shows, only the subject can be its antecedent.
(22) Marii-ga
Taroj-nizibuni/∗j-nituite
Mari-NOM Taro-DAT self-about"lit. Marii told Taroj about selfi/∗j."hanasita.
told

Crucially, pseudoraised subjects cannot be an antecedent of zibun inside a matrix dative, whichshows that pseudoraised subjects are not matrix subjects.
(23) *Yawara-ga1 zibun-no hahaoya-ni [CP t1 kin
medaru-otoru to] omoeta.
Yawara-NOM self-GEN mother-DAT
goldmedal-ACC win that seemed"lit. Yawara seemed to the mother of herself that t1 would win a gold medal."(Takahashi and Uchibori 2003: 307)
Takahashi and Uchibori argue that pseudoraising is also distinct from scrambling using
data like (24).
(24) [Mittu-izyoo-no
daigakui-ga]1
sokoi-nosotugyoosei-ni [t1 yoi daigaku-da
three-or.more-GEN university-NOM that.place-GEN graduate-DAT good university-COP
to] omoeta.
that seemed"lit. [Three or more universities] 1,i seemed to theiri graduates that t1 are good universities"(24) shows that the pseudoraised subject can bind into the matrix dative, that is, it shows the
A-property. Takahashi and Uchibori take this fact as evidence against pseudoraising as
scrambling, since they assume the traditional generalization that scrambling out of finite
clauses is necessarily A'-scrambling. However, we have already seen that long-distance Ascrambling is allowed in certain situations. In fact, from the perspective of the generalization
defended here, this is the configuration in which long-distance A-scrambling should be allowed:
the next higher overt argument of the embedded subject is the matrix subject. I thus argue thatmovement of subjects in question should be analyzed as licit long-distance A-scrambling of
nominative subjects, rather than pseudoraising, a raising process which is proposed just for thisconstruction.4
To summarize, I have reviewed Funakoshi's (2015) observation regarding scrambling out
of finite clauses with pro subjects, presented the cases of binding under long-distancescrambling of subjects, and, by unifying these, argued for (25):
It is not the case that the finite clause in 'pseudoraising' is totally transparent for A-scrambling. When the object
is extracted from there, binding into the dative is impossible:(i) *[Mittu-izyoo-no daigakui-o]1
sokoi -nosotugyoosei-ni [Ken-ga ti hihansita to] omoeta.
three-or.more-GEN university-ACC that.place-GEN graduate-DAT Ken-NOM criticized that seemed'lit. [Three or more universities] 1,i it seemed to theiri graduates that Ken criticized t1.'
This is also consistent with my generalization.
48

Arano, Akihiko(25) An XP can undergo long-distance A-scrambling out of finite clauses above its next higher overt
argument but no further.
2.3 Interim summary(26) is a summary of the configurations we have looked into regarding binding possibilities. I
abstract away the (non-)finiteness of the embedded clause, types of control, and the PRO vs.
pro distinction in empty categories from structures since they do not make a difference.
(26) a.

[Obj1 Subj [Subj t1 V]V]

((7))

b.

[Obj1 Subj [[e] t1 V]V]((9),(18))

c.

[Obj1 Subj Obj [[e] t1 V]V]d.

[Subj1 Subj [t1 Obj V]V][Obj1 Subj Obj [[e] t1 V]V]((11),(13),(16))((19))All of these cases are unified under the single generalization.
(27) An XP can undergo long-distance A-scrambling above its next higher overt argument but nofurther.
Note that (27) is the generalization regarding long-distance A-scrambling. In the next section,
I pursue the possibility that the generalization in question holds for A-scrambling in general,
not just long-distance A-scrambling.
3. Clause-internal non-A-scrambling
In this section we investigate whether the generalization in question holds for clause-internal
scrambling. For that purpose, we use the multiple subject construction. In Japanese, it ispossible to have two (or more) nominative subjects in a single clause, as shown in (28) (it isalso possible to have a single subject by associating the two noun phrases using a genitive).
(28) [Taro-ga]Subj1[musume-ga]Subj2
booru-onageta.
Taro-NOM
daughter-NOM
ball-ACC
threw"Taro's daughter threw a ball."cf. [Taro-nomusume-ga]Subj booru-onageta.
Taro-GEN daughter-NOM ball-ACC
threw
I mark the higher nominative Subj1 and the lower subject Subj2 and we will see if binding into
these subjects is allowed by a scrambled object.
Consider first binding into Subj2, the lower subject. This case is shown in (29), in which
Subj1 is "Sony" and Subj2 is "its employees."9Arano, Akihiko(29) a. [Mittu-izyoo-no
busyoi-o]1[Sony-ga]Subj1 [sokoi-no syain-ga]Subj2 t1 tyoosasita.
three-or.more-GEN department-ACC Sony-NOM it-GEN employee-NOM investigatedb. [Sony-ga]Subj1 [mittu-izyoo-no
busyoi-o]1[sokoi-no syain-ga]Subj2 t1 tyoosasita.
Sony-NOM
three-or.more-GEN department-ACC it-GEN employee-NOM investigated"[Three or more departments]1,i Sony's employees of therei investigated t1."
In (29a) and (29b), the scrambled object has landed before Subj1 and between Subj1 and Subj2,
respectively. In both of these cases, the scrambled object can bind the pronoun inside Subj2.
This is consistent with the generalization since, for the object, its next higher overt argument
is Subj2.
Consider now binding into Subj1, the higher subject. This case is presented in (30), in
which Subj1 and Subj2 are "its presidents" and "daughters," respectively.
(30) ?*[Mittu-izyoo-no
kaisyai-ni]1 [sokoi-no syatyoo-ga]Subj1 [musume-ga]Subj2 t1three-or.more-GEN company-DAT it-GEN president-NOM daughter-NOM
nyuusyasita.
joined.company"[Three or more companies]1,i itsi presidents' daughters joined t1."(30) shows that the scrambled object cannot bind into Subj1. 5 This also conforms to thegeneralization: for the object, its next higher overt argument is Subj2, not Subj1. It is worth
noting that a genitive counterpart of (30) allows binding, as shown in (31).
(31) [Mittu-izyoo-no kaisyai-ni]1[sokoi-no syatyoo-no
musume-ga]Subj t1 nyuusyasita.
three-or.more-GEN company-DAT it-GEN president-GEN daughter-NOM joined.company"[Three or more companies]1,i itsi presidents' daughters joined t1."
The contrast between (30) and (31) suggests that what makes binding in (30) impossible is thepresence of the lower subject: its presence makes Subj1 not the next higher overt argument forthe object. The patterns we have observed are summarized in (32).
(32) Multiple Subject Constructions[Obj1 Subj1 Subj2 t1 V][Obj1 Subj1 Subj2 t1 V]

In this section we have seen binding possibilities in Multiple Subject Constructions. What
we have observed suggests that the generalization in question holds not only for long-distancescrambling but also clause-internal scrambling, that is, scrambling in general. 6 From these
considerations, I propose (4), repeated here as (33), and give an account of it in the next section.
(33) XP can undergo A-scrambling above its next higher overt argument but no further.
One of the reviewers does not agree with the judgment in (30) and finds it to be acceptable. I checked (30) withfive speakers and all of them agree with my judgment. I leave the issue of speaker variation for future research.
6
A potential counterexample is DO's binding into Subj in the DO-Subj-IO-t DO-V configuration. However, there
is a proposal that the DO-IO order is a possible base-structure (Miyagawa 1997). Also, there is a possibility that
DO moves over IO independent of scrambling, for example, by Object Shift. Therefore, I put this case aside.
5

10

Arano, Akihiko

4. AccountIn this section, I give an account of (33), which subsumes the patterns illustrated in (34).
(34) a. [Arg-1 Arg-2

tArg-1]b. *[Arg-1 Arg-3

Arg-2 tArg-1]

c. [Arg-1 Arg-3

Arg-2 tArg-1](34a) and (34b) show that A-scrambling can cross one overt argument but not two. (34c) showsthat covert arguments do not count for the locality of A-scrambling. The two properties of Ascrambling in (35) needs to be accounted for:(35) a. Only one overt argument can be crossed.
b. Covert arguments do not count.
I argue that (35a) is to be accounted for by the following assumptions regarding the locality
and the motivation of A-scrambling. First, A-scrambling is subject to locality effects (Rizzi
1990, Chomsky 1995) and therefore arguments act as interveners for A-scrambling. I also
assume equidistance (Chomsky 1995) as a strategy of avoiding intervention effects. For
concreteness, I assume (36) and (37):(36) γ intervenes between α and β iff α c-commands γ and γ c-commands β, and γ and α are notequidistant from β.
(37) α and β are equidistant from γ if they are in the same maximal projection.
These assumptions prohibit A-scrambling of ZP in (38), in which ZP crosses Arg via Ascrambling. This is illicit because Arg intervenes between ZP and tZP. Note that ZP and Arg
are not equidistant from tZP since they belong to different maximal projections.
(38) *[YP ZP [XP Arg ...

tZP]]

For ZP to move across Arg via A-scrambling, it first needs to land within XP to utilize
equidistance effects, as shown in (39). The first movement of ZP here does not showintervention effects since tZP in the edge of XP is equidistant with Arg.
(39) [YP ZP [XP tZP [XP Arg ...

tZP]]]

Second, I assume that application of A-scrambling needs motivations and that licensing abound variable reading can be motivations. This can be related to the proposals that scramblingis an overt counterpart of QR (Johnson 2000, Miyagawa 2006, 2011) and that QR is subject toScope Economy (Fox 2000). The gist of Scope Economy is that "scope-shifting operations ...
are allowed to apply only when they are necessary to achieve a designated semanticinterpretation (Fox 2000: 3)." My suggestion is that as an overt counterpart of QR, Ascrambling is subject to the same kind of economy and licensing a bound variable reading can
11Arano, Akihikobe motivations for its application.
Given these assumptions regarding the locality and motivations of A-scrambling, let us goback to the first two patterns of the generalization.
(40) a. [Arg-1 Arg-2
b.

*[Arg-1 Arg-3

tArg-1]Arg-2

tArg-1]

In (40a), the scrambled Arg-1 binds into Arg-2. This means that there is a motivation for Ascrambling. By utilizing the equidistance effect shown in (39), Arg-1 can cross Arg-2 via Ascrambling. In (40b), the binding relation is between Arg-1 and Arg-3. There are two
derivational possibilities to consider here. The first is the scenario in which Arg-1 crosses Arg2 and Arg-3 in one step. In this derivation, the movement has a motivation for A-scrambling
but this movement is excluded because Arg-2 intervenes between Arg-1 and tArg-1. The second
derivation involves successive-cyclic movement of Arg-1.
(41)*[Arg-1 Arg-3

tArg-1Arg-2

tArg-1]

Crucially, Arg-1 does not bind into Arg-2. This means that there is no motivation for Ascrambling in the first step and therefore A'-scrambling has to be used. Since the first step of
movement is necessarily A'-movement, the following step also has to be A'-movement becauseof the improper movement. Thus, there are no licit ways to establish a binding relation whenscrambled phrases cross two (or more) overt arguments.7
The remaining issue is why covert arguments do not count for the locality of A-scrambling.
(42) [ Arg-1

Arg-3 Arg-2

tArg-1]

I would like to suggest that this point is related to the generalization argued for by Bošković(2011). He argues for (43):(43) Traces and elided elements do not count as interveners.
Since Ross's (1969) seminal work, it is well-known that certain locality violations can beameliorated by applying ellipsis. For example, movement out of islands can be rescued byapplying sluicing. This is shown in (44):

For this analysis to work for the pattern in the Multiple Subject Constructions ((32)), multiple subjects need tobelong in different projections. If they occupied multiple specifiers of the same projection, as argued by Fukui(1986) and Kuroda (1988), they would be equidistant and therefore the locality problem would not arise when thescrambled object crosses both of them. I therefore assume that multiple subjects are in different projections (seeAkiyama 2004 and Yamada 2013 for such analyses.)7

12

Arano, Akihiko(44) a. *Ben will be mad if Abby talks to one of the teachers, but she couldn’t remember which (of theteachers) Ben will be mad if she talks to.
b. Ben will be mad if Abby talks to one of the teachers, but she couldn’t remember which.
(Merchant 2001:88)
The PF-deletion account of this improvement (Merchant 2001 a.o.) claims that a locality
violation is marked on islands when the violation occurs and the violation-marking is relevantto the PF-side. When islands do not get deleted, the violation-marking remains andungrammaticality ensues. When islands get deleted, the marking is also deleted and there are
no problems in the final PF representation. Bošković (2011) proposes to extend this account to
the generalization that traces do not count as interveners for relativized minimality effects.
Consider (45), which illustrates raising with experiencers in Italian:(45) a. *Giannii sembra a Maria [ti essere stanco].
Gianniseems to Maria
to.be
ill
"Gianni seems to Maria to be ill."b. A Mariaj, Giannii sembra tj [ti essere stanco].
to Maria Gianni seems
to.be
ill
"To Maria, Gianni seems to be ill."(45a) shows that an experiencer induces intervention effects in Italian raising and (45b) showsthat such effects disappear when that experiencer moves before the raised subject. Bošković(2011) argues that the PF-deletion mechanism of island repair noted above can be employed
here under the copy theory of movement (Chomsky 1995). Under the copy theory of movement,
what is represented as traces is in fact copies of moved phrases. What is crucial here is thelower copy has to be deleted at PF. Suppose that a violation of relativized minimality effects ismarked on interveners. This means that the violation in (45b) is marked on the lower copy ofa Maria. Since the lower copy of the moved a Maria gets deleted at PF, the violation also
disappears. The amelioration effects in (44) and (45) can be given a unified account in termsof PF-deletion.
We are now in a position to address the question why covert arguments do not count for
the locality of A-scrambling. Recall that we have seen that pro and PRO are not regarded as
crossed arguments. For pro, I suggest that they can in fact be derived by ellipsis. It is wellknown that Japanese allows Argument Ellipsis (Oku 1998, Saito 2007 a.o.). Since what I haverepresented as pro can be derived via Argument Ellipsis, they can be deleted together with theviolation marking put on them. As for the analysis of PRO, I assume the movement theory ofcontrol (Hornstein 1999 a.o.). Under this theory, PRO and its controllers are associated via
movement relations and PRO are in fact a trace (or a copy which gets deleted at PF). Therefore,
PRO undergoes deletion and violations marked on it gets deleted too.
5. Conclusion
This paper has investigated the locality of A-scrambling. Contrary to the traditional
generalization, in which the clause-boundary plays an important role, it has argued for (46), bylooking at scrambling out of control clauses, scrambling out of finite clauses, long-distancescrambling of subjects and scrambling in the multiple subject construction:
13

Arano, Akihiko(46) XP can undergo A-scrambling above its next higher overt argument but no further.
To account for (46), this paper has developed an analysis of A-scrambling in which Ascrambling is subject to locality effects, application of A-scrambling needs motivations anddeletion remedies violations of locality problems.

14Arano, Akihiko

References
Akiyama, Masahiro. 2004. Multiple nominative constructions in Japanese and economy.
Linguistic Inquiry 24: 671-683.
Bošković, Željko. 2011. Rescue by PF deletion, traces as (non)interveners, and the that-trace
effect. Linguistic Inquiry 42:1-44.
Branan, Kenyon. 2018. The ι-boundedness of A-scrambling. In Proceedings of the 13thWorkshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL13), ed. C'eleste Guillemot, Tomoyuki
Yoshida, & Seunghun J. Lee, 127-139. Cambridge, MA: MITWPL.
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fox, Danny. 2000. Economy and semantic interpretation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fujii, Tomohiro. 2006. Some theoretical issues in Japanese control. Doctoral Dissertation,
University of Maryland.
Fukui, Naoki. 1986. A theory of category projection and its application. Doctoral Dissertation,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Funakoshi, Sayaka. 2015. A theory of generalized pied-piping. Doctoral Dissertation,
University of Maryland, College Park.
Hornstein, Norbert. 1999. Movement and control. Linguistic Inquiry 30:69-96.
Johnson, Kyle. 2000. How far will quantifiers go? In Step by step, ed. Roger Martin, David
Michaels, & Juan Uriagereka, 187-210. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kuno, Masakazu. 2003. Scrambling in Japanese as pure Merge. Language Research 19:45-78.
Kuno, Susumu. 1980a. A note on Tonioke’s intra-subjectivization hypothesis. In Theoreticalissues in Japanese linguistics, ed. Yukio Otsu & Ann Farmer, 149–156. Cambridge, MA:
MITWPL.
Kuno, Susumu. 1980b. A further note on Tonioke's intra-subjectivization hypothesis. In
Theoretical issues in Japanese linguistics, ed. Yukio Otsu & Ann Farmer, 171–184.
Cambridge, MA: MITWPL.
Kuroda, Sige-Yuki. 1965. Generative grammatical studies in the Japanese language. Doctoral
Dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Kuroda, Sige-Yuki. 1988. Whether we agree or not: A comparative syntax of English andJapanese. Linguisticae Investigationes 12:1-47.
Mahajan, Anoop. 1989. On the A/A-bar distinction: Scrambling and weak crossover in Hindi.
Ms., MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Mahajan, Anoop. 1990. The A/A-bar distinction and movement theory. Doctoral Dissertation,
MIT.
Merchant, Jason. 2001. The syntax of silence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mihara, Ken-ichi. 1994. Nihongo no toogo koozoo [Syntactic structures of Japanese]. Tokyo:
Shohakusha.
Miyagawa, Shigeru. 1997. Against optional scrambling. Linguistic Inquiry 28:1-25.
Miyagawa, Shigeru. 2006. On the “undoing” property of scrambling: A response to Bošković.
Linguistic Inquiry 37:607-624.
Miyagawa, Shigeru. 2011. Optionality. In The Oxford handbook of linguistic minimalism, ed.
by Cedric Boeckx, 355–376. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nemoto, Naoko. 1993. Chains and case positions: A study from scrambling in Japanese.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Connecticut, Storrs.
Oku, Satoshi. 1998. A theory of selection and reconstruction in the minimalist perspective.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Connecticut, Storrs.
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Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ross, John Robert. 1969. Guess who? In Papers from the Fifth Regional Meeting of the
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Saito, Mamoru. 2007. Notes on East Asian argument ellipsis. Language Research 43:203-227.
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Takano, Yuji. 2010. Scrambling and control. Linguistic Inquiry 41:83-110.
Yamada, Toshiyuki. 2013. On the multiple subject construction in Japanese: A cartographic
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IBERIA: An International Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 4:170-200.

16

Aldridge, Edith

Two Dimensions of Austronesian Voice
Edith Aldridge
Academia Sinica

1. Introduction
Tagalog exhibits a type of ergative alignment commonly referred to as a “voice” system. The
term “voice” refers to the fact that different verbal affixes reflect which argument has
absolutive/nominative case. In the perfective aspect, the infix <um> indicates that the subject
has nominative case, as in (1a, b). The perfective aspect marker changes to <in> whennominative case appears on an internal argument in a transitive clause. When <in> appears
with no additional voice marking on the verb in a monotransitive clause, the direct object has
nominative case, as in (1c). The combination of <in> and the applicative -an signals that thenominative argument is a goal or locative argument, as in (1d). The applicative i- is associatedwith a nominative instrument, beneficiary, or moved theme. (1e) shows an example with amoved theme.
(1) a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

D<um>atingangbabae.
<INTR.PFV>arrive
NOM
woman
‘The woman arrived.’
B<um>iliangbabae nangisda.
<INTR.PFV>buy
NOM
woman OBL
fish
‘The woman bought (a) fish.’
B<in>ilini Maria
ang
isda.
<TR.PFV>buy
GEN Maria
NOM
fish‘Maria bought the fish.’
B<in>igy-an
ni Maria nang isda ang
lalaki.
<TR.PFV>give-APPL GEN Maria OBL
fish NOM
man‘Maria gave the man a fish.’I-b<in>igay
ni Maria ang isda sa lalaki.
APPL-<TR.PFV>give GEN Maria NOM fish to man‘Maria gave the fish to the man.’

The voice system is often analyzed as a type of agreement between the verb and the argumentwith nominative case (Georgopoulos 1991; Chung 1994, 1998; Pearson 2001; Rackowski 2002;
Rackowski & Richards 2005; Chen 2017). However, without even considering the details of
how such an agreement relation might be established, two obvious problems present
themselves. First, voice marking has no uniform morphological position, surfacing as a prefix,
suffix, or infix. Consequently, it would be difficult to associate this agreement with a particularfunctional head. Secondly, not one but two agreement reflexes appear in applicative
constructions in the perfective aspect, the applicative affix and <in>. Use of <in> rather than<um> signals that an internal argument has nominative case, so it must also be treated as a typeof voice marking.
In this paper, I propose a different approach based on C-T Inheritance along the lines of17

Aldridge, Edith

Aldridge (2017a, b; 2021). This is a direct approach, obviating the agreement step, and treatingeach voice morpheme as a functional head on the clausal spine. The applicative heads project
ApplPs (in the sense of Pylkkanen 2002), selecting the applied nominals in their specifiers. The
dichotomy between in the aspect markers is a consequence of whether C-T Inheritance takes
place. I propose that Inheritance is forced when multiple licensing features are merged on thisphase head. The relevant features for Austronesian languages are case features. Since Tagalog
is an ergative language, two cases are potentially valued in the higher phase:
nominative/absolutive and genitive/ergative. In subject voice clauses, only nominative case isneeded in order to license the subject, so Inheritance does not take place. But in the other voices,which are ergative clauses, both the subject and an internal argument must be licensed. This
necessitates the merger of two case features on C/T, forcing the two heads to divide. Genitiveis passed to T and valued on the subject, while nominative remains on C and is valued on alower argument. In the perfective aspect, <um> is spelled out on unsplit C/T, i.e. in subject
voice clauses. <in> is spelled out as perfective aspect on T after it has split from C, i.e. in
ergative clauses, when an internal argument has nominative case and the subject has genitive.

(2)

Inheritance approach

C/T
SUBJNOM
<um>V

DONOM
<in>V

Separate C & T
GOALNOM
INSTRNOM<in>V-ani-<in>V

Section 2 introduces the C-T Inheritance framework and presents the Tagalog analysis. Section
3 provides typological support by showing how the same approach accounts for certain
subject/non-subject asymmetries in other languages.
2. Tagalog analysis
2.1 Framework
Chomsky (2008) proposes that features driving the derivation are merged initially on phaseheads. One consequence of this is that features for licensing the subject are not inherent to the
T head but are “inherited” by T from C after C enters the derivation. For example, in thefollowing object wh-question in English, both the interrogative feature to attract the whconstituent and the [uɸ] feature to license the subject enter the derivation on C. Subsequent tothis, [uɸ] is passed to T, attracting the subject to [Spec, TP] and valuing nominative case with
it. The interrogative feature remains on C and attracts the wh-constituent to [Spec, CP]. T is
also attracted to C and spelled out as an auxiliary verb expressing tense. If there is no auxiliaryin the syntactic component, “do” will be inserted post-syntactically in order to spell out thetense feature.1(3)

a. What did you read?
b. [CP what [C[uWH] [TP you[ɸ, NOM] [T[uɸ] [vP <you> [v’ v [VP read <what> ]]]]]]]On the other hand, Ouali (2006), Legate (2011, 2014), Gallego (2014), Erlewine (2016, 2018),
Aldridge (2018, 2019), and others have argued that if only one constituent needs to value
features with the phase head, then Inheritance does not need to take place, and C and T canenter the derivation as a single amalgamated head. An example of this sort is subject whThe specific analysis of English “do” support is not at issue in this paper. Readers are referred to Halle andMarantz (1993), Bobaljik (1995), Lasnik (1995), among many others for some possible approaches.
118

Aldridge, Edith

questions in English. Since the subject values both the interrogative and case licensing features
on C/T, these heads do not need to divide, and the subject moves to the specifier of thiscombined functional head. Note that “do” support is also obviated, since there is no movementof T to C.
(4)a. [C/TP She [C/T[uɸ] [vP <she> read that book]]].
b. [C/TP Who [C/T[uWH, uɸ] [vP <who> read that book]]]?

This is the implementation of C-T Inheritance that I adopt in this paper. C and T enter thederivation as a single head and divide only when necessary, i.e. when different features arechecked by separate constituents. I will also argue that the division between C and T is often
overtly marked. The example seen above involves auxiliary/verb movement in questions. In
the next section, I propose that this role is performed by the different aspect markers in Tagalog
subject and non-subject voice.
2.2 Analysis of Tagalog alignment
Subject voice clauses are derived when C/T enters the derivation with one (nominative) casefeature. Since C/T enters the derivation with only one case feature, C and T do not split. The
subject values nominative case, and the object is licensed internal to vP. The case valued by v
on objects is only capable of licensing third person objects, and these typically receive
indefinite, nonspecific interpretations, so I analyze it as a defective oblique case. 2 I discuss
this case in more detail below. Finally, the verb moves to the undivided C/T head, and the
aspect feature is spelled out as <um> in perfective aspect. I assume that the verb (morespecifically the Asp head) is attracted by temporal features on T.
(5)

a.

b.

B<um>iliang<INTR.PFV>buy
NOM‘The woman bought a fish.

babae
woman

nang
OBL

isda.
fish

C/TP
V+v+Asp+C/T[uNOM] AspP
bumili<V+v+Asp>
vP
DP[uCASE]v’ang babae
<V+v>

VP

Ergative (non-subject voice) clauses are derived when C/T enters the derivation with two casefeatures, nominative and genitive. This forces C and T to divide. T values genitive on thesubject, and C values nominative on the object. Regarding how it is determined that genitive isI use “defective” in the sense of Richards (2008), who proposes that defective case like genitive in negatedclauses in Slavic languages is not capable of valuing a person feature. Richards further assumes that definite third
person DPs have a person feature, while indefinite ones do not. See also Longobardi (2008) for a connection
between person features and referentiality.
2

19

Aldridge, Edith

valued by the lower head, while nominative remains on C, this is straightforward, sincenominative case is also associated with certain deictic features. Specifically, nominative DPs
in Tagalog and most other Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan and the Philippines
always have presupposed reference. In fact, they are often analyzed as topics (Schachter 1976,
Richards 2000, Pearson 2001, Chen 2017, and others). The connection todefiniteness/topicality is accounted for if nominative case in languages like Tagalog is valued
by C rather than T. Since C-T Inheritance has taken place, the verb moves only as far as T, andthe aspect feature is spelled out as <in> on T in the perfective aspect.
(6)

a.

b.

B<in>ilini<TR.PFV>buy
GEN‘Maria bought the fish.’

Maria
Maria

ang
NOM

isda.
fish

CP

C[uNOM]

TP

V+v+Asp+T[uGEN]
AspP
binili<V+v+Asp>

vP

DP[uCASE]v’ng babae<V+v>

VP<V> DP[uCASE] ang isda

Since defective case is available for the object inside vP, it may be wondered why the object
needs to value case again with C. This is because nominative objects in ergative clauses areeither definite or have a person feature. The defective case is unable to value these features.
Applicative constructions are also ergative clause types, so they can only be derived when
C/T enters with both nominative and genitive case features. Taking the locative applicative as
an example, the suffix –an is merged in Appl and selects a goal/locative argument in its
specifier.3 Although it is merged within the c-command domain of v, this argument is not
eligible for oblique case and must be licensed with nominative. Cross-linguistically, it is only
VP-internal arguments, specifically theme or patient arguments which value this type of
defective case (Kornfilt 1984, Enc̹ 1991, and others for Turkish; Belletti 1988 for English and
Italian; Vainikka 1989 for Finnish; Pesetsky 1982, Bailyn 1997, and others for Slavic
languages). One way to account for this is on the basis of their structural position, since applied
objects are merged outside VP. Consequently, they receive presuppositional interpretations (asper Diesing’s 1992 Mapping Hypothesis). For this reason, both the subject and the applied
object must be licensed by C/T, so these heads must divide, T valuing genitive case with thesubject and C valuing nominative with the applied object. The verb will again move to T, andI analyze this ApplP as a “high” applicative phrase, because the locative applicative in Tagalog is compatible
with unergative VPs and consequently does not behave like a low applicative, in the sense of Pylkkanen (2002).
320

Aldridge, Edith

the aspect feature will be spelled out as <in> in the perfective.
(7)

a.

b.

B<in>igy-anni<TR.PFV>give-APPL
GEN‘Maria gave the man a fish’.

Maria
Maria

ang
NOM

lalakimannang isda.
OBL fishCP
C[uNOM]

TP

Appl+V+v+Asp+T[uGEN]
AspP
binigy-an ‘gave’<Appl+V+v+AsP> vP
DP[GEN]v’ng babae<Appl+V+v> ApplPDP[NOM]Appl’
ang lalaki<Appl+V> VP
In this subsection, I proposed that C-T Inheritance must take place in order for two DPs to belicensed by C/T. A split between C and T can also have an overt morphological reflex. In
Tagalog, this is manifested most clearly in the perfective aspect. The perfective marker <um>appears on a undivided C/T head, i.e. in subject voice constructions when only the subject DP
is licensed by C/T. The aspect marker <in> appears in the other voices, when both the subject
and an internal argument need to be licensed. The presence of two case features on C/T forces
Inheritance to take place, and <in> is spelled out on the T head which has divided from C. The
association of nominative case with deictic and/or information structural features is also
accounted for by my proposal that this case is valued by C rather than T. Finally, my analysis
accounts for the covariation between nominative case and particular arguments known as the
Tagalog “voice system”. In addition to the correlation between subject and non-subject voice
and perfective aspect marking summarized above, the applicative affixes are also associatedwith their corresponding arguments through selection in ApplP.
2.3 Additional evidenceThis subsection provides supporting evidence for the analysis presented in section 2.2. First, I
take up the proposal that the nominative DP values case with C and not T. In addition to thedefiniteness mentioned in the previous subsection, the defective case valued by v also cannot
license person features. As shown in (8a, b), oblique nang cannot mark personal names or
pronouns; these must instead be packaged as goal or locative PPs.4

This type of differential object marking is reminiscent of dative marking of personal objects in Romance andother languages.
421

Aldridge, Edith

(8)

a.

b.

c.

P<um>atay=siya<INTR.PFV>kill=3SG.NOM‘He/she killed someone.’
P<um>atay=siya<INTR.PFV>kill=3SG.NOM‘He/she killed Maria.’
P<um>atay=siya<INTR.PFV>kill=3SG.NOM‘He/she killed him/her.’

nang
OBL

isa-ngone-LKkay
toMaria.
Maria

sa
to

kanya.
3SG

tao.
personIn contrast, nominative case can license a person feature, as in (9a). This is accounted for if
person features reside on the C head.5 The nominative case marker for personal names is si,
while ang marks common NPs. (9b) shows that the goal is marked with the preposition when
the argument does not value nominative case. This argument is clearly not merged in [Spec,
ApplP]. The ApplP in (9b) is projected by the i- applicative head, in this case selecting the
moved theme.
(9)

a.

b.

B<in>igy-anniMaria<TR.PFV>give-APPL
GEN
Maria
‘Maria gave Pedro a fish.’I-b<in>igayni
Maria
APPL-<TR.PFV>give
GEN
Maria
‘Maria gave the fish to Pedro.’

si
NOM

ang
NOM

Pedro
Pedro

nang isda.
OBL fish

isda
fish

kay
to

Pedro.
Pedro

Another indication of the association between nominative case and C is the fact that thenominative DP can move to [Spec, CP], for instance to form a relative clause, as in (10b). Thisis accounted for straightforwardly, since the nominative DP undergoes Agree with C to value
case. (10c) shows that a non-nominative DP cannot undergo this movement.
(10)

a.

babae-ng [C/TP OP b<um>ili__nang isda]
woman-LK<INTR.PFV>buy
OBL fish‘woman who bought a/the fish’b. isda-ng [CP OP [TP b<in>ili
niMaria __ ]]fish-LK<TR.PFV>buy
GEN Maria‘fish that Maria bought’c. *isda-ng [C/TP OPb<um>iliangbabae __ ]fish-LK<INTR.PFV>buy NOM
woman‘fish that the woman bought’

In contrast, non-DP movement is compatible with both divided (11a) and undivided (11b) C
and T. This is accounted for since non-DPs do not need case. I assume with Aldridge (2021)
that Tagalog has no wh-features; the movement shown in (11) is motivated by a focus feature,5

Anagnostopoulou (2003), Sigurðsson and Holmberg (2008), Béjar and Rezac (2003, 2009), Wiltschko (2008),
and others have proposed separating person probes from other ɸ-features. Witschko (2008), Deal (2015), andothers have proposed placing minimally the person probe on C.
22

Aldridge, Edith

so the non-DPs in (11) move to [Spec, CP] to check the focus feature there.6
(11)

a.

b.

[CP

Saan
[TP b<in>ili
ni
Maria
ang
libro]]?
where<TR.PFV>buy GEN MariaNOM book‘Where did Maria buy the book?’[C/TP
Saan [C/T’ b<um>ili
ang
babae
nang
libro]]?
where<INTR.PFV>buy
NOM woman
OBL
book‘Where did the woman buy the book?’

Standard Indonesian provides additional evidence for the Feature Inheritance approach to thesubject/non-subject dichotomy in Austronesian voice marking. It is well known (Musgrave
2001; Saddy 1991; and Soh 1998; and others) that transitive subjects can be extracted in active
clauses, when they have nominative case, as in (12b). On the other hand, objects cannot be
extracted in active clauses when the verb carries the active voice prefix meN-, as in (12c). One
way to extract the theme argument is by making it the subject of a passive, as in (12d). Standard
Indonesian is thus similar to Tagalog in allowing nominative DPs to undergo A’-movement.
(12)

a.

Ali mem-beli buku.
Ali ACT-buy
buku‘Ali bought a book.’b. Siapa yang mem-beli buku-nya?
who
C ACT-givebook-DEF‘Who bought the book?’c. *Apayang
Ali mem-beli?
what
C
Ali ACT-buy‘What did Ali buy?’d. Apayang
di-beli(oleh)what
C
PASS-buy
by‘What was bought by Ali?’

Ali?
Ali

However, objects can be extracted in active clauses if the meN- prefix is deleted. The fact that
(13a, b) are active is shown by the position of the subject in preverbal position. The subject
consequently values nominative case, so object movement in Indonesian is not contingent on
valuing this case. These examples are taken from Cole & Hermon (2005: 63-64). In other words,
C and T are free to divide7 so long as meN- does not appear on the verb.
(13) a. [Orang yang[polisi tangkap dipasar]]
person thatpolice arrest
inmarkettelah
men-curitas.
alreadymeN-steal
purse‘The man that the police arrested in the market had stolen a purse.’
Evidence for the lack of wh-features in Tagalog and other Austronesian languages of Taiwan and the Philippines
comes from the following facts: 1) the morphology of interrogative pronouns showing incorporated case markers
and adpositions rather than A’-related affixes; 2) the structural asymmetry between movement to [Spec, CP] in
the case of non-DPs and clefting in the case of DPs; and 3) the strong connection between nominative case andDP extraction. These facts would not be straightforwardly accounted for if interrogative constituents were
uniformly attracted by a wh-feature.
7
See Park (2022) for a similar analysis employing C and T bundling.
623

Aldridge, Edith

b.

[Buku
[yang Budi
tidak
akan
baca]] sangat menarik.
bookthat Budi
not
will
read
very
interesting‘The book that Budi will not read is very interesting.’

Sato (2008) proposes that the structural location for the active prefix meN- is the lower phasehead v. He accounts for the possibility of object extraction is cases like (13) post-syntactically,
proposing that the meN- prefix cannot be spelled out on v if a DP has been attracted to the edgeof this phase. I propose a slight reworking of this analysis in the Feature Inheritance approach.
Movement of the object forces Inheritance to take place in vP, since this is required in order toproject an escape hatch for the moving object. I tentatively analyze the lower head as anunitalicized v. I further propose that the prefix meN- cannot be spelled out on v that has split
with a lower head, i.e. after Inheritance has taken place. From the edge of vP, the object will
move further to [Spec, CP], while the subject is attracted to [Spec, TP].
(14)

vP

<buku>

v’
v

vP
v’

<Budi>
v

VP
baca<buku>In this section, I presented an analysis of voice, case licensing, and DP dislocation in
Tagalog (and also partially for Standard Indonesian) within the framework of C-T Inheritance.
Inheritance must take place in order to case license two arguments in ergative clause types in
Tagalog, as well as to allow dislocation of a lower argument over the subject in both Tagalog
and Indonesian. I further argued that a change in morphological marking in the perfective
aspect correlates with whether Inheritance has taken place. This is indicated in Indonesian vP
by the absence of the meN- prefix. The next section provides cross linguistic support for theInheritance approach to licensing and/or dislocation by showing how C-T Inheritancecorrelates with certain subject/object asymmetries in languages outside the Austronesianfamily.
3. Application of the analysis beyond Austronesian
In this section, I show how the C-T Inheritance analysis proposed in the preceding section also
accounts for morphological alternations accompanying subject/non-subject asymmetries forlicensing and/or dislocation in languages outside the Austronesian family.
3.1 Subject/non-subject complementizer agreement in Wolof
According to Dunnigan (1994), Torrence (2005), Martinović (2015, 2021), and others, Wolof
employs different complementizers depending on whether a subject or non-subject constituent
moves to [Spec, CP]. The complementizer is a in subject extraction, as in (15a) and la for non24

Aldridge, Edith

subject movement, as in (15b).
(15)

a.

b.

K-an a
jox
Musaa
téere
CM-Q C.WH hand
Moussabook‘Who handed the book to Moussa?’
K-an
l-a
Musaa
gis?
CM-Q
C.WH
Moussasee‘Who did Moussa see?’bi?
DEF.SG(Martinović 2015: 207)

Martinović (2015) proposes an analysis of this complementizer asymmetry8 in the Pesetsky
and Torrego (2001) approach to the relationship between C and T. This approach does not
adopt Feature Inheritance but assumes that C and T always host separate projections. However,there is a resemblance between this approach and C-T Inheritance. When A’-extraction of anon-subject constituent takes place, T also moves to C. But T-to-C movement is obviated insubject extraction. T-to-C movement is also obviated on the Inheritance approach I assume,
though this is because T and C are part of the same complex head on my approach.
Turning to how the Pesetsky & Torrego (2001) approach to A’-movement accounts for thecomplementizer alternation in Wolof, Martinović (2015) proposes that a and l are distinct
functional heads. The former is merged in C as the complementizer. This accounts for theappearance of this vowel in both subject and non-subject extraction. If a non-subject is
extracted, as in (16b), T-to-C movement also takes place, and l is inserted post-syntactically on
a T that has moved to C. Consequently, l-a will be spelled out on the C+T head in cases of nonsubject extraction. Note that the subject moves to [Spec, TP] in both cases.
(16)

a.

b.

K-an a [TP < k-an> [vP < k-an> … ]]]?
CM-Q C.WH‘Who handed the book to Moussa?’[CP K-an l-a [TP Musaa <T> [vP <Musaa>
gis <k-an> ]]]?
CM-Q C.WH
Moussasee‘Who did Moussa see?’(Martinović 2015: 207)
[C/TP

The crux of this analysis can be accommodated within the C-T Inheritance framework withminimal modification. With Martinović (2015), I assume that a is merged in C. If a non-subject
undergoes movement over the subject, C and T must divide, the subject moving to [Spec, TP]to value case and the lower constituent moving to [Spec, CP]. I propose that l is merged on Tthat has split from C/T. I further follow Martinović (2015) in assuming that T moves to C in
non-subject extraction, resulting in the adjacency of l and a, spelled out as the non-subject
extraction complementizer la, as in (17a). In cases of subject extraction, the C/T head does notdivide, so l is not merged, and the complementizer a is spelled out on the undivided C/T head,as in (17b).

A more recent (Martinović 2021) version uses feature splitting. In object wh-movement, the [wh] feature andthe complementizer la split from the bundled CI (C/T) head that has already attracted the subject to its specifier.
Feature movement functions as a projecting head, hosting a new specifier position for the object wh-constituent.
825

Aldridge, Edith

(17)

a.

b.

[CP K-an l-a [TP Musaa <l-> [vP
CM-Q C.WH
Moussa‘Who did Moussa see?’[C/TP K-an
a [vP jox
Musaa
CM-Q
C.WH
hand Moussa‘Who handed the book to Moussa?’

gis …]]]?
see(based on Martinović 2015: 207)
téere
bi]]?
book
DEF.SG

There are only two minor differences between Martinović (2015) and the current approach.
First, C-T Inheritance obviates subject movement to [Spec, TP] in subject A’-extraction cases,
since C and T do not divide. Secondly, my approach also obviates the extra step of postsyntactic spell out of l- as a reflex of T-C movement, since the correct result is obtained in myapproach by merging l- in T in the Syntactic Component before T-C movement takes place.
3.2 V2 and voice in Dinka
The Nilotic language Dinka has a voice system that is remarkably similar to Tagalog (Anderson
1988, 2015; and van Urk 2015). As in Tagalog, there is a correlation between morphologicalalternations on the finite verb and which argument appears in clause-initial position withnominative case. Unlike Tagalog, Dinka has V2 word order, a DP typically surfacing in clauseinitial position, followed by the finite verb. In the “subject voice”, the subject precedes thefinite verb, and the verbal morphology assumes the default form, as shown in (18a). “Object
voice”, as in (18b), is associated with a floating low tone, inducing high tone and lengtheningof the vowel, as well as raising in some cases. The object moves to clause-initial position. In“oblique voice”, the verb takes “object voice” inflection in addition to a suffix, which van Urk(2015) analyzes as an incorporated preposition. The argument originally selected by the
preposition moves to clause-initial position. In the non-subject voices, the subject appears in
postverbal position and is marked with genitive case, which is signaled by tone changes on theargument. This is reminiscent of Tagalog. Another similarity is in the double voice marking
when an adjunct is extracted, i.e. the combination of object voice and the incorporated
preposition. In Tagalog, double marking is manifested by the perfective aspect marker <in>
together with an applicative affix.
(18)

a.

b.

c.

Àyén à-càmcuî̤ in nè̤ pǎal.
Ayen 3SG-eat.SV
food P knife‘Ayen is eating food with a knife.’Cuî̤ in à-cɛ́ɛmÁyèn nè̤pǎal.
food
3SG-eat.OV
Ayen P
knife‘Food, Ayen is eating with a knife.’Pǎalà-cɛ́ɛm-è̤Áyèncuî̤ in.
knife 3SG-eat.OBLV
Ayen
food
‘With a knife, Ayen is eating food.’(van Urk 2015: 61)

Van Urk (2015) proposes that the clause-initial DP occupies [Spec, CP], which is a caseposition, so the C head enters the derivation with [uĀ] and [uφ] features. Note that the finite
verb also registers agreement with the DP that precedes it. The [uĀ] feature on C attracts a
topic to clause-initial position where it values absolutive (equivalent to nominative) case andagrees with the verb in C. There is also a [uφ] feature on T to attract the subject to [Spec, TP].
26

Aldridge, Edith

However, genitive case is not valued in the syntax. Rather, van Urk treats it as a “repair strategy”
to license the subject in [Spec, TP] post-syntactically. This allows the subject to be further
attracted to [Spec, CP] in subject voice clauses, where it values absolutive/nominative case. In
the non-subject voices, the subject remains in [Spec, TP], while a lower argument moves to[Spec, CP]. The finite verb in all clauses moves to C to derive the V2 word order. Van Urk
does not provide a specific analysis of the alternation between subject and object voice
morphology but merely speculates that the change from default marking in subject voice to themarked variant in the other voices is somehow a reflection of non-subject movement to [Spec,CP], but the details are not spelled out. On the other hand, van Urk does have a specific proposal
for the suffix that appears in adjunct extraction, showing that this should be analyzed as a
stranded preposition that raises and undergoes incorporation to the finite verb in C.
In contrast to this, the C-T Inheritance approach does offer a straightforward account of
the voice alternation in Dinka. I illustrate this for each of the voices in the remainder of thissubsection. First, the subject voice is derived if C/T enters the derivation with one set of [uφ]and [uNOM] features. Since this means that only one DP can be licensed outside of vP, C-T
Inheritance does not take place, and the subject moves to [Spec, C/TP] to value the [uφ] and[uNOM] features there. The default marking on the verb in subject voice is the spell out of theundivided C/T head. V2 word order results from verb movement to C/T, as in van Urk (2015).
The C-T Inheritance approach, then, obviates the need for subject movement through [Spec,TP], as well as the stipulation that genitive case on postverbal subjects is a repair strategy.
(19)

a.

b.

Àyén à-càmcuî̤ in nè̤ pǎal.
Ayen 3SG-eat.SV
food P knife‘Ayen is eating food with a knife.’(van Urk 2015: 61)

C/TP
DP[TOP, NOM]
C/T’
Àyén
V+v+C/T[uNOM, uφ]vP
à-càm<DP[uCASE]>

v’

<V+v>

VP
V’

DP[ACC]cuî̤ in
<V>

PP
nè̤

pǎal

The object voice results when C/T enters the derivation with two sets of DP licensing features:[uφ] + [uGEN] and [uφ] + [uNOM] features. The presence of two licensing features causes C
and T to divide, the subject moving to [Spec, TP] to value [uφ] + [uGEN] and the object moving
to [Spec, CP] to value [uφ] + [uNOM]. The association of nominative case with C, rather thanT, is also in accordance with the analysis of Tagalog, since the clause-initial DP in Dinka is a27

Aldridge, Edith

topic. Object voice is spelled out when T and C are separate heads. Again, this marks an
improvement over van Urk (2015), since it provides an explicit analysis of the alternation
between subject and object voice morphology. My approach is also fully in accordance with
his intuition that object voice signals movement of a lower argument over the subject. In my
approach, this is because movement of the lower argument requires C and T to host separate
projections.
(20)

a.

b.

Cuî̤ in à-cɛ́ɛmÁyèn nè̤food
3SG-eat.OV
Ayen P‘Food, Ayen is eating with a knife.’

pǎal.
knife
(van Urk 2015: 61)CP

DP[uNOM]
C’cuî̤ in
V+v+T+C[uNOM, uφ]TPà-cɛ́ɛm
DP[GEN]T’Áyèn
<V+v+T[uGEN, uφ]>…

Finally, the analysis of oblique voice is equally straighforward in the C-T Inheritance approach.
First, I follow van Urk (2015) in analyzing the oblique voice marker as an incorporated
preposition. The additional appearance of object voice on the verb is due to the fact that a lower
argument must move over the subject, so C/T must enter the derivation with [uφ] + [uGEN]
and [uφ] + [uNOM] features. The presence of two sets of licensing features causes C and T to
split. The subject moves to [Spec, TP] to value [uφ] + [uGEN], while the adjunct moves to[Spec, CP] to value [uφ] + [uNOM]. The verb moves to C, and the preposition stranded by
adjunct movement raises and adjoins to the finite verb in C. Object voice is spelled out, since
T and C are separate heads.
(21)

Pǎal
à-cɛ́ɛm-è̤
Áyèn
knife
3SG-eat.OBLV
Ayen‘With a knife, Ayen is eating food.’cuî̤ in.
food(van Urk 2015: 61)

To summarize the C-T Inheritance approach to voice in Dinka, subject (default) voice is spelled
out on undivided C/T. Object voice is spelled out on C if it has divided from T. Oblique voice
combines object voice to allow movement of the lower argument and host incorporation of the
preposition stranded by this movement. This analysis allows Dinka voice to be treated inparallel fashion to Tagalog. The alternation between subject and object voice in Dinka isanalogous to the alternation between <um> and <in> in the perfective aspect in Tagalog. Dinka
also exhibits double voice marking in adjunct extraction, just as Tagalog. In Dinka, this is seenin the incorporation of the preposition to the object voice verb. Tagalog involves the
combination of non-subject perfective aspect marker and an applicative affix.

28

Aldridge, Edith

4. Conclusion
This paper has proposed an analysis of the Tagalog “voice” system within the framework of
C-T Inheritance. I showed that the hallmark subject/non-subject asymmetry marked in theperfective aspect can be captured on the basis of whether C-T Inheritance has taken place. The
subject voice obtains if Inheritance does not take place, while non-subject voice results whenthese two heads divide and host their own projections. Whether Inheritance takes place is aconsequence of whether C/T must license one or two arguments. There is only one argument
licensed by C/T in subject voice clauses, but non-subject voice involves the licensing of boththe ergative subject and a nominative/absolutive object. Different perfective aspect markers
signal whether Inheritance has taken place in Tagalog. I also suggested that English do-support
can be viewed as an analogous type of marking, occurring only with non-subject A’-movement,
i.e. when C and T are divided. I further extended this analysis to the complementizer asymmetry
observed in subject versus non-subject A’-movement in Wolof. Finally, I showed that thedichotomy between subject and non-subject voice in Dinka is also completely parallel to
Tagalog. This cross linguistic evidence suggests very strongly that C-T Inheritance does nottake place automatically but rather must be forced. And when it does take place, the divide
between C and T frequently receives overt morphological marking.

29

Aldridge, Edith

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32

Daniel, Penelope

Deriving person-based differential argument marking in Ik
Penelope Daniel
University of Connecticut

1. Introduction
Differential argument marking (DAM) is a pattern where case-marking is sensitive to theinterpretational properties of arguments. One well-known example of DAM is differential
object marking (DOM) of the type found in Turkic languages, such as Sakha: objects areaccusative when they are specific, but not when they are nonspecific, as shown in (1) (Baker& Vinokurova 2010).
(1) a. Erelkinige-ni
atyylas-ta.
Erelbook-ACC
buy-PAST.3sS‘Erel bought the book.’b. Erelkinigeatyylas-ta.
Erel
book
buy-PAST.3sS‘Erel bought a book/books.’(Baker & Vinokurova 2010)

This type of DAM has received the most attention in the literature (Bossong 1991, Aissen 2003,
Baker & Vinokurova 2010, i.a.), and has sparked numerous debates about the nature of caseassignment. Note that in this pattern, it is an interpretational property of the object that
determines the case of that object. Interestingly, it is also possible for the argument with theproperty that determines case-marking to be different from the argument that bears that casemarking. Baker (2015) observes differential subject marking (DSM) patterns where aninterpretational property of the object determines the case of the subject. In Eastern Ostyak, forexample, the subject is ergative when the object is definite (2a), but not when the object isindefinite, as shown in (2b).
(2) a. Mǝ-ŋǝn
lǝɣǝ
ǝllǝ
juɣ
kanŋa
We-ERG them
large
tree
beside‘We put them (pots of berries) beside a big tree.’b. Mät’ǝkäjǝɣlämnä
ula
We.DU.NOM
younger.sister.COM
berry‘I went to pick berries with my younger sister.’amǝɣaloɣ.
put.PAST.3pO/1pSmǝnɣälǝm.
pick.PAST.1pS(Gulya 1966)

Since this pattern shows that it is possible to have a dissociation between the argument that isdifferentially case-marked and the argument with the property that determines that marking,the question arises whether the other logically possible mismatch is attested. In other words, isit possible for an interpretational property of the subject to determine the case of the object?
This question has not yet been addressed within the generative literature on DAM. In this paper,
I show that this type of pattern is indeed attested. In Ik, the case of the object differs according
to the person of the subject: the object is accusative when the subject is 3rd person (3a), but
nominative when the subject is 1st or 2nd person (3b-3c).
33Daniel, Penelope(3) a. en-es-uɠot-a
wí
k-á
njí
ní
-ka.
see-IRR-AND-a children-NOM we.IC-ACC‘The children will see us (incl.).’b. en-í
-a
nk-a
wí
k-a.
see-1.SG-a I-NOM children-NOM‘I see the children.’c. en-es-í
d-a
bi-a
wí
k-a.
see-IRR-2.SG-a you-NOM
children-NOM‘You (sg.) will see the children.’(König 2008)

I will show that this pattern is surprising from the perspective of current approaches to DAM,
but actually fits naturally in an approach where case is assigned by a functional head (Chomsky
2000; Bošković 2007, 2011). Specifically, I propose that this pattern arises because v-heads inthis language are responsible for both the person of the subject and the case of the object.
In the following section, I will discuss relevant background on the syntax of Ik andelaborate on the DAM pattern in more detail. In section 3, I draw a parallel between Ik DAM
and the Person Case Constraint (PCC), which I will show to support an analysis where theDAM pattern is the result of case assignment by v, which I elaborate on in section 4. In section
5, I will show how this analysis is a better fit for this type of DAM pattern than existing
approaches to DAM. Section 6 concludes the paper.
2. Ik data
2.1 Background on Ik
Ik is a Kuliak language spoken in northeastern Uganda by 7,500 speakers. Ik is a VSO language,as shown for the verb-initial intransitive sentence in (4a), and the verb-initial transitive sentencein (4b).
(4) a. atsa
ŋóka.
come:3SG dog:NOM‘The dog comes.’b. cɛaborokaŋókíka.
kill:3SG
bushpig:NOM dog:ACC‘The bushpig kills the dog.’(Schrock 2017)

Ik is also a pro-drop language: there is subject agreement on the verb, and strong pronoun or
lexical NP subjects are optional (5-7). The (a) examples show sentences with strong pronoun
and lexical NP subjects, while the (b) examples show sentences without them. Note that ineither case, subject agreement is present on the verb.
(5) a. en-í
-a
nk-a
wí
k-a
see-1.SG-a I-NOM children-NOM‘I see the children.’b. ŋƙ-í-átɔbɔŋ-a=na.
eat-1SG-a mush-NOM=this‘I eat this meal mush.’(König 2008)(Schrock 2017)34

Daniel, Penelope(6) a. en-es-í
d-a
bi-a
wí
k-a
see-IRR-2.SG-a you-NOM
children-NOM‘You (sg.) will see the children.’b. ŋƙ-íd-atɔbɔŋ-a=na.
eat-2SG-amush-NOM=this‘You eat this meal mush.’(Schrock 2017)(7) a. cɛaborokaŋókíka.
kill:3SG
bushpig:NOM dog:ACC‘The bushpig kills the dog.’b. ŋƙatɔbɔŋɔ́-á=na.
eat:3SG mush-ACC=this‘She eats this meal mush’(Schrock 2017)(König 2008)

2.2 Ik DAM
As noted above, Ik has a unique case pattern where the case of the object is determined by the
person of the subject. Specifically, objects are accusative when the subject is 3rd person (3a,repeated below as 8a), but when the subject is 1st or 2nd person, the object is nominative (3b-c,
repeated as 8b-8c). Subjects themselves are nominative, regardless of person.
(8) a. en-es-uɠot-a
wí
k-á
njí
ní
-ka.
see-IRR-AND-a children-NOM we.IC-ACC‘The children will see us (incl.).’b. en-í
-a
nk-a
wí
k-a.
see-1.SG-a I-NOM children-NOM‘I see the children.’c. en-es-í
d-a
bi-a
wí
k-a.
see-IRR-2.SG-a you-NOM
children-NOM‘You (sg.) will see the children.’(König 2008)

To show what makes this pattern unique, recall that the most common DAM pattern is one inwhich the case of a given argument is determined by an interpretational property of thatargument. This was demonstrated previously by the Sakha example (1), where the case of theobject is determined by the specificity of that object. Similarly, it is also possible for the caseof the subject to vary according to a property of that subject: in Kham, transitive subjects are
ergative when they are 3rd person, as shown in (9a) but not when they are 1st or 2nd person, as
shown in (9b-c) (Coon & Preminger 2012).
(9) a. no-e
nǝn-lay
poh-na-ke-o.
he-ERG you-OBJ hit-2P-PERF-3A‘He hit you.’b. ngaː nǝn-lay nga-poh-ni-ke.
I
you-OBJ 1A-hit-2P-PERF‘I hit you.’c. nǝn nga-lay nǝ-poh-na-ke.
you I-OBJ 2A-hit-1P-PERF‘You hit me.’(Watters 1973, DeLancey 1981)
35

Daniel, Penelope

In Ik, like in Sakha, the object is differentially case-marked; however, like in Kham, it is the
person of the subject that is responsible for that case-marking. As previously discussed, while
the dissociation between the argument that is case-marked and the argument with the property
that determines that case has been attested in languages such as Eastern Ostyak (2), the type of
pattern that we see in Ik has not yet been discussed from a generative perspective. In fact, Ik
has the exact reverse of the mismatched relationship between the subject and object that has
been found in languages like Eastern Ostyak. This pattern is therefore significant because it isboth a deviation from the most common type of DAM pattern, as well as the reverse of thepreviously attested deviations from that pattern. Since current theories of DAM have been
guided by patterns like those in Sakha, Kham, and Eastern Ostyak, the Ik pattern is surprisingfrom the perspective of existing approaches to DAM.
There are, broadly speaking, two main kinds of approaches to DAM. One type of approach
focuses on the patterns where the argument that determines case-marking is the same argumentthat receives the case-marking (like Sakha and Kham). Haspelmath (2021), for example, argues
that the presence of a more ‘marked’ case, such as accusative or ergative instead of nominative
or absolutive, is a direct morphological reflex of the argument having more ‘marked’ semantics.
Kalin (2018) argues that arguments with more marked semantics require additional syntactic
licensing compared to arguments with less marked semantics, which can be realized as marked
case-marking on that argument. In both of these analyses, the differential case-marking isultimately a reflex, direct or indirect, of the semantic properties of the case-marked argument.
Since the case-marking and semantic property therefore coincide on the same argument, thistype of approach cannot be extended to patterns like Ik.
Other approaches to DAM assume case is assigned configurationally, e.g. throughDependent Case assignment, and that a ‘dependent case’ is assigned when the two arguments
are located in the same domain. In the context of DAM, this is often attributed to movement of
the object, where only objects with certain semantic properties move to the same domain as the
subject, as will be elaborated on further in section 5. This type of approach is therefore
compatible with DAM patterns where the object bears the semantic property responsible forcase-marking (like Sakha and Eastern Ostyak), but not with patterns where a semantic propertyof the subject is responsible, like in Ik.
Given that the Ik pattern closely matches the traits that all other DAM patterns share,
except for which argument triggers the case-marking and which one receives it, it would bedesirable, if such an analysis is possible, to have a unified analysis of DAM that also includes
the Ik pattern. I will show that such an analysis is indeed possible in section 4, after briefly
comparing Ik DAM to the Person Case Constraint in the following section.
3. Parallelism with the Person Case Constraint
Before accounting for the Ik DAM pattern described above, I will first draw attention to a
striking parallelism between the Ik case pattern and another syntactic phenomenon, namely the
Person Case Constraint (PCC). The PCC is a phenomenon where some combinations of cooccurring pronouns are restricted according to their person. While different variations or‘strengths’ of the PCC exist, I focus on a particular version of the PCC that Bonet (1991, 1994)
calls the Weak PCC, which is a restriction where the direct object (DO) pronoun cannot be 1st
or 2nd person when the indirect object (IO) pronoun is 3rd person, as shown in (10) for Catalan.
Observe that the 1st person DO and 3rd person IO cannot co-occur (10a), despite the fact that a
3rd person DO may co-occur with a 1st person IO.
36

Daniel, Penelope(10) a. *Al director, me li
ha recomanatlaMireia.
to-the director, 1SG 3SG.DAT has recommended
theMireiast‘As for the director, Mireia has recommended me to him’ (1 person DO, 3rd person IO)
b. El director, me l’ha recomanatlaMireia.
the director, 1SG 3SG.ACC has recommended
theMireia‘As for the director, Mireia has recommended him to me’ (3rd person DO, 1st person IO)(Bonet 1991)
Stegovec (2019) shows that in many languages, this same kind of restriction exists not only
between IOs and DOs, which are both internal arguments, but also between external arguments(EAs) and internal arguments (IAs).1 In other words, the IA cannot be 1st or 2nd person when
the EA is 3rd person. Interestingly, while the person of the EA does not restrict the person of
the IA in Ik, the person of the EA does appear to restrict the case of the IA. Specifically, theexact environment where the IA cannot be 1st or 2nd person in the languages that Stegovec
discusses is the same environment where the IA must be accusative in Ik.
In Stegovec’s (2019, 2020) analysis of these kinds of PCC effects (which he calls person
restrictions, a term that I will adopt for the rest of the paper), he argues that both pronouns are
in an Agree dependency with the same functional head, which affects the person valuation
options for the second pronoun. I argue that a similar analysis can be adopted to explain the
DAM pattern in Ik. However, instead of affecting the possible person value the IA may have,
I argue that φ-Agree between the functional head and the EA affects the IA’s ability to get
accusative case from that functional head. This accounts for how the person of the EA affects
the case of the IA, as I show in the following section.
4. Analysis
4.1 Background assumptions
The key to accounting for the interaction between the person of the EA and the case of the IAlies in the fact that they are both in a dependency with the same functional head, with therelevant dependency being Agree. I will first elaborate on a number of assumptions that I adopt
from Stegovec’s (2019, 2020) analysis of person restrictions regarding the Agree relation
between the functional head and the EA. First, Stegovec observes that person restrictions only
arise with a subset of deficient pronouns, which are prosodically dependent pronominal
elements. Stegovec argues that the pronouns involved in person restrictions enter the derivation
without a person value, which they must acquire through an Agree dependency with afunctional head. In other words, the pronouns involved are minimal pronouns, in the sense of
Kratzer (2009), who argues that minimal pronouns have unvalued interpretable features.
Stegovec therefore proposes that only deficient pronouns may be minimal pronouns. Person
restrictions then arise when multiple minimal pronouns compete for valuation of their person
value from the same functional head.
A minimal pronoun analysis can be extended to Ik subject agreement markers: recall that
Ik is a pro-drop language, so strong pronoun and lexical NP subjects are not obligatory (5-7).
I adopt a version of Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou’s (1998) analysis of pro-drop, where theagreement marker is the actual EA, while the optional independent pronoun or lexical NP
I switch to adopting the terminology EA and IA instead of ‘subject’ and ‘object’ for the rest of the paper, since
what is relevant is the particular argument, not the syntactic position or grammatical role of the argument.
137Daniel, Penelope

associated with it is located in a non-argument position. 2 Crucially, given the prosodic
dependence of the agreement marker EA, and the similarity between the Ik DAM pattern andweak person restrictions, I argue that the EA in Ik is a minimal pronoun, which carries unvalued
person features.3
I implement these assumptions about the EA by proposing that the EA is base-generated
as head-adjoined to v (rather than being part of T). According to Oda (2022), just as phrasal
adjunction can be the result of either movement or base-generation (Chomsky 1995), headadjunction can be the result of either of these processes as well. Given the deficient pronoun
status of the EA, which does not project a full phrase and is realized on the verb, it is naturalto analyze it as being base-generated in a head-adjoined position to v. We will see below that
this will be important for deriving the unique case pattern in Ik.
As stated above, minimal pronouns must undergo φ-agreement with a functional head thatcarries valued person features in order to receive a person value. v-heads have been argued tosometimes host valued φ-features like person features in some languages (Kratzer 2009; Legate
2014; Stegovec 2019, 2020). I therefore argue that in Ik, minimal pronoun EAs undergo
agreement with v in order to receive a value for person. v-heads vary in the exact value of theirperson feature, which results in EAs with different person values. For example, if a minimal
pronoun EA agrees with a v-head with person features valued as 1st person, the EA will receive
a 1st person value, while if the EA agrees with a v-head with person features valued as 2nd
person, it will receive a 2nd person value. I also assume that v-heads can lack person features
altogether, and I argue that this is the case when the EA is 3 rd person. Specifically, I assume
that 3rd person is the lack of a person feature (see e.g. Kayne 2000), so when a minimal pronoun
EA probes a v-head without a person feature, the EA will be unable to successfully value its
person feature, and will receive 3rd person by default (Stegovec 2019, 2020).
4.2 Deriving Ik DAM
I have proposed that the Ik DAM pattern is a result of the valuation of the EA’s person features
affecting the ability of the IA to receive case. With the above assumptions in place, I will now
show how person feature valuation of the EA interacts with case assignment to the IA.
It is traditionally assumed that v is the locus of the feature responsible for accusative case
(Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2001; Kratzer 1996). Following Bošković (2011), I assume that thisfeature on v is a valued case feature ([val uK]), while all arguments carry unvalued case features([__ uK]). Unvalued features function as probes, which must c-command their goal. As a result,arguments receive accusative case when they are located in a position from which they ccommand v, allowing them to undergo case-agreement with v and successfully value their casefeature. Within a standard NOM-ACC system, an IA enters the derivation with an unvalued
case feature (11a), which causes it to raise to Spec,vP where it successfully agrees with thevalued case feature on v and receives accusative case (11b).
(11) a. [vP v[val uK] [VP V IA[__ uK]]]b. [vP IA[val uK] [vP v[val uK] [VP V t]]]This is essentially a pronominal argument analysis in the sense of Jelinek (1984, 2006), who proposes thatagreement markers are the pronominal arguments, or Baker (1988, 1996), who argues that agreement markers
license null pro in argument positions, but crucially that lexical NPs are located in non-argument positions. In fact,
Baker (2003) specifically discusses a number of Bantu languages, which are also pro-drop, where only the EA
behaves as a pronominal argument, which is what I argue for Ik.
3
Other φ-features, when present on the EA, would be valued features (see Stegovec 2019, 2020), and would not
require valuation.
238

Daniel, Penelope

We have seen that Ik differs from a standard NOM-ACC system in that the case of the IA issensitive to the person of the EA. I argue that the reason that the IA does not receive accusative
case when the EA is 1st or 2nd person lies in the fact that both arguments require valuation fromfeatures on v. Specifically, I propose that the successful valuation of the minimal pronoun EA’s
person features on v causes all of v’s features to be deleted. This includes not only the person
feature, but also the case feature, the deletion of which prevents the IA from receiving
accusative case. However, when the EA does not successfully value its person features on v,
as is the case for 3rd person EAs, the case feature on v is not deleted, and the IA is able toreceive accusative case.
To demonstrate, when the EA probes v, the value it receives for its unvalued person feature([__iπ]) will depend on the person feature on the v-head. If v has valued person features ([valuπ]), either 1st or 2nd person, the EA will be able to value its own person features as 1st or 2nd
person (12). Following this successful valuation, the person and case features on v will
immediately be deleted (13). This means that when it is the IA’s turn to probe, there are nofeatures on v since they will have already been deleted. The IA is not a minimal pronoun, so
its person features are already valued. However, the IA does have an unvalued case feature. As
a result of the deletion of the features on v, the IA will be unable to value its case feature on v,
and therefore will not receive accusative case, instead receiving nominative case as a default
value.4(12)(13)

However, recall that if v does not have person features, the EA cannot value its person featureson v, so it instead receives a default 3rd person value. Since no successful valuation has takenplace, the features on v, which includes the valued case feature, are not deleted. As a result, thecase feature on v is still available for the IA to value its own case feature and receive accusative
case (14).5

As the default case, nominative would be expected to appear on NPs used in ‘out of the blue’ contexts. In English,
the default case is accusative, as shown in sentences like “Me, intelligent?”. Further research is needed to test
these predictions in Ik: the only examples of similar contexts that I have identified involve the use of a ‘copulative’case – it is unclear whether NPs can appear outside of this copulative construction, and if so, what case they would
appear in. Importantly, there is no evidence that accusative case is used in these contexts.
5Note that this is not the final word order. We have seen that Ik is a VSO language, which I assume is the resultof V-to-T movement (see section 5). The adjoined minimal pronoun EA will raise with the verb, while theindependent pronoun or lexical NP associated with the EA will be introduced in a non-argument position between
T and v (Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 1998), such as one of the middle field A’-positions proposed by authors
like Belletti (2004).
439Daniel, Penelope(14)

Note that the order of operations is crucial: since the person of the EA determines the case of
the IA, it is clear that the dependency between the EA and v must be established before thedependency between the IA and v. Recall that I propose that the EA is base-generated as headadjoined to v. I argue that this makes it possible for the EA and v to enter the derivation
simultaneously. As a result of the EA and v being base-generated and entering the derivation
together, the EA is able to immediately probe v. Crucially, this happens before v can establish
any dependency with the IA lower in the structure. 6
It is also crucial that the φ- and case features on v are deleted at the same time, as a resultof the successful Agree operation. Note that in Bošković’s (2011) system, the valuation of caseis independent from the valuation of φ-features. However, given the interaction between φfeatures and case in Ik, I argue that it must be possible for φ-feature valuation to have an effecton the case features of v in some instances. I propose that this is crucially only possible when
the different features on the functional head are both valued uninterpretable features, which is
not a possibility considered by Bošković (2011). According to Bošković (2011), contra
Chomsky (2000), valuation and interpretability are independent from one another: it is possible
for a single feature to be both valued and uninterpretable, or both unvalued and interpretable.
Uninterpretable features must be deleted prior to Spell-Out, since they cannot be interpreted at
LF. The case and person features on v are both uninterpretable, since they do not affect theinterpretation of the verb. Since they are also valued features, this means they may both bedeleted. Furthermore, since they are located on the same head, there is nothing to separate them,and therefore nothing to prevent them from being deleted simultaneously: if one is deleted, theother is deleted too.
Finally, note that while the EA receives a value for person, it does not receive a value forcase. Observe that none of the minimal pronoun EAs inflect for case in Ik: the subject marker
on the verb is same regardless of whether the lexical NP EA is nominative or accusative. We
can see this clearly in relative clauses, for example, where the lexical NP EA can exceptionallyreceive accusative case (15b), but the form of the subject marker is the same as when the lexical
NP EA is nominative (15a).
(15) a. en-í-ank-a
see-1.SG-a I-NOM‘I see the children.’wík-a.
children-NOM

Another possible reason for this order of operations could be that the EA probes first due to its θ-relation to v.
Stegovec (2019) argues that v cannot participate in agreement until its θ-role is assigned. As a result, the IA will
not be able to undergo case-agreement with v until the EA is introduced and receives a θ-role from v. However,when the EA is introduced, it may immediately probe v and value its person feature. Only after that may the IA
agree with v. This is compatible with the current analysis, where the EA is head-adjoined to v, or an analysis where
the EA is introduced in Spec,vP.
640

Daniel, Penelopeb. cek-anáncí-a en-uɠot-í-á
ntsí wice-kabíra-a nɛέ
woman-NOM REL.SG I-ACC see-AND-1.SG-a she.OBL children-ACC be.not-a here.DAT
na.
DEM‘The woman whose children I saw is not here.’(König 2008)

The most straightforward way to account for this case-invariance is by saying that the minimal pronoun
EA actually lacks a case feature altogether. This is consistent with the observation that incorporated
nouns do not require case (Baker 1988). Since that the minimal pronoun EA in Ik is prosodically partof the verb, and I analyze it as head-adjoined to v, as discussed in section 4.1, it is natural to analyze its
lack of case as a direct consequence of it being incorporated into the verb.
4.3 Interim summary
The proposed analysis correctly predicts when the IA will be able to receive accusative case.
Because of the minimal pronoun status of the EA, and the bundling of the valued case andperson features on v, the person of the EA will determine the case of the IA: when the EA
successfully values its person feature on v, the EA will be valued as 1st or 2nd person, and delete
all of the features on v, preventing the IA from valuing its case feature as accusative so that it
receives nominative case by default instead. However, when the EA does not successfully value
its person feature on v, the EA will be valued as 3rd person by default, and will not delete thecase feature on v, so the IA may value its case feature and receive accusative case. As a result,the IA will only be able to receive accusative case when the EA is 3rd person, but not when the
EA is 1st or 2nd person.
While the focus of this paper is on deriving the particular DAM pattern found in Ik,
crucially the proposed analysis can fit within a unified analysis of other, more traditional DAM
patterns where the case of an argument is determined by a semantic property of that argument.
Since DAM is always driven by an interpretational property of an argument, I assume that
DAM is always driven by an argument with an unvalued interpretable feature receiving a value
from a functional head. Abstractly speaking, in the traditional DAM patterns just described, anargument will receive case according to whether it undergoes valuation for an interpretablefeature. In Sakha, for example, the IA will receive accusative case when it values its
interpretable feature corresponding with specificity. In Kham, on the other hand, the EA will
receive ergative case only when it does not successfully value its interpretable person featureand receives 3rd person by default. Mismatches, like in Ik and Eastern Ostyak, arise when thevaluation of an argument’s interpretable feature affects the availability of the case feature foranother argument. 7 The current proposal therefore demonstrates that analyzing the Ik casepattern within the phenomenon of DAM is possible.
5. Advantages over current approaches to DAM
I have proposed an analysis of Ik DAM where the IA receives accusative case via agreementwith a v-head. There have also been numerous recent proposals to account for DAM
phenomena. As previously discussed, several approaches to DAM suggest that the casemarking is reflex of the markedness of a semantic property of the argument it is realized on(Kalin 2018, Haspelmath 2021). As a result, these analyses are focused on patterns in which
While the details of the other DAM patterns are outside the scope of this paper, Daniel (in prep.) develops a
unified analysis of all of the DAM patterns.
741Daniel, Penelope

the argument with the semantic property that determines case-marking is the same as theargument that is case-marked, and have nothing to say about DAM patterns like those in Ik,
where the two are independent.
There have also been attempts to account for DAM within the Dependent Case framework,
which I will discuss in more detail here. In this framework, ‘dependent case’ is assigned when
one non-case-marked argument c-commands another within the relevant domain (Marantz
1991, Baker & Vinokurova 2010, Baker 2015). These arguments are considered to be ‘case
competitors,’ with only one of them receiving the dependent case. In a NOM-ACC system, thiscase will be accusative, assigned to the lower of the two arguments. Baker & Vinokurova (2010)
propose a Dependent Case analysis for Sakha DAM, where specific IAs are accusative, andnon-specific IAs are nominative, as shown previously in (1). They argue that only specific IAs
undergo raising into the same domain as the EA, which triggers the assignment of accusative,
as shown in (16a), where the bolded VP indicates the boundary between the two case domains.
Non-specific IAs do not raise, so they are not in the same domain as the EA and do not receive
accusative case (16b). Baker (2015) argues that the relevant domain is the phase (Chomsky
2000, 2001), which in this case would be VP, indicated in bold in (16).
(16) a. [vP Erel [VP book-ACC [VP t buy]]]b. [vP Erel [VP book buy]](Baker & Vinokurova 2010)

Note that in this approach, a semantic property of the IA is responsible for its movement into
the same phase as the EA when accusative case is assigned. In Ik, however, the case-marking
is not determined by a semantic property of the IA: it is a semantic property of the EA (person)that determines whether the IA is accusative. A Dependent Case analysis would need to explain
why the IA would be in the same phase as the EA when the EA is 3rd person, but not when the
EA is 1st or 2nd person.
One option for such an explanation would be that the size of the phase varies so that it
includes both the EA and IA when the EA is 3rd person, but separates the EA from the IA when
it is 1st or 2nd person. This option is represented in (17), where v is the new boundary, indicatedin bold.8 Another option would be that EAs begin in the same phase as IAs, but 1st and 2nd
person EAs raise out of that phase, while 3rd person EAs remain there, as shown in (18).
(17) a. DAM:
b. No DAM:

[vP EA [vP v[vP EA [vP v[VP IA-ACC]]][VP IA]]](18) a. DAM:
b. No DAM:

[XP[vP EA[XP EA [vP t

IA-ACC]]IA]]

However, there is evidence against both of these options for Ik. Regarding the first option,
recall that Ik is a VSO language. I propose, on the basis of the verb combining with TAM
Coon & Preminger (2017) propose an analysis like this for ergative splits, that is, instances where ergativealignment is lost in some contexts, such as in certain aspects or with arguments of a certain person. They adopt a
Dependent Case approach, which treats ergative case as a dependent case that is assigned to the higher of twoarguments in the same phase (rather than the lower argument, as we saw for accusative case in NOM-ACC
systems). They argue that in the contexts where ergative alignment appears to be lost, there isn’t actually a change
in alignment, but instead that there is an additional phase boundary, which separates the two arguments, preventing
ergative from being assigned.
842Daniel, Penelope

morphology, and appearing to the right of overt complementizers, that this order is a result of
V-to-T movement. Fenger (2020) observes, based on a large-scale typological study, that thistype of movement always extends the phase, and thus the Spell-Out domain (cf. phaseextension or phase sliding; Dikken 2007, Gallego & Uriagereka 2007). Given this robust crosslinguistic generalization, and the lack of any evidence for a difference in phase size, it is natural
to assume that the EA and IA are always in the same phase, regardless of the person of the EA.
The second option predicts that any movement of the EA, including A’-movement, should
bleed assignment of accusative, since it removes it from the phase that the IA is in. This isbecause in the Dependent Case framework, it matters only whether two arguments are in thesame phase, regardless of how they reached the positions they are in. However, in subject
questions, wh-movement of the EA does not disrupt the case pattern: even with the phase being
extended to TP, the EA raises out of it, since it targets Spec,CP.9 In the subject question in(19), for example, the IA is still accusative, and there is no independent evidence that 1st or 2nd
person EAs are higher than 3rd person EAs in Ik.
(19) ndoo
óá
ɲ́cì
ka?
who:COP call:3SG:REAL I:ACC‘Who calls me?’(Schrock 2017)

Since wh-movement is not normally expected to affect the case pattern, some authors assume
that dependent case is assigned as soon as the relevant configuration arises, so that further
movement of the arguments does not affect their case-marking (Coon & Preminger, 2017).
However, this assumption would also be problematic for Ik, since Ik is actually a rare instanceof a language where certain kinds of A’-movement actually do affect the case pattern. For
example, when the IA is topicalized, both the EA and IA are nominative, even when the EA is
3rd person (20).10(20) wí
k-a
ńc-i
en-a
ná
children-NOM I-GEN
see-a
ENC
‘As for my children, he sees (them).’ńts-a.
he-NOM(König 2008)

While this provides a challenge for a Dependent Case approach, it can easily be accounted forNote that T-to-C movement of the verb, which I have argued undergoes V-to-T movement, does not further
extend the phase (Gallego 2010). While there is no evidence for or against T-to-C movement in Ik questions,crucially, this means that the wh-moved EA would be located outside of the phase whether this movement occurs
or not. Also note that the full pronoun/lexical NP is considered to be the potential case competitor of the IA, since
it is eligible for case, while the minimal pronoun EA is not, as discussed in section 4.2. If the minimal pronoun
EA is considered to be the case competitor instead, however, it would remain in the same domain as IA in subject
questions, but see below for additional arguments against a Dependent Case approach.
10
To show that topicalization in Ik is the result of A’-movement, rather than base-generation, note that Ik
topicalization patterns with A’-movement in Bantu languages that have asymmetric double object constructions(Bresnan & Moshi 1990). In these languages, the DO, but not the IO, may be A’-moved in passivization (Holmberg
et al. 2019). Similarly, in Ik, only the DO may be topicalized (20), but not the IO (i).
(i) *ńka-a m-át-ana tɔbɔŋw-á.
I-NOM
give-3.PL-a
ENC food-ACC(König 2008)
Intended: ‘To me they gave food.’
While these are different movement operations, the fact that topicalization in Ik is subject to the same restriction
as another movement operation in other languages suggests that it is also the result of movement, since a basegenerated topic would not be expected to face this kind of restriction.
943

Daniel, Penelopein the current analysis. I propose that when the IA undergoes movement for topicalization, it
does not pass through any position from which it can value its case feature on v and receive
accusative case. This is possible due to the fact that movement targets phasal edges (Chomsky
2000), and does not need to pass through intermediate case-licensing positions (Bošković 2007,
Jenkins 2022). In other words, an A’-moving element may pass through the phase edge, without
passing through the case position it would normally land in (in this case, Spec,vP). This nicely
fits with my proposal that Ik has V-to-T movement that extends the phase: the phase edge thatthe topic passes through would be Spec,TP. Since the IA’s movement is driven by a topic
feature, the IA will receive nominative as a default case after skipping the case position inSpec,vP (21). From there, the IA will undergo movement to its final landing site in Spec,CP(or a dedicated topic position in the left periphery of the clause; see Rizzi 1997).
(21)

To summarize, it is unclear how a Dependent Case approach would capture the Ik DAM pattern,since there is nothing to motivate the placement of the IA and EA in the same phase when the
EA is 3rd person, and in separate domains when the EA is 1st or 2nd person, and there is reason
to believe that the IA and EA may be in the same phase even when the IA is not accusative.
One final option for a potential Dependent Case analysis is that the dependent case algorithm
is somehow sensitive to the person of the EA, with EAs only being considered as casecompetitors when they are 3rd person. However, in order to account for other varieties of DAM
where other interpretational properties are involved, this kind of approach would amount tolisting which arguments, depending on their semantic properties, do and do not count as casecompetitors, which becomes a mere restatement of the facts. The current analysis, on the other
hand, uses independently motivated functions of v, valuation of person and case, to capture theinteraction between the case of the IA and the person of the EA.
6. Conclusion
I have presented a previously undiscussed case pattern which shows that DAM extends beyond
more familiar patterns where a property of some argument (often the IA) affects the casemarking of that argument: in Ik, person features of the EA affect the case marking of the IA. I
argue that this typologically rare case pattern can be captured by making use of independently
motivated properties of v, namely the valuation of person features of minimal pronouns, andthe valuation of accusative case. The interaction between the person of the EA and the case of
the IA is therefore the result of a shared dependency with the same functional head. The reason
for this dual dependency in particular is the special status of the EA as a minimal pronoun: adeficient pronoun lacking a person value. It is only through the combination of this property of
the EA and the presence of both case and person features on v that this Ik pattern arises.
44Daniel, Penelope

I have also shown that the proposed approach to case assignment is better equipped tohandle the Ik data than a Dependent Case approach because it does not rely on the EA and IA
being located in separate phases based on their person value. Given that it would be attractive
to have a unified analysis of all DAM patterns and basic case patterns, the Ik DAM pattern isproblematic for Dependent Case theory more generally. However, I show that an approach tocase assignment where accusative case is assigned by agreement with v, like the one proposed
here, can account for the data from Ik.
One question that remains to be answered is how the full pronoun or lexical NP associatedwith the minimal pronoun EA receives case. Recall that I assume that the full pronoun/lexical
NP is introduced in a non-argument position between T and Spec,vP. While I do not commit
to the precise location of this position, crucially, it is high enough that the full pronoun/lexical
NP will not be introduced until after the case feature on v has been deleted, either because theminimal pronoun EA has undergone successful valuation with it in order to receive a person
value, or because the IA has raised to Spec,vP and successfully valued its case feature on v.
The full pronoun/lexical NP then receives nominative case as a default value. Further
investigation into the relationship between the minimal pronoun and full pronoun/lexical NP
is required, but this work bears on the discussion of the relationship between agreement marker
arguments and their full pronoun/lexical NP counterparts cross-linguistically, since it has been
observed that in some languages the agreement marker and full pronoun/lexical NP match intheir case-marking, while in other languages they do not (see e.g. Baker & Bobaljik 2017).
Another open question is why this DAM pattern is so rare. While this question is outsideof the scope of this paper, the answer may lie in the fact that both the EA and IA require
valuation of different features from the same head in Ik. I suggest that the reason this casepattern is not found elsewhere is because this type of competition does not arise in otherlanguages, either because of the status of the EA, the IA, or the structure of the verbal domain.
For example, if the EA is not a minimal pronoun, it will not need to undergo agreement with v
in order to value its person features, and therefore will not need to compete with the IA for
valuation from the same head. Alternatively, if the EA is a minimal pronoun, but the IA is too,then the IA will need to undergo valuation for person, but not case, resulting in a person
restriction, rather than DAM (see Stegovec 2019, 2020). Finally, if a language has separate
heads for the assignment of accusative case and the valuation of the EA’s person features, thenboth the EA and IA will be able to value their respective unvalued features. While theimplications of these possibilities remain to be explored, the prediction made by the current
proposal is that the type of DAM found in Ik should be limited to languages only where theperson of the EA and the case of the IA need to be valued on the same head.

45

Daniel, Penelope

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47

Dékány, Éva

Auto-classifiers in Thai: a post-syntactic reduplication account*
Éva Dékány
Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics and Eötvös University

1. Introduction
This study inquiries into the structure of NPs with auto-classifiers (also known as repeaterclassifiers, echo classifiers or self-classifiers). Numeral classifiers often develop from
common nouns, and may remain form-identical with the source noun. Auto-classifiers are a
subtype of numeral classifiers; their definitional property is that they only occur with theform-identical source noun (as well as compounds headed by this noun). Consider thefollowing minimal pair from Thai, a language with N-Num-Cl word order in the NP.
(1) khon/dek/nákrian
sǎam
khon
person/child/student
three
CLF.person‘three people/children students’ (Pornsiri Singhapreecha, p.c.)(2) heetpon
laay
heetponreasonseveral
CLF.reason‘several reasons’ (Piriyawiboon 2010: 83)(1) features the classifier khonCL, which is form-identical with and can co-occur with its
source noun khonN ‘person’. In addition, khonCL can also classify a wide range of humandenoting nouns, including ‘child’ and ‘student’. KhonCL is therefore an ordinary, generalizedclassifier. The classifier of (2), heetponCL, on the other hand, only occurs with the formidentical noun heetponN ‘reason’ (and, potentially, with compounds headed by this noun).
This makes heetponCL an auto-classifier.
Auto-classifiers are common in East and Southeast Asian numeral classifier languages(Aikhenvald 2000; Jones 1970). This paper focuses on data from Thai (but reference will bemade to other auto-classifier languages at the appropriate points). According to Hundius &Kölver (1983), Thai has about five hundred auto-classifiers, which leads Jenks (2011: 94) toconclude that auto-classifiers require a grammatical rather than a lexical account. That is, anapproach whereby five hundred classifiers accidentally occur only with the form-identicalnoun (and its compounds) is unsatisfactory; instead, in NPs with auto-classifiers agrammatical link should be made between the exponence of the Cl node and the lexical entryof the noun. Agreeing with Jenks on this point, in this paper I address the nature of this link.
The discussion will proceed as follows. In Section 2 I will give critical discussion of theanalysis of auto-classifiers in terms of syntactic head movement (Simpson 2005; Simpson
and Ngo 2018), and argue against adopting a movement-based link between auto-classified*

Work on this paper was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences, the ÚNKP-22-5 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology
from the source of the National Research, Development, and Innovation Fund and grant NKFIH KKP 129921.
I would like to express my warm gratitude to Pornsiri Singhapreecha for providing data and judgments. Allerrors are mine.
48

Dékány, Éva

nouns and the Cl node. In Section 3 I will propose that the relevant link between nouns andauto-classifiers should be established in the post-syntactic component, in the form of a
reduplication rule. In Section 4 I discuss how auto-classifiers bear on constituency in the NP.
I round off the paper with my conclusions in Section 5.
2. Against the movement-based analysis
Auto-classifiers have not been fully appreciated in the existing literature; explicit discussionof this phenomenon is always brief and somewhat tangential to some other main point. Their
first treatment, to my knowledge, appears in Simpson (2005), where it is suggested that autoclassified nouns such as heetpon ‘reason’ in (2) undergo head movement to Cl. The ‘doubling’arises because chain deletion does not take place, so the noun is spelled out both in N and in
the landing site Cl. On the other hand, nouns which take an ordinary, generalized classifier(such as khon ‘person’, dek ‘child’ or nákrian ‘student’ in (1)) stay in situ. In their case the
Cl node is filled by insertion of a classifier listeme from the lexicon.
The major problem with this account is that whether a noun takes a generalized classifier
or an auto-classifier is an idiosyncratic, listeme-based property of individual Thai nouns,
which does not correlate with any other morphological or syntactic features. This means thatthe posited N-to-Cl movement would have to operate on a listeme-by-listeme basis. This isdiametrically opposed to what characterizes syntactic operations in general: syntax is
indifferent to which Vocabulary Item fills a particular slot. For comparison, in the clausal
domain V-to-T and V-to-C are known to be sensitive to morpho-syntactic properties such as
the main vs. auxiliary verb distinction or the finite vs. non-finite contrast, but neither
movement makes a listeme-based distinction among main verbs (e.g. by applying to ‘read’
but not to ‘write’). The listeme-based nature of the posited movement stands in stark contrast
to other, genuine cases of syntactic movement affecting Thai nominals as well. Since Cinque(2005), it has been an accepted thesis that NPs are cross-linguistically base-generated withthe ‘Dem-Num-Adj-N’ order, with other word orders being derived via movement of the(potentially extended) NP. In this framework (also adopted in Simpson 2005), the ‘N-NumCl’ order of Thai is derived by N(P) fronting to a position above the numeral. As shown by(1) and (2), this movement affects auto-classified and regularly classified nouns alike. As
expected from a narrow syntactic operation, this movement targets a morpho-syntactic class,that of common nouns, with no idiosyncratic exceptions.
The problem of forcing movement with an idiosyncratic subset of common nouns andat the same time preventing this movement from applying to the complement set isacknowledged and addressed in Simpson and Ngo (2018). As a solution, Simpson and Ngo
propose that languages with auto-classifiers have a phonologically null classifier. This
classifier selects for all and only auto-classified nouns. Crucially, the null classifier is affixal,
and is thus in need of phonological support. Movement of the noun to Cl takes place in orderto support the affix. As before, chain reduction does not take place, leading to a doubling of
the noun.

49

Dékány, Éva

(3)

NumP

Num

ClP

Cl
N

NP
Cl

N

-Ø

Overt generalized classifiers are morphologically free, on the other hand, so they do not
trigger N-to-Cl. This way the movement becomes restricted to all and only auto-classified
nouns.
There are several considerations, however, that weight against this approach. Firstly, thecrucial ingredient of the analysis, namely the posited affixal nature of the null classifier, is
not falsifiable. Secondly, this movement produces an unattested pattern in two respects. On
the one hand, the ‘Num-N-Cl’ order is cross-linguistically unattested: as observed inGreenberg (1972), the noun never intervenes between the numeral and the classifier. On theother hand, affixal classifiers are known from a variety of languages (including someSoutheast Asian languages), but they always form a phonological word with the numeralrather than the noun (even in the ‘Num-Cl-N’ order, affixal classifiers are suffixes to thenumeral rather than prefixes to the noun).
Thirdly, in recent models of syntax embracing late insertion, where syntax manipulates
abstract morphemes with no phonological content, the analysis encounters a problem in theordering of operations. N-to-Cl is assumed to take place in narrow syntax. As a functional
head, the Cl node is subject to late insertion. Since a specific classifier listeme is inserted to
Cl only in the post-syntactic component, the classifier becomes affixal or morphologically
free only at this stage. That is, the property that is supposed to trigger the movement becomes
accessible only after the movement has taken place.
One possible way to address this issue is to assume that N-to-Cl takes place postsyntactically, after Vocabulary Insertion, when information about the affixal nature of theclassifier is already available (i.e. it is a case of Vocabulary sensitive movement in the senseof Embick and Noyer 2001). However, as discussed in Embick and Noyer (2001: 561), postsyntactic movements ‘do not leave traces or their equivalents’. Thus if the movement is postsyntactic, no reference to chains can be made, and so the doubling of the noun cannot be
accounted for. In addition, relegating the movement to the post-syntactic component also
raises the question of why the classifier’s need for a host is not taken care of by Lowering ofthe ‘needy’ element, the classifier itself.
Finally, the head movement analysis (whether syntactic or post-syntactic) cannot
account for the pattern observed with compounds headed by auto-classified nouns. With thesecompounds we get the so-called semi-repeater construction, whereby only the head is doubled
in the classifier position (Hundius & Kölver 1983). This is illustrated with the auto-classified
noun prathêet ‘country’ and its compound prathêet-samǔn ‘satellite country’ in (5). (Notethat Thai nominal compounds are right-headed.)1
1

Pornsiri Singhapreecha (p.c.) informs me that repeating the whole compound would be fully ungrammaticalin (5), though there are other compounds where either a semi-repeater or a full repeater would be possible, with50

Dékány, Éva(4) prathêet
sǎam
prathêet
….country
three
CLF:country‘three countries’ (Hundius & Kölver 1983)(5) prathêet-samǔn
sǎam
prathêet
….country-satellitethree
CLF:country‘three satellite countries’ (Hundius & Kölver 1983)
The movement analysis would have to assume that the head of the compound can move awayfrom the non-head part, an operation that is otherwise unattested in Thai. Compare themovement that fronts nominals to the pre-numeral position:(6) kɛ̂ɛw-nám sǎamglass-water three‘three glasses’

bay
CLF

(7) *kɛ̂ɛwsǎam bay nám
glass
three CLF water
Intended: ‘three glasses’(Pornsiri Singhapreecha, p.c.)Based on the foregoing discussion, I conclude that auto-classifiers should not and cannot be
captured in the syntactic module of grammar.
3. A post-syntactic account of auto-classifiers
In the previous section we saw that auto-classifiers involve lexical idiosyncrasy, and thisprevents successfully capturing them in narrow syntax, a module with systematic operations
targeting (classes of) abstract feature properties. The repository of idiosyncratic informationis the lexicon, and idiosyncratic processes can be initiated in the post-syntactic morphologicalmodule of grammar after Vocabulary Insertion (see Embick and Noyer 2001 for an overview).
Below I will put forth a theory of auto-classifiers in which precisely this happens: anidiosyncrasy of a listeme in the mental lexicon triggers a post-syntactic morphologicalprocess.
3.1 Auto-classifiers as reduplication
I adopt a Late Insertion model whereby syntax operates on abstract features and Vocabulary
Insertion takes place after syntax. The Exponent List of Thai contains dozens of classifier
Vocabulary Items: khon is used for people except for sacred and royal ones, rûup classifies
priests and idols of deities, tua combines with nouns denoting animals, lêm is for long andpointed or sharp objects, baj is for leaves, leaf-life objects and containers, etc. (see Hundius
and Kölver 1983). These are all suitable for spelling out an abstract Cl node. Which one ofthem is chosen in a particular NP depends on which nominal listeme the NP is projected from:as discussed in Embick (2015: 92), it is generally the case that if more than one listeme issuitable for insertion, then ‘the winner is determined by a morpheme local to the morpheme
undergoing insertion’. That is, the Vocabulary Items for classifiers come with contextual
information which restricts their use to the context of specific roots.

a slight difference in meaning. While the nature of this variation requires further research, what is important forour purposes is that the semi-repeater construction (5) is always possible.
51

Dékány, Éva(8) some Vocabulary Items of Thai
a. Cl  khon / dek ‘child’, nákrian ‘student’, etc.
b. Cl  rûup / chii ‘ascetic’, etc.
c. Cl  lêm / khěm ‘needle, pin’, takraj ‘scissors’, dàap ‘sword’, etc.
d. Cl  baj / thánábàt bank note, tǔa ticket, tùm earthen jar, etc.
e. […]As shown in (8), the Vocabulary Items of generalized classifiers are each associated with a
specific, permanent phonological form on the sound side. Via the Encyclopedia, they are also
supplied with some meaning (sacred or non-sacred, long, pointed, flat, etc.).
I suggest that auto-classifier languages, including Thai, have no phonologically nullclassifier; that is, they have no classifier listeme which is associated with an empty
phonological string, Ø. I propose instead that in Thai and other auto-classifier languages theset of Vocabulary Items suitable for spelling out Cl also includes a listeme which is associatedneither with a specific, permanent phonological form in the Lexicon, nor with any lexicalsemantic information in the Encyclopedia.2 This classifier occurs with auto-classified nouns,
and it is associated to phonology via reduplication: it copies the melody of the noun, andtherefore its actual form depends on which specific nominal root projects the NP.
(9) Cl  REDUPLICATION / prathêet ‘country, pâw ‘target’, taa ‘eyes’, etc.
In Section 2 I cited Jenks (2011) for the view that the source of auto-classifiers should begrammatical rather than lexical. The approach presented above is not lexical in the sense thatit does not assume five hundred different classifiers in the Lexicon for the five hundred
different auto-classified nouns. That is, there is no lexical entry for a classifier whose
phonology is permanently prathêet and which selects only for the noun prathêet ‘country’,nor is there an unrelated lexical entry for a classifier whose phonology is permanently pâw
and which selects only for the noun pâw ‘target’, etc. All auto-classified nouns occur with thesame classifier, the one whose phonology is produced by reduplication.3 Reduplication is agrammatical process of the post-syntactic component, thus in the relevant sense, autoclassifiers have a grammatical rather than a lexical origin indeed.
The literature distinguishes between two major types of reduplication: phonological andsyntactic (see Travis 2001 for a more detailed picture). Phonological reduplication is sensitive
to phonological domains. It expands the word in the form of affixes (as Frampton 2009: 3
puts it, it is ‘the surface manifestation of nonconcatenative inflectional morphology’) andadds further semantic content to the word, typically (though not exclusively) that of plurality,
iterativity or emphasis. A typical example of this type of reduplication is the kaldíŋ ‘goat’ ~kal-kaldíŋ ‘goats’ plural alternation in Ilocano (Frampton, 2009: 7).
Auto-classifiers clearly do not involve phonological reduplication: they do not expand
the word that supplies the phonological material for reduplication (in our case, N) or create
affixes. In fact, most auto-classifiers languages have the ‘N-Num-Cl’ order, where theThis means that the meaning contribution of auto-classifiers to NP is purely formal: it consists in the divisionof mass (Borer 2005) without additional information on what sort of units (e.g., long, flat, animate, sacred, etc.)
are created in the course of the division.
3
The analysis thus concurs with Burling’s (1965: 250) view that auto-classifiers are all ‘allomorphic variantsof the same morpheme’.
252

Dékány, Éva

nominal base and the reduplicant classifier are not even surface-adjacent. Furthermore, notonly do they not involve the typical semantics of plurality, iterativity or emphasis, but they
seem to add no meaning at all: they simply satisfy a formal requirement to fill the Cl slot.
Syntactic reduplication operates on syntactic rather than phonological domains. It
consists in copying (part of) the melody from a reduplicative head’s syntactic complement
domain and inserting it ‘into a position that is already syntactically available’ (Travis 2001:
465). In the context of syntactic reduplication, Travis discusses cases such as cup (of coffee)
after cup of coffee, cup after steaming cup of coffee or steaming cup (of coffee) after steaming
cup of coffee. She suggests that in these examples a reduplicative head (spelled out by the
preposition) takes a phrasal complement. (Part of) this complement’s segmental information
is borrowed and inserted into the specifier of the reduplicative head, as shown in (10). Wangand Holmberg (2021) discuss a related but slightly different configuration for syntactic
reduplication: they show that in Traditional Xining Chinese the functional head n initiates
reduplication if its complement N is monosyllabic (e.g. sū → sū sǔ ‘lockN’). The insertion of
the borrowed melody here targets the functional head n itself. This is schematized in (11).4
(10)

QP

Spec

(11)
Q′

nP

domain of copying → NP

Q
XP  domain of copying
REDtarget of insertion

n
(RED)

target of insertion

What is common to the two configurations is that i) reduplication is initiated by asyntactic (potentially functional) head, ii) what is copied is (part of) the melody of this head’s
complement, and iii) the copying consists in the borrowing of segmental information (i.e.
melody) without concomitant copying of syntactic structure. That is, syntactic reduplicationis crucially different from movement: the former operates purely on melody, while the latter
operates on abstract morpho-syntactic features. (Whether the borrowed melody is inserted
into a specifier or a head is likely related to the amount of melody that has been copied: themelody copied from a single morpheme or a complex head may ‘fit’ into the slot for a head,but the melody copied from a larger phrase won’t.)
I suggest that auto-classifiers involve syntactic reduplication as in (11), with the melodyof N serving as the base and the Cl node serving as the point of insertion for the borrowed
segmental information. This way the lexical entry of N is tightly connected to the exponenceof the Cl node, but no movement (syntactic or post-syntactic) is involved.

The reduplicative feature is placed in parentheses in (11) because reduplication is obligatory only if thecomplement is monomorphemic and monosyllabic at the same time. See Wang and Holmberg (2021) for details.
Note that reduplication in Xining Chinese simply satisfies the formal requirement that N should have twosyllables; it has no semantic import at all.
4

53

Dékány, Éva(12) NumP
Num

ClP

Cl
RED

NP  domain of copying

target of insertion
This approach avoids the problems raised by the analysis of Simpson (2005) and Simpson
and Ngo (2018). Whether a noun takes a generalized classifier or an auto-classifier is captured
via the Lexicon, the repository for listeme-based, idiosyncratic properties. The analysis does
not assume an independently unattested word order (with a copy of the noun intervening
between the numeral and the classifier), nor does it assume the unattested affixation of theclassifier onto the noun. There is no paradox regarding the ordering of operations either: autoclassifiers arise in the post-syntactic component during Vocabulary Insertion, at a point where
phonological content is supplied to abstract morphemes and thus Vocabulary sensitive
operations can legitimately take place.
The reduplication analysis can also make sense of the semi-repeater construction, shownin (5) and repeated below for the reader’s convenience as (15). On the movement analysis,
these were an obvious embarrassment, as heads and non-heads of compounds don’t generally
separate from each other via syntactic movement.
(15) prathêet-samǔn
sǎamcountry-satellite
three‘three satellite countries’

prathêet
CLF:country(Hundius & Kölver 1983)

I suggest that semi-repeaters are a case of partial reduplication, a phenomenon well known in
the literature. The kaldíŋ ‘goat’ ~ kal-kaldíŋ ‘goats’ alternation of Ilocano mentioned above
is an example of partial phonological reduplication, with only part of the relevant
phonological domain undergoing melody copying. In Travis’ approach, cup after steaming
cup of coffee is an example of partial syntactic reduplication, where again only part of therelevant syntactic domain (here: cup from the phrase steaming cup of coffee) undergoes
melody copying. Wang and Holmberg (2021) also discuss a case of partial syntactic
reduplication from Traditional Xining Chinese. Recall that in this language n obligatorily
triggers reduplication if its complement N is monosyllabic (e.g. sū → sū sǔ ‘lockN’). If thecomplement nominal of n is a bisyllabic compound, then n can trigger reduplication of justthe head of the compound, e.g. mēi hū ‘ink box’ → mēi hǔ hú ‘ink box’. (Reduplication of
the non-head part or the entire compound is ungrammatical.)I suggest that semi-repeaters are similarly a case of partial syntactic reduplication, where
only part of the reduplicative classifier’s complement domain undergoes melody copying.
They are thus quite similar to the partial reduplication of compounds in Xining Chinese: inboth cases, it is possible for melody copying to target just the head of a compound and toinsert this borrowed melody to spell out a functional head in the extended NP. Copying justthe head of a compound keeps the mechanism of segmental borrowing minimal but at the54

Dékány, Éva

same time allows the abstract Cl node to be associated with a phonological string. In thissense, it is the optimal solution to the problem of how to expone a Cl node with no permanent,
invariable phonological material associated to it.
3.2 Variation across auto-classifier languages
There is cross-linguistic variation among auto-classifier languages regarding the division oflabor between generalized classifiers (8) and Cl:RED (9). In Ersu (Sino-Tibetan) there is aclear-cut complementary distribution between the two types of Cls: generalized classifiers areused whenever possible, and the Cl:RED producing auto-classifiers is licit only if the noun is
not compatible with any of the other existing classifiers in the language (Zhang, 2014). Ersu
thus uses auto-classifiers as a last resort, in order to meet the formal requirement that all
abstract syntactic nodes must be paired with some Vocabulary Item during Vocabulary
Insertion. The reduplicative classifier of Ersu can thus be characterized as an elsewhere case,and therefore it is not necessary to include contextual information in the vocabulary entry of
Cl:RED (it will be used whenever the noun projecting the NP is not among the contextual
restrictions of the other, generalized classifiers).
The situation in Thai is similar, but not identical to that in Ersu. Jenks (2011: 94)
observes that ‘the repeater construction seems to be a kind of last resort’, and is employedwhenever none of the generalized classifiers is appropriate. However, there are also cases
when either a generalized classifier or an auto-classifier can be used. (13) has the same
meaning regardless of whether the generalized classifier rûaŋ and the auto-classifier panhǎa
is employed (Pornsiri Singhapreecha, p.c). (A similar pattern is reported for Burmese in Pe
1965.)(13) panhǎa sǎam panhǎa/rûaŋ
problem three
CLF:problem/CLF.story‘three problems’ (Jenks 2001: 94)
Since auto-classifiers are not used exclusively as a fall-back option in Thai, it is notpossible to leave the vocabulary entry of Cl:RED entirely without contextual specification.
The nouns which show the alternation in (13) simply have to be listed as a contextual
specification for both one of the generalized classifiers and Cl:RED. Nouns allowing morethan one classifier, without a concomitant change in meaning, are independently attested in
Thai, so this approach fits with the general characteristics of classifier expressions in thelanguage. Consider the following example from Hundius and Kölver (1983). All threeclassifiers produce the meaning ‘mango fruit’; lûuk and baj are fully interchangeable, while
the Pali loan word phǒn differs from these only in that it invokes a different stylistic level (itis more elegant).
(14) mamûaŋ sǎam lûuk/baj/phǒn
mango three
CLF.fruit/CLF.leaf/CLF.fruit‘three mangoes’ (Hundius and Kölver 1983)
4. Consequences for NP structure
The constituent structure of NPs with classifiers has been subject to debate in the literature
for a long time. According to one view, the classifier takes the noun as its complement (16).
55

Dékány, Éva

On the other approach, the classifier sits in a left branch together with the numeral, either as
an adjunct or as a specifier (17).
(16) NumP
Num
Cl

(17)

ClP

NP/FP
NumP

NP

Num

NP

ClP

Choosing between the two structures on the basis of empirical arguments has been elusive.
Most recently, the debate focused on variation within classifier languages, specifically,languages in which either particular numerals or particular nouns require a classifier incounting contexts, while other numerals or nouns block classifiers (Bale and Coon 2014,
Simpson and Ngo 2018, Little et al. to appear, Dékány to appear). Even in this narrow domain,
however, different researchers have reached different conclusions.
Auto-classifiers provide a new, so far overlooked argument in favor of the structure in(16). Whether they are derived by movement or reduplication, auto-classifiers require a headcomplement relation between the Cl node and the NP. On the movement account, this isstraightforward: neither head movement nor phrasal movement can take a node from the main
projection line to a position inside a specifier. At the same time, the reduplicative view is also
exclusively compatible with (16). As discussed in Travis (1999, 2001), syntactic
reduplication copies melody from the reduplicative head’s syntactic complement domain.
This means that the borrowing of segmental information from N to Cl can take place in (16)but not in (17).5
5. Conclusions
This paper examined auto-classifiers, a subtype of numeral classifiers whereby the noun itself
is repeated in the classifier position. I supported Jenks’ (2011) view that the source of autoclassifiers is grammatical, but I argued against an account in terms of syntactic head
movement. I suggested that auto-classifiers arise in the post-syntactic module of grammar,
via a (potentially partial) reduplication operation of the type outlined in Travis (1999, 2001).
Simpson (2005) draws a parallel between classifier structures and expletive subjects in
English. As in well known, with (non-alternating) unaccusative predicates Spec, TP can be
filled either by first-merge of an expletive (There came three new sailors on board, Haegeman
1994: 335) or by movement (Three new sailors came on board). In Simpson’s approach the
Cl node can similarly be filled by either first-merge (of a generalized classifier) or by
movement (of the noun). He points out that in this sense, generalized classifiers ‘pattern alittle like expletives’ (fn. 8). The proposal in this paper turns this claim around. While I
suggested that neither generalized classifiers nor auto-classifiers involve movement, autoclassifiers pattern a bit like expletives in the sense that they are employed because of a formal
On (17), one may try to capture auto-classifiers by assuming that their source is exclusively lexical: for eachauto-classifier, there is a separate Cl entry in the lexicon, such that that Cl occurs only with the form-identical
N. This cannot capture the observation that auto-classifiers are ‘a kind of last resort’(Jenks 2011: 94), and it also
loses the insight that auto-classifiers are allomorphs of each other. This isalso difficult to maintain in view of
the relative productivity of the pattern (as pointed out above, auto-classifiers are used for about five hundred
nouns in Thai).
556

Dékány, Éva

requirement which mandates that a certain position in syntax must be filled overtly. An
analogy between expletives and auto-classifiers (rather than between expletives andgeneralized classifiers) is more appropriate from a semantic point of view as well: while
generalized classifiers do have some semantic contribution to the structure (regarding theanimacy, shape, size, function or other inherent qualities of the referent), auto-classifiers
make no similar contribution.

57

Dékány, Éva

References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2000. Classifiers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bale, Alan, and Jessica Coon. 2014. Classifiers are for numerals, not for nouns: Consequences
for the mass/count distinction. Linguistic Inquiry 45:695–707.
Borer, Hagit. 2005. Structuring sense, volume I. New York: Oxford University Press.
Burling, Robins. 1965. How to choose a Burmese numeral classifier. In Context and meaning
in cultural anthropology, ed. Melford E. Spiro, 243–264. New York: Free Press.
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2005. Deriving Greenberg’s Universal 20 and its exceptions. Linguistic
Inquiry 36:315–332.
Dékány, Éva. To appear. Classifiers for nouns, classifiers for numerals. In Proceedings of
NELS 52, ed. Breanna Pratley, Özge Bakay, Eva Neu and Peyton Deal. Amherst: GLSA.
Embick, David, and Rolf Noyer. 2001. Movement operations after Syntax. Linguistic Inquiry
32: 555–595.
Frampton, John. 2009. Distributed reduplication. Linguistic Inquiry Monographs 52.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1972. Numeral classifiers and substantival number: Problems in thegenesis of a linguistic type. Working Papers on Language Universals 9:1–39.
Haegeman, Liliane. 1994. Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. 2nd ed. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Hundius, Harald, and Ulrike Kölver. 1983. Syntax and semantics of numeral classifiers in
Thai. Studies in Language 7:165–214.
Jenks, Peter. 2011. The hidden structure of Thai Noun Phrases. Doctoral Dissertation,
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Jones, Robert B. 1970. Classifier constructions in Southeast Asia. Journal of the American
Oriental Society 90:1–12.
Little, Carol Rose, Mary Moroney, and Justin Royer. To appear. Classifiers can be fornumerals or nouns: Two strategies for numeral modification. Glossa.
Pe, Hla. 1965. A re-examination of Burmese ‘classifiers’. Lingua 15:163–185.
Piriyawiboon, Nattaya. 2010. Classifiers and determiner-less languages: The case of Thai.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Toronto.
Simpson, Andrew. 2005. Classifiers and DP structure in Southeast Asia. In The Oxford
handbook of comparative syntax, ed. Guglielmo Cinque and Richard S. Kayne, 806–838.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Simpson, Andrew, and Bingh Ngo. 2018. Classifier syntax in Vietnamese. Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 27:211–246.
Travis, Lisa. 1999. A syntactician’s view of reduplication. Toronto Working Papers in
Linguistics 16:313–330.
Travis, Lisa. 2001. The syntax of reduplication. In Proceedings of NELS 31, ed. Minjoo Kim
and Uri Strauss, 454–469. Amherst: GLSA.
Wang, Qi, and Anders Holmberg. 2021. Reduplication and the structure of nouns in Xining
Chinese. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 39:923–958.
Zhang, Sihong. 2014. Numeral classifiers in Ersu. Language and Linguistics 15:883–915.

58

Dias, Tarcisio

Hyper-raising and the subject position in Brazilian Portuguese
Tarcisio Dias
University of Connecticut

1. Introduction
In this paper I propose that Brazilian Portuguese (BP) subjects occupy a mixed A/A' position
between Spec,CP and Spec,TP (i.e., Spec,A/A'P) and argue that hyper-raising constructions
are derived via movement to this position as depicted in (1).
(1) [CP [A/A'P DPi [TP ... [CP [A/A'P ti [TP ...
I also claim the subject is not frozen for movement in the embedded finite clause becausefeature checking there involves the A/A' projection, and not a pure A or A' projection. I am
using "hyper-raising" (HR) in the sense of Ura (1994), thus referring to "languages that allow
raising from the subject position of a tensed (or finite) clause" (p.65; emphasis added by theauthor). Consider (2).
(2) a. Os meninos parecem que t comeram maçã.
the boysseem.3PL that
ate.3PL apple'It seems that the boys have eaten apples'b. proEXPL Pareceque os meninos comeram maçã.
seem.3SG that the boys
ate.3PL apple'It seems that the boys have eaten apples'
Notice that the 3rd person plural DP subject os meninos ('the boys') triggers agreement withboth verbs in the embedded and in the matrix clause (2a). When movement doesn't take place,an expletive pro is inserted instead, satisfying matrix EPP and triggering default (3SG)agreement (2b). HR constructions like (2a) are challenging since subject raising out of finite
clauses is expected to violate the Activation Condition (Chomsky 2000, 2001), as movementfrom a Case-checking position to another Case-checking position is arguably banned (cf. *Theboys seem (that) are happy). In other words, DPs that have entered a Case-checking relation
should be frozen in place and no longer move. Another potential issue is improper movement,
as movement through the embedded Spec,CP to the matrix position would qualify as movementfrom an A' position to an A position (e.g., from embedded Spec,CP to matrix Spec,vP). In thefollowing, I will argue BP subjects occupy a mixed A/A’ position which allows HR
constructions to be derived without inducing freezing effects.
The proposal that subjects in HR languages occupy Spec,A/A'P straightforwardly accounts
for the mixed A/A' properties of BP subjects and will also account for the unavailability of a
subject-object inverse scope reading in the language. I also claim that movement out of A/A'P
voids the freezing effect of feature checking. Such movement recreates the configurationneeded for agreement in the matrix clause, which makes the same DP trigger agreement bothin the embedded and in the matrix clause.
59

Dias, Tarcisio

2. The data: hyper-raising in Brazilian Portuguese
One could wonder whether the trace in (2a) isn't actually pro. In this section I will show it isnot, as has been argued in the literature. First, BP does not allow referential 3rd person nullsubjects, which would make the licensing of pro in embedded clauses unexpected.
(3) *Embarcou
notrem
boarded.3SG
in.the train'He/She boarded the train'.
Rodrigues (2004:03)

Also, 3rd person null subjects in embedded contexts are not free in reference, being dependent
on the matrix DP subject.
(4) Ele1 disse que e1/*2 embarcou no
trem.
He said thatboardedin.the train'He said that he boarded the train'

Rodrigues (2004:03)

As observed by Duarte (1996), BP null subjects in embedded finite clauses do not obey
the Avoid Pronoun Principle 1 (APP), thus allowing overt non-emphatic subject pronouns
instead of pro (5). The null subject in BP alternates freely with the overt pronoun, whichsuggests that the former is not pro, given that pro cannot be involved in such free variation (cf.
Montalbetti's 1984 Overt Pronoun Constraint).
(5) O João disse que (ele1/2) gosta da
Maria.
the João said that helikes of.the Maria'João said that he likes Maria'

Rodrigues (2004:79)

Notice that the null subject freely alternates with the overt pronoun, which shows that the latter
is not being "avoided'' in any sense. The silence in (5) being a trace is fully compatible with
the APP. Additional evidence that the matrix subject is derived via movement can be seen in(6), where a null subject is prohibited within the relative clause.
(6) a. Parece que [o bolo que o João comeu não tava bom.]seems that the cake that the João ate
not was good
'It seems that the cake that João ate wasn't good'b. *O João parece que [o bolo que t comeu não tava bom.]the João seems that the cake thatate
not was good

Nunes (2008:10)

Also, reconstruction effects are attested for HR constructions. In (7) we see that subject DPs ofsentential idioms can hyper-raise.
(7) a. A vaca foi
pro
brejo.
the cow went to.the swamp'Things went bad.'1"Empty categories have preference over overt pronouns'' (Chomsky 1981:65).
60

Dias, Tarcisiob. A vaca parece que foi
pro
brejo.
the cow seems that went to.the swamp'It seems that things went bad.'Finally, in (8) the matrix DP ninguém ('nobody') licenses the embedded Negative Polarity
Item (NPI) um dedo ('a finger').
(8) a. Ninguém mexeu um dedo pra me ajudar.
nobodymoved a finger to me help
'Nobody lifted a finger to help me'b. *Ninguém disse [que a Maria mexeu um dedo pra me ajudar.]nobody said that the Maria moved afinger to me help
'Nobody said that Maria didn't lift a finger to help me'c. Ninguém parecia [que t ia
mexer um dedo pra me ajudar.]nobody seemed thatwent move a finger to me help
'It seemed that nobody was going to lift a finger to help me'
Nunes (2008:11)
Notice that the null subject in (8c) being a trace is compatible with the requirement that the
NPI licensor and the NPI must be clause mates. Therefore, I take null subjects of embedded
clauses of HR constructions to be traces (i.e., deleted copies) of movement, in line with theavailable literature.
3. Previous accounts to hyper-raising in Brazilian Portuguese
3.1. The φ-incomplete finite T approach to hyper-raising
As observed in Nunes (2008:86), Ferreira (2000, 2004, 2009) and Rodrigues (2002, 2004) haveargued that with the weakening of the verbal paradigm in BP, the finite T in the language ceased
to license referential pro, and referential null subjects were reanalyzed as A-traces. Ferreira(2000, 2004, 2009) suggests that BP finite Ts are φ-ambiguous, that is, they could either be
associated with a complete or with an incomplete set of φ-features. In this approach, a φcomplete T would freeze the subject in the embedded clause by assigning structural nominative
Case to it, deriving (2b). A φ-incomplete T, on the other hand, would fail to assign nominative
Case, which would make the embedded subject eligible to move into the matrix clause, thus
deriving (2a). This is under the assumption by Chomsky (2000, 2001) that nominative Case isassigned as a side effect of φ-complete agreement between T and the subject, which correctlypredicts the impossibility of movement in *John seems (that) is tired, but the need formovement in John seems to be tired.
Nunes (2008) implements this idea by suggesting that (i) person and number features canbe combined either in the numeration or in the morphological component, which would allowa "personless" (φ-incomplete) T in syntax, and that (ii) nominative pronouns in BP areunderspecified (cf. Nunes 2020), which would also account for the "weakening" in BP verbal
inflection. The motivation for underspecification in the pronominal system refers to the loss ofverbal inflection in BP, where 2nd singular, 3rd singular, and 1st plural pronouns all trigger
default agreement (3rd singular) on the verb (9a). 2nd plural and 3rd plural pronouns, on theother hand, trigger 3rd plural agreement (9b).

61

Dias, Tarcisio(9) a. Você/ Ele/Ela/A gente canta
you.SG/ he/ she/ wesing.PRES.IND.3SG'You/He/She/We sing(s)'b. Vocês/ Eles/ Elas
canta-myou.PL/ they.MASC/ they.FEM sing-PRES.IND.3PL'You/They sing'He accounts for (9) by claiming the pronouns in (9a) are radically underspecified for person
and number, and the ones in (9b) have only a number feature (i.e, plural). The pronouns eu ('I')
and nós ('we'), on the other hand, would be specified with only one feature, which he claims isenough to identify them: the former is specified as [Person.Number: SG], and the latter as[Person.Number: 1]. He shows that you only need the singular value to identify the 1st person
singular pronoun morphologically, since there is no person distinction between the singularforms você, ele, ela and a gente. In the case of nós, however, we only need the person value"1", since the plural forms vocês, eles and elas have no person distinction morphologically
expressed (see 10; remember that BP uses 3rd person as default).
(10) Eu cant-o /I sing-PRES.IND.1SG /'I sing'/ 'We sing'Nós
wecanta-mossing-PRES.IND.1PL

It is not at all clear to me how Brazilian Portuguese nominative pronouns will end up being
properly interpreted if they are "maximally underspecified" (Nunes 2020:4659). If the
pronouns você(2sg), ele ('he'), ela ('she'), and a gente ('we') are equally unspecified for person
and number, where the different interpretations that we obviously still have among them would
be encoded? How is the semantic component going to distinguish the 2nd person singular fromthe 3rd person singular if they are identical objects in the derivation? The fact themorphological component is able to properly realize the agreement inflections without needing
to access a full specification of person and number features is not itself evidence ofunderspecification of the pronominal system. Syncretism across "cells" in agreement patterns
is a phenomenon widely attested cross linguistically, and there is plenty of work within theDistributed Morphology framework, for instance, that deals with such cases as
underspecification in the phonological exponents, but not in the syntactic nodes, which are
generally assumed to be fully specified.2 Therefore, I don't see any reason to interpret the lossof inflection markers in BP as the aftermath of Agree with underspecified pronouns.
On the possible different timings of insertion of person and number features (either in the
numeration or in the morphological component), which would allow a "personless" (φincomplete) T in syntax, no supporting evidence was presented, and I couldn't think of a way
to test this claim, as T would always surface the same. Also, the only alleged "visible" effectof the proposed timing difference seems to be DP movement out of the finite domain, which isprecisely the phenomenon the analysis aims to account for.

2

Cf. subset principle: Harley & Noyer (1999:04). Underspecified vocabulary items compete for insertion into fully
specified syntactic nodes. See also Sauerland's (1995) account of the syncretic pattern of Dutch strong adjectives
desinences, which crucially relies on the subset principle.
62

Dias, Tarcisio

3.2. The A features in C approach to hyper-raising
Fong (2018, 2019) shows that accusative subjects of embedded clauses in Mongolian are Casemarked by the matrix verb (and can therefore hyper-raise).
(11) a. Bat chang-aar [Dorjsain seheetin gej ]khel-sen.
Bat loud-INST Dorj.NOM good noble
COMP say-PST'Bat said loudly that Dorj is good and noble'
b. Bat chang-aar Dorj
[ec sain seheetin gej ]khel-sen.
Bat loud-INST Dorj.NOM
good noble COMP say-PST'Bat said loudly that Dorj is good and noble'

Fong (2018:02)

As already mentioned, Ferreira (2000, 2004, 2009) and Rodrigues (2002, 2004) show thatembedded null subjects are traces of movement in BP sentences like (12), where the DP moves
to a θ-position.
(12) O João disse [ t que comprou um carro].
the João said
that bought a car'João said that he bought a car'Ferreira (2009:29)

Now let's consider (13).
(13) a. A Maria meviu (estudando).
the Maria 1sg.ACC saw studying'Maria saw me (as I was studying)'
b. Eu vi que t estou estudando pouco.
I saw thatamstudying
little'I realized I'm not studying much'(13a) shows the verb ver ('see') assigns accusative Case. (13b) shows a construction where theembedded subject moves to a θ-position out of a finite clause, as in (12). Now look at (14).
(14) *Mevi que t estou estudando pouco
1sg.ACC saw that am
studying little(Int.) 'I realized I'm not studying much'
Given that BP embedded finite subjects do indeed move to a θ-position in the matrix, I don't
see how (14) would be excluded in Fong's approach, since we would expect the matrix verb toassign accusative to the embedded subject, which would therefore be able to raise as it happens
in Mongolian's (11). Let's say that whatever mechanism typically assigns abstract Case in BP
would be unavailable in the embedded clause in (12). Under Fong's analysis, the matrix verb,
which is an accusative Case assigner, should be able to Case-mark the embedded subject as it
does in (11b).
The analysis developed here differs from Fong (2018) in the following. She suggests HR
in BP is derived by subject movement to Spec,CP triggered by A-features in C, which create
A-positions. For her, HR is an instance of A-movement even though it passes through Spec,CP.
Here, HR will not be derived via movement to Spec,CP, but to a lower position, Spec,A/A’P.
63

Dias, Tarcisio

3.3. C as a composite A/A' probe
Lohninger, Kovač & Wurmbrand (2022) propose that the matrix predicate in HR constructions
as in BP lexically selects a special CP, i.e., "CP.R'', which "bundles the A-properties of apredicational R[elator]P[hrase] [...] with the A'-properties of a (regular) CP'' (p.12). 3 They
claim that the mixed A/A' nature of this projection allows the DP in its Spec to be targeted bymatrix A-probes without involving improper A-after-A' dependencies. Notice, however, that
our analyses are not notational variants. The CP.R projection is restricted to HR constructions,and it is not a (locally moved) subject-dedicated position as Bošković's (2021,in press) A/A'P,
which is the projection I will rely on in the analysis to be developed here. Our approaches also
make different predictions. If Fong (2018) is correct in her proposal that a composite A/A'
probe in C is responsible for deriving hyper-raising to object in Kipsigis (15) (p.13-4),4 thenit's not clear to me how we would be able to prevent HR to object in BP under the CP.R
approach, which is ungrammatical (16).
(15) mɔ́cè pè:ndɔ́ Mù:sá [ kɔ́-tílKíplàŋàt ].
wants meat Musa 3S.SUB-cut Kiplangat'Musa wants that Kiplangat cut the meat.'

Jake & Odden, 1979 (11)(16) *O bolo parece que o João comeu.
the cake seems that the João ate'The cake seems that John ate.' 5
4. A/A'P
Bošković (2021, in press) has independently argued for the existence of a subject-dedicatedposition above TP and below CP, claiming it is an instance of a mixed A/A’ position. He shows
this position hosts local wh-subjects, which move straight to this position without passing
through Spec,TP. This projection doesn't host wh-objects, embedded (long-distance moved)
wh-arguments, and wh-adjuncts, which all move to Spec,CP instead. As an A/A’ position, it
can (i) satisfy EPP,6 (ii) check nominative Case, (iii) check the [+WH] feature and, I will argue,
trigger agreement.
He shows that who in who left? is neither in Spec,TP nor in Spec,CP, but it must be in
between. West Ulster English allows quantifier float under wh-movement (cf. 17). One
argument that who is not in Spec,TP is that a subject in Spec,TP is unable to float a quantifierin the θ-position in passive (17b). If who in (17a) were to pass through Spec,TP (or if it werelocated in Spec,TP), the quantifier would be floated from the same position in both (17a) andCf. also Wurmbrand (2019a, b).
"An appropriate goal for this type of hybrid probe has to have matching features. If the embedded subject does
not have them, it will be skipped over them. Conversely, if the object bear A/A'-features, it will be an adequate
goal, allowing it to be hyper-raised.'' (Fong 2018:14).
5
A focused or topicalized object is allowed, but it would require a comma intonation separating the fronted object
with the rest of the clause. This is of course not the relevant derivation here.
6
In Bošković's proposal, the A/A'P is the highest projection in the EPP domain, which corresponds to a return tosplit IP. In his system, EPP is checked in the highest projection of the EPP domain, i.e., Spec,A/A'P. Such domain
looks like (i). For instance, English regular subjects would be in Spec,AgrsP, quirky subjects are good candidates
for Spec,TP.
(i) [A/A'P [AgrsP [TP ...
3
4

64

Dias, Tarcisio(17b), so the former should be ungrammatical. Therefore, the wh-subject in (17a) moves above
TP, which means it must be able to satisfy the EPP and get nominative Case above TP.
(17) a. Who [TP (*t) was arrested all t in Duke Street?]b. *[TP They were arrested all t last night.]
c. What did [TP he say all t that he wanted?]

Bošković (2021:03)

However, who and what in (17) cannot occupy the same position in the left periphery. If thatwere the case, the contrast in (18) would be unexpected. Notice that the wh-object moves above
the topic, a position unavailable for wh-subjects, suggesting the former is higher than the latter.
(18) a. ?Mary wonders which book, for Kim, Peter should buy.
b. ∗Mary wonders which student, for Kim, should buy that book.

Bošković (2021)

Another interesting evidence that wh-subjects and wh-objects are in different positions
comes from Igbo, a language spoken in southeastern Nigeria, where they are marked differently(19). Notice that the focus particle is obligatory with the former and prohibited with the latter.
(19) a. Ònyé*(ka) Òbíhù̥ rù̥ n'-áhíá?
who FOC Obi saw P-market'Who did Obi see at the market?'b. Ònyé(*ka) hù̥ rù̥ Ádá n'-áhíá?
who FOC saw
Ada P-market'Who saw Ada at the market?'Amaechi and Georgi (2019)

Further, the fact (20a) allows for an inverse scope reading shows that the object everyone
scopes over a quantifier in Spec,TP, the regular subject position. Then, with the impossibilityof inverse scope in (20b), he concludes who is not located in Spec,TP (cf. also Mizuguchi 2014),
and it must be in Spec,A/A’P, as Spec,CP is also excluded (cf. 18).
(20) a. Someone loves everyone. (∃>∀; ∀>∃)
b. Who loves everyone? (∃>∀; ∗∀>∃)

Bošković (2021)

The A/A' position is not confined to wh-subjects. Bošković (2022) shows it can also host V2
subjects, Only-subjects, Imperative subjects, Locative inversion, Singlish non-agreeing
subjects and Defaka focus subjects. Spanish (regular) subjects, Chinese subjects and quirky
non-subjects are also good candidates for that position. In the next section I will argue that bothwh and regular Brazilian Portuguese subjects occupy Spec,A/A'P. The mixed A/A' proposal
captures the contrast we see between (21a) and (21b), in which extraction across who in theformer is less degraded than extraction across how in the latter (cf. Chomsky 1986 where thiscontrast is reported). The account is given in (22).
(21) a. ?Whati do you wonder who bought ti?
b. ??Whati do you wonder how she bought ti?
(22) a. ?[CP what do you wonder [A/A'P who bought t]]b. ??[CP what do you wonder [CP how she bought t]]
65(Bošković 2022)

Dias, Tarcisio

5. A/A'P in Brazilian Portuguese
Local BP wh-subjects occupy Spec,A/A'P, as in English. Notice that BP displays the same
topicalization pattern observed in (18), which indicates wh-objects are higher than wh-subjects(23).
(23) a. Maria quer saberquelivro, pro
Pedro, o João comprou.
Maria wants to.know which book to.the Pedro the João bought'Maria wants to know which book, for Pedro, João has bought.'
b. *Maria quer saberquealuno, pro
Pedro, comprou o livro.
Maria wants to.know which student to.the Pedro bought the book
(Int.) 'Maria wants to know which student, for Pedro, has bought the book.'
Another evidence for the availability of A/A'P in BP is the ellipsis data below. Quem nunca
ellipsis is only available with a locally moved wh-subject (24b, 25b). With wh-objects (25c),long distance (LD) wh-arguments, including subjects, (25c,25d), and wh-adjuncts (26), thisellipsis is disallowed. The sentences in (a) correspond to the discourse antecedent of theelliptical constructions in (b-d). The non-elided versions of the ellipses being examined are all
fully acceptable.
(24) a. Pedro beijou João.
Pedro kissed Joãob. Quem nunca [t beijou João]?
who neverkissed João?''Who has never kissed João?'c. *Quem Pedro nunca [t beijou t]?
who Pedro never kissed'Who has Pedro never kissed?'(25) a. Maria disse que Pedro beijou João.
Maria said that Pedro kissed Joãob. Quem nunca [t disse que Pedro beijou João]?
who never said that Pedro kissed João'Who has never said Pedro kissed João?'c. *Quem Maria nunca [t disse que Pedro beijou t]?
who Maria never said that Pedro kissed'Who has Maria never said Pedro kissed?
d. *Quem Maria nunca [t disse que t beijou João]?
who Maria neversaid that kissed João'Who has Maria never said kissed João?'(26) a. Pedro beijou João na
festa.
Pedro kissed João at.the partyb.∗Onde Pedro nunca [t beijou João]?
where Pedro never kissed João‘Where did Pedro never kissed João?’66

Dias, Tarcisio

Only local wh-subjects are allowed in Quem nunca ellipsis constructions, whereas non-local
wh-subjects (i.e., wh-objects, LD wh-arguments, wh-adjuncts) are not. This is exactly the cut
predicted under the subjects-in-Spec,A/A’P analysis. By assuming with Lobeck 1995 that[+WH] Spec-head agreement is a necessary condition for ellipsis licensing in cases of sluicing,
I propose that nunca heading the A/A’ projection licenses ellipsis when it stands in a Spechead relation with Quem[+WH], which is only possible when quem corresponds to the local
subject. Also notice that the wh-elements in (24b) and (25b) cannot correspond to the object.
Check the table below for a summary.
(27) Quem nunca ellipsis
Quem+nunca XP
local wh-Subj✓
local wh-Obj*
LD wh-Obj*
LD wh-Subj*
wh-adjunct*e.g.,24b,25b
24c
25c
25d
26b

6. Brazilian Portuguese regular subjects occupy Spec,A/A'P
In this section I will claim that, just like locally moved wh-subjects, regular subjects in
Brazilian Portuguese also occupy Spec,A/A’P.
6.1. Brazilian Portuguese regular subjects have mixed A/A' properties
Being in a mixed A/A’ position, we expect BP subjects to exhibit both A and A’ properties.
Lacerda (2020) argues that BP subjects can receive an aboutness (AT) topic interpretation even
without being in Spec,CP.7 In (28) we see that the aboutness topic object must be fronted tobe licensed. Já (lit. "already") is an aboutness-shifting particle, used to introduce a (noncontrastive) discourse topic.
(28) A: O Pedro teve que ler o Programa Minimalista pra esse curso.
'Pedro had to read the Minimalist Program for this course.'
B1: Já o BarriersAT, ele não teve que ler.
JÁ the Barriers
he not had that to.read
B2: *Ele não teve que ler
já oBarriers.
he not had that to.read JÁ the BarriersAT'As for Barriers, he didn't have to read it'

Lacerda (2020:25)(28) shows that the aboutness topic object must be interpreted in a sentence initial position.
This position, however, does not have to be Spec,CP.
An anonymous reviewer pointed out that I misrepresented Lacerda's claim, "which actually states that subject inBP can be interpreted as topic even when they occupy Spec,TP". This is indeed the author's actual claim, but there
is no A/A'P projection in his theoretical assumptions. If we interpret BP subjects as occupying Spec,A/A'P insteadof Spec,TP we account for the topic reading without having to assume TP in the language hosts [Topic] features,
which seems to treat BP as typologically exceptional. There doesn't seem to have any empirical loss in proposing
BP subjects are actually in the A/A'P projection instead, which is equipped to handle both A (e.g., agreement) andA' (e.g., topic reading) properties. Additional motivation is required to sustain TP does the job, where this is
expected under the A/A'P analysis.
767Dias, Tarcisio(29) A: O Pedro leu dez livros do
Chomsky pra esse curso.
the Pedro read ten books of.the Chomsky to this course'Pedro read ten books by Chomsky for this course.'
B: Já o JoãoAT não leu
nenhum.
JÁ the João not read.3SG none
'As for João, he didn't read any.'

Lacerda (2020:209)

The aboutness topic DP o João in (29) corresponds to a regular subject, thus triggeringagreement in (29B). Also notice that no pause is required after the subject, contrary to B1 in(28). These facts can be captured if the subject is in Spec,A/A’P, a position that is able tolicense both A (e.g., agreement) and A’ (e.g., topic) properties. Importantly, English does notallow subject topics (cf. Lasnik & Saito 1994, Bošković 2016).
Martins & Nunes (2010) and Rodrigues (2004) also observe that BP DP subjects exhibit
topic behavior. For instance, topicalized possessives can occupy subject position, thus
triggering verbal agreement. Also notice that such topic-subjects can hyper-raise (31).
(30) a. Os ponteiros dorelógio quebrara-m.
the hands of.the watch broke-PL'The hands of the watch broke.'b. O relógio quebrou os ponteiros.
the watch broke.SG the hand
'As for the watch, its hand broke.'(31) O relógio parece que quebrouos ponteiros.
the watch seems that punctured the hands'As for the watch, it seems that its hands broke.'
The above is for the A' properties associated with A/A'P. For the A properties, we have seenthat they trigger verbal agreement (cf. 2a, repeated below as 32).
(32) Os meninos parecem que t comeram maçã.
the boysseem.3PL that
ate.3PL
apple'The boys seem to have eaten apples'
The data in section 2 show that HR in BP can be characterized as A-movement. For
instance, we saw in (7b), repeated below as (33a), that DP subjects of sentential idioms, which
generally resist A’-movement (cf. 33b), can hyper-raise. Only a non-idiomatic reading isavailable for (33b).
(33) a. A vaca parece que foi
pro
brejo.
the cow seems that went to.the swamp'It seems that things went bad.'b. *A vaca, parece que ela foi
pro
brejo.
the cow seems that it went to.the swamp(Int.) 'It seems that things went bad.'68

Dias, Tarcisio

Additionally, Fong (2018) shows HR in BP has another property of A-movement, namely,that hyper-raised subjects are able to bind variables without inducing weak cross-over effects.
(34) Nenhum aluno1 pareceproorientador dele1 [t que entendeu alição]
nostudent seem.3SG for.the advisor
of.hethat understood the lesson‘No student seems to his advisor to have understood the class.’
Fong (2018:11)
Lastly, Ferreira observes that this position hosts negative quantifiers, which cannot be
topicalized (i.e., cannot be in a pure A' position).8(35) a. Ninguém parece que entendeu
o problema.
nobody seems that understood the problem'Nobody seems to have understood the problem.'b. *Ninguém, o João disse que entendeuoproblema.
nobody the João said that understood the problem(Int.) 'João said that nobody understood the problem.'

Nunes (2008:09)

I therefore propose that BP hyper-raising constructions are derived via movement from
Spec,A/A'P in the embedded clause to Spec,A/A'P in the matrix one (cf. 1, repeated below as36).
(36) [CP [A/A'P DPi [TP ... [CP [A/A'P ti [TP ...
HR is then predicted only in languages where regular subjects can be in Spec,A/A'P. This is
not improper movement, since it is not movement from a pure A' position (e.g., Spec,CP) to apure A position (e.g., Spec,TP).

6.2. Scope rigidity and hyper-raising
We have seen that in English, even though regular DP subjects allow for an inverse scope
reading (cf. 20a, repeated below as 37a), wh-subjects don't (cf. 20b, repeated below as 37b).
(37) a. Someone loves everyone. (∃>∀; ∀>∃)
b. Who loves everyone. (∃>∀; ∗∀>∃)

Bošković (2021)

An anonymous reviewer acknowledged the discussion in the literature that shows the position occupied by hyperraised subjects in BP does not count as an A'-position. They mention the fact HR subjects are compatible withidioms (38) and indefinite quantifiers (40), which cannot move to an A'-topic like position. This analysis does notstate HR subjects go to a pure A'-position (i.e., Spec,CP), where such elements are definitely not expected.
Crucially, the A/A' position is able to host elements that have performed A or A' movement. In other words, the A
aspect of it is able to admit either a subject raised out of a sentential idiom or an indefinite quantifier. Stating it interms of Boolean operators, the A/A' projection has to be understood as A or A', not as A and A', i.e., A-movement,
A'-movement, and mixed A/A'-movement are all predicted to be allowed in Spec,A/A'P. This analysis doesn't
imply that every movement targeting Spec,A/A'P should obligatorily exhibit mixed properties. An account thattreats BP subjects as raisers to Spec,TP shouldn't expect it to exhibit A' discourse effects of the type mentioned
here, since the language has a dedicated (pure) A' position for that (Spec,CP). Given there is independent
motivation for Spec,A/A'P, it is to the advantage of this analysis to capitalize on it to account for subjects whichdisplay both A and A' characteristics.
869

Dias, Tarcisio

Interestingly, (regular) BP subjects behave like wh-subjects regarding scope interaction.
Assuming that the absence of inverted scope reading in (37b) is due to the wh-subject
occupying a position higher than Spec,TP, thus blocking object inversion, I argue non-wh BP
subjects also occupy this position (i.e., Spec,A/A'P). This provides a straightforward accountof why BP resists an inverted scope reading in (38a). Notice that under HR the inverse scope
reading is also impossible (cf. 38c).9(38) a. Alguém
ama
todo mundo. (∃>∀; ∗∀>∃)
someone loves everyone
b. Quem ama todo mundo? (∃>∀; ∗∀>∃)
who loves everyonec. Alguém
pareceque
ama todo mundo. (∃>∀; ∗∀>∃)
someone seems
that loves everyone
The proposal above gives rise to an empirical prediction: languages that exhibit hyper-raisingare expected to be scope-rigid, at least in "subject precedes object" cases such as (38a). Noticethat this is a one-way correlation: absence of inverse scope reading will not mean availabilityof HR. So far, the prediction is indeed borne out for several languages from different families
listed in Ura (1994:65) as allowing HR. Here, I list HR languages that are also scope-rigid:(39) Scope-rigid hyper-raising languages:
Mandarin Chinese (cf. Huang 1998), Japanese (cf. Hoji 1985), Korean (cf. Kim 2008), Persian(cf. Shafiei & Storoshenko 2017), Turkish (cf. Altinok 2017), Greek (cf. Baltazani 2002),
Kinande (Bantu; cf. Baker 2003), Georgian (cf. Borise & Polinsky 2018), Finnish (cf.
Zimmermann 2003), Tamil (cf. Sarma 2003), Sinhala (cf. Tim Chou & Hettiarachchi 2016).
Hungarian, which exhibits HR (cf. den Dikken 2017), is also scope-rigid (cf. Kiss 2002).
Spanish, which has HR according to Fernández-Salgueiro 2005 and Pires & Nediger 2018), is
also claimed to be scope-rigid (cf. Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 1998).
7. Deriving hyper-raising in Brazilian Portuguese: the voiding of freezing effects
According to Bošković (2008), once X enters a feature checking relation, it is frozen in placeand can no longer move. Crucially, X can only be probed once, regardless of the status of theprobe (i.e., A or A').
(40) X undergoes A [or] A' movement feature checking as a probe only once.

Bošković (2008:24)

So:

An anonymous reviewer said the data in (38) are not helpful because "Brazilian Portuguese displays surface
scope even when subjects are not involved" as in O João apresentou alguém pra todo mundo ('João introduced
someone to everyone'), with the existential quantifier obligatorily scoping over the universal quantifier. I don't see
how this sentence is relevant in the context of the present discussion. The claim here is that a quantifier in object
position cannot scope over the quantifier in subject position. The fact a direct object takes scope over an indirect
object in a ditransitive construction tells us nothing about the unavailability of inverse scope in (38). I have neverclaimed the A/A' position accounts for all the scope-rigid readings of the language.
970

Dias, Tarcisio

A: *[A'] feature checking movement feeding [A'] feature checking movement. Cf. Rizzi's (2006,2007)
Criterial Freezing.10
B: *[A] feature checking movement feeding [A'] feature checking movement. Cf. who left? effect: whsubject movement cannot proceed through Spec,TP (Bošković 2019, Messick 2020).11
We also do not expect C or D:
C: *[A] feature checking movement feeding [A] feature checking movement. Cf. Chomsky's(2000,2001) Activation Condition.
D: *[A'] feature checking movement feeding [A] feature checking movement; i.e., improper
movement.12
I therefore propose (41):(41) No freezing effect is expected where the A/A' projection is involved, since in this case we
don't have A, B, C, or D.
With this approach, hyper-raising is a side effect of subjects occupying Spec,A/A'P, a position
where licensing of both A and A'-features are possible. The mixed A/A' position is then theescape hatch needed to void freezing effects. The derivation of the HR sentence Os meninos
parecem que comeram maçã(cf. 32) is given below.
(42) [CP [A/A'P Os meninosi [TP parecem [vP ti [CP que [A/A'P ti [TP comeram [vP ti maçã...
The A/A' projection is always involved in the derivation above: the subject DP moves from
Spec,vP to Spec,A/A'P in the embedded clause. Then, it moves to the matrix Spec,vP, andfinally to matrix Spec,A/A'P. Therefore, in this approach HR is a side effect of regular subjects
occupying Spec,A/A'P.
8. Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that the availability of hyper-raising in Brazilian Portuguese isassociated with its subject occupying Spec,A/A'P, a mixed A/A' position between CP and TP
in the left periphery of clause structure dedicated to locally moved subjects, thus accounting
for the mixed A/A' properties of Brazilian Portuguese subjects. I have also claimed that thefreezing effect of feature-checking is voided only when A/A' movement is involved.

No A'-movement (e.g., wh-movement, topicalization, focalization, QR, NPI-licensing) can feed another instanceof A'-movement.
11This approach also captures Chomsky's Activation Condition if interpreted as [A] feature checking movement
feeding [A] feature checking movement.
12
No Spec,TP to Spec,CP movement in who left?. Also, in Kinande, objects agree with the verb only when there
is no wh-movement of the object. So, it is not possible to do object shift (i.e., movement to Spec,vP) followed by
wh-movement (i.e., movement to Spec,CP), given D (Bošković, p.c.).
1071Dias, Tarcisio

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74

Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

Pseudo-incorporation vs. Differential Argument Marking in
Korean*Imke Driemel, Hyunjung Lee
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Universität Leipzig

1. Introduction
A language displaying optional case marking accompanied by semantic effects is often
analyzed either as pseudo-noun incorporation (PNI) or as differential object marking (DOM),
thereby raising the question whether both phenomena represent two sides of the same coin.
PNI captures the absence of a case marker, which is roughly explained by the nominal forminga ‘closer-than-usual’ relation with the verb (Massam 2001). DOM, on the other hand, focuseson the presence of the case marker, where its addition signals more discourse prominence
relative to other noun types (Bossong 1991; Aissen 2003). Usually, case drop only affects theleast prominent noun type in PNI/DOM languages, illustrated here with Mongolian in (1),where only non-specific indefinite objects allow accusative case drop (1c).
(1) Mongolian(Guntsetseg 2016)
a. Bi
tuun*(-ig) /Tuya*(-g) /ene uul*(-ig)
har-san.
1SG.NOM
3.ACC/Tuya-ACC/this mountain-ACC
see-PST‘I saw her/Tuya/this mountain.’b. Delxij
nar*(-yg)
tojr-dog.
earth.NOM sun-ACC
circle-HAB‘The earth circles around the sun.’c. Xen neg nminij zugluulgan-aas neg nom*(-yg)/nom(-yg)
xulgajl-žeesomeone.NOM
mycollection-ABL
a book-ACC/book-ACC
steal-PST‘Someone stole a specific book / a non-specific book from my collection.’
The prominence effects are often modeled with prominence scales such as the definitenessscale in (2), where noun types are ranked based on their discourse prominence potential, andcase marking becomes more likely the higher the noun is ranked on the scale. For Mongolian
and many other languages, the cut-off point for case marking is very low.
(2) Definiteness scale
PRONOUN ≻ PROPER NAME ≻

DEF ≻

DEM

(Silverstein 1976; Aissen 1999, 2003)≻ INDEF SPEC ≻ INDEF NON-SPEC
CASE ⇐⇐⇒⇒ NO CASE

Previous corpus work on optional case marking of Korean arguments (H. Lee 2006, 2008;
Kwon and Zribi-Hertz 2006, 2008) has identified challenges to an analysis in terms ofmarkedness scales (Aissen 2003). 1 While case loss on indefinite bare nouns displays*

We thank Gereon Müller and the audience at GLOW in Asia XIII, Oda Hiromune, Myung-Kwan Park and
Takashi Toyoshima for their valuable feedback.
1
Park (2020) argues that optional nominative case marking in Korean plays multiple roles to denote contextuallyprominent referents, i.e., anaphoric definites and unique definites construal.
75

Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

interpretive effects familiar to PNI, more prominent categories scoring higher on thedefiniteness scale can also undergo case loss with no such effects. In this paper, we will provide
a detailed case study based on scope, binding and control tests, showing that lack of casemarking is indicative but does not entail PNI in Korean. The data, however, can still be captured
with an Aissen-style markedness scale, if the scale differentiates between DPs and NPs. Thus,a scale-based account can be naturally combined with a DP/NP account of PNI, where NPs
constitute the lowest member of the definiteness scale (see also von Heusinger 2008). We
conclude from the results that PNI and DOM are separate phenomena: whereas PNI relatescase loss to a size difference and thus triggers semantic effects, DOM simply relates case loss
to the position on the definiteness scale.
2. Optional case marking in Korean
In Korean, subjects and objects show optional case marking, shown in (3).2 Due to space, wewill mostly illustrate the semantic properties for only one argument type per diagnostic.
(3) a. Ecey
Minswu-ka
chinkwu(-lul)yesterday Minsoo-NOM
friend-ACC‘Minsoo met (his) friend yesterday.’b. Beoseu(-ga) o-goiss-da.
bus-NOM
come-PROG-DECL‘There’s a/the bus coming.’

man-nass-ta.
meet- \PST-DECL(Ha. Lee 2011)(Kwon and Zribi-Hertz 2008)

What is striking about the Korean case pattern is that significantly more noun types than usual
can be affected by case drop, as can be seen in (4).
Ku??(-ka)/Kunye??(-ka)
wus-ess-e.
3rd pronoun
he-NOM/she-NOM
laugh-PST-INT‘She/he laughed.’b. ...Na-nun
yeca*(-lul)kuly-ess-e.
(anaphoric) definite3
I-top
woman-ACC
paint-PST-INT‘(Context: I met a woman yesterday) ... I painted the woman.’c. Yusu-ka
i/cekkoch(-ul)
sa-ss-e.
demonstrative
Yusu-NOM
this/thatflower-ACC
buy-PST-INT‘Yusu bought this/that flower.’d. Yusu-NOM
kkoch(-ul)
twu-songi sa-ss-e.
numeral classifier
Yusu-NOM
flower-ACC
two-CLbuy-PST-INT‘Yusu bought two flowers.’
e. Minho-ka
chayk(-ul)
ilk-nun-ta.
indefinite
Minho-NOM
book-ACC
read-PRS-DECL‘Minho is reading a book (specific or non-specific).’(4) a.

2

Turkish is another language, which has been reported to show differential case marking for both external andinternal arguments (Öztürk 2009).
3
Kim (2021) proposes a cartography-cum-optimality approach to account for two forms of anaphoric definites
in Korean by encoding sequence of events they are narrating on the relevant Point-of-view licensing head.
76

Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

Based on the data set in (4), the definiteness scale in Korean can be set up as in (5).4 Notethat the cut-off point for case marking is much higher in (5) than in (2).5(5) Definiteness scale in Korean(3RD) PRONOUN ≻ DEF ≻ DEM ≻ NUM-CL ≻CASE ⇐⇐⇒⇒ NO CASE

INDEF SPEC≻INDEF NON-SPEC

Since there is more than one noun type which can show optional case marking, Korean provides
a good case study to test, whether case loss always correlates with semantic effects. We
investigate demonstrative phrases, numeral classifier phrases, and indefinites wrt. establishedPNI/DOM diagnostics: (i) case loss correlating with obligatory low scope, (ii) case loss
correlating with lack of binding, and (iii) case loss correlating with lack of control. Ourinvestigation reveals that only indefinites show a correlation between case marking andsemantic properties.
2.1 Scope
The correlation of non-case marked arguments and obligatory low scope readings is wellinvestigated in the PNI/DOM literature, shown e.g., for Spanish (López 2012), Turkish(Kelepir 2001), Kannada (Lidz 2006), Hindi (Dayal 2011), among many others. Contexts (6)and (7) test this prediction for Korean indefinites. Indeed, indefinites cannot receive a wide
scope reading wrt. negation, if they are not marked for case, see (7b).
(6) Context ¬∃:Yusu’s friend was selling flowers. Yusu looked at all of them but decided not to buy any.
a. Kkoch-ul1
Yusu-ka__1
sa-ci
anh-ass-ta.
flower-ACC Yusu-NOM
buy-CI
NEG-PST-DECL‘Yusu did not buy a flower.’b. Kkoch1
Yusu-ka__1
sa-ci
anh-ass-ta.
flowerYusu-NOM
buy-CI
NEG-PST-DECL‘Yusu did not buy a flower.’(7) Context ∃¬:Yusu’s friend had only a few flowers left to sell and he wants to sell everything by the endof the day. Yusu decided to buy some of them but not all. So there was at least one flower
he did not buy.
a.Kkoch-ul1
Yusu-ka__1
sa-ci
anh-ass-ta.
flower-ACC
Yusu-NOM
buy-CI
NEG-PST-DECL‘Yusu did not buy a flower.’b.#Kkoch1
Yusu-ka__1
sa-ci
anh-ass-ta.
flowerYusu-NOM
buy-CI
NEG-PST-DECL‘Yusu did not buy a flower.’
Potential independent evidence for the order of scale mates, specifically DEF ≻ DEM ≻ NUM-CL, comes from theobservation that classifiers and demonstratives often develop into definite determiners over time (See Diessel
1999 and references therein).
5
We distinguish epistemic specificity from scopal specificity since Korean case marking does not show
sensitivity to the former but to the latter. Scope effects will be shown in the next section.
477

Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

In contrast, case marking on numeral classifiers is not sensitive to wide scope contexts, shownfor objects in (8) and subjects in (9).
(8)

Context 1¬:
Yusu’s friend wanted to sell three flowers and Yusu bought two from him. So there was
one flower Yusu did not buy.
a. [Kkoch-ul han-songi]1 Yusu-ka
__1
sa-ci
anh-ass-ta.
flower-ACC one-CL
Yusu-NOM
buy-CI
NEG-PST-DECL‘One flower, Yusu did not buy.’b. [Kkoch han-songi]
Yusu-ka__1
sa-ci
anh-ass-ta.
flower one-CL
Yusu-NOM
buy-CI
NEG-PST-DECL‘One flower, Yusu did not buy.’(9)

Context 1¬:
Suzi was waiting at Mapo bus stop. On the other side, there were three buses waiting forthe signal. As soon as the traffic light turned green, two buses came straight to the stopwhere Suzi was standing.
a. [Pesu-ka
han-tay]1 nollapkeyto__1o-ci
anh-ass-ta.
bus- NOM one- CL
to my surprisecome- CI
NEG-PST-DECL‘One bus, did not come.’
b. [Pesu
han-tay]1 nollapkeyto__1o-ci
anh-ass-ta.
bus
one- CLto my surprisecome- CI
NEG-PST-DECL‘One bus, did not come.’

2.2 Binding and Control
Two more diagnostics are frequently applied in the PNI/DOM literature. Non-case marked
arguments cannot bind a pronoun, nor can they control into a control clause. This has beenshown for at least Hindi (Bhatt 2007), Spanish (Leonetti 2004; López 2012), and Turkish(Öztürk 2009). In (10), we create a binding configuration involving a Korean reflexive whichneeds to be bound by the indefinite subject. As expected, only the case-marked indefinite cando so.
(10)

a.

b.

Koyangi-ka1[kucat- NOM
3SG‘A cat washed itself.’*Koyangi1
[ku
cat
3SG
‘A cat washed itself.’casin-ul]1
self-ACC

halth-ass-e.
lick-PST-INT

casin-ul]1
self-ACC

halth-ass-e.
lick-PST-INT

Parallel binding configurations, however, where the binder constitutes a demonstrative phrase(11) or a numeral classifier (12) display no sensitivity to case marking.
(11) a. [Ikoyangi(-ka)]1
DEM cat-NOM‘This cat washed itself.’

[ku
3SG

casin-ul]1
self-ACC

78

halth-ass-e.
lick-PST-INT

Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

b. [Cekoyangi(-ka)]1
cat-NOM‘That cat washed itself.’

DEM

[ku
3SG

casin-ul]1
self-ACC(12) a. [Koyangi(-ka)
han-mali]1
cat-NOM
one-CL‘One cat washed itself.’a. [Koyangi(-ka) twu-mali]1
cat-NOM
two-CL‘Two cats washed themselves.’

halth-ass-e.
lick-PST-INT

[ku
3SG

casin-ul]1
self-ACC

halth-ass-e.
lick-PST-INT

[ku
3SG

casin-ul]1
self-ACC

halth-ass-e.
lick-PST-INT

In line with (10), Korean indefinites without case marking cannot control into a complement
clause, shown here for subject (13) and object control (14).
(13) a. Haksayng-i1[PRO1
student-NOM‘A student decided to leave.’b. *Haksayng1[PRO1
student‘A student decided to leave.’ttena-keyss-ta-ko]
leave-VOL-DECL-COMP

kyelsimhay-ss-e.
decide-PST-INT

ttena-keyss-ta-ko]
leave-VOL-DECL-COMP

kyelsimhay-ss-e.
decide-PST-INT(14) a. Yusu-ka
haksayng-ul1 [PRO1
Yusu-NOM
student-ACC‘Yusu persuaded a student to leave.’
b.*Yusu-ka
haksayng1[PRO1
Yusu-NOM
student‘Yusu persuaded a student to leave.’ttena-la-ko]
leave-IMP-COMP

seltukhay-ss-e.
persuade-PST-INT

ttena-la-ko]
leave-IMP-COMP

seltukhay-ss-e.
persuade-PST-INT

For demonstrative phrases and numeral classifiers, however, no such interactions are found.
(15)

[I/ce

haksayng(-i)]1 [PRO1
DEM
student-NOM‘This student decided to leave.’ttena-keyss-ta-ko]
leave-VOL-DECL-COMP

kyelsimhay-ss-e.
decide-PST-INT(16)[Haksayng(-i) han-myeng]1
student-NOM
one- CL‘One student decided to leave.’[PRO1

ttena-keyss-ta-ko]
kyelsimhay-ss-e.
leave-VOL-DECL-COMP decide-PST-INT(17)[Haksayng(-i) twu-myeng] 1 [PRO1student-NOM
two-CL‘Two students decided to leave.’ttena-keyss-ta-ko]
kyelsimhay-ss-e.
leave-VOL-DECL-COMP decide-PST-INT

In the remainder of the paper, we will argue for two conclusions. One can draw from the Korean
data set. First, DP/NP approaches can account for the data set, in contrast to raising accounts.
Second, a post-syntactic case marking approach based on prominence scales is needed to79

Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

account for the full set of data, as a syntactic case licensing account makes the wrong
predictions.
3. Raising analyses
Raising accounts of DOM model the interaction of case marking and low scope via object shift,which is illustrated in (18). The raised position has been taken to be the locus of caseassignment (Torrego Salcedo 1999; Öztürk 2009; Dobrovie-Sorin et al. 2006; RodríguezMondoñedo 2007; López 2012), the escape of existential closure (Diesing 1992; Kelepir 2001),
or both (Bhatt 2007; Bhatt and Anagnostopoulou 1996). Consequently, objects that do not raise
to receive obligatory low scope and do not get assigned case.
(18)

The binding and control properties are rarely addressed in the raising literature. Some accounts
propose to derive these effects from the landing site of the case-marked object (Bhatt 2007;López 2012). The binding data include double object constructions where the bindee is theindirect object, as shown in (19). The argument can be transferred to adjunct control, where thecontrol clause is possibly attached in a position similar to where the pronoun is merged in (19).
(19)

Crucially, none of the binding and control data we have presented in the previous section canbe captured with the rationale of the raising account. The indefinite subject which lacks casemarking in (10b) is arguably first-merged in a position where it c-commands the reflexive
pronoun. Moreover, the control data in (13)-(14) include complement control clauses, where80Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

the controller is presumably first-merged in a position where it can c-command into the control
clause. Hence, no movement is necessary and no interactions with case marking are expected.
Even if there was a way to tie the binding and control data to a movement operation, we
would still have to explain why for a subset of noun types, i.e., numeral classifiers anddemonstratives, this movement operation is not necessary to become a binder/controller.
4. DP/NP approaches
Size based approaches to PNI/DOM capitalize on the assumption that smaller arguments likeNPs do not need case (Massam 2001; Dayal 2011; Barrie and Li 2015), whereas DPs need case.
One immediate benefit of this account is that the syntactic size can be related to different
semantic objects. DPs can be of type e or <et,t>, which enables them to take flexible scope.
NPs, however, are properties, they don’t take scope, which in turn leads to a compositionality
problem with the verb. One prominent way to resolve this issue is to assume additional
incorporation denotations for V/v (van Geenhoven 1998; Dayal 2011; Jo and Palaz 2019),
which select for <e,t>-type arguments and where the variable that the PNI-ed noun predicatesover is existentially closed off inside the verb denotation, thereby ensuring obligatory low
scope.6 A simple illustration of this idea is given in (20), based on the scope configuration in(7). In (7a), the indefinite object is a case-marked DP and can combine with the standard verb
denotation for saci, either directly as a choice function or as an existential quantifier via QR,
which opens up the possibility for a wide scope existential interpretation. In (7b) though, theindefinite object is a non-case marked NP which denotes a property and thus combines withsaciinc, which leaves no room for the negative operator to take scope below the existential.
(20)

a.
b.
c.

⟦saci⟧⟦saci𝑖𝑛𝑐 ⟧⟦(7b)⟧===

𝜆𝑦e 𝜆𝑥[BUY(x,y)]𝜆𝑃<e,t> 𝜆𝑥∃𝑦[BUY(x,y) ∧𝑃(y)]¬ ∃y[BUY(yusu,y) ∧ FLOWER(y)]

(7a)
(7b)

The binding and control properties are not addressed in the DP/NP literature. There is, however,a promising way to derive them from the <e,t>-denotation of NPs. In (21) and (22), we provide
the LFs for the binding configurations in (10). Following Heim and Kratzer (1998), binding
requires movement of the binder, which subsequently binds its trace and every pronoun coindexed with it. We believe that the LF in (22) is blocked for independent reasons, thus
resulting in the unacceptability of (10b).
(21)

a.
b.

Koyangi-ka1[ku casin-ul]1
DP1 𝜆𝑓 e ... [tracee]1 ...

halth-ass-e.
[pronoune]1(22)

a. * Koyangi1 [ku casin-ul]1
halth-ass-e.
b. NP1 𝜆𝑓 <e,t> ... [trace<e,t>]1 ... [pronoun<e,t>]1(repeated from (10a))(repeated from (10b))

Recently, Poole (2017, 2018) has argued that there are no higher type traces, based on a numberof constructions involving property-type arguments which can only undergo movement
operations that obligatorily reconstruct. This ban on higher type traces is formulated in (23).
Other ways to resolve the compositionality problem is by adopting a new compositional mode to combine
predicates and verbs (Chung and Ladusaw 2004) or by assuming a type-shifting determiner on PNI-ed nouns(Driemel 2020a, b).
681Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

Given that the LFs in (21) and (22) require scope-shift movement, (22b) is blocked by the TIC.
Consequently, if NPs denote properties, they cannot act as binders.
(23) TRACE INTERPRETATION CONSTRAINT (TIC)*[XP1 [𝜆𝑓 σ [ ... [𝑓 σ]1 ... ]]], where σ is not an individual type

(Poole 2018: 217)

The control facts follow without further ado, if we assume that for a control relation to beestablished the control argument has to bind PRO (Chomsky 1981; Manzini 1983; Landau 2015).
(24)

a. Yusu-ka haksayng-ul1 [PRO1 ttena-la-ko] seltukhay-ss-e.
b. ... DP1 𝜆𝑓 e ... [tracee]1 ... [ [ PROe]1 ... ] ...

(repeated from (14a))(25)

a. *Yusu-ka haksayng1 [PRO1 ttena-la-ko] seltukhay-ss-e. (repeated from (14b))b. … NP1 𝜆𝑓 <e,t> ...[trace<e,t>]1 ... [ [PRO <e,t>]1 ...] ...

Now that we have developed a DP/NP account covering all semantic interactions with caseloss, we come back to the Korean data set. Note that attributing the loss of case marking to the
NP status will not suffice, as demonstratives and numeral classifiers do not have to be casemarked to take wide scope and/or undergo binding or control. Hence, we propose to combine
the DP/NP account with the rationale of a definiteness scale, shown in (26), where NPs
instantiate the lowest scale mates and all other scale mates are syntactically bigger than anNP.
(26) Definiteness scale in Korean(3RD) PRONOUN≻ DEF ≻

DP-INDEF
CASE ⇐≻DEM≻

NUM-CLOPTIONAL CASE≻

NP-INDEF<e,t>⇒ NO CASE

The semantic effects (scope/binding/control) for indefinites derive from the size difference:NPs denote properties. NP indefinites are also never marked for case since they constitute thelowest member of the definites scale. Finally, the scale-based approach has to leave open thepossibility for a set of noun types which are optionally marked for case.
5. Case-marking in syntax
How and in which module do we implement the definiteness scale? Kalin (2018) proposes thatprominence scales can be translated into privative nominal projections (see also Tyler 2019;
Levin 2019). A definite argument e.g., is different from an indefinite specific argument by
containing one more nominal projection layer (27). The number of projections increases, thehigher the noun type is ranked on the prominence scale.
(27) definite: [DefP Def [SpecP Spec NP]]vs.

specific indefinite: [SpecP Spec NP]

Kalin assumes that an uninterpretable case feature [uCASE:• ] must be licensed via AGREE, incontrast to an interpretable case feature [CASE:• ] and languages vary as to which nominal
projection introduces [uCASE:• ]. The result of AGREE can be detected as agreement
morphology on the verb and/or case morphology on the noun. In order to derive the caseproperties of Korean indefinites, we have to assume that case marked indefinites constitute82

Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

SpecPs, where the Spec head comes with an uninterpretable case feature that needs to belicensed (28), while non-case marked indefinites constitute NPs with an interpretable casefeature that does not have to be licensed (29).
(28)

DP-INDEF:(29)

NP-INDEF:

One problem we encounter with this apporach is that Kalin’s system does not per se predict
noun types to exist that show optional case marking. Given the privative nature of the nominal
projections, we expect a one-to-one mapping of a scale mate with the presence/absence of amorphological marker. Hence, we are forced to enrich Kalin’s account with the assumptionthat some nominal layers can introduce both [uCASE:• ] and [CASE:• ], illustrated for Koreandemonstratives in (30) and (31).
(30)

DEM:

(31)

DEM:

The second, potentially more severe, problem concerns the prediction that differential casemarking interacts with other AGREE-related operations. As is shown in (32), this prediction is
not borne out in Korean. Korean displays honorific agreement (e.g. Choi and Harley 2019) as
well as honorific differential case marking. Kalin’s theory predicts that without the honorificcase marker there should be no honorific agreement marker either, as the AGREE operation
has not taken place. Case marking, however, is independent of agreement, as shown in (32).
(32)

Halapeci(-kkeyse)cenyek-ul
grandfather-HON.NOM
dinner-ACC‘Grandfather is having dinner.’

capswu-si-n-ta.
eat-HON-PRS-DECL

We conclude that the case licensing account is not tenable in light of the Korean data. The next
section will explore a different proposal how to implement prominence scales.

83Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

6. Case-marking in post-syntax
Another way to derive the effects of a prominence scale like (26) is to translate the scale into
an OT-ranking (Aissen 1999, 2003), which regulates the realization of case features based on
economy and iconicity pressures. We will entertain the post-syntactic version of this OTaccount (Keine and Müller 2011, 2015) since the absence of case marking does not seem tointeract with other syntactic operations. We propose that the only size difference relevant inthis system is the one between NP and DP, where NPs constitute the lowest member of thescale, but DPs can instantiate different nominal types, depending on the feature bundles of theD heads. The scale in (33) is a representation of (26) in terms of feature bundles. Note that only
the lowest scale mate lacks a [+D] feature. This is the argument type which is interpreted at LF
as a property.
(33) Definiteness scale in Korean[3, +D] ≻ [+DEF, +D] ≻ [-DEF,+D] ≻CASE ⇐[+DEM, +D] ≻ [+CL,+D] ≻ [-DEF] <e,t>
OPTIONAL CASE
⇒ NO CASE

The syntactic features are accessible in post-syntax. They are made reference to via faithfulness
constraints, locally conjoined with MAX-C which preserves case marking. The markedness
constraint *[-OBL] (captures both nominative and accusative) triggers case deletion and isranked depending on the cut-off point on the definiteness scale. The constraints for DEM and
NUM-CL are not ranked with respect to *[-OBL], hence case marking is optional with them.
(34)

Constraint ranking:Every argument type is assigned case in syntax properly. Thus, each input for the OT tableaux
will contain a decomposed case feature. The ranking of the constraints, however, decides
whether [-OBL], will be realized. Local conjunction produces constraint ties (a tie is not violated
if at least one constraint of the tie is satisfied). Thus, a constraint like *[-DEF,+D] & MAX-C
expresses that the feature bundle [-DEF,+D] can be realized as long as it is case marked. Since
the markedness constraint *[-OBL] is ranked lower, DP-INDEF will always be case marked, see(35). By the same rationale, NP-INDEF will never be case marked, as the faithfulness constraint*[-DEF] & MAX-C is ranked lower than *[-OBL], shown in (36).
(35) DP-INDEF case-marked[+DEF, +D] [-OBL]
a. ☞[+DEF, +D]*[+DEF, +D]*[-DEF, +D]*[+DEM, +D]*[+CL, +D]& MAX-C& MAX-C& MAX-C& MAX-C*[-OBL]& MAX-C*!

b. ☞[+DEF, +D] [-OBL]*

84*[-DEF]

Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee(36) NP-INDEF not case-marked[-DEF] [-OBL]*[+DEF, +D]*[-DEF, +D]*[+DEM, +D]*[+CL, +D]& MAX-C& MAX-C& MAX-C& MAX-C*[-OBL]*[-DEF]& MAX-Ca. ☞[-DEF]*

b. ☞[-DEF] [-OBL]*!

According to the ranking in (34), the faithfulness constraints for demonstratives and numeralclassifiers are not ranked wrt. *[-OBL], indicated in (37) and (38) with dotted lines. This leads
to optionality of case marking.
(37) DEM optionally case-marked[+DEM,+D] [-OBL]*[+DEF, +D]*[-DEF, +D]*[+DEM, +D]*[+CL, +D]& MAX-C& MAX-C& MAX-C& MAX-Ca. ☞[+DEM,+D]*[-OBL]*[-DEF]& MAX-C*b. ☞[+DEM,+D] [-OBL]*(38) NUM-CL optionally case-marked[+CL,+D] [-OBL]*[+DEF, +D]*[-DEF, +D]*[+DEM, +D]*[+CL, +D]& MAX-C& MAX-C& MAX-C& MAX-Ca. ☞[+CL,+D]*[-OBL]*[-DEF]& MAX-C*b. ☞[+CL,+D] [-OBL]*

This section has shown how post-syntactic case realization guided by scale-based reasoning
and a categorial distinction between DP and NP can derive the full set of Korean data.
7. Summary and outlook
In Korean, case marking is optional for a number of noun types. As these noun types rank low
on the definiteness scale, the case-marking properties can be identified as differential argument
marking. Only a subset of noun types, however, show an interaction of case marking withsemantic effects in terms of scope, binding, and control. The semantic effects can be explainedby DP/NP accounts, often proposed for the phenomenon of pseudo-incorporation. We haveshown that Korean case marking can be modeled via (post-syntactic) realization of casefeatures, regulated by an OT-ranking which maps to the definiteness scale. While the current
account is able to capture the differential case marking properties in Korean, there are at least
two more aspects of the pattern, we will address in the remainder of the paper.
One property which we have not considered so far is mobility. PNI-ed arguments have beenargued to be immobile in languages like Tamil, Sakha, and Mongolian (Baker 2014; Guntsetseg
2016), whereas other languages like Hindi do not show movement restrictions (Dayal 2011),
implying that there is considerable cross-linguistic variation. For Korean, we can observe thatindefinites without case marking are limited in their movement properties, in the same way thatVPs are limited. In fact, there is a connection between VP-movement and PNI-movement
across a number of PNI languages (Driemel 2020b). The movement restrictions challenge the
DP/NP account proposed in this paper and potentially call for a different account of differential
case marking, see Driemel (2020a, b) for discussion.

85

Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

Finally, let us address the class of noun types we have so far excluded from the discussion.
In Korean, weak definite noun phrases, proper names, and local 1st/2nd person pronouns also
show optional case marking. For these noun types there seems to be an interaction between
case loss and semantic effects. Hence, they pattern with indefinites in Korean, which issomewhat unexpected from a typological perspective. Since there is no space to run throughall diagnostics, we will simply present the basic data and sketch a preliminary analysis. We
refer the reader to Driemel (2020a) for a complete representation and discussion of the semanticinteractions.
In (39), we demonstrate that case marking is optional for local pronouns in subject andobject position. The data in (40) shows that this is also true for proper names.
(39) a. Yusu-ka
na(-lul)/ne(-lul)manna-ss-e.
Yusu-NOM I-ACC /you-ACC
meet-PST-INT‘Yusu met me/you.’b. Na(-ka)/ne(-ka)
wus-ess-e.
I-NOM /you-NOM
laugh-PST-INT‘I/you laughed.’(40) a. Yusu-ka
nwutheylla(-ul)
Yusu-NOM Nutella-ACC‘Yusu bought Nutella.’b. Suzi(-ka) wus-ess-e.
Suzi-NOM laugh-PST-INT‘Suzi laughed.’sa-ss-e.
buy-PST-INT

Recall from Section 2 that case marking is obligatory for 3rd person pronouns and anaphoric
definite phrases. One way in which local pronouns and proper names are different from thesenoun types is that interlocuters immediately agree on the referent in (39) and (40) without theneed for a preceding context. In contrast, 3rd pronouns and anaphoric definites require anantecedent to determine their referents. If this is what matters for differential case marking in
Korean, we predict that uniqueness based definites should also allow for optional case marking.
This is only partially true, as can be seen in (41), where the non-case marked definite yewang
is only acceptable if it co-occurs with the determiner ku.
(41) a. Na-nun
yewang-ul
eceyspammannasse.
I-TOP
queen-ACC
last.nightmet‘I met the queen last night.’
b. ?*Na-nun
yewangeceyspammannasse.
I-TOP
queen
last.nightmet‘I met the queen last night.’
c. ?Na-nun
kuyewangeceyspammannasse.
I-TOP
DEF
queen
last.nightmet‘I met the queen last night.’
The status of ku is often debated (Ch. Lee 1989, 1992, Kang 2015, 2021, Ahn 2017). Sohn
(1999: 210) ascribes ku the function of a demonstrative which, in contrast to ce/i, signals that86

Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

the referent is “known to both speaker and hearer”. We believe that the pattern in (41) suggests
an analysis of ku as the overt spell-out of an ident-type shifter (Partee 1986), which additionallypresupposes that interlocutors universally agree on the referent of the singleton set created by
the type shifter, see (42).
(42) ⟦k𝑢⟧=

𝜆𝑥e 𝜆𝑦e[x=y],defined iff speaker and hearer can universally agree on x’s referent

The type-shifter applies to yewang in (41c) to derive the definite reading, while at the sametime turning the argument into a property, thereby enabling differential case marking. This
proposal presupposes that the type shifter also changes the syntactic category from DP to NP.
We can extend this analysis to (39) and (40), albeit with the additional assumption that theident-type shifter does not always have to be spelled out overtly.

87Driemel, Imke & Hyunjung Lee

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90

Haldar, Shrayana

Dissolving Matching*
Shrayana Haldar
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1. Introduction
This paper concerns relative clauses (henceforth, “RCs”) and their structures.1 There’s a long
tradition in the literature on RCs to posit a distinction between what are known as a Raisingand a Matching structure. The following are two representative examples of these two
structures (1).

Against this background, I have three principal goals in this paper: (a) present a unified analysis
of RCs that does not posit a Raising v. Matching distinction by extending Wholesale Late
Merge (henceforth, “WLM”), as presented in Takahashi and Hulsey (2009) (henceforth,“T&H”) and (b) show an existing attempt at such unification (Henderson 2007) is inadequate.
The following is the structure of this paper. In §2, I summarize the motivation behind theRaising v. Matching distinction. In §3, I explain why this distinction doesn’t serve us
explanatorily, through an exploration of extraposition data. In §4, I show why Henderson’s(2007) account of the data shouldn’t be adopted. In §5, I present my implementation of WLM
to substitute for the problematic part of Henderson’s account. In §6, I present Johnson’s (2018)
multidominant model of DP Movement within which my account will be couched and how
RCs will be derived given this model and my implementation of WLM. In §7, I show how thisentire account can derive the extraposition data. §8 concludes the paper.

*

The content of this paper was conceived in an email conversation with Kyle Johnson. I'm grateful to him forengaging in the discussion that eventually led to this. I'm also indebted to Amir Anvari, Athulya Aravind, Bronwyn
Bjorkman, Rajesh Bhatt, Danny Fox, Kyle Johnson and David Pesetsky for several discussions on topics related
to this and for helping me work through the examples necessary for what happens to be extremely hard and fleeting
judgements. I'm also grateful to Devon Denny, Adèle Mortier, Christopher Romero, Rachel Stacey, Anastasia
Tsilia for the many judgements they provided and also to the GLOW in Asia XIII audience. This work is currently
at its most initial stage and all errors are mine.
1
All throughout this talk, I will only concern myself with restrictive RCs. So, unless otherwise mentioned, “RCs”
is to be taken to refer to restrictive RCs.
91

Haldar, Shrayana

2. Raising v. MatchingIt’s by now widely accepted in the literature that Raising accounts for reconstruction effects.
E.g., in (2a), headway needs to reconstruct into the object position of made to be interpreted
idiomatically inside the idiom chunk make headway. In (2b), aspect of herself needs toreconstruct for herself to be able to be bound by Alma and satisfy Condition A. But, in (3), if
Raising applies, then we should predict a Condition C violation, which we don’t, that is,
Matching applies here. This is the basic logic of the argument and I would refer the reader tothe larger literature on this for more details (Bhatt 2002, Sauerland 1998, 2000, 2003, Hulsey
and Sauerland 2006, henceforth “H&S”).

3. The Inadequacy of the Distinction
3.1. Hulsey and Sauerland (2006): Argument in Favor of the Distinction
According to Fox and Nissenbaum (1999) (henceforth F&N), we have the derivation in (4b)for an example like (4a): the DP is QRed, the higher copy is deleted because the movement iscovert, and then the modifier by John is late merged to the restrictor of the higher copy. See
F&N for extensive evidence in favor of such an analysis.
(4)

Given this analysis, we make a prediction: if, instead of by John, we have a modifier whichcannot be late merged, for some reason or another, that is, if it must be present in the structure
throughout the time the modified DP is also in the structure, then that modifier shouldn’t beable to be extraposed because extraposition of adjuncts, within this framework, must arise
through Late Merge. Incidentally, Raising RCs happen to be exactly that sort of modifiers
because, as we saw in (2a), the interpretation of the heads of Raising RCs is entirely dependent
on its possibility of reconstruction into its internal structure, which is impossible if that internal
structure is not present. That is, we predict that Late Merge/extraposition are incompatible with
Raising RCs.
This prediction is borne out by examples given in H&S. Witness (5-6). (“#IC” stands for“infelicitous with idiomatic interpretation”.) All of these examples involve Raising RCs
92

Haldar, Shrayana(idioms chunks in 5: make headway and take advantage; reflexives in the RC heads in 6:
himself and herself) because, in order to ensure good semantics, the heads of these RCs must
be able to reconstruct, which requires Raising. And whenever we force extraposition with theadverbs shown within parentheses, ungrammaticality is incurred.

3.2. Henderson (2007): Argument against the Distinction
However, Henderson (2007) shows that what actually makes these examples ungrammatical iswhether a good interpretation is possible in both the higher matrix clause (henceforth, “MC”,
i.e., everything but the RC in the sentence/the part of the sentence from its left edge to the rightedge of the crucial adverb signaling extraposition) and the RC. See the following examples thatpoint precisely to this effect (8). Heed, advantage, and headway can be interpreted as part ofthe idiom chunks pay heed, take advantage, and make headway in the MC in (8a-c),
respectively.
(8)This shows that the Raising v. Matching distinction doesn’t serve us explanatorily because,otherwise, all the examples in (8) would be bad because the Raising RC must be late mergedin these extraposition examples. Henderson’s account for this has two parts. I will first present
evidence against and reject the one in which he applies Vehicle Change and then preserve theother one.
4. Henderson (2007): A Quick Overview
Henderson’s (2007) idea was to posit Raising for all RCs, eliminate Matching, and, in A’Movement, to have the option to apply Vehicle Change to every copy but the highest one. This
enables a derivation like (9b) for (9a), which obviates the Condition C effect that would haveraised without Vehicle Change. However, this doesn’t help with (10a), because theinterpretation in which the universal quantifier outscopes the existential one, the disjoint
reference effect persists, which means that the derivation in (10d) isn’t allowed; only the onein (10c) is. And that means that Henderson’s account doesn’t generalize to all A’-Movements.

93

Haldar, Shrayana

(9)

(10)

So, I will now show how WLM can be used to substitute this Vehicle Change idea.
5. Wholesale Late Merge
Given the problematic aspect of Henderson’s Vehicle Change idea, my alternative to Matching
is WLM. (11) is T&H’s concept of WLM in my words.
(11)

This insight was an extension of the idea of late merging adjuncts, explored in Lebeaux (1988et sequentia), F&N and Fox (2002). Instead of adjuncts, T&H late merges the NP restrictor ofa DP. T&H exploits WLM to delay the merging of the NP restrictor in the A-Moving DPs in(12) to account for the fact that Condition C effects are unattested here, which would have been
attested if the NP could be merged in embedded SpecTP because the c-commanding andcoreferent pronouns in the to-phrases. But by the time the derivation gets to the matrix SpecTP,
which is the final Case position, the NP must be merged, which is why we get the Condition C
effect in (10a), where, in order to obviate the Condition C effect, we must be able to delay themerging of the NP until SpecCP, which c-commands the final Case position, i.e., the object
position of bring.
(12)

However, this same anti-reconstruction effect is observable in A-Scrambling, where
movement happens not to Case positions, but from them. It’s widely known, from the
Scrambling literature, that clause-internal movement and extraction from non-finite clauses are
instances of A-Scrambling, while extraction from finite clauses are A’-Scrambling, and thissplit is consistent with the general profile of the A-v-A’-Movement distinction. (Hindi: Keine
2016, 2018a,b, Keine and Dash 2018, following Gambhir 1981, Déprez 1989, Mahajan 1990,
1994, Gurtu 1992, Dayal 1994, Kidwai 2000, inter alia, Japanese: Saito 1985, 1989, 1992,
2003, 2004, Saito and Hoji 1983, inter alia, Korean: Tossups 1999, 2003, 2007, inter alia). For
94

Haldar, Shrayana

instance, in the Hindi examples below, (13-14) constitute A-Movement, creating a newantecedent (raam aur prataap “Ram and Pratap”) for binding the reciprocal (ek-duusre-kii“each other’s”), while (15) constitutes A’-Movement and doesn’t create new antecedent forbinding.
(13)

(14)

(15)

This means that WLM should be generalized to movement to A-positions, and not just to Case
positions and then we will be able to delay the merging of the crucial NP long enough for it toescape the c-command domain of the reciprocal. Here’s an attempt to capture that (16).
(16)

This can be exploited in RCs because the RC-internal head resides in an A-position inside the
RC and then, after its movement, the whole relativized DP with the moved NP head is in an Aposition in the sentence that this relativized nominal is part of. That is, this is precisely the kind95

Haldar, Shrayana

of situation where WLM is licensed. The specifics of that will depend on the properties ofJohnson’s (2018) multidominant model of DP movement that I will now introduce.2
6. Multidominance and RCs
I will now present the parallelism between the traditional Copy Theory of DP movement andits multidominant variant. (17) is how movement is envisioned within Copy Theory, where thelower copy is interpreted via Trace Conversion, as given in (18).
(17)

(18)

Johnson’s (2018) idea — also developed and used in Johnson (2009, 2012), Fox and Johnson(2016), O’Brien (2017) and Poole (2017) — was to do away with this separate notion of Trace
Conversion and build the result of it into the structure itself. For instance, (19) would be themultidominant equivalent of (17). DP‡, here, should be treated as the converted trace, “D” as
the replacing predicate — with a null phonology and the same semantics as English the — and“3”, as having the semantics, “𝜆ye . y = x3”. Then, the NP undergoes Parallel Merge with D†,
the determiner that gets spoken, which can be any quantificational determiner like every, few,
no, etc, and DP† is then merged into the position where the DP is actually pronounced.3(19)2

I will hint at the necessity for multidominance as I conclude the paper. In short, a multidominant framework
allows us to state generalizations invoking whether nodes are completely or incompletely dominated (in the senseof O’Brien 2017) by other nodes.
3
The notion of Parallel Merge was developed in Barbara Citko’s work in a different context (Citko 2005 etsequentia). But it’s quite useful in Johnson’s implementation too.
96

Haldar, Shrayana

Thus, it should be evident why (17) and (19) are semantically completely equivalent, exceptthat Trace Conversion is yet to apply to (17).
Given this conception of DP movement, where the DP itself never moves — but its NP
restrictor is remerged — (20) is how WLM must be envisioned within this multidominantsystem to create the effect of the restrictor being absent in the “lower copy”. (⟦T⟧ has thesemantics “𝜆xe . x = x”. The need for this tautological predicate becomes apparent later, in(24a). In its absence, the only other node that could act as the hinge of multidominance wouldbe “3”. But then, “𝜆xe . x = g(3)” would be part of the meaning of the RC head. That meansthat the restrictive meaning of the RC is lost because the head is already specified as the distinct
entity that g maps 3 to. That is, we end up predicting that restrictive RCs don’t exist and thatthese RCs can only have appositive readings, which is clearly not the case. To prevent this, I
use this tautological predicate.) Moreover, since no DP moves here, the WLM in (16) doesn’twork. (21) is the final, revised version. (Thanks to Danny Fox for suggesting this wording.)
(20)

(21)

If DP† is in an A-position, then (21) is satisfied, which accounts of the antireconstruction datain A-Movement (12-15), while if it’s in an A’-position, then (21) isn’t satisfied and such an
instance of WLM is banned, which accounts for the reconstruction effect in A’-Movement(10a).
In RCs, the RC-internal head NP is shared as in Johnson’s work and adjoins to the CP tocreate the larger modified NP (22). There are two paths extending from the multidominated
NP: one contains just DP† and another, DP† and DP‡. Both of these DPs are in A-positions. So,
if we apply WLM during the remerging of the NP, then we’ll be able to create a structure
similar to (21) and, because of the two positions being A-positions, the WLM condition will
be satisfied (22).

97Haldar, Shrayana(22)

Therefore, for (23), both (24a) (with WLM) and (24b) (without WLM) will be available inprinciple. However, in (24b), Condition C is violated because of Alma being c-commanded bya coreferent she, so this structure will crash. For (25), (26a) will crash because herself isn’tbound in it and Condition A is thus violated, while (26b) will survive because there is no such
violation of Condition A. (27) works the same way (25) does: since “reconstruction” ofheadway is needed, the WLM derivation in (28a) crashes, the one without it in (28b) doesn’t.

98

Haldar, Shrayana

7. Extraposition
Recall the H&S examples repeated here in (29-30), which initially showed the incompatibility
between Late Merge and Raising, which were then refuted by Henderson’s examples in (8)above. We’re now in position to understand this phenomenon.
(29)

(30)

99

Haldar, Shrayana

The structures of the non-extraposition versions of (29a) and (30a) are given below for
convenience.
(31)

(32)

Given the dissolution of the distinction between Raising v. Matching in my account of RCs,
we would now want to understand what makes (29-30) bad, which we can, by trying to deriving
them. Recall that we’re assuming Johnson’s rendition of F&N’s account for extraposition.
Given that, for (29a), for instance, the VP in (33) is first going to have to be built — to the edgeof which a larger DP will merge, just as in (4b).
(33)

It’s crucial to understand the following at this point of the derivation: the NP restrictor headway
must be present, as in, merged into, the MC, by which I mean the object position of praised in
the clause Mary praised the headway. That is because otherwise it will have no way to bepronounced there. In other words, we cannot have a derivational route in which, as in an
instance of WLM, the merging of the NP restrictor headway is delayed because, in a later step100

Haldar, Shrayanaof the derivation, we’ll have an A-position where this NP can still be merged and satisfy the
WLM condition, because of its consequences for linearization, regardless of what linearization
algorithm we espouse.
After (33), the derivational step I propose is also one advocated for by Henderson: Sideward
Movement (Nunes 2001 inter alia) — in order to bring what is supposed to become the headof the RC, headway, into the RC itself. That means, within our multidominant system, treatingDP† as the converted trace of the movement and share its NP restrictor headway accordingly,
just as in (19). When that and the following steps of Merge to build the whole RC and therelativized DP are completed and then this relativized DP is merged to the edge of the VP in(33), as in the case of extraposition in (4b), we obtain (34) for (29a). An identical derivation
with different lexical items yields (35) for (30a).
(34)

(35)

This means that we have a way to derive the sentences in (29-30). Then the question is: whatmakes them bad? I argue, again concurring with Henderson in this respect, that what makes
101Haldar, Shrayana

these sentences bad is not the syntax but the semantics: headway, in (34), can’t be interpreted
as the object of praise in the MC idiomatically, which prevents the idiomatic interpretation,
while himself, in (35), is free in the MC, because I can’t bind it there, violating Condition A.
These interpretive conflicts between the RC and the MC are what makes these sentences
anomalous.
As a result of that, once the MC is enabled to provide an appropriate semantics unlike in(29-30), we obtain grammaticality, which was shown in Henderson’s own examples in (8).
This way of understanding RCs and extraposition thus allows us to explain the discrepancy
between the examples in (29-39) and (8).
8. Concluding Remarks
The purpose of this paper was to provide an account of the antireconstruction effect in RC
heads that would eliminate the additional operation of Matching so far accepted in the literatureand explain certain somewhat ignored extraposition data. It does so by proposing WLM toderive RCs across the board, thus eliminating Matching and then applying this to Henderson’s(2007) approach to extraposition. This entire account is couched within a multidominantframework for DP movement developed by Johnson (2018) inter alia.
One thing that’s often a cause for alarm when it comes to multidominant structures like theones I have above is linearization. I have some thoughts on how to proceed on that front:
Johnson (2012) develops a linearization algorithm to tackle multidominant structures ofextraposition, which can be exploited to linearize these structures. Johnson didn’t have Raising,i.e., WLM and Sideward Movement the way I have shown, but his fundamental concepts will
be useful. However, I cannot fully implement and elaborate on here for reasons of space. I will
leave that for future research.
There’s one rather significant issue I must address in conclusion, concerning theinterpretation of NPs. Observe in (34-35) that what we must say in order to ensure that thesestructures yield anomalous semantics is in effect that an NP must be interpreted in every single
position where it sits in a structure. Otherwise, we could count only the position of the shared
NPs inside the RCs for the interpretation and the critical position in the MC where these NPs
cannot receive a proper interpretation could be disregarded, as just another position it occupied
during the derivation — which, as it turns out, is what we ought to do in the derivations of theWh-Questions given below, where we must disregard the higher position in order to accountfor the reconstruction effect helping the idiomatic interpretation (36) and the satisfaction ofCondition A (37). So, the question we’re now faced with is: why is it that we must entertain
both positions occupied by the NP in (34-35) for the purposes of interpretation, but can’t, in(36-37)?

102

Haldar, Shrayana

(36)

(37)

This is probably the most interesting question this paper makes us contemplate and following
this cue will lead us to understand intriguing patterns in the interpretation of DPs and their NP
restrictors. I have begun to develop a preliminary sketch of an answer to this question, which
involves adjusting structures like (36-37) somewhat and understanding Condition A — andconditions on the interpretation of DPs in general — in terms of complete v. incomplete
dominance, to which I’ve alluded in footnote 3 above. I will leave that to be developed in future
research and conclude this paper here.

103

Haldar, Shrayana

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Accessibility on Reconstruction: Japanese Head-External Relative
Clauses by Form Copy*
Norimasa Hayashi
Nanzan University

1. Introduction
This study discusses Japanese head-external relative clauses (RCs) in terms of Chomsky’s(2021) Form Copy. (1) shows an example of Japanese RCs:
[Taro-ga zibun-no hahaoya atta] zibun-no hahaoya
T.-NOM self-GEN mother met self-GEN mother‘himself’s mother that Taro met’(1)

As the bold-faced head of the RC contains an anaphor, the head must reconstruct into the baseposition in the RC. The central issue of this paper is long-distance RCs like (2):(2)

Taro-ga [Hanako-ga zibun-no hahaoya atta-to] sinziteiru
T.-NOM H.-NOM
self-GEN mother met-C believing‘himself’s/*herself’s mother that Taro believes Hanako met’zibun-noself-GENhahaoyamotherAlthough the base position of the head must be in the embedded clause, it cannot reconstruct
into its base position; the anaphor can be coreferential with the higher subject Taro, but notwith the lower subject Hanako. This behavior is strange if the head moves to the spell-out
position through the spec of the embedded CP.
(3)[DP [RC ...Taro...[CP DP [C´...Hanako...DP...]...] DP]

Japanese RCs show the same behavior with the weak crossover (WCO) effect.
(4)a. ?[futatu-no
daikigyoo [soko-no
kogaisya]-o tyoosasita]
futatu-no
two.CLF-GEN big.enterprise that.place-GEN subsidiary-ACC investivgation.did two.CLF-GEN
daikigyoo
big.enterprise‘the two big enterprises that investigated its subsidiaries’(Miyamoto 2017: 618)
b. *[[soko-no
kogaisya]-ga futatu-no
daikigyoo tyoosasita]
futatu-nothat.place-GEN subsidiary-NOM two.CLF-GEN big.enterprise investivgation.did two.CLF-GEN
daikigyoo
big.enterprise‘its subsidiaries that investigated the two big enterprises’(Miyamoto 2017: 618)

As the head is base-generated in the object position in (3b), the movement from there crosses*

I appreciate the audiences of GLOW in Asia XIII. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number
JP21K19987 and Nanzan University Pache Research Subsidy I-A-2 for the academic year 2022.
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Hayashi, Norimasa

the coreferent subject, yielding the WCO effect. However, the WCO effect is not operative in
long-distance RCs.
(5) a. [keisatu-ga [futatu-no
daikigyoo [soko-no
kogaisya]-opolice-NOM two.CLF-GEN big.enterprise that.place-GEN subsidiary-ACC
tyoosasita]-tosinziteiru] futatu-no daikigyoo
investivgation.did-C believing two.CLF-GEN big.enterprise‘the two big enterprises that the police believes investigated its subsidiaries’(Miyamoto 2017: 619)
b. [keisatu-ga [[soko-no
kogaisya]-ga futatu-no
daikigyoo
police-NOM that.place-GEN subsidiary-NOM two.CLF-GEN big.enterprisetyoosasita]-tosinziteiru] futatu-no daikigyoo
investivgation.did-C believing two.CLF-GEN big.enterprise‘the two big enterprises that the police believes its subsidiaries investigated’(Miyamoto 2017: 619)
(5a, b) are well-formed regardless of the base positions of the head. It means that as in (2), theheads do not reconstruct into their base positions, evading the WCO effect. The generalization
is as follows: reconstruction effects (anaphor licensing, the WCO effect) are observed in shortRCs, whereas the head can only reconstruct into the highest clause in long-distance RCs. This
property, the highest clause sensitivity (Kizu 2005), is not observed in English RCs.
(6) The picture of himself that John thinks the picture of himself Bill likes the picture of himself best.
In (6), either the matrix or embedded subject can be the antecedent of the anaphor in the head.
It is assumed that the head moves from the base position in English RCs, which explains thereconstruction effect (Kayne 1994); the anaphor can be licensed anywhere through thederivation. Based on this perspective, Japanese RCs pose a puzzle. If Japanese RCs are derived
by movement like English, they are expected to demonstrate the full reconstruction into thebase position as in English RCs. The different behavior of Japanese RCs from English ones
suggests that Japanese RCs are not derived by movement. In fact, a genuine movement
construction in Japanese, the long-distance scrambling, behaves like English RCs.
(7) Zibun-no hahaoya-no kanbyoo-o Taro-wa [zibun-no hahaoya-no kanbyoo-o [Hanako-ga
self-GEN mother-GEN nursing-ACC T.-TOP self-GEN mother-GEN nursing-ACC H.-NOM
zibun-no hahaoya-no kanbyoo-o suru-to]] omotteiru.
self-GEN mother-GEN nursing-ACC do-C
thinking‘Taro thinks that Hanako nurses self’s mother.’
The embedded object moves from the base-generated position to the sentence-initial position
via the spec of the embedded CP, and the antecedent of the anaphor can be either the matrix orthe embedded subject, demonstrating the reconstruction effect. The observation leads us tosuggest that Japanese long-distance RCs involve derivation other than movement. Previous
analyses follow this assumption. Ishii (1991), Kizu (2005), and Miyamoto (2017), among
others, assume that short RCs are derived by movement, but long-distance RCs involve pro. I
demonstrate the derivation of RCs with the null operator, following their derivations.
107Hayashi, Norimasa(8) a. short RC: [[RC op [...op...]] DP]b. long-distance RC: [[[RC op [CP ...op...[C´...pro...]...] DP]
In short RCs in (8a), the null operator moves in the RC and connects the RC and the basegenerated head outside the RC. In contrast, pro is located in the theta-position in the longdistance RC (8b), and a null operator, base-generated in the spec of CP, moves in the highest
clause. This analysis can explain why long-distance RCs do not indicate reconstruction effects,
but three problems arise concerning the derivation. First, it cannot explain why long-distanceRCs cannot be derived by movement. It is just a stipulation to assume that short RCs are derived
by movement and long-distance RCs are derived by pro. Second, additional assumptions seem
necessary for reconstruction data. They assume that the null operator moves in Japanese RCs.
Hence, the null operator must yield reconstruction effects, but the assumption does not coincidewith the original motivation for the raising analysis (Schachter 1973, Vergnaud 1974, andKayne 1994, among others). Head raising is required because the null operator is insufficientfor the reconstruction effect. Finally, questions remain on the movement of the null operator,
especially in (8b). Why is the null operator base-generated in the spec of CP, and what does
the null operator do? Intuitively, the movement of the null operator mediates the relation
between pro and the head outside the RC, but the exact mechanism is unclear. I will propose a
simpler derivation for RCs below. However, before that, the following section summarizes
Chomsky’s (2021) Form Copy, on which my proposal is based.
2. Form Copy
When two identical objects appear in the structure, the system must determine whether the
relation is a copy or a repetition. In Chomsky (2008: 145), they are distinguished by phaselevel memory. If the two items are introduced separately from the lexicon, they are repetitions,and if the relation is formed by internal Merge (movement), they are copies. However,Chomsky (2021) suggests that the derivation has a strictly-Markovian property and abandons
memory from syntax. If so, the derivational history does not help identify the relation.
Chomsky instead assumes an operation Form Copy, which assigns the copy relation between
two identical objects. Thus, internal Merge is no longer a prerequisite for the copy relation, anda copy relation can be assigned between the objects introduced by external Merge. Chomsky
calls this relation an M-gap.
The two relations, copy by internal Merge and M-gap, conform to Duality of Semantics
and Theta Theory. They are defined as follows:(9) Duality of Semantics(Chomsky 2021: 18)
E[xternal]M[erge] is associated with θ-roles and I[nternal]M[erge] with discourse/information-related functions.
(10) Θ-Theory(Chomsky 2021: 21)
A θ-assigner assigns no more than a single θ-role to an S[yntactic]O[bject] and a θ-position
cannot receive more than one θ-role.
Note that (10) does not preclude one syntactic object from receiving multiple theta-roles if
different predicates assign each theta-role to the object. Let us consider the following raisingand control constructions:108Hayashi, Norimasa(11) a. John seems to win.
b. [John [seems John to win]](12) a. John tried to win.
b. [John [tried John to win]]
The two inscriptions of John in (11b) are copies by internal Merge because only one inscription
is in a theta-position.1 In contrast, each inscription in (12) receives the theta-role from tried
and win. Hence, they must be introduced by external Merge independently according to (9),and the copy relation is an M-gap. In turn, (10) precludes the copy relation in the following
example:(13)

John likes John.

If the two inscriptions of John are copies, like assigns the two theta-roles to John, which
violates (10). Therefore, they must be repetitions in this case.
Chomsky (2021) further argues that the interpretive systems can distinguish the two
relations.
(14) a. one interpreter each seems [to have been assigned one interpreter each to the diplomats]copy by internal Merge(cf. Chomsky 1981: 61)
copy by internal Merge
M-gapb. *one interpreter each [one interpreter each tried [to be assigned one interpreter each to the
diplomats]](cf. Chomsky 1981: 61)
For distributive reading, one interpreter each must reconstruct into its base position in (14).
Chomsky explains the contrast with the assumption that copies by internal Merge yieldreconstruction effects, but M-gaps do not. Consequently, (14b) is ill-formed because one
interpreter each cannot reconstruct into its base position because of the M-gap relation.
Assuming two types of relations under the rubric of the copy relation, Chomsky deduces the
traditional contrast between PRO and trace without assuming PRO. However, Japanese RCs
are still problematic with this proposal. As the analysis only expects the relation withreconstruction and the one without reconstruction, it does not accommodate Japanese RCs,
which demonstrate the relation with reconstruction up to the highest clause.
Slightly modifying Chomsky’s assumption, I propose the following rule for reconstruction.
(15)

The interpretive systems can only trace the uniform operation.

Although it departs from Chomsky’s bifurcation, (15) also explains the contrast in (14). In(14a), the relation is made by internal Merge. Reconstruction can occur as the relation is
uniform. However, in (14b), two kinds of relations are involved; the lower relation is an Mgap, and the higher one is a copy by internal Merge. The interpretive system can trace thehigher copy relation, but it cannot go further because the lower relation is not formed byinternal Merge, failing to produce the distributive reading. Note that (15) allows reconstruction
1

Chomsky seems to assume that to is a part of a verb. Hence, the lower inscriptions in (11) and (12) are locatedin the theta-positions (the spec of v*P).
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Hayashi, Norimasa

in the successive cyclic movement observed in an English RC (6). More than one copy relation
is involved, but as long as all relations are made by uniform operation, internal Merge in (6),the interpretive systems allow reconstruction into the base position. In the following section, I
deduce the highest sensitivity with (15).
3. Analysis
I summarize the assumptions as follows:(16) a. Japanese RCs involve M-gap relations.
b. Form Copy applies at the phase level.
(Chomsky 2021)
c. At the completion of a phase, the lower phase becomes inaccessible.
(Saito 2017, cf. Chomsky 2000)
Let us see Saito’s (2017) assumption (16c) with the following English schemata:(17) a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.

[v*[uphi] [V, OBJ]][v* [V[uphi], OBJ]][v* [V[uphi], OBJ]][C[uphi] [SUBJ [T [v* [V[uphi], OBJ]]]]][C [SUBJ [T [uphi] [v* [V[uphi], OBJ]]]]][C [SUBJ [T [uphi] [v* [V[uphi], OBJ]]]]]

After the v*P phase is formed in (17a), Feature Inheritance transmits its [uphi] features to V in(17b).2 Phasehood is also inherited by V, and VP becomes the lower phase. Thus, VP becomes
invisible to further operation in (17c). Likewise, the derivation of the CP phase is shown in(17d–f). (16c) states that the effect of the phase impenetrability condition applies to the whole
phase, not the complement of the phase head, and the whole TP becomes inaccessible in (17f).
Hence, assumption (16c) does not change the derivation in English. However, in Japanese,
without [phi] features, the derivation becomes different from English.
(18) a. [v* [V, OBJ]]
b. [C [SUBJ [T [v* [V, OBJ]]]]](order irrelevant)After the v*P phase is formed, there is no phase lower than v*. V is not a phase head because
it constitutes a phase only when it inherits phasehood with [uphi] features from v*. As Japaneselacks [phi] features, Feature Inheritance does not occur in (18a). Thus, the whole v*P remains
accessible according to (16c). After the completion of the CP phase, the lower v*P phasebecomes inaccessible.
With these assumptions, I demonstrate the derivation of Japanese RCs. The generalizationis that short RCs exhibit reconstruction, whereas long-distance RCs do not. First, (19) shows
the derivation of short RCs.
(19)

2

[DP [RC [v*P ...DP...]...] DP]
M-gap(17) shows simplified structures. I omit the object shift assumed by Chomsky (2015).
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Hayashi, Norimasa

Each inscription of DP is introduced by external Merge, and Form Copy assigns an M-gap
relation between them. Note that the whole v*P phase is accessible at the phase level operationsin the next phase. Therefore, the DP in the RC can enter into copy relation without movement.
As the derivation involves a uniform M-gap relation, reconstruction occurs with short RCs.
Next, long-distance RCs are derived as follows:
M-gap
(20)

[DP [RC ...DP[v*P ...DP [CP ...[v*P ...DP...]]]] DP]
copy by internal Merge

In (20), the head DP must move to the edge of the highest v*P; otherwise, it becomesinaccessible when the v*P phase is formed.3 Then, Form Copy applies to the DP on the edgeof v*P and the DP base-generated outside the RC. As the derivation includes mixed relations,the interpretive systems can trace the highest M-gap relation, but not further. 4 Hence, thehighest clause sensitivity can be deduced from the interpretive rule (15).
Next, I address the issue of the base position of the head DP. I assume in (19) and (20) thatthe head DP is externally merged in the spell-out position. Japanese requires this option toderive RCs without a gap. Other languages also show that such a derivation is necessary.
(21)[sakana-ga yakeru] nioi
fish-NOM burn smell‘the smell that a fish burns’(22)

Equi-NP Deletion, I found Brame’s arguments against *(it) very convincing.
(Radford 2018: 49)(23)

Gianni, *(lo) ho visto.
G.
him have saw‘Gianni, I saw him.’(24)(Italian, adapted from Cinque 1990:14)

Defoe, even I could have scored that goal.

(Radford 2018:42)

In (21), there is no gap in the RC, and the head DP must be introduced by external Merge withthe clause. (22) and (23) are examples of topicalization with a resumptive pronoun. Althoughsome researchers argue that resumptive pronouns are made by movement (for example, Boeckx
2002; see also McCloskey 2002 for the argument against it), I assume here that a certain kindof topic is externally merged with the matrix clauses, obviating the island effect in (22). (24)
is an English example of topicalization without a gap, which provides a clear example of a DP
merged externally with a clause.
They seem to be contrary to Duality of Semantics (9), according to which the discourse3

4

Note that internal Merge to the edge of CP is not sufficient. After the completion of the v*P phase, the whole
CP phase, including its spec, becomes inaccessible.
If DP with the RC moves in the matrix clause, (15) does not preclude the reconstruction of the head DP into
the highest clause of the RC because the internal Merge and copy calculation in the matrix clause target DPwith the RC, not DP itself. The head DP can reconstruct into the highest clause according to the M-gap relation,and the head DP with the RC can reconstruct according to its movement relation.
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Hayashi, Norimasa

oriented information is given by internal Merge. However, it is a generalization, not an
established principle, and if so, the deviation from it is not a severe problem. Duality of
Semantics has two parts: external Merge explains the theta-roles, and internal Merge thediscourse-related properties. I speculate that the first half can be deduced from (s-)selection
and Full Interpretation. Without a theta-role, DP has no contribution to the event that thesentence expresses, and it violates Full Interpretation. When DP merges externally with thepredicate, it receives a theta-role and also satisfies Full Interpretation. Thus, external Merge toa theta-position is a way to satisfy Full Interpretation.5 The latter half of Duality of Semantics
is based on semantics. As semantics requires an operator-variable configuration for whinterrogatives or the focus interpretation, internal Merge must be used. This decomposition of
Duality of Semantics allows DP to merge externally with a clause, as long as Full Interpretation
is satisfied. I assume that the following interpretive rule works:(25)

DP externally merged with a clause is interpreted as a topic.

(cf. Murasugi (2020))

According to (25), DP can receive a semantic role TOPIC by external Merge with a clause. It
behaves like a theta-role in that Form Copy assigns an M-gap relation between DP with TOPIC
and DP with a theta-role. A semantic role assigned to DP must be TOPIC, not FOCUS or
INTERROGATIVE, given that the focus and interrogative interpretations require operatorvariable configurations produced by internal Merge.6 The assumption assigns DP in (21–24)
topic interpretation and exempts them from Duality of Semantics because they can satisfy Full
Interpretation. Moreover, the assumption also accounts for the similarity between topics and
RCs in Japanese (Kuno 1973). Kuno observes the parallelism between the DP topics andrelativizability.
(26) a. Mary-ga John-to benkyoosita.
M.-NOM J.-with study.did‘Mary studied with John.’(adapted from Kuno 1973: 245)
b. John-to-wa Mary-ga benkyoosita.
J.-with-TOP M.-NOM study.did‘With John, Mary studied.’(adapted from Kuno 1973: 245)

5 Univocality of theta-roles, by which Chomsky (2021) precludes internal Merge to a theta-position, remains to
be explained. However, if the derivation does not store the history, as Chomsky argues, the system may notcare about the types of Merge; syntax just formulates the structure and the interpretive systems assign
interpretation to it according to its representation. This idea can erase the dichotomy of external/internal Merge
with the following interpretive rules:(i) a. If two identical objects have theta-roles (or the corresponding semantic role like TOPIC, see thediscussion below), the copy relation between them is an M-gap.
b. If either one of the two identical objects has a theta-role, the copy relation is a traditional copy relation.
(i) does not resort to the types of Merge to distinguish the two relations. According to this idea, the interpretivesystems can only see the representation of the structure. Therefore, in (ii), the higher inscription of John may
merge externally or internally. Regardless of the operation, the copy relation is identified as an M-gap
according to (ia) at the phase level.
(ii) John tried John to win.
6 Here, I refer to the aboutness topic, not the contrastive topic because the contrastive topic also requires
operator-variable configuration and internal Merge.
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Hayashi, Norimasa

c. *John-wa Mary-ga benkyoosita.
J.-TOP M.-NOM study.did‘John, Mary studied (with).’d. *Mary-ga benkyoosita John
M.-NOM study.did
J.
‘John, with whom Mary studied’(adapted from Kuno 1973: 245)

(adapted from Kuno 1973: 245)

(27) a. Mary-ga John-to issyoni benkyoosita.
M.-NOM J.-withtogether study.did‘Mary studied together with John.’b. John-to-wa Mary-ga issyoni
benkyoosita.
J.-with-TOP M.-nom

together(adapted from Kuno 1973: 245)

study.did‘With John, Mary studied together.’c. John-wa Mary-ga issyoni benkyoosita.
J.-TOP M.-NOM together study.did‘John, Mary studied (with) together.’d. Mary-ga issyoni
benkyoosita John
M.-NOM toghether
study.did J.
‘John, (with whom) Mary studied together’(adapted from Kuno 1973: 245)

(adapted from Kuno 1973: 245)

(adapted from Kuno 1973: 246)

(26b, c) are derived from (26a) by topicalization. Although the PP topic in (26b) is well-formed,
the DP topic in (26c) is not.7 In this case, the RC in (26d) is also ill-formed. (27a–d) are thesame with (26a–d) except for the additional issyoni ‘together’. In this case, the DP topic in(27c) is well-formed, as well as the PP topic in (27b), and relativization is possible in (27d).
This parallelism is captured by the same derivation between DP topicalization andrelativization in the proposed framework. In both constructions, DP merges externally withclauses. The only difference is that Form Copy applies in RCs.
Let us consider the following derivation for a long-distance RC again with the assumptions
above:(28)[DP [RC ...DP[θ] [...DP[θ]...]...] DP[TOP]]

DP base-generated in the RC receives a theta-role from a predicate and moves to the phaseedge. Subsequently, another inscription of DP merges externally with the RC, receiving asemantic role TOPIC. Finally, Form Copy assigns the copy relation to them. As both of them
have the theta-/semantic-roles assigned by external Merge, the relation is interpreted as an Mgap.
Finally, I touch on other RCs in Japanese. It is well-known that Japanese allows
relativization from an island.
(29)

7[[[sinsi
yoofuku kiteiru] yoofuku]-ga yogoreteiru] sinsi
gentleman clothes wearing clothes-NOM dirty
gentleman‘a gentleman who the clothes that (he) is wearing is dirty’

Kuno derives (26c) using the deletion of the particle from (26b).
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Hayashi, Norimasa

In (29), the head DP sinsi ‘gentleman’ is relativized out of the underlined RC. (30) is a longdistance RC of this type.
(30)

Taro-ga [[[[sinsi
yoofuku kiteiru] yoofuku]-ga yogoreteiru]-to omotteiru]
T.-NOMgentleman clothes wearing clothes-NOM dirty-C
thinking
sinsi
gentleman‘a gentleman who Taro thinks the clothes that (he) is wearing is dirty’

In the proposed analysis, the head DP in the RC must move to the position visible from thehead DP outside the RC. In (29), the head DP must move to the spec of the highest v*P;otherwise, it becomes invisible when the v*P phase is formed. However, such movement isprecluded because of the complex NP island. Therefore, I assume that (29) and (30) are derived
by pro.
(31)[DP [RC ...[island ...pro...]...] DP]

In (31), DP merges with a clause that contains a pro referring to the head DP. There is no copy
relation here because DP and pro are separated by a phase; Form Copy cannot locate DP and
pro in one phase. Thus, (30) is like the gapless RC (21) in its nature.8 (32) shows a summaryof the types of RCs and their derivations.
(32)
short RCprevious analyses
movement
the proposed analysis M-gap

long-distance RC
pro
M-gap

RC from island
procomplex NP (pro)Previous analyses put long-distance RCs and RCs from islands into one group in that they
depend on pro. In contrast, I propose that short and long-distance RCs are derived the same
way and RCs from islands are complex NPs like gapless RCs. In all three types of RCs, thehead DP is base-generated outside the RC and merges externally with the RC, receiving the
topic interpretation.
4. Concluding Remarks
This paper discusses reconstruction in Japanese RCs. Unlike English RCs, the head of Japanese
RCs only reconstruct into the highest clause. This property, called the highest clause sensitivity,
leads researchers to assign different derivations to short RCs and long-distance RCs. I accountfor the property from Chomsky’s (2021) Form Copy and propose a unified analysis ofshort/long-distance RCs. I argue that Japanese RCs are derived using the M-gap relation, andthe different behavior between short and long-distance RCs comes from the interpretive rulethat the interpretive systems can only trace the uniform operation. In short RCs, DP in the RC
can have the M-gap relation with the base-generated head outside the RC without movement,
given that a phase makes the lower phase inaccessible to further operation. In contrast, longdistance RCs involve additional movement of the head DP to escape the inaccessible domain.
8

Murasugi (2000) suggests that all types of Japanese RCs may be pure complex NP like (31).
114

Hayashi, Norimasa

Thus, the operations are mixed, and reconstruction is allowed only to the highest M-gap
relation. Finally, I have reconsidered Duality of Semantics and proposed the interpretive rulethat external Merge of DP with a clause assigns the DP the topic interpretation. This assumption
has derived base-generated topics and gapless RCs.

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Hayashi, Norimasa

References
Boeckx, Cedric. 2002. Resumption and Asymmetric Derivation. In Asymmetry in Grammar.
Vol. 1, Syntax and Semantics, ed. by Anna Maria di Sciullo, 85–98.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins,.
Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist Inquiries: The Framework. In Step by Step: Essays on
Minimalist Syntax in Honor of Howard Lasnik, ed. by Roger Martin, David Michaels, andJuan Uriagereka, 89–155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2008. On Phases. In Foundational Issues in Linguistic Theory, ed. by RobertFreidin, Carlos P. Otero, and Maria L. Zubizarreta, 133–166. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2015. Problems of Projection: Extensions. In Structures, Strategies andBeyond: Studies in Honour of Adriana Belletti, ed. by Domenico, Elisa, Cornelia Hamann,and Simon Matteini, 3–16. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Chomsky, Noam. 2021. Minimalism: Where Are we Now, and Where Can we Hope to Go.
Gengo Kenkyu 160: 1–41.
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1990. Types of Ā-Dependencies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ishii, Yasuo. 1991. Operators and Empty Categories in Japanese. Doctoral dissertation, The
University of Connecticut.
Kayne, Richard. 1994. The Antisymmetry of Syntax. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.
Kizu, Mika. 2005. Cleft Constructions in Japanese Syntax. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kuno, Susumu. 1973. The Structure of the Japanese Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
McCloskey, James. 2002. Resumption, Successive Cyclicity, and the Locality of Operations.
In Derivation in the Minimalist Program, ed. by Samuel David Epstein and T. Daniel
Seely, 184–226. Oxford: Blackwell.
Miyamoto, Yoichi. 2017. Relative Clauses. In Handbook of Japanese Syntax, ed. by Masayoshi
Shibatani, Shigeru Miyagawa, and Hisashi Noda, 611–634. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Murasugi, Keiko. 2000. An Antisymmetry Analysis of Japanese Relative Clauses. In The
Syntax of Relative Clauses, ed. by Artemis Alexiadou, Paul Law, AndréMeinunger, andChris Wilder, 231–263. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Murasugi, Keiko. 2020. Parameterization in Labeling: Evidence from Child Language. The
Linguistic Review 37: 147–172.
Radford, Andrew. 2018. Colloquial English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Saito, Mamoru. 2017. A Note on Transfer Domains. Nanzan Linguistics 12: 61-69.
Schachter, Paul. 1973. Focus and Relativization. Language 49: 19–46.
Vergnaud, Jean-Roger. 1974. French Relative Clauses. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.

116

Ihara, Shun

The global licensing of Japanese expletive negation*
Shun Ihara
Kobe University

1. Introduction
Expletive Negation (or Evaluative Negation, henceforth “EN”) is the cross-linguisticallyattested form/meaning mismatch whereby a negation does not contribute the standard (i.e.,
truth-conditional) negative meaning (See Yoon (2011) and references therein for EN acrosslanguages). Although not all languages share all the environments, cross-linguistically EN is
known to occur in certain embedded or subordinated contexts that express uncertainty or nonveridicality, for instance, negative priority attitude predicates expressing e.g., ‘apprehension’or ‘doubt’, positive priority attitude predicates expressing e.g., ‘hope’ or ‘wish’,before/until/unless-clauses, or comparative clauses. While varieties of proposals are posited togive an account for these facts, with few exceptions on EN in exclamatives (Portner & Zanuttini
2000, Delfitto & Fiorin 2014), almost all studies on EN have been focused on embedded/
subordinated environments as exemplified above.
In this paper, we will focus on EN in the matrix environments, showing previously
undiscussed facts that EN in Japanese can appear in certain directive (or command)
constructions. In (1), remarkably, the negation nai ‘not’ can only be interpreted expletively (i.e.,
positively) and disallows the standard negation (henceforth “SN”) (i.e., negative) interpretation,
as suggested in the translations.
(1) a. Hayaku aruka nai ka!
quickly walk NEG Q‘Walk quickly!’ [EN-interpretation]/#‘Don’t walk quickly!’ [SN-interpretation]b. Osake-oyame nai ka!
alcohol-ACC stop NEG Q‘Stop drinking alcohol!’/#‘Don’t stop drinking alcohol!’
It is worth noting that despite the fact that the sentences in (1) have the question particle ka,
they cannot be understood as questions and are constrained to have the directive meaning. To
the best of my knowledge, EN in directive sentences has not been attested in the literature.1
As we will observe later in detail, what is more intriguing and puzzling about EN in
Japanese is that they cannot be licensed if the particle ka does not arise, even though thesentences are still interpreted as directives.

*

I would like to thank the audience of GLOW in Asia XIII Online Special for their useful comments, especiallyŽeljko Bošković and Hiromune Oda, as well as audiences at the workshop “Aspects of Negation, Polarity, andKoto” where the previous version of the paper were presented. This work has been supported by JSPS KAKENHI(Grant Number 21K13000). All remaining errors are entirely my own.
1
One may doubt that such type of nai is expletive negation. For reasons of space, we omit the data, but the evidence
that such nai is expletive includes, for example, the followings: (i) expletive nai allows the “literal” interpretation
when co-occurs with minimizer NPIs (negative polarity items), (ii) sentences with expletive nai licenses PPIs
(positive polarity items), and (ii) expletive nai cannot receive prosodic marking (cf. Yoon 2013).
117

Ihara, Shun(2) a. Hayaku aruka nai!
quickly walk NEG#‘Walk quickly!’/‘Don’t walk quickly!’b. Osake-oyame nai!
alcohol-ACC stop NEG#‘Stop drinking alcohol!’/‘Don’t stop drinking!’
Given the basic facts, the core research questions in this paper are: (i) what is the distributionof the occurrence of expletive nai in matrix contexts? (ii) What is the licensing condition
governing the distribution? (iii) What is the semantic/pragmatic contribution of expletive nai?
In other words, how is the entire directive meaning of sentences with expletive nai derived
compositionally? The aim of this paper is to give answers to these questions by offering aunified account for the distribution of expletive nai in both embedded and matrix contexts.
Speech-acts other than directives such as exclamatives and rhetorical questions will also be in
the empirical scope of the analysis. Pointing out that widely accepted theories of EN based on
uncertainty/non-veridicality fail to predict the distribution, I claim that uncertainty/nonveridicality is not the only licenser of EN, but the notion of triviality in discourse commitments
is further needed.
2. The landscape of expletive nai in the matrix contexts
Yoon (2011; 2013) observes that in parallel with Korean EN, Japanese EN can occur withpositive attitude predicates as well as negative predicates. For Yoon, this is the crucial
motivation that distinguishes EN in Korean and Japanese from those in Old/Middle English,
French, Polish, Russian, Catalan, etc. The relevant data is shown in (3).
(3) a. John-wa Mary-ga ko-nai-ka(to) osore-tei-ru.
John-TOP Mary-NOM come-NEG-Q COMP fear-PROG-PRS‘John fears that Mary might come.’b. John-wa Mary-ga ko-nai-ka(to) kitaishi-tei-ru.
John-TOP Mary-NOM come-NEG-Q COMP hope-PROG-PRS‘John hopes that Mary might come.’[negative predicate][positive predicate]

Let us now turn to see the matrix cases. As we have seen in the earlier examples in (1) and (2),whether the particle ka occurs sentence-finally is one crucial factor of licensing ENinterpretation. This, however, is not the whole story. Nai can have EN-interpretation when thesentence is followed by rising (or questioning) intonation (abbreviated as “?” in examples),even without ka. In contrast, if the intonation accompanied is falling (non-rising) intonation(abbreviated as “!” or “.”), EN-interpretation is impossible.2(4) a. Hayaku aruka nai ?
quickly walk NEG‘Walk quickly?’[w/ ?, w/o ka]

Throughout this paper, examples with a question mark “?” are to be read as accompanied by the LH%(questioning rise) tune, examples with an exclamation mark “!” are to be read as accompanied by the H% (insistingrise) tune, and examples with a period “.” are to be read as the absence of intonation label (or the “flat” tune).
2

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Ihara, Shunb. Hayaku aruka nai !
quickly walk NEG#‘Walk quickly!’/‘Don’t walk quickly!’[w/o ?, w/o ka]

As indicated by the translation in (4a), the sentence with rising intonation sounds much moretentative/suggestiony than the one with ka and falling intonation in (1a) (and (5b) below),
conveying the effect similar to rising imperatives in English (Rudin 2018). Intuitively speaking,the speaker in (4a) seems to be instructing the addressee to walk quickly instead of obliging
her to do so. One important difference between (4a) and English rising imperatives is that theformer must encode the speaker’s preference toward the proposition while the latter can be freefrom the speaker’s preference. I will return to this issue in Section 4.
As shown in (5), the sentences with ka can obtain EN-interpretation regardless of whether
rising intonation is followed or not.
(5) a. Hayaku aruka nai
quickly walk NEG Q‘Walk quickly?’b. Hayaku aruka nai
quickly walk NEG Q‘Walk quickly!’ka ?
[w/ ?, w/ ka]ka !
[w/o ?, w/ ka]

In sum, the observation so far indicates that nai can be expletive either (i) when the sentenceis accompanied by rising intonation or (ii) when the particle ka attaches to the proposition.
Before discussing how the distribution here is theoretically puzzling, one more empiricalfact needs to be added. Besides the directive interpretation, a sentence with ka without risingintonation can have an assertive-like interpretation, as shown in (6) (cf. (5b)). In this case, evenwith ka, the sentence is not allowed to have EN-interpretation.
(6) [Context: the speaker steps on an accelerator of a motorcycle whose engine has failed.]
Yappari hashira nai ka.
after.all run
NEG Q#‘I knew it (= the motorcycle) would work.’/‘I knew it would not work.’ [w/o ?, w/ ka, assertive]
The distribution of expletive nai in matrix environments is summarized in the Table below.
with kawithout ka

with rising intonation✓✓

without rising intonation✓ but # in assertion#

Table 1: Licensing of expletive nai in matrix contexts

3. Previous approach: EN as a subjunctive mood marker
3.1 Yoon (2011;2013)
Among the many proposals (cf. Mari & Tahar (2020, Sec. 2) and references therein), thissection examines Yoon’s (2011; 2013) account, which is the only formal study that addresses
Japanese EN.
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Ihara, Shun

Departing from the view that EN plays the role of a standard negation (e.g., Abels 2002,
Roguska 2007, Delfitto et al. 2019) or of a negative concord item (Zeiljstra 2004, Espinal 2007),Yoon (2011; 2013) proposes that EN in Japanese and Korean is semantically a subjunctive
mood marker. In the line of Giannakidou (2009), she assumes that (i) the subjunctive mood islicensed by non-veridical/uncertainty predicates and (ii) does not actively contribute tomeaning but encodes a certain condition that restricts its distribution to the scope ofnonveridical predicates. Specifically, she argues that the contribution of EN is to convey ascalar/evaluative meaning as in (7b). According to her analysis, while EN in Old/Middle
English, French, Polish, Russian, Catalan, etc. imposes an ordering on the modal base “mb” ofembedding predicates w.r.t. a desirability scale, EN in Japanese and Korean imposes anordering on mb w.r.t. an unlikelihood scale, given the fact that EN in the latter languages canoccur with positive predicates (e.g., hope).
(7) Scalar semantics for EN with ‘hope’ (Yoon 2011; 2013):
a. If hope(x,p) is true in a context c, then mb(x) ∩ p is not Ø in c.
b. The evaluative component of EN(x,p) expresses in c as the following:[mb(x) – p] >likely [mb(x) ∩ p] in c
The truth condition of hope is that ‘x hopes p’ simply requires that there is some world w in
mb(x) that is also a p-world, as given in (7a). Then, as shown in (7b), the evaluative componentof EN expresses that the probability of p is low, given what the epistemic subject knows.
3.2 Puzzle
In line with Yoon (2011; 2013), the analysis in this study will maintain the idea that EN can belicensed by non-veridicality, but I will show that some of the assumptions behind her analysis
should be abandoned, considering over- and under-generation problems.
First, the analysis that EN is licensed by non-veridical/uncertainty predicates cannot
capture the licensing of expletive nai in the matrix contexts where no non-veridical predicate
arises. To give a unified account for both embedded and matrix cases we should rather assume
that it is a non-factive complementizer ka that triggers EN-interpretation of nai independently,
even in embedded cases (See Mizuno (2021) for this line of analysis).3 I will discuss this more
precisely in Section 4, but for the sake of discussion, let me assume that elements that exhibit
non-veridicality (including ka) can be a licenser of expletive nai when they scope over nai.
Assuming that ka plays a role as a licenser of expletive nai by itself, it is predicted thatnai can have expletive interpretation when co-occurs with ka, even in matrix contexts. Thisprediction seems to be borne out in the cases where utterances with ka are interpreted as
directives or suggestions, as we have observed in the example (5). However, at the same time
we also know that this is not always the case, because in the case where utterances with ka areinterpreted as assertions (cf. (6)), nai cannot obtain EN-interpretation.
The non-veridicality-based analysis moreover would predict that nai in the matrix can be
expletive when uttered with speech-acts that mark non-veridicality. That is, if elements that
3This seems to be correct, given the fact that without ka, embedded nai cannot be expletive even when embedded
by non-veridical predicates. (See also Example (51) in Mizuno (2021).)(i) John-wa Mary-ga
ko-naitokitaishi-tei-ru.
John-TOP Mary-NOM come-NEG COMP hope-PROG-PRS‘John hopes that Mary might not come.’ (#‘John hopes that Mary might come.’)120

Ihara, Shunexhibit non-veridicality can trigger the meaning of EN, then speech-acts conveying nonveridicality must also be a licenser of EN. This indeed holds true of nai in information-seeking
questions that exhibit non-veridicality (by definition). Sudo (2013) observes that nai as EN canoccur in questions with certain types of positive bias.4 In (8), dokoka ‘somewhere’ is a PPI and
ensures that nai is construed as EN, not as SN.
(8) A: (Looking at a guidebook) There are all sorts of restaurants around here.
B: Dokoka
nihon-shoku nai?
somewhere Japanese-food NEG‘Isn’t there some Japanese restaurant?’(Sudo 2013: (23))

However, the analysis over generates the use of nai in directive speech-acts. Kaufmann (2012)
among others (e.g., Condoravdi & Lauer 2012) assumes that directive-type speech acts
(including command, suggestion, invitation, etc.) mark non-veridicality as the felicity
condition, in the sense that a directive utterance ‘Dir(p)’ presupposes both p and ¬p are possible.
This will make a prediction that nai in a directive sentence ‘Dir(nai(p))’ can have expletive
interpretation, contrary to the fact that only nai in the sentence with rising intonation or withka can be EN (cf. (4a), (5a,b)), while nai in the sentence without both ka and rising intonation
cannot (cf. (4b)).
To summarize, the analysis based on non-veridicality is suitable to explain the data withka in directives but falls short to capture (i) the data with ka in assertion interpretation and (ii)the data which lacks both ka and rising intonation. My analysis to be proposed in the next
section allows us to explain the data in question, maintaining the idea that ka as a non-veridical
marker can be a licenser of EN.
4. Proposal
4.1 Ingredients
This study makes use of the dynamic discourse model known as the Table(-stack) model
initially developed by Farkas & Bruce (2010). In this model, assertions are not considered ascontributing direct updates of the Common Ground (CG) but are analyzed as contributing
proposals to update this set, in which the speaker takes on a public discourse commitment andprojects the future CG. Since not all of the discourse components of this model are useful forthe purpose, I just introduce relevant components in a context K:(9) A discourse context Kn = <An,DCn,Tn,CGn,PSn>, where:
a. Common Ground (CG): The set of all propositions that all discourse participants a ∈ An are
mutually committed to.
b. Discourse Commitments (DC): For all discourse participants a ∈ An, there is a set DCa of
propositions
that
a
has
committed
to.
(to be refined)c. The Table (T): A stack of issues (sets of propositions), the uppermost (i.e., maximal) elementof which (max(T)) is currently at issue.
d. The Projected Set (PS): The set of all CGs that could result by adding an element of max(T) tothe current CG (intuitively, the future CG), PSn = { CGn + p : p ∈ max(T) }.
Note that Sudo (2013) refers to such nai as “outside” negation, not as “expletive” negation. The bias carried in(8) is e.g., the questioner wants to go to a good restaurant and to a Japanese restaurant respectively.
4

121

Ihara, Shun

Formally, an assertion of a sentence denoting a proposition p, ASSERT(p), is defined as afunction from contexts (K) to contexts (K’) of the following form.
(10) [[ ASSERT(p) ]] = λp.λK. K’ such that:a. DCK’,sp = DCK,sp + p
b. TK’ = TK + {p}c. PSK’ = { CGK + p }d. In all other respect, K’ = K.
More intuitively, an assertion returns a context such that (a) the speaker makes discourse
commitment to p, (b) the current issue of the discourse is p, and (c) the speaker expects that theaddressee will also be committed to p. Crucially, in Farkas & Bruce, all components of themodel are modally unified. They are to be interpreted epistemically or doxastically.
Specifically, the propositions in the Table are those currently under consideration as potential
mutual epistemic/doxastic commitments, and the projected set represents what it would look
like if those potential mutual doxastic commitments were made.
Following Rudin (2018), I further assume the extended version of the Table model, whichallows us to analyze directive speech-acts. Rudin proposes a programmatic extension of theTable model that bifurcates it into doxastic and teleological halves, identical to each otherexcept in terms of the modal interpretation of their components. The doxastic half of the modelis identical to the standard model introduced above. He proposes that directives do exactly thesame thing that standard assertions do, except that they interact with what he calls theteleological discourse commitment in (11). Following Condoravdi & Lauer (2012), he assumes
that the modality relevant to the teleological commitment is effective preferences. The coreidea of the effective preference is that, intuitively, imperatives encode the speaker’s preference
which is ordered with respect to other preferences. The realism condition in (12) ensures that
teleological discourse commitments are required to be both consistent and realistic.5(11) Discourse Commitments (bifurcated version):
For all discourse participants a ∈ An, DCa = <DCdox,a, DCtel,a>, where:
a. DCdox,a (doxastic commitment) is a set of propositions that a is publicly committed to acting as
though she believes, andb. DCtel,a (teleological commitment) is a set of propositions that a is publicly committed to acting
as though she has an effective preference for.
(Rudin 2018: (33))(12) Realism condition:
For any a ∈ An, ∀p: p ∈ DCtel,a. p ∩ ⋂DCdox,a ≠ empty.

(ibid.: (34))

Directives are then interpreted as having a discourse move in (13). The only difference withassertions is that they interact with teleological half of the discourse commitment.
(13) [[ DIR(p) ]] = λp.λK. K’ such that:a. DCK’,tel,sp = DCK,tel,sp + p
b. TK’ = TK + {p}c. PSK’ = { CGK + p }d. In all other respect, K’ = K.
Rudin also proposes to bifurcate the common ground, the table, and the projected set in the same way as thediscourse commitment, respectively as follows: the teleological common ground CGtel is the set of all propositions
that all interlocutors are publicly committed to having an effective preference for, the teleological Table Ttel hosts
content under consideration for incorporation into CGtel, and the teleological projected set PStel contains a set of
possible future CGtel, one incorporating each element of max(Ttel).
5

122

Ihara, ShunIntuitively, a directive updates a context K by (a) adding p to the speaker’s DCtel in K, (b)adding an issue {p} to the Table, and (c) the speaker expects that the addressee will accept thecontent expressed by p.
Finally, following Truckenbrodt (2006) and Rudin (2018), rising intonation “↑?” applies
to a function from contexts to contexts and overrides speaker commitment.
(14) Let C be an abbreviation for a function from contexts to contexts.
[[ ↑? ]] = λC.λK.K’ such that:a. DCK’,sp = DCK,spb. In all other respect, K’ = C(K).
Informally speaking, the meaning of (14) is that rising intonation signals that the speaker ismaking no discourse commitments by virtue of their utterance.
4.2 Global licensing of EN
Let me now turn to the proposal in this paper. I propose that Japanese EN can be licensed
globally by the speaker’s trivial commitment, not only by uncertainty/non-veridicality markers
semantically and locally. Technically, nai can be interpreted as EN when an utterance ‘Utt(p)’in K is marked by certain phonologically non-null elements (e.g., particles, intonation, etc.)that lead to an update which results in an output context K′ that contains DCK′ which is identicalwith DCK. Whether the commitment should be doxastically or teleologically trivial isdetermined by the associated speech act; in assertions, DC should be DCdox and in directives,
the set should be DCtel. Intuitively, when the speaker uttering Utt(p) is not committed to thetruth of p or ¬p either doxastically or teleologically by virtue of that utterance, the matrix nai
can be EN. I define the notion of triviality as in (15) (cf. Malamud & Stephenson 2015).
(15) Trivial discourse commitment:
A regular discourse commitment made by an utterance Utt(p) in a context K is trivial if and only
if the output context K′ contains DCK′ s.t. DCK′ = DCK.
Note that the term “commitment” in (15) refers to “regular” discourse commitments, notprojected commitments proposed by Malamud & Stephenson (2015), which simply represents
the expected next stage of discourse commitments, just like the projected CGs.6
Let us derive the distribution of expletive nai in matrix environments. First, the proposal
captures the contrast between sentences [w/?, w/o ka] and sentences [w/o ?, w/o ka] as follows.
The example (4a) contributes to the discourse move (16), where the issue {p} is added to theTable but is not added to the output DCtel,sp, thanks to the effect of rising intonation. The
commitment is therefore made trivial by the utterance, thus licensing expletive nai.

6

Note also that Yoon (2011; 2013) also proposes the licensing condition of EN in Japanese and Korean in termsof lack of “commitment.” However, she uses the term “commitment” to mean only epistemic/doxastic
commitments, ignoring teleological/deontic commitments.
123

Ihara, Shun(16) The discourse move of (4a) = “Hayaku aruka nai?” ‘Walk quickly?’
Before (4a)After (4a)DCtel,spkr

{ }

{ }

T

{ }

{{p}}

CG

{ }

{ }

PS

{ }

{{p}}

p = ‘the addressee walks quickly’(4b) is a case where both rising intonation and ka do not occur. Here, as shown in (17), since
the directive sentence raises the issue {p} and crucially adds p to DCtel,sp, the move results in a
non-trivial update, unlike the previous case in (16). In (4b), no other elements that can license
expletive nai arises in the sentence, hence only the SN-interpretation is allowed.
(17) The discourse move of (4b) = “Hayaku aruka nai!” ‘Don’t walk quickly!’
Before (4b)After (4b)DCtel,spkr

{ }

{p}

T

{ }

{{p}}

CG

{ }

{ }

PS

{ }

{{p}}

p = ‘the addressee does not walk quickly’

Next consider the cases where ka occurs sentence-finally. In this paper, we maintain the idea
of Yoon (2011; 2013) that ka as a non-veridicality/uncertainty marker locally (i.e., semantically)
licenses expletive nai as a subjunctive mood marker. The idea explains the data in (5) as follows.
In the example (5a) where both ka and rising intonation occur, there are two possibilities andeither way is fine: nai can be licensed either by ka locally or by triviality of discourse
commitment made by rising intonation. As for (5b), although nai cannot be licensed globally
because of lack of rising intonation, (which leads to a discourse move identical with (4b) in(17b) except for the polarity of p), it can obtain EN-interpretation via. local licensing by ka.
This means that for EN in matrix contexts, global licensing is not the only way to license it,
and local licensing remains possible strategy of EN-licensing.
It should be noted that it is not empirically and theoretically tailor-made that for expletive
nai there can be two ways to license it. First, while local licensing of nai (by ka) induces anobligatory EN-reading, global licensing (by rising intonation) induces a non-obligatory ENreading. The data in (18) (= (4a)) indicates that when only rising intonation occurs (i.e., only
the global licensing is possible), the sentences allow both SN and EN-interpretation. On theother hand, in (19), the sentences with ka are obliged to have EN-interpretation regardless ofwhether it is embedded (= (19c)) or not (= (19a,b)).
(18) “Hayaku aruka nai?” ‘Walk quickly?’ or ‘Don’t you walk quickly?’[EN: ok / SN: ok](19) a. “Hayaku aruka nai ka?” (= (5a)) Only: ‘Walk quickly?’b. “Hayaku aruka nai ka!” (= (5b)) Only: ‘Walk quickly!’c. “John-wa Mary-ga ko-nai ka kitaishi-teiru.” (= (3a))
Only: ‘John hopes that Mary might come.’[EN: ok / SN: #][EN: ok / SN: #]124[EN: ok / SN: #]Ihara, Shun

The contrast suggests that we should distinguish between the two ways of EN-licensing interms of their strength of licensing: while ka as a local (semantic) licenser is strong in the sensethat it contributes to mandatory licensing, trivial commitment as a global (pragmatic) licenser
is relatively weak in terms of obligatoriness of EN-licensing.
Theoretically, two types of licensing are not EN-specific and are attested in NPIs. Sedivy(1990) (cf. Sailer 2021) argue that two types of licensing is needed to explain the difference
between weak NPIs such as ever and minimizer NPI such as lift a finger, building on theobservation that unlike weak NPIs, minimizer NPIs can occur both in semantically negatedsentences and in cases with pragmatic “negative side message”: Type1 licensing for weak NPIs
is a regular semantic one which is only with respect to the semantics of the sentence, and Type
2 licensing for minimizer NPIs is with respect to some pragmatic inferred statement (e.g.,contrastive focus) in addition to the semantic one. That is, minimizer NPIs can be licensed byboth semantic and pragmatic content. A discussion of why elements such as minimizer NPI
and certain EN are licensed in two different environments and what universality lies behindthem is beyond the scope of this paper, but at least I emphasize that the fact that Japanese nai,
like minimizer NPI, allows licensing from both semantics and pragmatics is in itself not
exceptionally special phenomenon.
Then, why cannot the directive operator (which also employs subjunctive mood like ka)
license EN semantically? More cross-linguistic investigation is needed to give an answer tothis question, but one possibility is that this is because the directive operator is only an abstractspeech-act operator which is phonologically unmarked, unlike rising intonation or ka. In
Japanese, even an imperative morphology (e.g., e/ro for positive imperatives and na fornegative imperatives) does not mark the directivity by itself but encodes only a necessity modal
meaning (Ihara 2021). As expected, Japanese negative morphology na (which encodes ameaning almost identical with ‘□¬’) cannot obtain EN-interpretation, assuming that in (20) the
directive operator scopes higher than na, DIR(na(p)).7(20) Hayaku ik-una.
quickly go-PRS NEG.IMP‘Don’t you walk quickly!’/#‘Walk quickly!’
In Yoon’s analysis, non-factive complementizers including ka as a subjunctive mood marker
can be a locus of the evaluative feature [+eval]. Assuming that only a phonologically marked
element can be a locus of the feature, the directive operator cannot employ this feature andhence cannot be a semantic licenser of EN regardless of its subjunctive property.
Why is, then, the global approach required? Why can’t we say that, like Yoon, sentences
without ka and rising intonation are just cases where there is no local EN-licenser? In Section
5, I will show that, as a further empirical motivation of the global licensing proposal, an
occurrence of a possible licenser (i.e., ka or rising intonation) itself cannot always ensure
licensing of expletive nai.
4.3 Interpretation
This subsection illustrates how the meanings of the sentences with EN are conveyed
compositionally. I will answer to the question “How do sentences with expletive nai lead toMorphologically, nai cannot attach to positive imperative morphologies: ik-e-nai ‘go-IMP-NEG’ and shi-ro-nai‘do-IMP-NEG’ are both ungrammatical.
7125Ihara, Shunthe interpretation like rising imperatives or directives, crucially without having imperative
forms?”. In doing so, I assume that expletive nai is a subjunctive marker (Yoon 2011; 2013)
and that it conveys a positive epistemic/doxastic or teleological/bouletic bias toward an utteredproposition (Sudo 2013).8
Following Yoon’s (2011; 2013) proposal, I assume that the core contribution of expletive
nai is to impose a negative evaluative meaning based on epistemic likelihood, namely
unlikelihood (See Section 3.2). This, however, is not sufficient for the main data in this paper,
because unlikelihood toward the proposition is not conveyed when expletive nai is used indirective/suggestive utterances, as shown in (21), where apparently the addressee is likely togo out.
(21) [Context: The speaker sees the addressee is ready to go out.]
Hayaku ika nai ka! / Hayaku ika nai? / Hayaku ika nai ka?
‘Go quickly!’/ ‘Go quickly?’/ ‘Go quickly?’Moreover, as observed by Sudo (2013), expletive nai in matrix contexts induces doxastic or
teleological positive bias toward a proposition with respect to the context uttered.9(22) A: (Looking at a guidebook) There are all sorts of restaurants around here.
B: Dokoka
nihon-shoku nai?
somewhere Japanese-food NEG‘Isn’t there some Japanese restaurant?’⇝ The speaker wants there to be a Japanese food restaurant; or⇝ The speaker thinks there would be a Japanese food restaurant.
Given the observations above, I assume that expletive nai in the matrix contexts imposes thefollowing conventional effect.10, 11(23) The conventional positive bias of naiEN(p) in matrix environments[DCsp + p] >likelihood/desirability [DCsp + ¬p](i.e., updating DC with p is more likely/desirable than with ¬p.)
The assumption above leads to the following analysis of the meaning of sentences withexpletive nai in directive/suggestive uses. Let me begin with sentences with expletive nai in[w/?, w/o ka] (e.g., (4a)). Assuming that in Japanese, the directive operator ‘DIR’ can occur incertain non-imperative form sentences if the directive presuppositions are satisfied (Ihara 2021),
the sentence in (4a) obtains the following interpretation.

Sudo (2013) refers to such nai as “outside”-negation, rather than as expletive negation.
Sudo moreover observes the “evidential” bias of expletive nai, which is omitted for the sake of simplicity.
10
We can also incorporate the effect into the Table model as proposed by some authors in the literature by using
the projected commitment set (Malamud & Stephenson 2015, Jeong 2018).
11
What the current discussion indicates is the interesting fact that when expletive nai arises in the matrix
environment rather than the embedded environment, the bias it conveys flips from negative to positive. Since it isdifficult to determine what principles are at work here that are responsible for this phenomenon, giving a unified
account for the embedded and matrix EN in Japanese is left as an important issue for the future.
8
9

126

Ihara, Shun(24) “Hayaku aruka nai?” ‘Walk quickly?’ (= (4a))
Simplified structure: ↑? [ DIR [ naiEN [ p: the addressee walks quickly ] ] ]a. DIR ⇝ TK’ = TK + {p}b. ↑? ⇝ DC′K.tel = DCK,telc. naiEN⇝ [DCsp + p] >desirability [DCsp + ¬p]
Intuitively, (4a) conveys that (a) {p} is the issue to be resolved, (b) the speaker is notteleologically committed to p, and (c) the speaker is teleologically biased toward p. Since thespeaker is not committed to p but just biased toward p teleologically, the sentence is relatively
weaker than standard directives (just like tag-questions or rising declaratives, cf. Malamud &Stephenson 2015), expressing the suggestive flavor. Note that the bias conveyed by expletive
nai is crucial to the interpretation in (24); without the bias, (4a) would have the same effect asrising imperatives in English, contrary to the fact that rising imperatives are generally weaker
than (4a) in the sense that rising imperatives can be free from the speaker’s preference.
Next consider sentences with nai in [w/o?, w/o ka] (e.g. (4b)) which only have SNinterpretation. The sentence in (4b) obtains the following interpretation.
(25) “Hayaku aruka nai!” ‘Don’t walk quickly!’ (= (4b))
Simplified structure: ↓! [ DIR [ nai¬[ p: the addressee walks quickly ] ] ]a. nai(p) = ¬pb. DIR ⇝ TK’ = TK + {¬p}c. ↓! ⇝ default update (i.e., DCK’,tel,sp = DCK,tel,sp + ¬p)
As shown in Section 4.2., EN-interpretation is not available in this case, hence nai(p) = ¬p.
Non-rising intonation “↓!” indicates that the update is made default, which leads to theteleological commitment. The entire meaning therefore becomes identical with the ordinary
negative directive utterance.
As for the case [w/?, w/ka] (e.g., (5a)), the interpretation of the sentence becomes identicalwith the case [w/?, w/o ka] in (4a) (except for the availability of SN-reading because of theoccurrence of ka, cf. (18), (19a)). Finally, sentences with nai in [w/o ?, w/ ka] (e.g., (5b)) havethe interpretation illustrated in (26).
(26) “Hayaku aruka nai ka!” ‘Walk quickly!’ (= (5b))
Simplified structure: ↓! [ DIR [ ka [ naiEN [ p: the addressee walks quickly ] ] ] ]a. ka ⇝ non-veridicality
b. naiEN ⇝ [DCsp + p] >desirability [DCsp + ¬p]c. DIR ⇝ TK’ = TK + {p}d. ↓!
⇝ default update (i.e., DCK’,tel,sp = DCK,tel,sp + p)
In (26), (a) ka as a non-veridicality marker licenses nai to be expletive, (b) expletive nai
vacuously conveys a teleological bias, (c) the directive operator raises {p} as an issue, and (d)the update made by the operator is genuine teleological commitment toward p, hence
conveying a directive flavor.12
12

One may think that the use of expletive nai in (5b) is semantically vacuous because the bias meaning seems not
to affect the meaning of the sentence. Here, I assume that an additional “evidential” bias of expletive nai (cf. Sudo2013) comes into play, which makes the use contributive. Although the analysis is left as a future work, there
seems to be a crucial difference between (5b) and directives without nai. As shown in (i), unless there iscircumstantial evidence that the addressee is not performing on the content of the proposition (i.e., the addressee
walks quickly), (5b) cannot be used, and indeed it is infelicitous to utter (5b) in out-of-the-blue contexts, (ii).
(i) [Context: the addressee does not start walking even though she is instructed to walk.]a. Hayaku aruka nai ka! ‘Walk quickly!’ (= (5b))
b. Hayaku aruku! ‘Walk quickly!’127

Ihara, Shun

4.4. Why triviality?
What exactly is the reason why trivial commitments can license expletive nai? As I havediscussed in the earlier section, expletive nai in matrix environments is a subjunctive moodmarker that conveys mandatory positive bias toward a proposition p. For instance, in (4a), thespeaker utters the sentence expecting that the addressee walks quickly. Crucially, to bring about
this bias, the speaker must not be committed to either p or ¬p, because if she is committed
about either (i.e., if she makes a non-trivial commitment about p), there is no point in bringing
about that additional bias. In other words, commitment to p must be avoided when someone
makes a bias to the same p. Take (4b), where nai cannot be licensed as EN because of the lackof ka and rising intonation, for example. Here, the speaker is teleologically committed to p,
thus the output context will contain DCsp,tel such that p is added. In this case, the bias imposedby nai, namely ‘[DCsp + p] >desirability [DCsp + ¬p]’ (i.e., p is more desirable than ¬p), cannot
affect the meaning of its host sentence, because the bias meaning is semantically weaker than
the teleological commitment conveyed by the sentence, namely ‘DCsp,tel + p’ (i.e., ‘p is
maximally desirable (and ¬p is undesirable)’). Since expletive nai ends up losing its semantic
contribution, expletive nai is blocked from arising in (4b). To implement this, we can make useof the general principle in Crnič (2011). An occurrence of expletive nai in sentences without
rising intonation and ka will then violate this principle.
(27) Principle of non-vacuity (Crnič 2011: 110)
The meaning of a lexical item used in the discourse must affect the meaning of its host sentence(either its truth-conditions or its presuppositions).
If a commitment made by an utterance is trivial, the use of expletive nai is motivated. That is,
if an utterance does not update a context by adding p to DCsp,tel, the bias imposed by expletive
nai will then affect the meaning of the utterance non-vacuously, which motivates the use of
expletive nai. This line of analysis is also compatible with Yoon’s (2011; 2013) approach thatassumes that the licenser of expletive negation is non-veridicality/uncertainty meaning. The
current proposal follows her idea when the associated commitment is doxastic/epistemic one;the use of expletive nai is motivated only when the doxastic bias meaning (i.e., [DCsp + p]
>likelihood [DCsp + ¬p]) conveyed by nai contributes to the meaning of the host sentence, i.e.,
when the commitment conveyed by the sentence is made non-veridical/uncertain.
5. Beyond directives
Before concluding the paper, this section shows some predictions of the present analysis, whichcannot be accounted only by the previous account based on non-veridicality. First, as observed
among languages (e.g., Italian (Delfitto & Fiorin 2014), German (Roguska 2007, a.o.), Paduan
Italian (Zannutini & Portner 2003) and Korean (Yoon 2011)), Japanese also allows
exclamatives with expletive nai. In (28), nai is licensed expletively without ka and risingintonation, which will be problematic in the non-veridicality-based account since exclamatives
presuppose factivity of p (Abels 2010, a.o.) and moreover no local licenser exists in thesentence.

(ii) [Out-of-the-blue context]
a. #Hayaku aruka nai ka! ‘Walk quickly!’ (= (5b))

b.
128

Hayaku aruku! ‘Walk quickly!’Ihara, Shun(28) Are-wa fujisan-ja
nai (ka)!
that-TOP Mt.Fuij-COP.TOP NEG Q‘(Wow,) That's Mt. Fuji!’
Assuming that exclamatives are speech acts that do not contribute to the regular discourse
commitment like assertions or directives, in the sense that exclamatives do not put the utteredproposition to the discourse commitment set directly (cf. Trotzke & Giannakidou 2019,
Hirayama 2021), then the discourse move made by exclamatives should always be trivial,
thereby licensing expletive nai by their own discourse property.13
Next, the present analysis predicts that nai in information-seeking questions can be
expletive whereas in rhetorical questions (RQs) cannot, since while the speaker in the former
is not committed to p or ¬p, the latter requires the speaker to commit to the truth doxastically,
because the commitment in the latter is made non-trivial. This prediction is borne out, as canbe seen in (29). In (29), toiuno is a marker of RQs (Caponigro & Sprouse 2007, a.o.) and
imposes that the speaker is commit to p negatively.
(29) a. Ame hut-te nai?
rain fall-PROG NEG‘Isn’t it raining?’ or ‘Is it not raining?’
b. Ame hut-te nai toiuno?
rain fall-PROG NEG TOIUNO‘[lit.] Is it not raining?’ (#‘Isn’t it raining?’) ⇝It is raining.

Crucially, the RQ in (29) is uttered with rising intonation, indicating that rising intonation itself
is not a (local or semantic) licenser of EN. Thus, only the global account of EN-licensing basedon commitment triviality can capture the contrast in (29).
Finally consider the case of nai in assertive utterances that we have observed in Section2.
In (6), where utterances with ka are interpreted as assertions, nai cannot obtain the expletive
interpretation. Both the triviality-based account and the non-veridicality-based account seemto fail to capture this phenomenon, since nai should be licensed expletively by ka as a nonfactive marker. The pivotal fact that we should focus on here is that the sentence is followedby falling intonation rather than rising intonation. According to the literature (e.g., Davis 2011,
Yokoyama 2013, Taniguchi 2016) a sentence with ka loses its non-factive property when
followed by falling intonation. More specifically, when the associated discourse commitment
is doxastic one, DCdox, ka with falling intonation no longer plays a role of a non-factive marker.
Although the implementation would vary depending on the analysis, the explanation here
captures the fact in question, which at first glance appeared to be an exception.14
6. Conclusion
This paper has given an account of why expletive negation in Japanese can be licensed undercertain discourse/pragmatic conditions. Focusing on directive speech-acts, I have argued that
13This view is motivated by some empirical facts, e.g., exclamatives cannot be used to answer to questions (Rett
2011, a.o.).
14
For instance, Davis (2011) uses the abstract rhetorical morpheme for ka, and Taniguchi (2016) proposes that in
the current case falling intonation is a reflexivizer that turns an addressee-oriented question into a self-oriented
and a self-answered one.
129

Ihara, Shunin addition to the non-veridical account, the account based on triviality of the discourse
commitment is required.
Further investigation of EN across contexts and languages is of course needed. As reported
in Yoon (2011), since EN shows a variety of licensing environments cross-linguistically, thenew perspective of EN in this paper, namely the perspective of why and how EN can occur inmatrix contexts, will provide a deeper and broader understanding of the typology of EN. (Forinstance, Paduan Italian and German allow EN in exclamatives but do not in directives(Zanuttini & Portner 2003, Roguska 2007).)
Another important result of this paper is that it supports the view of Yoon (2011; 2013)that EN is not standard negation but is a subspecies of subjunctive mood marker that imposesbias. Departing from Yoon, however, the analysis has suggested that the bias is not constantsince the bias employed by EN in Japanese can be both negative (in embedded contexts) andpositive (in matrix contexts), which will be a further motivation to push forward theexamination of the global account of EN in the future.

130

Ihara, Shun

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Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

Aspect in Hindi-Urdu and transition between syntactic domains*
Gurmeet Kaur, Julie Goncharov
University of Göttingen

1. Introduction
In this paper, we present a unified account of two properties of affixal aspect(perfective/habitual) in Hindi-Urdu/HU: (i) truncation, i.e. the ability of a verb with affixal
aspect to stand alone without a tensed auxiliary, and (ii) the ban on affixal aspect in imperatives
and simple future clauses.
Generally, a (present/past) tensed clause in HU contains a verb which hosts affixal aspect
and a be-auxiliary, which hosts tense morphology, as in (1). However, a clause with a verb thathosts aspectual affixes can occur without the tensed auxiliary, as shown in (2). In this case, we
say that the clause is truncated and label this property as truncation.
(1) karan kayiiN baar
dillijaa-taa
Karan many times Delhi go-HAB.M.SG‘Karan goes to Delhi many times.’haibe.PRS.3SG(2) karan kayiiN baar
dillijaa-taa
Karan many times Delhi go-HAB.M.SG‘Karan would go to Delhi many times.’
The second property pertains to the distribution of affixal aspect. While affixal aspect isobligatorily required in tensed clauses; see (3), it cannot occur in imperatives and simple futureclauses, as shown in examples (4)-(5).
(3) karan dillijaa-*(taa)
Karan Delhi go-HAB.M.SG‘Karan goes to Delhi.’

hai
be.PRS.3SG(4) dillijaa-(*taa)-o
Delhi go-HAB-IMP.2N1‘Go to Delhi!’(5) karan dillijaa-(*taa)-e-gaa
Karan Delhi go.HAB-SBJV.3SG-FUT.M.SG‘Karan will go to Delhi.’*

This paper has benefited from discussions with Rajesh Bhatt, Hedde Zeijlstra and Neil Banerjee at different
stages of this project. We would also like to thank our audience at the Oberseminar English Linguistics, University
of Goettingen (June 2022) and at Glow in Asia XIII (August 2022) for their feedback. All errors are our own.
1
2N refers to 2nd person neutral, which is distinct from the 2nd person intimate (2INT) and 2nd person honorific(2H) forms.
133

Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

Assuming a tri-partition of the clause into a V-domain that corresponds to events, a T-domainthat corresponds to situations, and a C-domain that corresponds to propositions (e.g. Ramchand& Svenonius 2014), we claim that affixal aspect in HU encodes a transition from an event
description to a situation description with an added requirement that the created situation is
unique. Our proposal captures truncation as a definite description of a situation. Adding theassumption that future is non-deterministic helps explain the ban on affixal aspect inimperatives and future clauses and the lack of future-readings with truncation.
The paper is organized as follows: in Section 2, we present the two properties of affixal
aspect in detail. Section 3 provides our main proposal. In Section 4, we discuss two apparent
counterexamples to our proposal. Section 5 concludes the paper.
2. Two properties of affixal aspect in HU
2.1 Property I: Truncation
HU has three grammatical aspect markers of which two are affixal and one is non-affixal: (a)Perfective: affixal (-aa/-yaa), (b) Habitual: affixal (-taa), and (c) Progressive: stand-alone
auxiliary (rah). In this paper, we focus on the affixal (perfective and habitual) aspectual
morphology since only affixal aspect shows both properties under discussion. In a tensed clause
in HU, which can be present or past, affixal aspect (habitual/perfective) is hosted on the verb.
As shown in (6), the verb ‘go’ can bear the habitual or perfective affixes. Tense (here, present)is realized on a be-auxiliary.
(6) a.

karan kayiiN baar
dillijaa-taahai
Karan many times Delhi go-HAB.M.SG be.PRS.3SG‘Karan goes to Delhi many times.’b. karan kayiiN baar
dilli
ga-yaahai
Karan many times Delhi go-PFV.M.SG be.PRS.3SG‘Karan has been to Delhi many times.’

In such tensed clauses, the locus of affixes is fixed - aspectual morphology appears on the verb
and tense morphology on the be-auxiliary. For instance, the verb cannot host tense morphology,
and the be-auxiliary cannot host aspectual affixes.
(7) *karan
kayiiN baar
dillijaa-taa-ai ho
Karanmany times Delhi go-HAB-PRS be
Intended: ‘Karan goes to Delhi many times.’(8) *karan
kayiiN baarDelhi
jaa ho-taa-ai
Karanmany times Delhi go be-HAB-PRS
Intended: ‘Karan goes to Delhi many times.’
Furthermore, what is crucial is that it is obligatory for the verb to occur with aspectual
morphology - omission of aspect marking leads to ungrammaticality, as in (9).
(9) karan kayiiN baar
dillijaa-*(taa)haiKaran many times Delhi go-HAB.M.SG be.PRS.3SG‘Karan goes to Delhi many times.’134

Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

However, the be-auxiliary hosting tense morphology can be omitted. In other words, clauses
where the verb bears affixal (perfective or habitual) aspect in HU can be truncated after the
aspect-hosting verb, while still yielding a proposition (Bhatt 1997, Davison 2002, Bhatt &Keine 2017 among others). In (10), we see instances of truncated habitual clauses. The habitualverb can occur without a tensed auxiliary when the sentence contains an adverb ofquantification, as in (10a). Similarly, a truncated habitual can also occur in a when-clause, asin (10b) (see Bhatt 1997 for more discussion). A tensed clause with a perfective verb can also
be truncated – we show a present perfective tensed clause in (11a) and its truncated counterpartin (11b).
(10) a.

karan kayiiN baar
dillijaa-taa
Karan many times Delhi go-HAB.M.SG‘Karan would go to Delhi many times.’b. jabmira
dilli
jaa-tii,
tab
karan
bhii
when Mira.NOM Delhi go-HAB.F.SG then
Karan.NOM also
jaa-taa
go-HAB.M.SG‘When Mira would go to Delhi, Karan would too.’(11) a.

karan dilli
ga-yaaKaran Delhi
go-PFV.M.SG‘Karan has gone to Delhi.’
b. karan dilli
ga-yaaKaran Delhi
go-PFV.M.SG‘Karan went to Delhi.’2

haibe.PRS.3SG

There are two characteristics of truncation that are relevant for us: first, truncation can only
take place after the verb that hosts affixal aspect. HU is well-known to have compound verbs(CVs), a productive class of verbal structures that consist of a main verb (MV) and a light verb
(LV) (see Hook 1973, Butt 2003). The light verb is semantically bleached - it contributes
meanings such as inception, completion, benefaction, suddenness, among many others.
Consider the following examples. In (12), the verb ‘go’ is used as the main verb. Contrast thiswith its use as a light verb in (13) – here, it does not contribute to the main action, which iscontributed by the main verb ‘come’ instead.
(12) karan kayiiN baar
dillijaa-taahai
Karan many times Delhi go-HAB.M.SG be.PRS.3SG‘Karan goes to Delhi many times.’(13) karan kayiiN baar
dilliaa
Karan many times Delhi come‘Karan comes to Delhi many times.’

jaa-taa
hai
go-HAB.M.SG be.PRS.3SG

We employ the simple past in English to translate truncated perfective clauses in HU, in keeping with standardpractice among HU linguists (e.g. Bhatt 1997, Davison 2002). However, we are not committed to a uniform
grammatical treatment of the truncated perfective in HU and the simple past in English at this stage.
2

135

Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

As shown in (13), in the presence of a light verb, it is this light verb (and not the main verb)
that hosts aspectual marking in a tensed clause. Tense, per usual, obtains on the be-auxiliary.
Crucially, this clause with a compound verb can only be truncated after the aspect-hosting LV,
and not after the uninflected MV, (14).
(14) karan kayiiN baar
dilliaa
jaa-taa /*aa
Karan many times Delhi come go-HAB.M.SG/ come‘Karan would come to Delhi many times.’Thus, as (14) clearly demonstrates, truncation cannot take place lower than the structural
position that hosts affixal aspect.
The second property of truncation corresponds to its temporal interpretation. Not
surprisingly, tensed clauses with an overt auxiliary are interpreted as present or past. Truncatedclauses lack a be-auxiliary. Regardless, they can only be used to describe a past or present
action but not a future action. Consider the truncated habitual in (15a) which is used to describea past habitual event, as evidenced by the felicitous occurrence of only a past adverbial such as‘last year’. A truncated habitual clause can also describe a present habitual event, but only inthe presence of negation, as in (15b). A truncated perfective clause can have both past andpresent interpretations, regardless of negation. This is shown in (16), which is compatible withboth present and past adverbials.
(15) a.

pichhle saal/#aaj-kal
karan harhafte dilli
jaa-taalastyear/nowadays Karan every week delhi
go-HAB.M.SG‘Last year/#nowadays, Karan would go to Delhi every week.’b. aaj-kal/#pichhle saal karan har
hafte dillinahiiN jaa-taa
nowadays/lastyear Karan every week Delhi NEG
go-HAB.M.SG‘Nowadays/#last year, Karan does not go to Delhi every week.’(16)karan-nepicchlehafte/aaj
Karan- ERG last
week/today‘Karan read a book last week/today.’ek
onekitaabbookpaRh-ii
read- PFV.M.SG

Despite the lack of a tensed be-auxiliary, truncated clauses cannot be used to describe a future
event. This is shown for a truncated habitual, both with and without negation in (17a) and (17b)– a future adverbial is infelicitous in both sentences. Same facts obtain for a truncated clausewith a perfective verb, (18). Note the use of kal, which can normally mean either ‘yesterday’or ‘tomorrow’. In (18), kal cannot mean ‘tomorrow’.
(17) a. #agle saal karan har
hafte dilli
jaa-taanext year Karan every week Delhi go-HAB.M.SG
Intended: ‘Next year, Karan will go to Delhi every week.’b. #agle saal karan har
hafte
dilli
nahiiN jaa-taa
next year Karan every week Delhi NEG
go-HAB.M.SG
Intended: ‘Next year, Karan will not go to Delhi every week.’(18)
karan-nekalekkitaab paRh-ii
Karan- ERG yesterday/#tomorrow one
book
read- PFV.M.SG‘Karan read a book yesterday/#tomorrow.’136

Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

In summary, in HU, a verb with affixal aspect can stand alone without a tensed auxiliary. This
stand-alone clause must contain affixal aspect, i.e. it cannot be truncated lower. Moreover,despite the lack of a tensed be-auxiliary, truncated clauses can only be interpreted as past or
present but never future.
2.2 Property II: Ban in imperatives and simple future clauses
2.2.1 General description of the ban
As already seen, aspectual morphology is obligatory on the verb in tensed (and truncated)clauses. However, imperatives and simple future clauses can never host affixal aspectual
morphology. The verb in an imperative must host imperative morphology. Consider (19),where the verb bears the imperative morphology for an honorifically neutral addressee, realized
as -o. Aspectual morphology is banned on the verb.
(19) dillijaa-(*taa)-o
Delhi go-HAB-IMP.2N‘Go to Delhi!’
The same pattern is attested in simple future clauses. Future in HU is marked via subjunctive
morphology (-e/∅) plus -gaa, which has originated from the verb ‘go’, (20). Again, no
aspectual morphology is allowed on the verb.
(20) karan dillijaa-(*taa)-e-gaa
Karan Delhi go.HAB-SBJV.3SG-FUT.M.SG‘Karan will go to Delhi.’
CVs can also occur in imperatives and future clauses as shown in (21) and (22) respectively.
Despite the availability of two verbs, affixal aspect cannot occur in imperatives and simple
future clauses with a CV. As shown in (21) and (22), the main verb ‘come’ must remain bareand the light verb ‘go’ must host imperative/future morphology alone.
(21) dilliaajaa-(*taa)-o
Delhi come go-HAB-IMP.2N‘Come to Delhi!’(22) karan dilliaajaa-(*taa)-e-gaa
Karan Delhi come go.HAB-SBJV.3SG-FUT.M.SG‘Karan will come to Delhi.’
It is important to note that this ban is neither due to the morpho-phonology of the verb nor due
to the lexical meaning of an individual aspectual marker. We discuss both these possibilities
below and show that accounts based on either of these options are empirically inadequate.
2.2.2 Against a purely morpho-phonological explanation
According to a possible morpho-phonological account, there is a restriction on how muchinflectional material can combine with a verb in HU. An aspectual affix on the
future/imperative verb form exceeds the designated limit of affixes on the verb, leading to the137Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

ban.
Typically, HU allows one affix per verb (e.g. jaa-naa ‘go-inf’). However, we also havethe future form, which contains two affixes (jaa-e-gaa ‘go-sbjv-fut’). Based on whether wetake the maximum number of affixes per verb stem as one or two, we have two lines ofargumentation, both of which fail to explain the ban. We first take the future verb as our
template and assume that HU verb can allow up to two affixes. Aspectual marking is correctly
ruled out in the future since it adds an extra affix (*jaa-taa-e-gaa ‘go-hab-sbjv-fut’). However,since imperative morphology uses a single affix, and HU verb can allow up to two affixes,
imperatives should allow aspectual affixes. This is not borne out (*jaa-taa-o ‘go-hab-imp.2n’).
Alternatively, we assume that HU allows only one affix per verb stem and the futuremorphology is special in that it is grammaticalized as one affix. Under this one affix per verb
limit, the ban on aspectual affixes in both future and the imperative for a honorifically neutral
addressee is explained since aspect adds an affix to the verb which already has an affix, crossing
the designated limit: (*jaa-taa-egaa ‘go-hab-fut’) and (*jaa-taa-o ‘go-hab-imp.2n’). However,consider the immediate imperative for an informal/intimate addressee in (23). The imperative
ending in (23) is null, which should allow the realization of affixal aspect. This is not borneout.
(23) dillijaa-(*taa)-Ø
Delhi go-HAB-IMP.2INT‘Go to Delhi!’
Thus, the ban on affixal aspect in imperatives and simple future clauses remains unexplained
under a purely morpho-phonological approach.
2.2.3 Against a lexical meaning based explanation
Van der Auwera et al. (2009) propose that the meaning (semantics/pragmatics) of individual
aspect markers can be a relevant factor determining their incompatibility in imperatives in somelanguages. For instance, it is well-known that the progressive form of the verb is very rare, if
not completely unavailable, in English imperatives.
(24)* Be eating food!

This restriction on the marker (be V-ing) can be made to obtain from its meaning. Taking
aspectual morphology to describe the relationship between the salient ‘time underdiscussion’(Topic Time), and the ‘time of predication’ (Event Time), the progressive marker
indicates that TT is contained within the ET, and not the other way around. Since imperatives
typically involve an appeal to the hearer to perform the action as a whole and not merely to beengaged in the activity or part of it, the progressive is generally not allowed in imperatives.
There are at least two issues with extending this approach to the ban on affixal aspect inimperatives and simple future clauses in HU. First, this approach is better-suited to linguistic
systems that, in general, allow aspectual morphology in imperatives, but may ban a certain
aspectual marker due to its meaning. HU, however, bans all aspectual morphology inimperatives. We have already seen the ban on habitual marker in imperatives, as in (19). Thisban extends to the perfective marker, as shown in (25).
138

Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov(25) dillijaa-(*yaa)-o
Delhi go-PFV-IMP.2N‘Go to Delhi!’
Secondly, the empirical domain of this approach is restricted to imperatives and does notnecessarily generalize to other types of sentences. For instance, while the distribution of the
progressive is restricted in English imperatives, it occurs freely in the future, (26). However,the ban on aspectual morphology on the verb in HU extends across imperatives and futureclauses.
(26)

John will be eating food later.

Thus, given the ban on all aspectual morphology across not only imperatives but also futureclauses in HU, this approach based on the semantic/pragmatic incompatibility of individual
aspect markers and imperatives does not suffice for the language.
In summary, affixal aspect in HU shows two properties: (i) a clause in HU can be truncatedafter the aspect-hosting verb, and (ii) affixal aspect in HU cannot occur in imperatives andsimple future clauses - this ban is neither due to morpho-phonology nor due to the meaning ofindividual aspect markers.
3. Proposal
3.1 Generalization
Given the two properties as discussed in the last section, a clear generalization emerges: affixal
aspect in HU is incompatible with a future reading.
See Table 1 - tensed clauses have both aspectual morphology and a be-auxiliary, andcannot be future-oriented. Imperatives and future clauses lack both aspectual morphology anda be-auxiliary, and are future-oriented. Despite lacking a be-auxiliary, truncated clauses patternwith tensed clauses, and cannot be future-oriented.
V-asp be-tense Future Non-future


×

×
×

×

1 Tensed clauses
2 Imperatives
Simplefuture3 clauses×××
4 Truncated clauses ××
Table 1: Form and temporal readings across distinct sentence types
Since both tensed and truncated clauses host aspect, while both imperatives and future clauses
lack aspect, we claim that it is affixal aspect in HU, which is incompatible with future readings.
This generalization allows us to derive (i) the ban on affixal aspect in imperatives and simple
future clauses, both of which are future-oriented structures, and (ii) the lack of future readings
with truncated structures (once we explain why truncation can only take place at the projectionthat hosts affixal aspect).
3.2 Preliminaries: event descriptions, situation descriptions, propositions
To derive the incompatibility of affixal aspect with future in HU, we assume a system similar
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Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

to that in Ramchand and Svenonius (2014). Following Hinzen (2006), Ramchand & Svenonius(2014) say that the role of syntax is to build complex semantic meanings that represent basic(interpretable) concepts. We will be interested in three such concepts: events, situations, andpropositions.
Events are represented by atemporal event descriptions which include information about
relations between sub-events (causation, resultativity), thematic role manipulations (passives,
applicatives), and aktionsart specifications (static, dynamic). Event descriptions correspond tosyntactic objects in the VP-zone.
(27)[[ [VP...verb...] ]] = λe.Verb (e) ∧ ...

Situations are partial descriptions of the state of affairs (e.g., Barwise and Perry 1983). They
are represented by situation descriptions which are elaborations of event descriptions in thesense that they presuppose the existence of eventuality (technically, the eventuality is ∃-closed
in a situation description). Unlike events, situations have a time and a world parameter. Thus,
a situation is the smallest object that can, in principle, be related to the utterance. Situation
descriptions correspond to syntactic objects in the TP-zone which in English hosts auxiliaries
and root modals.
(28)[[ [TP...aux...]]] = λst,w. Aux (st,w) ∧ ...

In this system, the transition from event descriptions to situation descriptions is achieved by
Asp* (heads marked with an asterisk are transition heads). Everything below Asp* is an event
description of different complexity, i.e., λe.P(e). Asp* takes an event description as its
complement and builds a situation description which encloses that event description and also
provides a time and a world parameter. We can think of the situation built by Asp* as areference situation (on a par with Reichenbach’s ‘point of reference’).
(29)

Asp* ⇝ λQλst,w∃e [Q(e) ∧ Asp (st,w, e)]

Asp has a particular meaning depending on the meaning of the aspectual morpheme that is used
for transition. Asp can also bring additional requirements on the situation. For instance, for
Ramchand & Svenonius (2014), English perfect is realis, so it brings in an additional
requirement that the world parameter of the reference situation is set to the actual world wc.
Propositions are enriched situations that include a relationship to the utterance situation sc,which, in turn, establishes relations to contextual information (including speaker, hearer, timeof utterance, etc.). Propositions presuppose a situation (technically, via existential closure). The
transition from situations to propositions is made possible by Fin*, which, in English, can hostinformation about tense (anchoring the t-parameter of the embedded situation) or
epistemic/evidential modality by the realis/irrealis distinction (anchoring the w-parameter),which is reminiscent of Iatridou (2000).
(30)

Fin*pres⇝ λRλp[p = Assert (∃s[R(s) ∧ st = sct])](31)

Fin*irrealis⇝ λRλp[p = Assert (∃s[R(s) ∧ sw ≠ scw])]
140

Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

A simple abstract structure will look as in (32). In this structure, we see that different semantic
objects correspond to different syntactic projections. Going bottom up, we see that a VP
corresponding to an event description combines with Asp*. Asp* creates a situation description
which encloses the event description. Thus, Asp*P corresponds to a new semantic object - asituation description. The material at the level of TP enriches the situation description. Then,
TP combines with Fin*, which creates a proposition out of the situation description. Thus,
Fin*P corresponds to a new semantic object – a proposition. (It should be noted here that
propositions in Ramchand & Svenonious (2014) are not classical sets of possible worlds, see
Ramchand (2018) for more details. This deviation will not affect our proposal.)(32)

3.3 Aspect in HU
Building on the idea of transition heads, we propose that affixal aspect in HU spells out Asp*.
That is to say, in addition to their aspectual meanings, affixal aspect in HU performs thetransition from event descriptions to situation descriptions. We also propose that in addition to
the transition, Asp* in HU encodes a uniqueness presupposition - it is defined only if thesituation it creates is a unique situation, see (33). Here and below, we use Asp*hu as shorthandfor Pfv*hu and Hab*hu. Asp, as before, provides a specific aspectual meaning for perfective or
habitual in HU.
(33)

Asp*hu ⇝ λQλst,w∃e [Q(e) ∧ Asp (st,w, e)]undefined unless s is a unique situation

With these preliminaries in place, we are ready to derive truncation and the ban on affixal
aspect in future-oriented structures in HU. Let us begin with truncation. Our proposal here isthat the status of Asp*hu as a transition head and the uniqueness presupposition derive
truncation as a definite description of a situation. Being a transition head is a necessary
condition for affixal aspect in HU to participate in truncation since situation descriptions
introduce t- and w-parameters and thus, are the smallest object that can be related to contextual
information. The uniqueness requirement on Asp*hu is another necessary condition fortruncation. Let us suppose that ∃-closure is a mechanism that is always available as a last resort.
By ∃-closing a situation description with the uniqueness presupposition, we get a definite
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Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

description of the situation. It is plausible to propose that like definite descriptions ofindividuals can refer, definite descriptions of situations can have their truth determined
contextually.
(34)∃!s∃e [Q(e) ∧ Asp (s, e)]

We propose that the above mechanism is what is behind ‘truncation’ and it is made possible in
HU by two factors: (i) affixal aspect in HU encodes the transition from events to situations,and (ii) there is a uniqueness requirement on the created situation. At this point we remain
agnostic whether proposition formation is indeed necessary (as for Ramchand & Svenonius
2014), how propositions are formed in case of truncation if they are needed, where the assertive
illocutionary force comes from, and many other important questions.
Let us now turn to explaining the ban on aspectual affixes in imperatives and simple futureclauses. To explain the ban, we need to make one more assumption. We need to assume that
future is non-deterministic. The idea that future is non-deterministic is well studied in tense
logic since Prior’s and Thomason’s works in late 60s and 70s. The idea is based on the intuition
that we need to allow for choices among possible futures. This is captured by assuming thattime is linearly ordered only with respect to the present and the past. With respect to the future,
time ‘grows’ into a treelike structure, as in (35).
(35)

Now, we argue that the uniqueness requirement on Asp*hu is what is responsible for the ban on
affixal aspectual morphology in constructions that describe future-oriented eventualities. To
see this, let us begin with noticing that a reference situation s can stand in (at least) six relations
to the utterance situation sc, as shown in Table 2. These six relations correspond to different
settings of the t- and w-parameters. In Rel1, Rel2, and Rel3, the world index of the reference
situation s is the same as the world index of the utterance situation sc. So, we say that the worldparameter is not shifted here. The time index in Rel1 is also not shifted, in the sense that thetime of the reference situation s overlaps with the time of the utterance situation s c. The timeindex in Rel2 and Rel3 is backward-shifted and forward-shifted respectively. Rel4, Rel5, Rel6
differ from Rel1, Rel2, Rel3 in having the world index of the reference situation s correspond toany (relevant) world index, which is not necessarily (but not excluding) the world index of theutterance situation sc. In this case, we say that the world parameter is shifted (which should beread as ‘possibly shifted’ or ‘shiftable’ as these relations do not necessarily require thereference situation s to be incompatible with the utterance situation sc).

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Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

Rel1
Rel2
Rel3
Rel4

w
non-shifted
non-shifted
non-shifted
shiftedtoverlap
backward-shifted
forward-shifted
overlap

one-to-one
one-to-one
one-to-many
one-to-one

Rel5
Rel6

shiftedshiftedbackward-shifted
forward-shifted

one-to-one
one-to-many

Present, actual
Past, actual
Future, actual
Present, nonactual
Past, non-actual
Future, nonactual

Table 2: Possible Rel(s, sc)Given our assumption about how time is structured, only four out of six relations in Table 2
are one-to-one relations with respect to the time-parameter, and thus can satisfy the uniquenesspresupposition of Asp*hu. These four relations are encoded by (i) present in the actual world(Rel1), (ii) past in the actual world (Rel2), (iii) present epistemic gaa-constructions (Rel4), and(iv) past epistemic gaa-constructions (Rel5), see (36) - (39). Affixal aspectual morphology is
acceptable in all (i) - (iv), as shown for habitual aspect in (40).
(36)

Preshu ⇝ λQλp [p = Assert(∃s[Q(s) ∧ Rel1(s, sc)])]where Rel1(s, sc) = 1 iff t of s overlaps with t of sc ∧ w of s = w of sc(37)

Pasthu ⇝ λQλp [p = Assert(∃s[Q(s) ∧ Rel2(s, sc)])]where Rel2(s, sc) = 1 iff t of s precedes t of sc ∧ w of s = w of sc(38)

Episthu ⇝ λQλp [p = Assert(∀s[Acc(s, sc) → Q(s) ∧ Rel4(s, sc)])]where Rel4(s, sc) = 1 iff t of s is a counterpart of nowc and w of s is shifted wrt w of sc(39)

Episthu ⇝ λQλp [p = Assert(∀s[Acc(s, sc) → Q(s) ∧ Rel5(s, sc)])]where Rel5(s, sc) = 1 iff t of s is a counterpart of pastc and w of s is shifted wrt w of sc(40) a.

aaj-kalkaranrozkasratkar-taahai
nowadays Karandaily exercise
do-HAB.M.SG be.PRS.3SG‘Karan exercises daily these days.’b. pichhle saal
karan
roz
kasratkar-taa
thaa
last
year
Karan daily
exercisedo- HAB.M.SG be.PST.M.SG‘Karan exercised daily last year.’c. aaj-kal/ pichhle saal karan roz kasrat
kar-taa
nowadays/last year Karan daily exercise do- HAB.M.SG
ho-Ø-gaa
be-SBJV.3SG-MOD.M.SG3‘Karan must (epistemic) exercise daily nowadays/ last year.’With the future-gaa (whether we analyze it as modal or not), affixal aspectual morphology is
HU employs the same –gaa morphology in both simple future and epistemic sentences. For ease of exposition,
we gloss the –gaa in simple future sentences as FUT and the –gaa in epistemic constructions as MOD.
3

143

Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

unacceptable because the uniqueness presupposition of Asp*hu cannot be satisfied. (41) and(42) spell out how non-modal (Fut1) and modal (Fut2) simple future can be represented in oursystem.
(41)

Fut1hu ⇝ λQλp [p = Assert(∃s[Q(s) ∧ Rel3(s, sc) ])]where Rel3(s, sc) = 1 iff t of s succeeds t of sc ∧ w of s = w of sc(42)

Fut2hu ⇝ λQλp [p = Assert(∀s[Acc (s, sc) → Q (s) ∧ Rel6 (s, sc)])]where Rel6 (s, sc) =1 iff t of s is a counterpart of futurec and w of s is shifted wrt w of sc

Similarly, for imperatives treated as future-oriented structures, aspectual morphology is out forthe same reason. To make a parallel case for imperatives, let us say that the imperative
expresses an order to the addressee to bring about the situation developed from the event
description in the complement of the imperative operator. This meaning is not fully satisfactory,
but it captures the important (for us) characteristic of imperatives, namely, that they are futureoriented, see (43).
(43)

Imphu ⇝ λQλp[p = Bring − about(∃s[Q(s) ∧ Rel3 (s, sc)])]where Rel3(s, sc) = 1 iff t of s succeeds t of sc ∧ w of s = w of sc

Our system says that affixal aspectual morphology is unavailable with imperatives for the same
reason it is unavailable with simple future, namely because the future situation is never unique,and hence the uniqueness presupposition on Asp*hu can be never satisfied.
3.4 Shifting
We propose that propositions about future and imperatives are constructed by combining theevent description with a shifting operator, standardly taken to be a last-resort solution, see (44).
Two things are worth mentioning about (44). First, Sh performs the transition from event
descriptions to situation descriptions like Asp*hu but unlike Asp*hu it does not have auniqueness presupposition which permits Sh to be used in future constructions and imperatives.
Second, the Asp− relation between the event and the situation that encloses it is (most probably)bleached as compared to the perfective and habitual morphology (which we indicate by thesuperscript −). However, the exact contribution of Asp− is something that should be further
looked at.
(44) Shifting
For any event description Q, Sh(Q) = λs∃e[Q(e) ∧ Asp−(s, e)]To sum up, affixal aspect in HU is realised on Asp*hu, which has two properties: (i) it is atransition head which marks a transition from event descriptions to situation descriptions, and(ii) it has a uniqueness requirement – the situation it creates must be unique. These two
properties of Asp*hu derive truncation as a definite description of a situation. Furthermore, theuniqueness requirement on Asp*hu explains the ban on affixal aspect in constructions that
describe future-oriented eventualities, where future is treated as non-deterministic.

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Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

4. Apparent counterexamples
The ban on aspectual morphology with future-oriented readings in HU has two (to ourknowledge) counterexamples. The first counterexample concerns the use of epistemic gaaconstructions with completive compound verbs/CCVs.
With the simple perfective, epistemic gaa-constructions only have the past reading. Notethe use of kal which can normally mean either ‘tomorrow’ or ‘yesterday’. In (45), kal can beinterpreted only as ‘yesterday’ but not ‘tomorrow’. By contrast, when CCVs are used,epistemic gaa-constructions can receive either the past or future interpretation. Kal in (46) canbe interpreted as ‘yesterday’ or ‘tomorrow’.
(45) karan-nekalkhatlikh-aaho-Ø-gaa
Karan-ERG yesterday/#tomorrow letter write-PFV.M.SG be-SBJV.3SG-MOD.M.SG‘Karan must have written the letter by yesterday.’(Not: ‘Karan will have written the letter by tomorrow.’)(46) karan-nekalkhat likh
li-yaaho-Ø-gaa
Karan-ERG yesterday/tomorrow letter write take-PFV.M.SG be-SBJV.3SG-MOD.M.SG‘Karan must have written the letter by yesterday.’ Or: ‘Karan will have written the letterby tomorrow.’
The example in (46) is problematic for us because the uniqueness presupposition that comeswith the perfective morphology on the light verb will not be satisfied in our system. Thus, oursystem predicts (46) to be ungrammatical, contrary to fact. At the moment, we do not have fullunderstanding of why (46) is grammatical, but we believe this is due to the presence of the
CCV structure. This conjecture is supported by the fact that simple epistemic gaa-constructions
as in (45) cannot have a future reading as predicted by our system.
The second counterexample is a future-oriented reading of both simple perfective verbs
and CCVs in truncated antecedents of indicative conditionals. In HU, either simple future, full
past, or full present clauses can be used in the antecedent of an indicative conditional.
(47) a.

agar karan
kal
davaa
khaa-e-gaa
if
Karan
tomorrow medicine
eat-SBJV.3SG-FUT.M.SG
toh vo thiik
ho jaa-ye-gaa
thenhe alright be go-SBJV.3SG-FUT.M.SG‘If Karan eats the medicine tomorrow, then he will be alright.’(Future)c. agar karan-ne (sonese pehle)davaa
khaa-yiiifKaran-ERG sleep.INF from before
medicine
eat-PFV.F.SGthii
toh
vo thiikho jaa-ye-gaa
be.PST.F.SG thenhe alright be go-SBJV.3SG-FUT.M.SG‘If Karan had eaten the medicine before sleeping, then he will be alright.’ (Past)c. agar karan-ne
davaakhaa-yiihaitohifKaran-ERG medicine eat-PFV.F.SG be.PRS.3SG
then
vo theek ho jaa-ye-gaa
he alright be go-SBJV.3SG-FUT.M.SG‘If Karan has eaten the medicine, then he will be alright.’(Present)
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Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

d. agar karan-ne
davaa
khaa
l-ii
if
Karan-ERG medicine
eattake- PFV.F.SG
toh votheek ho jaa-ye-gaa
then healright be go-SBJV.3SG-FUT.M.SG‘If Karan has eaten the medicine, then he will be alright.’

hai
be.PRS.3SG(CCV-Present)

These examples are not problematic for our system as the events marked with perfective
morphology in the if-clause are either present or past. When the event in the if-clause is in the
future, as in (47a), no affixal aspectual morphology is used.
What is puzzling is that truncated (simple and compound) perfectives in if-clauses receive
only the future-oriented interpretation (Bhatt 1997, Sharma 2010). This is illustrated in (48a)for a simple truncated perfective and in (48b) for a truncated CCV. Again note the use of kal,
which can only mean ‘tomorrow’ in (48).
(48) a.

agar
karan-nekal
davaa
khaa-yiiifKaran-ERG tomorrow/#yesterday
medicineeat- PFV.F.SG
toh votheek
ho jaa-ye-gaa
then healright
be go-SBJV.3SG-FUT.M.SG‘If Karan eats the medicine tomorrow, then he will be alright.’
b. agar karan-ne
kal
davaa
khaa
lii
if
Karan-ERG
tomorrow/#yesterday medicine
eattake.PFV.F.SG
toh votheek ho jaa-ye-gaa
then healright be go-SBJV.3SG-FUT.M.SG‘If Karan eats the medicine tomorrow, then he will be alright.’

Above, we presented truncation as a kind of contextual specification of a definite
description of a situation. However, the examples in (48) show us that truncated structures do
not have to be anchored to the world of utterance provided by the context. They can be anchoredto other possible worlds and then receive a future-oriented reading.
To address the second counterexample, we need to understand truncation better. In
particular, we need to understand the relationship between t- and w-parameters in case oftruncation. There are two immediate possibilities: (i) they are independent of each other and(ii) possible worlds are different paths on the time tree (or different histories). In the second
case, for each world (each history), future is deterministic and our second counterexample is
no longer problematic.
At this point, we are not ready to provide a full account of what truncation is and what is
the relationship between t- and w-parameters in the system. Further research is needed,
including thorough empirical investigation. But if our observation that truncated structures are
generally incompatible with the future-oriented interpretation is on the right track,accommodating if-clauses as above should not pose an insurmountable theoretical difficulty.
5. Conclusion
We made two observations about the distribution of affixal aspect in HU: (i) after affixal
aspectual morphology, sentences in HU can be truncated, and (ii) affixal aspectual morphology
in HU cannot appear in imperatives and simple future constructions.
Adopting a system where semantic meaning is built incrementally, we proposed that146

Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

affixal aspect in HU encodes a transition from an event description to a situation description
with an additional requirement that the created situation is unique. These two conditions helped
us to capture truncation as a definite description of a situation. Adding the assumption that
future is non-deterministic (i.e., time is forward branching) helped us to explain why futureoriented constructions (imperatives and simple future) cannot host affixal morphology. This isbecause there is no unique future situation, thus the uniqueness requirement hard-wired into
the meaning of affixal aspect can never be satisfied in imperative and simple future clauses.

147

Kaur, Gurmeet & Julie Goncharov

References
Barwise, Jon, and John Perry. 1983. Situations and Attitudes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bhatt, Rajesh. 1997. Counterfactual morphology in modern Indo-Aryan languages: Semantics
and typological issues. Ms., University of Pennsylvania.
Bhatt, Rajesh, and Stefan Keine. 2017. Tense and the Realization of the Feminine Plural in
Hindi-Urdu. In Perspectives on the Architecture and Acquisition of Syntax: Essays in
Honor of R. Amritavalli, ed. by Gautam Sengupta, Shruti Sircar, Madhavi Gayathri
Raman and Rahul Balusu, 49–76. Singapore: Springer.
Butt, Miriam. 2003. The light verb jungle. In: Harvard Working Papers in Linguistics 9, 1–49.
Davison, Alice. 2002. Perfective aspect as underspecified past tense. Paper presented at theSouth Asian Languages Analysis Roundtable.
Hinzen, Wolfram. 2006. Mind Design and Minimal Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Homer, Vincent, and Rajesh Bhatt. 2019. Licensing of PPI indefinites: Movement or
pseudoscope? Natural Language Semantics 27(4): 279–321.
Hook, Hook. 1973. The compound verb in Hindi. Doctoral Dissertation, University ofPennsylvania.
Iatridou, Sabine. 2000. The grammatical ingredients of counterfactuality. Linguistic Inquiry
31:231–270.
Ramchand, Gillian, and Peter Svenonius. 2014. Deriving the functional hierarchy. Language
sciences 46:152–174.
Ramchand, Gillian. 2018. Situations and Syntactic Structures: Rethinking Auxiliaries andOrder in English. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Sharma, Ghanshyam. 2010. On Hindi conditionals. In Annual Review of South Asian
Languages and Linguistics, ed. by Rajendra Singh, 107-136. Berlin, New York: De
Gruyter Mouton.
Van Der Auwera, Johan, Andrej Malchukov, and Ewa Schalley. 2009. Thoughts on(im)perfective imperatives. In Form and function in language research: Papers inhonour of Christian Lehmann, ed. by Johannes Helmbrecht, Yoko Nishina, Yong-Min
Shin, Stavros Skopeteas and Elisabeth Verhoeven, 93–106. Berlin, New York: De
Gruyter Mouton

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Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

Asymmetry in Possessor-Agreement in Maithili
Preeti Kumari, Pritha Chandra
Indian 6Institute of Technology Delhi

Abstract
This paper presents novel data from external possession construction in Maithili, an EasternIndo-Aryan language. Maithili external possession is different from those reported in theliterature as it allows only 2nd person and 3rd person honorific possessors to trigger agreement.
Additionally, possessum agreement shows a subject-object asymmetry such that only
possessums inside subjects trigger agreement, whereas possessums in objects fail to do so. This
paper shows that these asymmetries in possessor and possessum agreement result from the needto value the [Addressee] and the [Honorific] features on the 2nd and 3rd person DPs, respectively.
Keywords: External Possession, Internal Possession, Honorificity, Addressee, Maithili
1. Introduction
Cross-linguistically, possessive constructions are of two types- ‘Internal’ and ‘External’.
Internal possession is where the possessor gets a genitive DP. There is no case/agreement
dependency between the possessor and the verb. See (1) from Japanese, where the possessor is
assigned genitive case inside the DP. The possessum noun on the other hand is valued
nominative by the T head.
(1) [Mary-no kami-ga]
Mary-GEN hair-NOM‘Mary’s hair is long’naga-ilong-be(Japanese, Ura 1996:100b)

External possession is where the possessor and the predicate form a case/agreement
dependency. Both the possessum and the possessor nouns in (2) get nominative case.
Additionally, the possessor noun gets an additional theta role of affectee, which it does not havein (1).
(2) [Mary-ga kami-ga]
naga-iMary-NOM hair-NOM long-be‘Mary’s hair is long’(Japanese, Ura 1996:100a)

External possession may also show up in agreement, as illustrated in the Nez Perce sentence in(3). In addition to the possessor getting the object case, the number (plural) feature of thepossessor noun is also encoded on the verb. In contrast to Japanese, the possessor noun in
Nez Perce does not get an additional theta role despite being external possession.
(3) Haama-pim hi-nees-wewkuny-e’ny-Φ-e
man-ERG 3SUBJ-OBJ.PL-meet-µ-p-rem.PST‘The man met the boys’ friend.’
149[ha-haacwal-na lawtiwaa]
PL-boy-obj
friend.NOM(Nez Perce, Deal 2013: 2)

Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

Thus, what is common to Japanese and Nez Perce is that in external possession, the possessor
is case valued by the v/T head, and subsequently, agrees with it. In this paper, we present an
instance of obligatory external possession from Maithili where the possessor gets a DP-internal
genitive case, and yet it triggers verbal agreement, along with the possessum noun (4).
(4) [hun-kər
beta]
He.H-GEN son.NH‘His son had slept’

sut-əlsleep-PRF

chh-əl-əinhbe-pst-3.H+3.NH

Maithili therefore behaves like an internal possession language with respect to subject caseassignment, and like an external possession language for verbal agreement. A second distinct
property is that only 2nd person and honorific 3rd person possessors trigger verbal agreement in
Maithili. 1st person and non-honorific 3rd person possessors fail to trigger verbal agreement in
the language. A final property is that it shows subject-object asymmetry in these constructions.
To elaborate, when the possessive DP is in the subject position of an intransitive or a transitive
verb, both the possessor (2nd and honorific 3rd person only) and the possessum nouns trigger
verbal agreement. Whereas, when the possessive DP is in the object position of a transitive
verb, only the possessor triggers verbal agreement, along with the subject. The possessum fails
to control verbal agreement. The subject-object asymmetry is schematized in (5).
(5) a.
b.
c.

On intransitive verbs (external possession):[[subj 2nd person/3rd person H-Possessori Possessumj] Verbi+j ]On transitive verbs with possessive subjects (external possession):[[subj 2nd person/3rd person H-Possessori
Possessumj] [obj DP]k Verbi+j ]On transitive verbs with possessive objects (external possession):[[subj DP]i[obj 2nd person/3rd person H-Possessorj Possessumk]
Verbi+j ]Based on these unique and interesting patterns of internal and external possession in Maithili,
we ask the following questions in this paper:(6) a. If the possessor DP is already case-marked genitive within the DP, how does it obviatethe ‘Activity Condition’ (Chomsky 2000, 2001) and trigger agreement with the auxiliary?
b. What is the role of the person and honorificity features on the 2nd and 3rd person
possessors, which makes agreement with them obligatory?
c. What explains the subject-object asymmetry in possessum agreement?
We propose that the 2nd and 3rd person honorific possessors are active in syntax due to their[Addressee] and [Honorific] features. The 2nd person possessors move from their basegenerated position to Spec TP/vP, so that their [Addressee] feature can be valued by theaddressee in the left-periphery of the clause (following Baker 2008). Similarly, the 3rd person
possessors move to Spec, TP/vP so that their [Honorific] feature can be valued by the speakerin the left-periphery of the clause (following Portner, Pak and Zanuttini 2019 and Alok 2020,2021). As for the subject-object asymmetry in possessum agreement, we claim that due to thepossessors moving outside of their base-generated position, the probes on the T head, which is
the locus of possessor agreement, never encounter the object possessum. Subject possessum,on the other hand, is always closer to the T head and thus, always triggers agreement with it.
150Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

The organisation of the paper is as follows. In section 2, we present the basic agreement
facts of Maithili. In section 3, we present the possessor agreement paradigm of Maithili. Section
4 is our analysis of Maithili possessor agreement. Section 5 concludes the paper.
2. Maithili: Basic Facts
Maithili is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language. The 2nd and 3rd person pronouns in Maithili encode
various layers of honorificity, as shown in Table 1, whereas the 1st person pronoun does not
encode honorificity. The 2nd person pronouns are classified as non-honorific (NH), midhonorific (MH), honorific (H), high-honorific (HH) and honorific-distant (HD). 1 The 3rd
person pronouns are classified into two categories- non-honorific and honorific.2
Table 1. Maithili Pronouns
1P
2P NH
2P MH
2P H
2P HH
2P HD
3P NH
3P H

həm
tõ
tõ
əhɑ̃
əpne
i
o
o

We now present the subject and object agreement patterns, as triggered by these pronouns, insections 2.1 and 2.2, respectively.
2.1. Maithili Subject Agreement
The 1st person pronouns in Maithili only trigger person agreement as there is no honorificity
distinction in the 1st person.
(7) həmsut-əlI
sleep-PRF‘I had slept.’chh-əl-iəi.
be-PST-1

The 2nd person pronouns trigger both person and honorificity agreement, as shown in (8).
(8) a.
b.

tõ
you.NHtõ
you.MHsut-əlsleep-PRF
sut-əlsleep-PRF

chh-əl-æ.
be-PST-2.NH
chh-əl-əh.
be-PST-2.MHThe 2nd person non-honorific pronoun is used for an addressee who is socially subordinate to the speaker suchas a younger sibling; the mid-honorific pronoun is used for someone who is subordinate in terms of age or position,
but holds respect in the society otherwise such as grown-up sibling/nephew/niece; the honorific pronoun is used
for a superior addressee in an informal set-up such as parents; the high-honorific pronoun is used for a superior
addressee in a formal set-up such as teachers; the honorific-distant pronoun is a special pronoun which is used
only for in-laws.
2
Just like the 2nd person non-honorific, the 3rd person non-honorific pronoun is also used for someone who issocially subordinate, and the honorific pronoun is used for someone who is socially superior. Unlike the 2 nd person,the 3rd person does not encode a vast range of honorificity/formality distinction.
1

151

Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

əhɑ̃
sut-əlyou.H
sleep-PRFəpne
sut-əlyou.HHsleep-PRF
isut-əlyou.HD
sleep-PRF‘You had slept.’

c.
d.
e.

chh-əl-əũh.
be-PST-2.H
chh- əl-əũh.
be-PST-2.HHchh- əl-əth.
be-PST-2.HDThe 3rd person pronouns also trigger person and honorificity agreement on the verb. The nonhonorific 3rd person agreement is shown in (9), and the honorific 3rd person agreement is shownin (10).
(9)os/he.NH‘S/he slept.’sut-əlsleep-PRF

chh-əl-əi.
be-PST-3.NH(10)os/he.H‘S/he slept.’sut-əlsleep-PRF

chh-əl-khinh.
be-PST-3.H

2.2. Multiple Agreement in Maithili
Maithili is a multiple agreement language where objects also trigger verbal agreement.
However, object agreement is restricted to 2nd person (all values) and honorific 3rd person DPs.
For illustration, consider the examples presented in (11a-b), where the subjects are 2nd person
non-honorific and mid-honorific pronouns, respectively. The object in these sentences is 1st
person. Interestingly, the verbal morphology is that of an intransitive verb with a 2nd person
non/mid-honorific noun (compare with 8a-b). 1st person object in (11) clearly fails to trigger
verbal agreement.
(11) a.

tõ
hum-rayou.NHI-ACC
tõhum-rayou.MH
I-ACC‘You saw me.’b.

dekh-nesee-PRFdekh-nesee-PRFchh-əl-æ.
be-PST-2.NH
chh-əl-əh.
be-PST-2.MH

By contrast, 2nd person objects trigger person and honorificity agreement. This is illustrated
through distinct verbal morphology in sentences in (12) where the subject is 1st person, and theobjects are 2nd person non-honorific and mid-honorific pronouns, respectively.

(12)

a.
b.
c.

həm
I
həm
I
həm
I

to-ra
you.NH-ACC
to-rayou.MH-ACC
ahã-keyou.H-ACC

dekh-nesee-PRFdekh-nesee-PRFdekh-nesee-PRF152

chh-əl-iəube-PST-1+2.NH
chh-əl-iəhbe-PST-1+2.MH
chh-əl-əũhbe-PST-1+ 2.HKumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

d.
e.

həm
apne-keI
you.HH-ACChəmhin-kaI
you.HD-ACC‘I had seen you.’dekh-nesee-PRFdekh-nesee-PRFchh-əl-əũhbe-PST-1+ 2.HH
chh-əl-iəinh
be-PST-1+2.HD

Moving on, while 3rd person non-honorific objects fail to trigger verbal agreement, 3rd person
honorific objects do. Consider (13), which shows that a transitive verb with a 3rd person nonhonorific object and a 1st person subject has the same verbal morphology as an intransitive verb
with a 1st person subject (compare 13 with 7).
(13)

həm
ok-ra
I
s/he.NH-ACC‘I had seen her/him.’

dekh-nesee-PRFchh-əl-iəi.
be-PST-l+3.NH

On the other hand, a verb with a 3rd person honorific object has distinct verbal morphology
also encoding the person and honorificity agreement of the object (14).
(14) həm
hun-kaI
he.H-ACC‘I saw him.’

dekh-nesee-PRFchh-əl-iəinh.
be-PST-l+3.H

The subject and object agreement paradigm of Maithili is summarised in Table 2.
Table 2: Maithili Agreement Patterns

1st person

Subject

ObjectYes- person agreement

No agreement

2nd person (NH, MH, H, Yes- person + honorificity Yes- person + honorificity
HH, HD)agreement
agreement
3rd person NH

Yes- person + honorificity No agreementagreement

3rd person H

Yes- person + honorificity Yes- person + honorificity
agreement
agreement

3. Possession in Maithili: Structure and Agreement
Having presented the inflectional paradigm of Maithili, we now introduce the agreement
observed in Maithili possessive constructions. The possessor in Maithili is genitive marked,
showing traits of internal possession, as the genitive case can only be assigned DP internally(Abney 1987).
(15) hun-kərbəccas/he(H)-GEN
child(NH).NOM‘His/her child’
153Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

However, the 2nd and 3rd person possessors trigger obligatory verbal agreement, as shown in(16-17), thus behaving like an external possession language.
(16) [toh-ər
beta]
sut-əlchh-əl-əu
you.NH-genson.NH sleep-PRF be-pst-2.NH+Default‘Your son had slept.’(17) [hun-kər
beta]
you.NH-gen son.NH‘Your son had slept.’sut-əlsleep-PRF

chh-əl-əinhbe-pst-3.NH+Default

We present further details of external possession in the following sub-sections.
3.1. External Possession in Intransitive Constructions
Maithili allows the 2nd person (all values) and 3rd person honorific possessors to trigger person
and honorificity agreement. As opposed to the 2nd and honorific 3rd person, the 1st person
possessors fail to trigger verbal agreement (18). Compare the agreement morphology in (18)with that of (10).
(18) [həmm-ər baba]
I-GEN
grandfather.H‘My grandfather had slept.’sut-əlsleep-PRF

chh-əl-khinh.
be-pst-3.H

2nd person possessors trigger agreement in addition to the possessum noun, as shown in (19).
(19) a. [toh-ər
beta]
you.NH-GEN son.NH‘Your son had slept.’b. [ahã-ke
beta]
you.H-GEN son.NH‘Your son had slept.’sut-əlsleep-PRF

chh-əl-əu.
be-pst-2.NH+3.NH

sut-əlsleep-PRF

chh-əl-ah.
be-pst-2.H+3.NH

Similarly, the 3rd person honorific possessors also trigger verbal agreement (20).
(20) [hun-kər/master-sahab-ke beta]sut-əlhe.H-gen/teacher-sir-GEN son.NH
sleep-PRF‘His son had slept/the teacher’s son had slept.’chh-əl-əinh.
be-PST-3.H+3.NH

3rd person non-honorific possessors, on the other hand, fail to trigger verbal agreement.
(21) [ok-ər
beta]
s/he.NH-GEN son.NH‘Her/his son had slept.’chh-əl-əi.
be-PST-3.NH

sut-əlsleep-PRF

It is important to note that the possessum noun always triggers agreement along with possessor
nouns (22).
154

Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra(22) a.

[ahã-kebaba]
sut-əlyou.H-GEN grandfather.H sleep-PRF‘Your grandfather had slept’b. [ahã-ke
master-saab]sut-əlyou.H-GEN teacher-sir.H
sleep-PRF‘Your grandfather had slept.’chh-əl-əinh.
be-PST-2.H+3.H
chh-əl-əinh.
be-PST-2.H+3.H

Thus, to summarise, only the 2nd and 3rd person honorific possessors trigger verbal agreement,
just like the objects. Possessums also trigger agreement.
3.2. External Possession in Transitive Constructions
In this section, we show how the possessive construction show asymmetry in possessum
agreement depending on their syntactic position.
3.2.1. Subject Possessive DPs
So far, we have looked at possessive constructions only with intransitive verbs. We now lookat the possessive constructions with transitive verbs where there can be three agreement
controllers- the possessor and the possessum and the object. Let us first look at possessive DPs
in the subject position of a transitive verb. Just like the intransitive constructions, the possessor
triggers agreement when it is 2nd person or 3rd person honorific, as shown in (23-24). In bothcases, the possessum noun also triggers simultaneous verbal agreement.
(23)[toh-ər
beta]
you.NH-GEN son.NH‘Your son had seen him/her.’[ok-ra]dekh-ne chh-əl-əu.
s/he.NH-ACC see-PRF be-PST-2.NH+3.NH(24)[hun-karbəta][ok-ra]dekh-ne chh-əl-əinh.
s/he.H-GEN
son.NHs/he.NH-ACC be-PRF be-PST-3.NH+3.NH‘His/her son had seen him/her.’

The examples show that possessor agreement wins over object agreement when the former is
2nd person or 3rd person honorific. If we switch the person and honorificity values of thepossessor and the object, we see that it is the object that wins over possessor agreement. For
instance, when the possessor is 1st person or 3rd person non-honorific and the object is 2nd
person or 3rd person honorific, then we see object agreement.
(25) a.

[həmm-ər baba]
to-ra
dekh-ne chh-əl-khunh.
I-GEN
grandfather.H you.NH-ACC see-PRF be-PST-3.H+2.NH‘My grandfather had seen you.’b. [ok-kar
baba]
to-ra
dekh-ne chh-əl-khunh.
I-GEN
grandfather.H
you.NH-ACC see-PRF be-PST-3.H+2.NH‘My grandfather had seen you.’(26)[ok-karbaba]
ahã-kedekh-ne chh-əl-əinh.
I-GEN
grandfather.H
you.H-ACC see-PRF be-PST-3.H+2.H‘My grandfather had seen you’155

Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

A third combination of the possessors and the object is where both are capable of triggeringagreement, i.e., both are either 2nd person or 3rd person honorific. In such cases, we see thatwhen the possessor is 2nd person, and the object is 3rd person honorific, the 2nd person possessor
wins over the 3rd person honorific object.
(27) [toh-ər
beta][hun-ka]dekh-neyou.NH-GEN son.NHs/he.H-ACC see-PRF‘Your son had seen him/her.’chh-əl-əu
be-PST-2.NH+3.NH

However, when the possessor is 3rd person honorific, and the object is 2nd person, we get
optional agreement by the possessor. Thus, agreement in this case can be controlled by thepossessor and the possessum (28a), or it can be controlled by the possessum and the object(28b).
(28) a.

[hun-karbeta][to-ra]s/he.H-GEN son.NH
you.NH-ACC
chh-əl-əinh.
be-PST-3.H+3.NH‘His/her son had seen you’.
b. [hun-kar
beta][to-ra]s/he.H-GEN son.NH
you.NH-ACC
chh-əl-əu.
be-PST-3.NH+2.NH‘His/her son had seen you.’dekh-nebe-PRF[Possessor + Possessum]
dekh-nebe-PRF[Possessum + Object]

Based on the pattern of possessor agreement presented so far, we form two generalisations:(i) As long as the possessors are 2nd and 3rd person honorific, there is no object intervention.
(ii) The object may optionally take over possessor agreement, only when the former is 2nd
person.
3.2.1. External Possession in Object Possessive DPs
When the object is a possessive DP, the 2nd person or 3rd person honorific possessor triggers
verbal agreement, along with the subject. The possessum doesn’t control agreement in these
instances.
(29) a.

hum[to-harI
you.NH-GEN‘I had seen your son.’b. hum[ahã-k(e)Iyou.H-GEN‘I had seen your son.’(30)

beta-ke]son.NH-ACC

dekh-nesee-PRFbeta-ke]son.NH-ACC

dekh-ne chh-əl-əũh.
see-PRF be-PST-1+2.H

hum[hun-karbeta-ke]Is/he.H-GEN son.NH-ACC‘I had seen his/her son.’156

dekh-nesee-PRFchh-əl-iəu.
be-PST-1+2.NH

chh-əl-iəinh.
be-PST-1+3.H

Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

When the possessor does not trigger verbal agreement, the agreement is just controlled by the
subject. See (31), where only the 1st person subject triggers agreement.
(31) hum [ok-kar
baba-ke]dekh-neIs/he.NH-GEN grandfather.H-ACC see-PRF‘I had seen his/her grandfather.’chh-əl-iəibe-PST-1

Therefore, the possessor DP in the object position always triggers agreement if it is 2nd personand 3rd person honorific. The possessum in the object position never controls agreement.
To summarise section 3, we have described three crucial properties of Maithili
possessive constructions: i) Maithili has internal possession inside the DP as the possessors geta genitive case; verbal agreement, however, behaves like external possession as the 2nd and 3rd
person honorific possessors trigger agreement. ii) In the subject position, external possession
is coupled with possessum agreement. iii) In the object position, the possessum never controls
verbal agreement.
4. Analysis
This distribution of external possession in Maithili raises the following questions:
(32)
i.

ii.
iii.

If the possessor DP is already case-marked genitive within the DP (internalpossession), how does it obviate the ‘Activity Condition’ (Chomsky 2000, 2001)
and trigger agreement with the auxiliary (external possession)?
What is the role of the person and honorificity features on the 2nd and 3rd
person possessors, which makes agreement with them obligatory?
What explains the subject-object asymmetry in possessum agreement?

In this section, we answer these questions.
4.1. The Activity Condition
We have seen that Maithili possessors are marked with the genitive case, which is assigned by
the D head in the DP structure, as shown in (33).
(33)

Possessor agreement in Maithili, on the other hand, happens with the T head, as visible fromthe agreement morphology, which appears on the auxiliary. This means that Maithili possessors
get case from one functional head, D, but agree with another functional head, T. The disjunction
157

Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandraof case and agreement in Maithili external possession is a violation of the Activity Condition(AC), which is defined as follows:(34) Activity Condition (Chomsky, 2001, 6):“Probe and goal must both be active for Agree to apply . . . For the Case-agreement systems,
the uninterpretable features are φ-features of the probe and structural Case of the goal N. φfeatures of N are interpretable; hence, N is active only when it has structural Case. Once theCase value is determined, N no longer enters into agreement relations and is frozen in place.”
As per (34), possessors should be inactive after case-valuation by d. We claim that they are notand instead are re-activated due to extra features such as [Addressee] or [Honorific]. Thismeans that 2nd person DPs and 3rd person DPs remain active due to the [Addressee] and[Honorific] features, respectively.3 The question now arises, what is it about the [Addressee]and the [Honorific] features that keeps the possessors carrying them active for verbal agreement,
despite them getting a genitive case inside the DP? We explain below.
4.1.1. On the [Addressee] feature and 2nd Person Possessor Agreement
We follow Baker (2008) in assuming that all 2nd person DPs must be bound by the speechaddressee, present in the left periphery of the clause, in Spec, SAP. However, possessors are
not part of the main clause, as shown in (33). This means that for a 2nd person possessor to bebound by the addressee in Spec, SAP, it must come to a position from where it is visible to it.
For instance, if the possessive DP is in the subject position, then a 2nd person possessor DP
must move to Spec, TP because of the [Addressee] feature it encodes. The [Addressee] needs
to be bound by the addressee is Spec, SAP.
Following Deal (2017), we present two pieces of evidence favouring the 2nd person
possessor raising to a higher position. The first piece of evidence shows that the possessor canbe displaced, breaking the DP constituency (35).
(35)

toh-ərsut-əlyou.NH-GEN
sleep-PRF‘Your son had slept.’chh-əl-əu
beta.
be-pst-2.NH+3.NH son.NH

The second piece of evidence in favour of possessor raising is its obligatoriness. Note that
languages like Japanese have optional external possession. It has been noted that when
Japanese shows external possession, the possessor receives an additional theta role of ‘affectee’.
Thus, the possessor moves only when the ‘affectedness’ of the possessor has to be expressed.
When the possessor remains unaffected by the event, there is no need for possessor movement
and hence, the result is internal possession (Vergnaud and Zubizarreta 1992, Koenig 1999,
Nakamoto 2010, Kempchinsky 1992, Sanchez López 2007). In contrast, possessor raising in
obligatory external possession languages like Nez Perce does not involve an additional theta3

It has been reported in the literature that the Activity Condition (AC) must be diluted and viewed as a macro-parameter (Baker 2008) or a micro-parameter (Oxford 2017), instead of a universal principle. In fact, Halpert(2019) goes as far as to claim that the AC must be eliminated from syntax. Since Maithili allows very few pronouns
to remain active after case assignment, namely 2nd person and 3rd person honorific, we cannot, at this moment,take a position on eliminating AC from the grammar. We leave this question to future enquiry.
158

Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandrarole. The possessor moves to a non-theta position in Nez Perce due to case requirements, andas a result, external possession is the only way in the language.
Just like Nez Perce, external possession is obligatory in Maithili when the possessor is 2nd
person, as shown in (36). This means that the possessors move outside of their base-generated
position, irrespective of their affectedness.
(36) *[toh-ər
beta]
you.NH-GEN son.NH(‘Your son had slept.’)sut-əlsleep-PRF

chh-əl-əi.
be-pst-3.NH

Based on these two pieces of evidence – constituency and obligatory external possession – weclaim that the 2nd person possessors in Maithili move out of the possessive DP due to the[Addressee] features.
Now that we have a motivation for possessor movement, we elaborate on the agreement
mechanism. Once the 2nd person possessor moves to Spec, TP, it gets probed by the T head
resulting in external possession. However, it is to be noted that Maithili also has simultaneous
possessum agreement. To accommodate the possessor + possessum agreement, we adopt themultiple agreement system developed by Georgi (2012, 2013), which proposes that languages
with multiple agreement have two probes on the T head, which agree with two goals in theclause. Therefore, our derivation for external possession in Maithili with a 2nd person possessor,
along with possessum agreement, involves the following steps: i) the possessor moves out of
its base generated position to Spec, TP. ii) The probes p1 and p2 on the T head agree with thesubject possessum and the moved possessor, respectively. This agreement mechanism ispresented in (37).
(37)

159

Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

4.1.2. On the [Honorific] feature and 3rd Person Honorific Possessor Agreement
In this section, we show that just like the [Addressee] feature on the 2nd person possessors thatforces them to move out of their based generated position, the [Honorific] feature on the 3rd
person possessor also results in possessor movement.
It has been reported in the literature that the honorificity feature is relational, meaning its
values are always decided in relation to the speaker (Portner, Pak and Zanuttini 2019 and Alok
2020, Chandra, Kumari and Pak 2021, Kumari 2021). For this valuation to happen, DPs withthe honorificity feature must be bound by the speaker in the left periphery. For the DPs that arepresent in the main clause, this binding can be achieved easily. For possessor DPs on the other
hand, binding by the speaker would require them to move out of their base-generated positions.
Since the 1st person DPs do not encode the honorificity feature, they never move out, and as aresult, we do not see 1st person possessor agreement. The 2nd person DPs, as shown in section
4.1.1, move out of their base-generated position due to their [Addressee] feature. The 3rd person
honorific DP, similarly, moves out because of their [Honorific] feature, so that it can be boundby the speaker in the left periphery.
In Portner et al.’s work, both the non-honorific and the honorific features are on a DP are
a result of binding by the speaker. In Maithili, however, we see that only the [Honorific] feature
requires this binding as only the 3rd person honorific possessors move out of their basegenerated position to trigger verbal agreement. We show this agreement mechanism in (38).
(38)

We present the two pieces of evidence that support the raising of the 3rd person honorificpossessor. The first evidence is that the constituency of the possessive DP does not hold, as
illustrated in (39).
(39) hun-kar
sut-əls/he.H-GEN
sleep-PRF‘His/her son had slept.’chh-əl-əinhbe-pst-3.H+3.NH
160

beta.
son.NHKumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

The second piece of evidence in support of the 3rd person possessor raising is its obligatoriness,shown in (40).
(40) *[hun-kar
beta]
sut-əls/he.H-GEN son.NH
sleep-PRF(‘His/her son had slept.’)chh-əl-əi.
be-PST-3.NH

As for the agreement mechanism, it remains the same as 2nd person possessor agreement. Oncethe 3rd person honorific DP is in Spec, TP, it gets probed by the T head. In addition to thepossessor, the possessum noun also gets probed by T as it has two probes (see 37 again).
Just like what we have shown for subject possessor agreement, we suggest that the object
possessors also move to Spec, TP for [Addressee] or [Honorific] feature valuation and resultin verbal agreement. One piece of the puzzle that remains unsolved at the moment is theoptional possessor agreement, shown in (28). When the possessor is 3rd person honorific, andthe object is 2nd person, either of them may trigger verbal agreement. We do not have a definite
answer for this optionality, and therefore tentatively add that additional factors, such as the
speaker’s intent to acknowledge the addressee’s social status, may have a role to play in thisoptionality. We base our suggestion on the ground that Maithili is an allocutive agreement
language. However, allocutivity is encoded optionally in Maithili, depending on the speaker’s
intent to address the addressee’s presence. In cases like (28), if the speaker intends toacknowledge the addressee, the object must trigger agreement. However, if the speaker intends
not to do it, the 3rd person honorific possessor triggers agreement. Further inquiry in this issue
is needed.
4.2. Subject-Object Asymmetry
So far, we have shown that the 2nd and 3rd person honorific possessors must move out of theirbase-generated position. When the possessive DP is in the subject position, this movement
happens to the Spec, TP. When the possessive DP is in the object position, this movement
happens to Spec, vP. Movement outside of the object position to Spec, vP makes the possessor
DP closer to the T head than the object. The subject is, anyway, the closest argument. As aresult, we see that in object possessive constructions, verbal agreement is controlled by the
subject and the possessor and not the possessum (41).

161

Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra(41)

Based on the structure in (41), we predict that if the possessive DP is the direct object of aditransitive verb, its possessor should not raise, as the indirect object will intervene. As such,
we do not expect the constituency to break. This prediction is borne out, as the constituency ofa possessive DP in the DO position, shown in (42), cannot be broken due to the presence of theidirect object, shown in (43).
(42) hum raam-ke
sita-kI
Raam-DAT Sita-GEN‘I gave Sita’s child toRaam’(43) *humIsita-kSita-GENbacha-ke de-l-iəichild-ACC give-PRF-1

raam-kebacha-ke de-l-iəi
Raam-DAT child-ACC give-PRF-1

The crucial question, however, is that even when the object possessor does not control verbal
agreement, i.e., when the possessors fail to move outside the possessive DPs, the object
possessum does not control agreement. We claim that since the object possessum is in thecomplement to V position, it is outside the probing domain of the T head.
6. Conclusion
This paper has shown that just like external possession is driven by semantic reasons ofaffectedness in Japanese and case in Nez Perce, it is driven by the [Addressee] and the[Honorific] features in Maithili. The need to license these features forces the 2nd person and 3rd
person honorific possessors to move out of their base-generated position to Spec, TP/vP, from
where they can be easily probed by the T head.

162

Kumari, Preeti & Pritha Chandra

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163

Lee, So Young & Myung Hye Yoo

Processing of Honorific Agreement in Korean
So Young Lee, Myung Hye Yoo
Miami University, National University of Singapore

1. Introduction
A unique property of human language is its ability to combine contingent lexical elements into
hierarchically organized sentence structures, where those dependent elements can appear
linearly adjacent or far away from each other. One case example is subject-verb agreement asin (1). In many languages including English, in order to formulate a grammatical sentence, asubject and a verb need to agree with each other in one or more of morphosyntactic features
such as numbers, genders, and person features.
(1) a. The key was rusty.
b. The key to the cabinets in the copy room was rusty.
For the successful comprehension, a parser must accurately identify the verb was and its
licit subject key to link them, regardless of the distance between the verb and the subject. A
central focus of research on dependencies, therefore, has been on how a parser resolves thedependency during real-time processing and how the different levels of linguistic information
affect that resolution. In recent studies on subject-verb agreements, discussions have beendeveloped based on the assumption that when a parser encounters a verb, it retrieves the
structure already processed, in order to access a proper subject. However, since most of theprevious studies have been on a typologically limited set of languages (i.e. Indo-European
languages including English), it is hard to say that subject-verb agreements are universallybased on retrieval processing. The current study, therefore, examines the processing of adependency of subject-verb honorific agreement in Korean, which is a typologically different
language from those previously studied to investigate crosslinguistic generality of retrieval
processes by focusing on the attraction effect.
This paper is structured as follows. In section 2, we will briefly sketch the Korean honorificagreement system, the attraction effect, and the parsing strategies. Section 3 presents the detailsof the experiments. In section 4, we provide the experimental results and brief discussion basedon the results. Section 5 offers concluding remarks.
2. Background
2.1 Honorific agreement
In Korean, honorifics (e.g. -nim ‘honorable’ on the nouns and -si ‘honorific marker’ on theverb) are used to express respect to a referent or an addressee. The honorifics are a quite
morphosyntactically and pragmatically productive device signaling social status of thesentential subject relative of that of a speaker in Korean. Even though Korean does not have astrong subject-verb agreement system shown in Indo-European languages, honorifics on a
subject and a verb can form systematic dependency relations (Brown 2015, Sohn 1999). For
instance, the honorific suffix cannot be compatible with a subject of low social status, such asai ‘kid’ (2a) so the existence of the affix -si on the verb induces ungrammaticality. In other164Lee, So Young & Myung Hye Yoowords, the affix -si requires an honorable subject that can be associated. For instance, thehonorific affix -si attaches to a verbal stem and agrees with an honorable subject, such as
sensayng-nim ‘teacher’ as shown in (2b). Note that the honorific affix -si on the verb is used
optionally. Since it is not required for the grammaticality, depending on the social contexts, theaffix -si is often omitted.
(2) a. ai-ka
hakkyo-ey
kid-NOM
school-LOC‘The kid went to school.’b. sensayng-nim-i
hakkyo-ey
teacher-HON-NOM
School-LOC‘The teacher went to school.’ka-ss-ta / *ka-si-ess-ta
go-PAST-DEC / go-HON-PAST-DEC
ka-ss-ta / ka-si-ess-ta
go-PAST-DEC / go-HON-PAST-DEC

Even though the Korean honorific system is different from that of the subject-verb number
agreement in English in that it is not grammatically motivated, it still involves a kind of subjectverb agreement in that the subject must have an honorific feature in the presence of the affix si on the verb. So far, very few studies have investigated the processing of Korean honorificagreements. Thus, this study examines Korean speaker’s processing of honorific agreements
by focusing on the attraction phenomenon.
2.2 Attraction effectNumerous previous psycholinguistics studies including Lago et al. 2015, Pearlmutter et al.
1999 and Wagers et al. 2009 reported the attraction effect on long-distance dependencies
including subject-verb agreement. Attraction effects occur when potential items instead of atarget item are erroneously activated in the retrieval processes. For example, in the processingof subject-verb agreement, Pearlmutter et al. (1999) found that even though the intervening
attractor (such as the cabinets in (3d)) is grammatically irrelevant for the subject-verb
agreement, it does reduce processing difficulty (as shown in comparison to 3c)).
(3) a. The key to the cabinet was rusty after many years of disuse.
b. The key to the cabinets was rusty after many years of disuse.
c. *The key to the cabinet were rusty after many years of disuse.
d. *The key to the cabinets were rusty after many years of disuse.
Consequently, English speakers spent less time reading (3d) than reading (3c), although bothare ungrammatical, indicating that their computation of the subject-predicate agreement wasaffected by the intervening attractor. This attraction effect has drawn a lot of attention topsycholinguists, since it provides important insights into human language processing
mechanisms.
2.3 Retrieval processing vs. Active Filler processing
For the dependency resolutions, there are two main parsing strategies that have been proposed.
One is the retrieval processing and the other is the active filler processing. The main difference
between these two is the directionality. The retrieval processing has been assumed in thedependency resolutions such as morphosyntactic agreements. As in the configuration (4) where
two items are dependent for the number agreement, when the dependent element (e.g., was)165

Lee, So Young & Myung Hye Yoothat linearly appears later in the sentence is encountered, a parser starts to search the otherlexical item (e.g., the key) that is already processed.
(4) The keysubject … was …
[sg]

[sg]

If this parsing strategy is applied to Korean honorific agreements, we expect that the retrieval
happens when the parser encounters the honorific affix on the verb as in (5).
(5) Subject-honorific … Verb-honorific

An alternative parsing strategy is the active filler strategy. The active filler processing (Frazier& Clifton 1989) has been developed based on the filler-gap dependencies. As soon as a filler
is identified, a parser initiates a search for a gap. This active filler strategy has been understoodas a descriptive generalization that should ultimately be explained in terms of more generalparsing mechanisms.
(6) a. … who … …
filler____ …
gap

b. … who … … V-Q …
[q]

[q]

Even in the study on Japanese wh-question scope (Aoshima et al. 2004) where there is no gap
position, they found the evidence on the active filler parsing strategy. In Japanese, the whphrase should be associated with the question particle for its scope as in (b). According to
Aoshima et al. (2004), when a declarative marker appeared instead of a question marker on theverb that the parser first met, the slower reading times were observed. It shows that the parser
actively predicts Q particles as a sentence unfolds, rather than waiting to identify a Q particle.
(7) Subject-honorific … Verb-honorific

If Korean honorific agreements use the active search parsing strategy1, as soon as the honorifics
are identified, the parser actively would predict the honorifics on the verb. It is expected thatthe slow-reading time will be observed when no honorific affix appears on the verb.
3. Experiment
Even though the Korean honorific agreement is not mandatory, Kwon & Sturt (2016) reported
that the attraction effect was found in grammatical conditions, as well as ungrammatical
Since sentences for Japanese wh-scope do not contain fillers and gaps, the term “active-filler” does not soundinclusive enough. Hence, we use the term “active search” instead of “active-filler.”1

166

Lee, So Young & Myung Hye Yoo

conditions. The simplified configuration for the illusion condition in (Kwon & Sturt 2016) isin (8). They observed that the processing difficulty of mismatching features in the subject-verb
honorific agreement in the embedded clause was reduced when there was a structurally illicit,
but feature matching main subject. This finding was accounted for by the active search parsing.
Even though they conclude that during the dependency resolution of honorific markers, any
potential target item in memory would be activated if it has a feature that matches the retrievalcue, there is still a possibility that the attraction effect on grammatical conditions may be causedby the different processing strategies. For example, Korean honorific agreements may involve
different processing strategies such as “active search” strategy.
(8)

H
NH
[matrix Subject … [embedded Subject … Verb-si] … Verb][honorific][honorific]

Retrieval (Kwon & Sturt 2016)

Active Search

As soon as the honorable noun (the matrix subject in (8)) is encountered, the parser would
actively seek the honorific affix -si, the partial feature matching (honorific feature match, but
syntactic feature mismatch) might have led to the reduced processing difficulty. In order to test
this hypothesis, we conducted a self-paced reading experiment.
3.1 Stimuli
Our stimuli consisted of a main clause and an embedded adjunct clause as in (8). In our
experiment, the main clause subject and the embedded clause subject varied in their honorificfeatures (H: Honorific, N: Not-honorific). Across all conditions, the embedded verb did notinclude the honorific affix -si, but the matrix verb did. Since the honorific affix -si appears on
the matrix verb, the non-honorific matrix subject conditions (9c) and (9d) are ungrammatical.
(9)
H
/
N
H
/
N
{cwuim-nim-i / Cayhwuni-ka}
ppalli[ {paksa-nim-i /Minho-ka}
chief-HON-NOM / Cayhwuni-NOM quickly
doctor-HON-NOM /Minho-NOM
sanghwangul
situation-ACC

a.
b.
c.
d.

phaakha-key]
Figure out-C

motun
all

pokose-lul
nemkyecwu-si-ess-ta.
document-ACC
Hand over-HON-PAST-DEC
HH: ‘The chief handed over all documents to him so that the doctor could figure out
the situation quickly.’
HN: ‘The chief handed over all documents to him so that Minho could figure out thesituation quickly.’
NH: ‘Cayhwun handed over all documents to him so that the doctor could figure out
the situation quickly.’
NN: ‘Cayhwun handed over all documents to him so that Minho could figure out thesituation quickly.’
167

Lee, So Young & Myung Hye Yoo

Sixteen sets of experimental sentences (64 sentences = 16 sets x 4 conditions) were created.
They were distributed with fillers across 4 groups in a Latin Square design.
3.2 Participant
Fifty native speakers of Korean participated in the experiment. They were naive about the
purpose of the experiment. Participants received $5 for participation in the experiment. The
experiment took 20-30 minutes.
3.3 Procedure
We conducted a self-paced reading experiment on the web-based platform PCIbex Farm.
Stimulus presentation was word by word, self -paced, and non-cumulative. In order to makeparticipants familiar with the self-paced moving window, we included the practice session.
After the practice session, when participants were ready for the experiment, they pressed abutton, and the experiment sentences were presented on the screen. The sentences were masked
with dashes and the participants pressed the button (Space Bar) to see the next words. In theexperiment, the presentation of each sentence was followed by a comprehension
task. Comprehension questions asked about the content of the target sentences. For example,
for the sentences in (9), “Who handed over all documents to Minho /the doctor?” was asked.
For half of the sets, comprehension questions asked about the content of the main clause. For
the other half of the sets, the content of the embedded clause was asked.
3.4 Prediction
In Korean, honorific feature matching happens within the same clause boundary. Since
personal names (e.g., Cayhwun) are not paired with honorifics in Korean, the presence of anhonorific marker -si- on the main verb induces ungrammaticality. The critical word positions
are the embedded verb (region 5), which was always marked with the absence of the honorificmarker -si-. The matrix verb (region 8), on the other hand was always marked with the presenceof the honorific marker -si-.
Table 1. Predictions
a. Retrieval Processingb. Active Search Processing

Predictions ( > : faster)
NH > NN on region 8 (matrix verb)
NN > HH, NH, HN on region 5 (embedded verb)

Analogous to the active-search strategy, if a parser actively seeks the honorific marker -si- forthe dependency resolution after encountering honorific noun phrases (as in conditions), we
expect the significant slow-down in the reading times of the embedded verbs. On the other
hand, if Korean honorific agreement is one example of retrieval processing, the attraction effectwould be observed (Kwon & Sturt 2016); the reading time of the condition (NH) on region 8
would be faster compared to the condition (NN) due to the erroneous temporal resolution ofhonorific dependencies (the honorific feature on the embedded subject- the honorific featureon the matrix verb).

168

Lee, So Young & Myung Hye Yoo

4. Results & Discussion
4.1 Results
First, comprehension accuracy is given in Figure 1 (N = 50). Figure 1 shows that the overall
accuracy is over 90%.

Figure 1. Overall accuracy by condition
The average word-by-word reading times for sentences are in Figure 2 and Table 2. The resultsin Figure 2 show that at the region 5 (the critical embedded verb position), there was a main
effect of the embedded subject with the H-main conditions (HH:594 ms, NH: 582 ms) eliciting
longer reading times than its N-main counterpart (HN: 538 ms, NN: 528 ms) (linear mixed
effect model p < .05 in the following comparisons: HH-HN, HH-NN, NH-HN, NH-NN).

Figure 2. Word-by-word average reading times by conditions
Table 2 Average reading times on the region 5
Matrix-Subject
Embedded-Subject
R5: Embedded Verb
H
H
594 msNH
582 msHN
538 msNN
528 ms169

Linear mixed model:
p < .05

Lee, So Young & Myung Hye Yoo

4.2 Discussion
Since the embedded verbs do not carry honorific features, there is no item that triggers theretrieval process for the honorific agreement. Thus, the slowdown of H-main conditions atregion 5 cannot be accounted for by the retrieval processing strategy. Instead, the results
suggest that Korean honorific agreements may involve different processing strategies, such as“active search” strategy similar to other long-distance dependencies in Korean (i.e. wh-Q
dependency). It seems that Korean speakers tend to strongly predict an honorific marker forthe honorific dependency resolution in the upcoming sentence after encountering an honorificnoun, even though Korean honorific agreements are not obligatory. It seems that Koreanhonorific agreement resolution robustly obeys the syntactic constraint (clause-mate condition);in HN condition, the honorific noun did not affect the reading time on region 5. Considering
the reading times on region 8, it also confirms the possibility that Korean speakers use theactive filler strategy for the honorific dependency resolution. In region 8, the matrix verbs
always included the honorific marker -si-, so the conditions of the not-honorific main subjects
were ungrammatical. If the honorific marker -si- on the main verb is assumed to trigger retrieval
processes, there should be the attraction effect.
Table 3 Average reading times on the region 8
Matrix-Subject
Embedded-Subject
R8: Matrix Verb with -siNH
809 msNH
792 msLinear mixed model:p > .05

However, we could not find a significant reading time difference between NH (potential
illusion) and NN (ungrammatical) condition.
5. Conclusion
This study investigated the processing of subject-verb honorific agreements in Korean.
Contrary to Kwon & Sturt (2016), the attraction effect was not found. The overall results
suggest that Korean subject-verb honorific agreements may involve the processing strategy
similar to the “active filler” model.

170

Lee, So Young & Myung Hye Yoo

References
Aoshima, Sachiko, Colin Phillips, and Amy Weinberg. 2004. Processing filler-gap
dependencies in a head-final language. Journal of memory and language 51(1), 23-54.
Brown, Lucien. 2015. Honorifics and Politeness. In The handbook of Korean linguistics, ed.
By L. Brown & J. Yeon, 303-319. Oxford: Wiley.
Frazier, Lyn, and Charles Clifton Jr.. 1989. Successive cyclicity in the grammar and the parser.
Language and Cognitive Processes, 4, 93-126.
Kwon, Nayoung, and Patrick Sturt. 2016. Attraction effects in honorific agreement in Korean.
Frontiers in Psychology 7, 1302–1316.
Lago, Sol, Diego E. Shalom, Mariano Sigman, Ellen F. Lau, and Colin Phillips. 2015.
Agreement attraction in Spanish comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 82,
133–149.
Pearlmutter, Neal J., Susan M. Garnsey, and Kathryn Bock. 1999. Agreement processes insentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 41(3), 427–456.
Sohn, Ho-Min. 1999. The Korean language. Cambridge University Press.
Wagers, Matthew W., Ellen F. Lau, and Colin Phillips. 2009. Agreement attraction incomprehension: Representations and processes. Journal of Memory and Language 61(2),
206–237.

171

Maeda, Masako

Argument Ellipsis as Topic-Marking and A′-movement inJapanese*
Masako Maeda
Kyushu University

1. Introduction
This paper explores the ban on Argument Ellipsis (AE) of wh-phrases and focus phrases inJapanese (Sugisaki 2012, Ikawa 2013, Oku 2016, Saito 2017a). For instance, Sugisaki (2012)
observes that when preceded by (1a), (1b) can only be interpreted as a Yes/No question, anddoes not permit an interpretation as a wh-question. This indicates that wh-phrases cannot be
elided by AE. The example (2) shows that an element that is attached by the focus particle sika
‘only’ cannot undergo AE.
(1) a.

Speaker A.

Speaker B.

b.

Speaker A.

John-wa nani-otabeta no?
John-TOP what-ACC ate
Q‘What did John eat?’
Ringo.
apple‘An apple.’Dewa, Mary-wa
Δ tabeta no? (Yes/No question/*wh-question)
thenMary-TOP
ate
Q‘Then, did Mary eat something/that?’*‘Then, what did Mary eat?’(Sugisaki 2012: 64)(2) *John-wa
zibun-no hon-sikakari-na-katta
ga, Mary-wa Δ kawa-na-katta.
John-TOP self-GEN book-SIKA borrow-NEG-PAST but Mary-TOP buy-NEG-PAST‘*(Intended) John borrowed only his book, but Mary bought only her book.’(*Δ = zibun-no hon-sika) (Ikawa 2013)
In this paper, I follow Johnson (2001) in assuming that an elided argument is endowed witha topic feature and undergoes topicalization. I also assume that an element cannot satisfy
contradictory criteria at the same time. These assumptions account for the ban on AE of whphrases and focus phrases, as the elided element cannot satisfy Topic Criterion and Wh/Focus
criterion at the same time. It is also expected that an elided element can undergo QR, as QR
does not satisfy any criterion at the landing site. Furthermore, it is expected that a topicalized*

The earlier version of this paper was presented at the seminar of the JSPS Core-to-Core Program, A. Advanced
Research Networks “International Research Network for the Human Language Faculty” (#JPJSCCAJ221702004)(June 25 , 2022). I am grateful to the audience at the seminar and at GLOW in Asia XIII, especially to Daeho
Chung, Yuan Jian, Shigeru Miyagawa, Yoichi Miyamoto, Teruyuki Mizuno, Masao Ochi, Hiromune Oda, Shuki
Otani and Satoshi Tomioka for their insightful comments and questions. Needless to say, all remaining errors are
my own. This research is supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 18K12412, 21K00586 (PI: Nobuaki
Nishioka) given to Masako Maeda, 18K00574 given to Yoichi Miyamoto, and the JSPS Core-to-Core Program,
A. Advanced Research Networks “International Research Network for the Human Language Faculty”(#JPJSCCAJ221702004) given to Yoichi Miyamoto.
172

Maeda, Masako

element may undergo AE, as topic criteria do not contradict with each other. The paper isorganized as follows. Section 2 summarizes Saito’s (2017) and Oku’s (2016) analyses on theban on AE of wh-phrases. Section 3 offers the proposal that AE is conducted by way of
topicalization. Section 4 summarizes the analysis.
2. The Ban on Argument Ellipsis of Wh-phrases (Saito 2017a, Oku 2016, 2021)
2.1. Saito (2017a)
Building on the LF-copy analysis (Oku 1998), Saito (2017a) argues that when an element
undergoes A′-movement and creates an operator-variable chain, neither the operator nor thevariable can be successfully copied into the elided part. This leads to the ban on AE of a whphrase, as shown in (3).
(3) A. [CP [TP Dare-ga
Haiderabaad-e itta]ka] sitte imasuka.
who-NOM
Hyderabad-to
went
Q
know
Q
‘Do you know who went to Hyderabad?’
B. Iie. *Demo [CP [TP Δ Siena-e
itta]
ka]
nara
sitte imasu. (*Δ= who)no butSiena-to
went
Q
if
know
‘(Intended) No. But I know the answer if the question is who went to Siena.’(Saito 2017a: 723)
Saito assumes that wh-phrases in Japanese are operators and undergo covert movement to CP,
where a wh-phrase is interpreted at two positions: an operator position and a variable position,
as shown in (4). Saito then assumes that LF-copying can insert phrases only in argument
positions. Given these, Saito argues that LF-copying of either an operator or a variable resultsin ungrammaticality. On the one hand, an operator, which is supposed to bind a variable in anargument position, cannot be copied to an argument position, as shown in (5a). On the other
hand, the variable x cannot be copied into the argument position, because the configuration
lacks the operator that binds the variable, as shown in (5b). Thus, LF-copying fails to produce
a legitimate structure when the antecedent of ellipsis creates an operator-variable chain.
(4) [for which x: x a person] x went to Hyderabad(Saito 2017a: 728)

(5) a. *[for which x: x a person] went to Hyderabadb. *x went to Hyderabad(Saito 2017a: 728)

Oku (2016, 2021), however, observes that a quantifier that undergoes Quantifier Raising(QR), which creates an operator-variable chain, can be elided by AE (see also Takahashi 2008).
Therefore, Oku argues that the ban on AE cannot simply be attributed to the presence of an
operator-variable chain, and offers an analysis based on the incompatibility between ellipsis
and focus.
2.2. Oku (2016, 2021)
Oku (2008) observes that although Japanese is a “scope-rigid” language, there are cases where
inverse scope interpretations are not only easily obtainable, but rather strongly favored. In
sentences like (6), the surface scope is pragmatically odd and inverse scope is pragmatically173

Maeda, Masako

natural. In such cases, the inverse scope reading by QR is strongly preferred (see also Goro2007).
(6) TA-ga
hitori dono
CALL kyoositu-ni-mo taiki-simasu.
TA-NOMone
every CALL room-at-also
wait.and.watch‘A TA waits and watches in every CALL room.’ (♯one>every, every>one)(Oku 2016: 66)
Oku further observes that an element that undergoes QR can be elided, as shown in (7b).
(7) a. Gozentyuu-wa TA-ga
hitori dono
CALL kyoositu-ni-mo taiki-simasu.
morning-TOP
TA-NOM one
every CALL room-at-also
wait.and.watch‘In the morning, a TA waits and watches in every CALL room.’b. Gogo-wa
RA-ga
hitori Δ taiki-simasu. (Δ＝every CALL room)
afternoon-TOP RA-NOM one
wait.and.watch‘(Lit.) In the afternoon, an RA waits and watchesΔ.’ (♯one>every, every>one)(Oku 2016: 66)
Oku argues that although a chain cannot be copied into an elided part (Saito 2017a), there isanother possible derivational path; namely, an antecedent is copied before the operator-variablechain formation, as illustrated in (8b). Then, QR applies in a parallel fashion in both clauses asshown in (8c, d).
(8)antecedent clausea. [VP QP V]
b. [VP QP V]

ellipsis clauseV[VP QP V]

LF copyc. NPsubj [VP QP V]
NPsubj [VP QP V]
d. QP [NPsubj [VP tQP V]]
QP [NPsubj [VP tQP V]]
QR
QR(Oku 2016: 67)

Regarding the ungrammaticality of AE of a wh-/focus phrase, Oku (2016) argues that as ellipsis
presupposes de-focalization, an intrinsically focused element such as a wh-phrase and a focus
phrase cannot undergo AE.
However, not all focus elements resist AE. Let us consider the example (9), where the object
attached by DP-internal dake ‘only’ shows scope ambiguity with respect to the potential suffix,
while the object with DP-external dake always takes a wide scope (Shoji 1986, Futagi 2004,
Funakoshi 2011). Funakoshi (2011) argues that when dake precedes Case/postposition, focus
movement is optional, leading to scope ambiguity, while when dake follows Case/postposition,
focus movement is obligatory, yielding the obligatory wide scope of the object with respect tothe potential suffix.

174

Maeda, Masako(9) a. John-wa
Mary-dake-to
asob-e-ru. (only>can, can>only)
John-TOP
Mary-only-with play-POT-PRES‘John can play with only Mary.’(i) only>can: the only person who John can play with is Mary (he cannot play withothers)(ii) can>only: John can play with Mary alone (without playing with others)b. John-wa
Mary-to-dakeasob-e-ru. (only>can, *can>only)
John-TOP
Mary-with-only play-POT-PRES(Futagi 2004: 44-45)
Furthermore, Futagi (2004) and Funakoshi (2011) observe that an element with the focus
particle dake can be elided when the focus particle precedes the Case marker, as shown in (10).
In contrast, an element with DP-external dake, which undergoes obligatory focus movement,
cannot undergo AE, as shown in (11). The contrasts in (10)-(11) indicate that AE can be applied
to focus elements, but AE is not applicable to elements that undergo obligatory focus
movement.
(10) a. John-wa
Mary-dake-to
asob-e-ru.
John-TOP
Mary-only-withplay-CAN-PRES‘John can play only with Mary.’b. Bill-moΔ
asob-e-ru.
Bill-also
play-CAN-PRES‘Bill also can play only with Mary.’(Futagi 2004: 44-45)(11) a. John-wa
Mary -to-dake asob-e-ru.
John-TOP
Mary-with-only play-CAN-PRES‘John can play only with Mary.’b. *Bill-moΔ
asob-e-ru.
Bill-also
play-CAN-PRES‘Bill also can play only with Mary.’(Futagi 2004: 44-45)

The assumption that a wh-phrase is intrinsically focused also needs a close scrutiny. The
Hichiku dialect of Japanese (including the Nagasaki dialect of Japanese: NJ and the Kumamoto
dialect of Japanese: KJ) allows ga/no alternation on the subject, as illustrated in (12a). It is also
observed that -no cannot follow a topic/focus phrase, as shown in (12b) (the anti-topic/focus
property) (Kato 2007, Nishioka 2018, 2019). Still, -no can follow a wh-phrase, as shown in(13)-(14). This may contradict the assumption that a wh-phrase is intrinsically focused.
(12) a. Hon-ba
Maki-ga/no
book-ACC
Maki-NOM/NOM‘Maki read the book.’b. *Taroo-no
iintyoo(desu)
Taroo-NOM chair
COP‘Taroo is the chair.’yon-da.
read-PAST

(NJ)

tai.

(KJ)

(*exhaustive listing focus)

PART(Nishioka 2019: 31)

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Maeda, Masako(13) a. … yonaka-ni
natte
nan-nodetekuru
ka siren.
(NJ)
midnight-at
fallwhat-NOM comeQ know.not‘We don’t know what will come out when the night falls.’(Inoue Mitsuharu (1982), Ashita)b. Dai-ga/no
ki-ta
to?
who-NOM/NOM come-PAST PART‘Who came?’c. Hon-ba
dai-ga/no yon-da
to?
(NJ)
book-ACC
who-NOM/NOM read-PAST PART‘Who read the book?’(14) Kono hon-ba
dai-nothisbook-ACC who-NOM‘Nobody read this book.’yomi-moread-also

se-n-yatta.
(NJ)
do-NEG-PAST

These data support Saito’s (2017) analysis that it is only after covert wh-movement that whindeterminate phrases specify their quantificational force; a wh-phrase in the vP-internalargument position, which is yet to have its A′-properties, can be marked with no-nominative
Case without violating the anti-topic/focus condition.1
Therefore, I assume that it is wh/focus-movement per se that is incompatible with AE. I
propose a topicalization analysis for ellipsis (Johnson 2001, Maeda 2018, Fujiwara 2020, 2022,
Mizuno 2021a, b, 2022,), and argue that an elided element that undergoes topicalization cannot
satisfy contradictory criteria at the landing site.
3. Proposal
Based on the fact that syntactic constituents which undergo VP topicalization are parallel tothose which undergo VP-Ellipsis, Johnson (2001) argues that VP first undergoes syntactic
topicalization in order to undergo ellipsis (see also Aelbrecht and Haegeman (2012) andFunakoshi (2012)).
(15) a. Mary claims that [eat vegetables]i, Holly won’t ti.
b. *Mary claims that [won’t eat vegetables]i, Holly ti.
c. Fred won’t eat vegetables, and Holly won’t [eat vegetables].
d. *Fred won’t eat vegetables, and Holly [won’t eat vegetables].

(Johnson 2001)(16) Deletion as topicalization (Johnson 2001)
For an element to elide, it must first topicalize.
A close relationship between ellipsis and topicalization is ensured by the fact that elided
elements are discourse-given or presupposed (Johnson 2001), which is assumed to be a coreproperty of a topic (Erteschik-Shir 2007).
Fujiwara (2020, 2022) extends the movement and deletion analysis to AE in Japanese.
Fujiwara argues that AE occurs in a way that elided elements must move to the matrix Spec,CP (see also Mizuno (2021a, b, 2022)). Fujiwara observes several pieces of evidence that show
I assume that wh-movement can strand the Case particle (Oku 2021), so that the wh-phrase at the landing site
may satisfy Wh Criterion without violating the anti-topic/focus property of no-nominative Case.
1176

Maeda, Masako

the parallelism between movement and ellipsis. For instance, he observes that the inner subjectof the multiple subject construction (17) cannot move across the first subject, as shown in (18).
He further shows that the inner subject cannot undergo AE, as shown in (19).
(17) multiple subject construction
Johni-wa okusanj-ga zibuni/j-no heya-de
nemutteJohn-TOP wife-NOM self-GEN
room-insleep‘As for Johni, his wifej is sleeping in selfi/j’s room.’iru.
be(Fujiwara 2020)(18) the inner subject cannot move across the first subject*Okusanj-ga/wa,
Mary-wa [ Johni-ga t zibuni/j-no heya-de
wife-NOM/TOP
Mary-TOP John-NOM
self-GENroom-innemutte iru to] omotta.
sleep
be C thought‘(Lit.) His wife, Mary thought [that as for John, t is sleeping in self’s room].’(Fujiwara 2020)(19) the inner subject cannot undergo AE
a. Johni-wa
zibuni-no
okusan-ga heya-de
nemutteiru.
John-TOP
self-GENwife-NOM room-in
sleepbe‘As for Johni, hisi wife is sleeping in her room.’b. Billi-wa Δ heya-de nemutte i-nai. (*sloppy reading)Bill-TOProom-in sleep
be-NEG‘Bill is not sleeping in his room.’*‘As for Billj, hisj wife is not sleeping in her room.’(Fujiwara 2020)
Following the topicalization analysis for ellipsis, I propose that an elided element that
undergoes topicalization cannot satisfy a criterion that conflicts with a topic feature. That is,
the elided argument cannot undergo wh/focus movement and satisfies Wh/Focus Criterion, as
the topic feature of the elided argument and a wh/focus feature contradicts.
(20) Proposala. An elided element is licensed by undergoing topicalization to CP.
b. An element cannot satisfy contradictory criteria at the same time.
The assumption behind (20b) is that an element can satisfy two criteria only if these criteria do
not contradict. For instance, (21) shows that an element can satisfy Wh Criterion and Focus
Criterion at the same time.
(21) A wh-phrase in an embedded question can be contrastively focused
Mi domandavo quale RAGAZZA avessero scleto, non quale
I wondered which GIRL
they had chosen not whichregazzo.
boy(Rizzi 2006: 113)

Given (20), it is expected that an element that undergoes topicalization for ellipsis cannot
satisfy Wh/Focus Criterion, as a topic feature and a wh/focus feature contradict. It is also
expected that an elided element can undergo QR, as QR does not satisfy any criterion at the177Maeda, Masako

landing site. Furthermore, it is expected that a topicalized element may undergo AE, as topic
criteria do not contradict with each other. In the following subsections, I examine these
expectations.
3.1. wh-indeterminate phrases
Saito (2017b) argues that wh-indeterminate phrases are operators that need to specify theirquantificational force by (covertly) moving to the specifier position of the question particle ka or the focus particle -mo.
(22) a. Taroo-wa [ <dare-ga> [dare-ga
sore-otabeta] ka]
sitteiru.
Taroo-TOP
who-NOM it-ACC
ate
Q
know
‘Taroo knows who ate it.’b. [ <dare-ga> [ dare-ga
kaita] hon]-moomosiroi.
who-NOM wrote book-also interesting‘For every x, x a person, the book that x wrote is interesting.’(Saito 2017a: 1, slightly modified)(23) a.

CP
TP

b.
ka[Q]

TP

FP
NP

C′

nani[Op:Q]…nani[Op:_]…

(24) a.

CPb.
mo[Conjunctive]FP
dare[Op:C]…dare[Op:_]…

ka [Q]NPF′
mo [C]

Under the covert wh-movement analysis, it is expected that an element that undergoes
topicalization for ellipsis cannot satisfy Wh Criterion at the same time, as a topic feature and a
wh-/focus feature contradict.
(1) a.
Speaker A. John-wa nani-otabeta no?
John-TOP what-ACC ate
Q‘What did John eat?’Speaker B. Ringo.
apple‘An apple.’b. Speaker A. Dewa, Mary-wa Δ tabeta no? (Yes/No question/*wh-question)
thenMary-TOP ate
Q‘Then, did Mary eat something/that?’*‘Then, what did Mary eat?’(Sugisaki 2012: 64)
178

Maeda, Masako(25) a wh-indeterminate phrase that is associated with -mo cannot be elided
a. John-wa [CP Mary-ga
nani-ohomete-mo]
yorokoba-na-katta.
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC praise-also
happy-NEG-PAST‘John was not happy no matter what Mary praised.’b. *Bill-wa [CP Lucy-ga
Δ homete-mo]
yorokoba-na-katta. (*Δ= nani-o)Bill-TOP Lucy-NOM
praise-also
happy-NEG-PAST‘*(Intended) Bill was not happy no matter what Lucy praised.’(Ikawa 2013)
Saito (2021) further observes that there are wh-indeterminate phrases that are not associatedwith ka/mo, as shown in (26). Saito argues that such “bare” wh-phrases undergo focus
movement to FocP in the CP periphery.
(26) Hanako-wa [doko-ni iku
to](-wa) itta ga, [ ituiku to](-wa) iwa-na-katta.
Hanako-TOP where-to go
C-TOP said but when go C-TOP
say-NEG-PAST‘(Lit.)Hanako said where she is going, but she didn’t say when she is going there.’(Saito 2021)
In this regard, it is important to note that wh-indeterminate phrases with focus interpretation
cannot undergo AE (Yoichi Miyamoto, p.c.).
(27) a. * Maki-wa [dono hon-okinooyonda to]-wa ittaga,
Maki-TOP which book-ACC yesterday read C-TOP saidbut
[ Δ kyoo yomu to]-wa iwa-na-katta. (*Δ= dono hon-o ‘which book’)
today read
C-TOP say-NEG-PAST‘(Intended.) Maki said which book she read yesterday, but she didn’t say which book
she would read today.’b. *Maki-wa [nani-otabeta to]-wa
itta ga,
Maki-TOP what-ACC ate
C-TOP
said but[ Δ nondato]-wa iwa-na-katta. (*Δ = nani-o ‘what’)drank
C-TOP say-NEG-PAST‘(Intended.) Maki said what she ate, but she didn’t say what she drank.’
3.2. Focus phrases
In section 3.1, I show that wh-indeterminate phrases that undergo focus movement resist AE,
as exemplified in (1), (25) and (27). In this section, I deal with other types of focus phrases:
dake ‘only’ and sika ‘only’.
As observed in section 1, an element with the focus particle dake can be elided when thefocus particle precedes the Case marker. In contrast, when the focus particle follows the Case
marker, the element undergoes obligatory focus movement. The contrasts in (10)-(11) indicatethat AE can be applied to focus elements, but AE is not applicable to elements that undergo
obligatory focus movement. This is because an element that undergoes topicalization for
ellipsis cannot satisfy Focus Criterion, as a topic feature and a focus feature contradict.
(10) a. John-wa
Mary-dake-to
asob-e-ru.
John-TOP
Mary-only-with play-CAN-PRES‘John can play only with Mary.’179

Maeda, Masako

b. Bill-moΔ
asob-e-ru.
Bill-also
play-CAN-PRES‘Bill also can play only with Mary.’(Futagi 2004: 44-45)(11) a. John-wa
Mary -to-dake asob-e-ru.
John-TOP
Mary-with-only play-CAN-PRES‘John can play only with Mary.’b. *Bill-moΔ
asob-e-ru.
Bill-also
play-CAN-PRES‘Bill also can play only with Mary.’(Futagi 2004: 44-45)

Miyagawa et al. (2016) argue that an argument XP-sika ‘XP-only’ overtly moves to thefocus position of the negative clause. As focus and topic contradict, XP-sika phrases cannot
undergo AE, as shown in (28) and (29).
(28) a. Yukito-wa Mika-ga
ringo-sika tabe-na-katta
to itta.
Yukito-TOP Mika-NOM apple-SIKA eat-NEG-PAST C said
‘Yukito said that Mika ate only apple.’b. Haruki-wa Kaori-ga
Δtabe-na-katta toitta.
Haruki-TOP Kaori-NOM
eat-NEG-PAST C
said(Lit.)‘Haruki said Kaori didn’t eat.’(*Δ = ringo-sika)(29) *John-wa zibun-no hon-sikakari-na-katta
ga, Mary-wa Δ kawa-na-katta.
John-TOP self-GEN book-SIKA borrow-NEG-PAST but Mary-TOP buy-NEG-PAST‘*(Intended) John borrowed only his book, but Mary bought only her book.’(*Δ = zibun-no hon-sika) (Ikawa 2013)
3.3. QR
The present proposal accounts for Oku’s observation that an element that undergoes QR may
be elided. AE in (8) and (30) is possible, as QR does not satisfy any criterion at the landing siteand hence it does not induce any conflict with Topic Criterion.
(8) a. Gozentyuu-wa TA-ga
hitori dono
CALL kyoositu-ni-mo taiki-simasu.
morning-TOP
TA-NOM one
every CALL room-at-also
wait.and.watch‘In the morning, a TA waits and watches in every CALL room.’b. Gogo-wa
RA-ga
hitori
Δ taiki-simasu.
afternoon-TOP RA-NOM
one
wait.and.watch‘(Lit.) In the afternoon, an RA waits and watchesΔ.’ (♯one>every, every>one)(Oku 2016: 66)(30) a. Taitei-nosensei-ozyosi-no dareka-ga
sonkeisiteiru.
most-GEN
teacher-ACC girl-GEN someone-NOM respect‘(Lit.) Most teachers, some girl respects.’
b. Dansi-no
dareka-mo
Δ sonkeisiteiru. (some>most, most>some)boy-GEN
someone-also
respect‘(Lit.) Some boy respects, too.’(Takahashi 2008: 312)180

Maeda, Masako

3.4. Topic phrases
Although Kuno (1973) and Saito (1985) argue that in sentences like (31a), a topic-marked
element is base-generated in the sentence-initial position, Ishii (2017) argues that the topic
phrase is first merged with the nominative-marked element to constitute a small clause α, where
the topic phrase acts as a predicate and the nominative-marked phrase acts as a subject, asshown in (31b). Then, the topic phrase undergoes topicalization to the sentence-initial position,
as shown in (31c).
(31) a. Sakana-wa tai-ga
oisii.
fish-TOP
red.snapper-NOM
delicious‘As for fish, red snapper is delicious.’b. [α[nP1 sakana ][nP2 tai ]] oisii
c. [nP1 sakana]-wa [α tnP1 [nP2 tai]]-ga oisii(Ishii 2017: 127, 130)

Ishii’s proposal is supported, for example, by the fact that the topic phrase can be associatedwith the nominative phrase within the embedded clause, as shown in (32a), but it cannot be
related with the one within the complex NP island, as shown in (32b).
(32) a.

Sakana-wai John-ga [[ ti tai-ga]
oisii
to]
omotteiru.
fish-TOP
John-NOM
red.snapper-NOM
deliciousC
think‘(Lit.) Speaking of fish, John thinks that red snapper is delicious.’b.?*Sakana-wai John-ga [CNP [[ ti tai-ga]
oisii]
mise]-ositteiru.
fish-TOP
John-NOM
red.snapper-NOM delicious restaurant-ACC know‘(Lit.) Speaking of fish, John knows a restaurant where red snapper is delicious.’(Ishii 2017: 132-133)

Now, let us consider AE of a topic phrase. Taking (33a) as an antecedent sentence, (33b) is
felicitous with the intended topic reading. This is because topicalization of an elided argument
is permissible, as a topic feature for ellipsis does not conflict with another kind of a topic feature.
Note that in (33c), the overt pronoun it does not have the topic meaning that (33a) and (33b)yield. The pronoun it in (33c) refers to the whole preceding sentence, yielding the meaning “ifyou are talking about the fish, and not as for fish”.
(33) a. Sashimia-wai[ ti tai-ga]
oisii.
sashimi-TOP
red.snapper-NOM
delicious‘(Lit.) Speaking of sashimi, red snapper is delicious.’b. Iya, Δ[ ti maguro-ga]
oisii
yo. (Δ = sashimia-wa)
no,tuna-NOM
deliciousPART‘(Lit.) No, speaking of sashimi, tuna is delicious.’c. ♯Iya,sore-wamaguro-ga
oisii
yo.
no,
it-TOPtuna-NOM
deliciousPART‘(Lit.) No, speaking of it (= which sashimi is delicious), tuna is delicious.’(34) a. Hana-wai [ ti sakura-ga]
ii.
flower-TOP
cherry.blossom-NOM
good‘(Lit.) Speaking of flowers, cherry blossom is good.’
181

Maeda, Masakob. Un, Δ [ ti ume-mo]ii
yo. (Δ = hana-wa)
yes,plum.tree-also goodPART‘(Lit.) Yes, speaking of flowers, plum tree is also good.’c. ♯Un,sore-wa ume-mo
ii
yo.
yes,
it-TOP
plum.tree-also
good
PART
‘(Lit.) Yes, speaking of it (= which tree is good), plum tree is also good.’
4. Conclusion and Implications
This paper proposes that an elided element undergoes topicalization and it may satisfy anotherkind of A′-feature only if the criterion in the moved position does not contradict the topic
feature. Under the present analysis, an elided argument may undergo topicalization or QR,
which does not contradict a topic feature, while the elided argument cannot undergo focus/whmovement, as Wh/Focus Criterion is incompatible with a topic feature.
Although the present paper argues that (covert) A′-movement may contradict therequirement for AE, one might assume that it is (A′-) agreement per se that is incompatible
with AE. In fact, Sugisaki (2012) and Ikawa (2013) propose the anti-agreement analysis for theban on AE of wh-phrases.
(1) a.

Speaker A.

Speaker B.

b.

Speaker A.

John-wa nani-otabeta no?
John-TOP what-ACC ate
Q‘What did John eat?’
Ringo.
apple‘An apple.’Dewa, Mary-wa
Δ tabeta no? (Yes/No question/*wh-question)
thenMary-TOP
ate
Q‘Then, did Mary eat something/that?’*‘Then, what did Mary eat?’(Sugisaki 2012: 64)

Building on the LF-copy analysis (Oku 1998, Saito 2007), Sugisaki (2012) argues that anelement that undergoes agreement is not eligible for ellipsis. For instance, when a wh-phrasethat undergoes agreement with the interrogative C in the antecedent clause is copied to theellipsis site, the copied element lacks an uninterpretable feature [uWh] that renders the element
active for agreement in the elliptical clause. The derivation crashes due to the remaining
uninterpretable feature [uQ] of the complementizer.
(35) a. Overt Syntax of (1a, A)
John-wa [DP nani-o{iQ, uWh}] tabeta no{uQ}?
Agreeb. LF of (1a, A)
John-wa[DP nani-o{iQ, uWh}] tabeta no{uQ}?
Copyc. Overt Syntax of (1b)John-wa[DP nani-o{iQ, uWh}] tabeta no{uQ}?
*Agree182(Sugisaki 2012: 70)

Maeda, Masako

The present analysis and the anti-agreement analysis offer the same prediction with regard
to the ban on AE of wh/focus phrases, as it may undergo A′-movement/in-situ agreement
according to the analyses. However, these two lines of analyses present different predictions
regarding in-situ agreement that do not require A′-movement; the movement analysis predicts
that AE of an in-situ Agree element is possible, while the anti-agreement analysis predicts that
it is not possible. Let us consider object honorification (OH) in Japanese, which requires insitu Agree between the object and v (Harada 1976, Boeckx and Niinuma 2004, Boeckx 2006,
Ikawa 2021, Ikawa and Yamada 2022, a.o.). It has been observed that OH targets either the
direct object or the indirect object, but OH cannot target the direct object, skipping over theindirect object, as shown in (36).
(36) a. Taroo-ga
Tanaka-sensei-oo-tasuke-sita.
Taroo-NOM
Tanaka-teacher-ACC HON-help-did‘Hanako helped Prof.Tanaka.’b. Hanako-ga
Tanaka-sensei-ni
Mary-ogo-syookai-sita.
Hanako-NOM
Tanaka-teacher-DAT Mary-ACC HON-introduce-did‘Hanako introduced Mary to Prof. Tanaka.’c. * Hanako-ga
Mary-ni
Tanaka-sensei-ogo-syookai-sita.
Hanako-NOM
Mary-DAT
Tanaka-teacher-ACC
HON-introduce-did‘Hanako introduced Prof.Tanaka to Mary.’(Boeckx and Niinuma 2004: 456-457)
Boeckx and Niinuma (2004) argue that OH results from Agree between the object and v, andthat the indirect object asymmetrically c-commands DO and hence IO shows the intervention
effect between v and DO. In this light, it is important to note that the object that undergoes OH
can be elided by AE. (37b), preceded by (37a), may yield the quantificational reading that isabsent in (37c) with the overt pronoun. This indicates that (37b) can be derived from AE. The
fact that AE of the element that undergoes in-situ Agree is possible supports the movement
analysis.
(37) a. Ken-wa san’nin-no sensei-oo-tasuke-sita.
Ken-TOP three-GEN teacher-ACC HON-help-did‘Ken helped three teachers.’
b. Maki-mo Δ
o-tasuke-sita.
(E-type reading/quantificational reading)Maki-also
HON-help-did‘Maki also helped Δ.’ (Δ= the three teachers/three teachers).’c. Maki-mokarera-oo-tasuke-sita. (E-type reading/*quantificational reading)Maki-also
them-ACC HON-help-did‘Maki also helped them.’ (them = the three teachers/*three teachers).’183

Maeda, Masako

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Boekx, Cedric. 2006. Honorification as agreement. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
24: 385-398.
Boeckx, Cedric and Fumikazu Niinuma. 2004. Conditions on agreement in Japanese. Natural
Language and Linguistic Theory 22: 453–480.
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 2007. Information Structure: The Syntax-Discourse Interface, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Fujiwara, Yoshiki. 2020. Argument ellipsis involves movement. Ms., University ofConnecticut.
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185

Manzini, Rita & Diego Pescarini

Deriving the clitic string by Sequence Formation
Maria Rita Manzini1,3, Diego Pescarini2,3
Universitàdi Firenze, 2CNRS, 3Université Cote d’Azur

1

1. Introduction
Previous generative accounts of pronominal clitics take the explanandum to be the clitic unit
X and focus on how to model the relationship between X and its alleged argument position via
movement (Kayne 1991, Roberts 2010) or via Agree with an empty category pro (Sportiche1996). In our approach, conversely, the explanandum is not the single clitic X and its link to anargument position, but the clitic string …X…, a sequence of syntactic heads which displays atleast the following properties:- incorporation, i.e. clitics cannot undergo any derivation independently of the others inthe string (and eventually of the verbal head);- rigid internal order, yet at variance with the dominance order displayed by phrasal
constituents, see Section 2;- constrained distribution: the clitic string occurs only in certain specific positions thatroughly correspond to phase heads.
To model clitic strings we contend that they cannot be built via Set Merge. Unlike XParguments, clitic sequences are not sensitive to well-known dominance effects that are typicalof Set Merged elements (see Section 2). We will show that the lack of dominance effects canbe hardly accounted for within current movement or Agree analyses. Instead, in Sections 3-4
we argue for a novel approach resting upon the hypothesis that clitics are Pair Merged to a Link,
forming a Sequence without internal hierarchical structure.
2. No dominance
The linearization of clitic pronouns is mostly independent from the structural and linear orderof the corresponding XPs. For instance, French and Italian have opposite orders of third person
clitics: Accusative > Dative in French, Dative > Accusative in Italian, see (1). However,accusative and dative XPs c-command one another in both French and Italian, see (2) and (3)respectively – in other words there is no difference between Italian and French phrasal syntax.
(1) a.

Jean
le lui
a
rendu
DO>IO
Fr.
Jean
it=to.him=has
given.back‘Gianni gave it back to him’b. Gianni glielo
ha reso
IO>DOIt.
Gianni to.him=it=has given.back‘Gianni gave it back to him’(2) a. La maîtresse arendu[DP son cartable][PP àchaque élève]
the teacher has given-backhis schoolbag
to each pupil‘The teacher gave each pupil his schoolbag back’
b. La maîtresse a
rendu[DP chaque cartable] [PP àson propriétaire]the teacher has given-back eachschoolbag to its owne
‘The teacher gave each schoolbag back to its owner’ French (Boneh and Nash 2012)186

Manzini, Rita & Diego Pescarini(3) a. La maestra rendela sua cartellaa ciascun alunno
the teacher gives-back the his schoolbag
to eachstudent‘The teacher gives each pupil his schoolbag back’
b. La maestra rendeciascuna cartella al suo proprietario
the teacher gives-back each schoolbag
to its owner‘The teacher gives each schoolbag back to its owner’
Italian (cf. also Giorgi and Longobardi 1991: 42-43)
The order of clitics remains unchanged if, instead of a selected dative (an Indirect Object), theclitic pronominalizes an unselected dative (a benefactive), as in (4), although we know that
unselected dative PPs (‘high’ Appls) c-command selected dative PPs (‘low’ Appls), see (5)(see Folli and Harley 2006 for Italian; Italian data are not reported here because of space
limitations):(4) a.

b.

Marie le luia peint
Marie it=to.him has painted‘Marie painted it for him.’
Gianni gliela
dipinge
Gianni to.him=it
paints‘Gianni paints it for him.’

Fr.

It.

(5) a.

Marie a peint[DP sa maison]
Mary has painted
his house‘Mary painted his house for each tenant.’
b. *Marie a peint[DP chaque maison]
Mary painted
each house‘Mary painted each house to its tenant.’[PP àchaque locataire]to everytenant[PP àson locataire]
to itstenant(Boneh and Nash 2012)

How can we account for the lack of correspondence between the make-up of clitic sequences
and the syntax of XP arguments? In the following subsections, we try to answer this questionin the light of two well-established analyses of clitic dependencies.
2.1. Movement analysis
According to movement analyses (Kayne 1991), clitics are first merged in argument positionand necessarily undergo a movement derivation, at the end of which they are read as heads onthe functional spine of the sentence, as in (6) (cf. Chomsky 1995:28 for min/max categories).
(6) a.

Marie le voit
Marie him=seesb. [IP D [IP I [VP V Dmin/max↑_______________|

Fr.
clitic movement

Under (6), we expect clitics either to preserve the order of their base-generation positions (toavoid nesting dependencies) or to mirror the order of their base-generation positions (assuming
traditional head movement/incorporation, or “snowball movement”). Neither prediction isborne out, witness the Italian and French examples above. This has led scholars to postulate187

Manzini, Rita & Diego Pescarini

post-syntactic reordering within a DM(-type) morphological component. However, why would
the morphological component work to opacize the underlying syntax (Manzini & Savoia 2007,
Collins and Kayne 2020)? Elsewhere, the morphological externalization interface works tooptimize legibility of the syntax, cf. Selkirk’s (1974) conclusion that phonosyntactic processes
follow and highlight major constituents contours, D’Alessandro and Scheer (2015) for phasal
Spell-Out.
Setting then aside morphological reordering, the fact remains that structural propertiesof phrasal syntax are not preserved in the clitic string (or mirrored by it). The latter is
structurally constrained in ways that equivalent phrasal constituents are not and movement
analyses cannot provide an adequate solution to this asymmetry.
2.2. pro analysis
A second stream of generative analyses (traditionally dubbed “base generation approaches”)
assume that clitics are first merged as functional heads, namely as Voice (AccVoice etc.)
according to Sportiche (1996), systematically agreeing with pro’s in argument position.
(7) … [vP v[AccVoice D[VP V [DP pro]]]]|____________|

clitic-pro

In current minimalism, however, pro is controversial. If the EPP is eliminated at least for nullsubject languages (Chomsky 2015), pro is a pure means for the satisfaction of the Uniformityof Theta Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH) of Baker (1988) – itself a special case of Uniformity,
namely the principle that “the same meaning always maps onto the same syntactic structure”(Culicover and Jackendoff 2005). In a nutshell, pro ensures that the clitic in (8b) isinterpretively equivalent to some phrasal unit XP such as Jean/lui in (8a), by being first mergedin the same theta configuration.
(8) a.

Marie voit Jean/lui
Mary sees John/HIM
b. Marie le voit
Marie him=sees‘Marie sees him

Fr.

However, clitics can form idioms that have no full pronominal counterpart:(9)

Gianni ce l’ha fatta
Gianni there=it has made‘Gianni made it/succeeded’(idiom)It.

A [V pro] structure, whose idiomatic reading involves no theta relation between V and pro,denies the basic reason why pro would be merged (i.e. the UTAH). At least in idiomaticconfigurations, the Acc clitic can discharge its formal properties without any need for a pro,which therefore has no reason to be merged.
3. Our proposal
Our analysis aims to keep cliticization within core syntax (i.e. no recourse to morphological188

Manzini, Rita & Diego Pescarini

readjustment), by rejecting Uniformity, namely the assumption that clitics have the same coresyntax as phrasal arguments, hence a Set Merge syntax.
The implementation of our hypothesis depends on currently available theoretical tools
including:a) a syntactic Merge mechanism different from Set Merge – namely Pair Merge (Chomsky
2004)b) the modelling of head syntax by Pair Merge (Epstein, Kitahara and Seely 2016, cf.
Chomsky 2015)c) the notion of Pair Merge Sequence (Chomsky 2020) or of Form Sequence (Chomsky
2021a, To appear) to model clitic clusters.
Building on (a-c), we propose that the clitic cluster …X… is a Pair Merge Sequence (Chomsky2020), where each member of the sequence <X, L> is formed by a clitic head X and a Link L,
L a phase head. Take for instance the example in (10a), from a northern Italo-Romance dialect.
We suggest that the (en)clitic sequence -gg-u ‘it to him’ can be represented as in (10b),
following Chomsky’s (2004) notation for Pair Merge and Chomsky’s (2020) notation for Pair
Merge Sequences – assuming the phase head v to be the Link.
(10) a.

al da
-gg
-u
he gives=to.him=it‘He give it to him’b. [vP <<gg, v>, <u, v>, <V, v>> [VP V

The simplified notations in (11) can be used instead of (10b). (11a) and (11b) show the general
output of Sequence Formation (SF; Chomsky 2021a, b). Conventionally, the rightmost label isthat of the Link.
(11) a. [<gg, u, V, v>] [VP V … ]]b. [<Cl2, Cl1, V, v>] [VP V … ]]Sequences such as (10b), (11) are derived through the following steps: first, the Link v is Set
Merged in the general tree as shown in (12a), cf. Chomsky (2004); then the Pair Merge couple<V, v> in (12b) models v-V inheritance (like <C, I> inheritance for Chomsky 2020). The
position of the Pair Merge unit in the Set Merge tree is understood to be the position of v. In(12c) we proceed with the generation of the clitic sequence. Adjunction of the clitic Cl 1, likeother adjunctions, is modelled by external Pair Merge, yielding the Pair Merge couple <Cl1,v>. The merger of two elements, here Cl1 and V to the same Link is assumed to generate a Pair
Merge Sequence. Other clitics can be Pair Merged to the Link and added to the sequence as
illustrated in (12d).
(12) a.
b.
c.
d.

[v [VP V … ]][<V, v> [VP V … ]][<<Cl1 v>, <V, v>> [VP V … ]][<<Cl2, v>, <Cl1, v>, <V, v>>] [VP V … ]]However, to pursue a Pair Merge/Sequence account of clitics, we must discard Uniformity. In
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Manzini (2022), Manzini & Pescarini (in press), we argue that models pursuing convergenceat SEM, instead of uniformity, fit better the data. Thus non-uniform syntactic structures (i.e.
Set Merged hierarchies of XPs and Pair Merged Sequences of X0) are mapped onto a single
logical form that is expressed in neo-Davidsonian terms as a coordination of arguments(Parsons 1995, cf. Larson 2014), e.g. (13b) for English (13a):
(13)

a.
b.

He gives it to him∃e [give(e) & Agent(e, he) & Theme(e, it) & Goal(e, him)]

Since the ordinary interpretation of a Pair Merge Sequence is Conjunction (Chomsky 2020,2021a, To appear), then Pair Merged clitic arguments in (14a) (= (10b) above) can have ananalogous interpretation, as in (14b), that converges with the interpretation of Set Merged
arguments in (13b).
(14) a. [vP <<gg, v>, <u, v>, <da, v>> [VP dab. ∃e [da(e) & Agent(e, al) & Theme(e, u) & Goal(e, gg)
Importantly, Pair Merge of clitics with a Link to form a Sequence, e.g. (14b), obeys Duality of
Semantics (Chomsky 2021a, b), since External Merge (EM) is involved – though not Set Merge.
4. Some consequences
In this section, we argue that the contrast between phrasal and clitic behaviors is not to be
imputed to core syntax vs. externalization (morphology) but to Set Merge (phrasal syntax) vs.
Pair Merge (of heads). In particular, we argue that Pair Marge accounts by construction forbasic properties of clitic sequences such as:- Incorporation, see subsection 4.1;
- Internal ordering of sequences, see subsection 4.2;
- Placement of the string in the clause, see subsection 4.3.
4.1. Incorporation
Only the entire sequence of clitics as is a syntactic object accessible to movement. For instance,in (15) the clitic string in brackets is moved above the question C-particle li (Bošković 2004);
no clitic can remain stranded below li.
(15) [Ne

si mu
gi
dal]i
li ti
NEG= are= him.DAT= them.ACC given
PART‘Haven’t you given him the money?’

parite?
money-the(Macedonian)

A displacement of this kind is at odds with Set Merge syntax; specifically, recall that forSportiche (1996), Clitic Voices are individually Set Merged. The only option open is topostulate incorporation of the clitics to each other via extra-syntactic operations such as mmerger (Matushansky 2006) – or to revert to movement. Movement approaches are better
equipped to deal with incorporation (via canonical head adjunction), but it remains unclear why
multiple clitic heads end up being adjoined to the same head (though see Roberts 2010). In
Kaynian systems where head movement does not need (featural) justification, incorporation isconstrained: for Kayne (1994) at most two clitics can be adjoined to one another.
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Manzini, Rita & Diego Pescarini

Pair Merge Sequences, on the contrary, account for incorporation by construction. We
do not need any ad hoc mechanism to map structures generated via Set Merge into sequences.
At the same time, consider that Pair Merge is not introduced to account for clitics alone, but it
is a tool that has been introduced in the theory for independent reasons – i.e. to model
adjunction and unbounded coordination. We therefore believe that, by extending Pair
Merge/Sequences to the analysis of clitics, we achieve a descriptive gain at no extra theoreticalcost.
4.2. OrderAs previously mentioned, the order of clitic pronouns cannot be predicted from the order ofXP arguments. Whereas dominance is the main criterion for the linearization of XPs, languages
seem to follow other criteria in linearizing pronominal clitics. For instance, in Pashto (Tegey1975) pronominal clitics are linearized according to person. Singular pronouns follow the order
1 > 2 > 3 regardless of their role (subject, object, possessor).
topak me de rɑworə.
gun
1SG 2SG brought‘I brought your gun / You brought my gun.’b. topak me y rɑworə.
gun
1SG 3SG brought‘I brought his gun / He brought my gun.’c. topak de y rɑworə.
gun
2SG 3SG brought‘You brought his gun / He brought your gun.’(16) a.

(Pashto; Tegey 1975)

In Tagalog, monosyllabic pronouns (ko ‘me’, ka ‘you.S’, mo ‘you.O’) precede disyllabic
pronouns, regardless of person or case (Schachter & Otanes 1972: 185 quoted by Billings &Konopasky 2020):(17) a.

Nakita ko siya.
be.seen 1SG.O 3SG.S‘I saw him/her.’b. Nakitamoako.
be.seen2SG.O 1SG.S‘You (Sg.) saw me.’(Tagalog; Billings & Konopasky 2020)

The Romance languages follow a mixed system in which Person and Case seem to play a rolein sequencing clitics, and the output diverges across languages, as shown in Section 2.
Given the evidence in Section 2 and in exx. (16)-(17), we conclude that the better theoryof clitic is the one that makes no strong prediction on the linearization of clitics based on theorder of the corresponding phrasal arguments. This does not amounts to saying that thelinearization of clitics is free or unconstrained. In fact, clitic pronouns are normally rigidly
ordered, but, crucially, they are ordered (on a language-specific basis) independently of phrasal
arguments (e.g. by the Person hierarchy in Pashto (16), but also in French, where le lui ‘it tohim’ in (1) contrasts with me le ‘to me it’, i.e. 1/2P > 3). Consequently, if the aim of the analysis
is to keep cliticization within core syntax, the analysis should have no expectation regarding
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Manzini, Rita & Diego Pescarini

the ordering of clitic elements based on phrasal syntax. In particular, it should not predict thatthe internal order of the clitic sequence reproduces/mirrors the (dominance) order of the phrasal
arguments.
4.3. Placement
With the term placement we refer to the order of the clitic string in the sentence. In Italian andin French, clitics are externalized in the C-I phase (adjoined to I(P), Kayne 1991). In otherlanguages however they are externalized in the v phase, notably in certain Italo-Romancevarieties like the one exemplified in (10) and in Bantu (Riedel 2009).
In our account, this property again follows by construction, provided we identify thepossible Links of Pair Merge Sequences with phase heads v, C, or I (via inheritance from C).
If we turn our attention to less well-known languages, even within the Romance family, clear
evidence for clitic placement in v, C, I can be found in contexts of interpolation, i.e. inlanguages in which the verb and the clitic string can be separated, as shown in (18):(18) a.

O
livro quelheainda nãoThe book thatto.him= yet
not‘The book that I did not gave him yet’b. Un mi cchùparra
not me= any.more speaks‘He does not speak to me any more.’entreguei
handle(Portuguese dialect)(Cosentino, South Italy)

By focusing on languages allowing interpolation, we can better pinpoint the exact position
where clitic strings are (Pair) merged – since we can gauge their position independently of theposition of the verbal head. As predicted by our model, clitic sequences are found in association
with all phasal heads: with C (old Spanish, old Portuguese, western Ibero-Romance dialects(18a); see Martins 1994ff.); with I (Italo-Romance varieties such as Cosentino (18b) andTriestino; see Ledgeway & Lombardi 2005); with v (Eastern Piedmontese (10), see Tortora2015) – see also Pescarini (2021) for an overview.
Furthermore, having multiple potential Links for clitic sequences, we can fine-tune
clitic placement, which is not uniform across clausal environments. Languages with clitics andno interpolation still display partial independence of the verb and of the clitic string, which caneither linearly recede or follow the Link, yielding, respectively, proclisis (clitic string v) or
enclisis (v clitic string). In Romance, enclisis is triggered by several factors including polarity,
tense, mood, finiteness, information structure, as illustrated in (19) for Italian.
(19) a.

Me/ce
lo porta.
to.me/there it= he.brings‘He brings it there/to me’
b. Porta-melo!/ Porta-ce-lo!
Bring=me=it/ bring=there=it‘Bring it there/to me!’c. Cerca di portar-me-lo/-ce-lo.
Try to bring=to.me=it/there=it‘Try to bring it to me/there.’

Declarative, proclisis

Imperative, enclisis

Infinitive, enclisis

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(It.)

Manzini, Rita & Diego Pescarini

Kayne’s (1991) analysis of enclisis/proclisis alternations views proclisis as the result of clitic
movement to I, and enclisis as the result of moving the verb from I to C across the clitics in I.
This analysis can be recast in our framework without losing descriptive adequacy, and avoiding
in fact difficulties with basic tenets of the theory. For instance, verb movement from I to C
across the clitic heads incurs a potential violation of the Head Movement Constrain (HMC),
i.e. of Minimality; it further requires the clitics not to be incorporated to the verb, which goesagainst the grain of the impossibility of interpolation in Italian (or French).
To illustrated our point, in (20)-(22) we sketch a tentative analysis of a well-known
puzzle: subject clitic inversion in French interrogatives. As shown in (20b), in questions subject
clitics appear in enclisis, when object clitics are in proclisis:(20) a.

Il le luidonne.
he= it= to.him/her= give.3SG‘He gives it to him/her.’b. Le luidonne-t-il?
it= to.him/her= give.3SG-t-he‘Does he give it to him/her?’(Fr.)

The evidence in (20b) shows that object (OCLs) and subject clitics (SCLs) do not belong to thesame Pair Merge Sequence, otherwise they could not be broken apart. In particular, we suggestthat in declarative clauses such as (20a), both OCLs and SCLs are Pair Merged with I as in(21):(21) [IP <<SCL, I>, <OCL, I>, <OCL, I>, <<donne, v>, I>> [vP ..
When C has interrogative force, however, SCLs are not Pair Merged with I, but (externally)
Pair Merged with C as shown in (22a). This formalizes the widely shared intuition indescriptive Romance linguistics that subject enclitics represent an ‘interrogative inflection’.
Then inversion of the verb (along with its Pair-Merged clitics), takes place as shown in (22b)via (internal) Pair Merge of the <OCL, I> sequence with C.
(22) a. [CP <SCL, CINT> [IP <OCL, I> [vP …]]]b. [CP <<OCL, I>, CINT> <SCL, CINT>> [IP <OCL, I> [vP …]]]
5. Conclusions
In this paper we assessed whether a Pair Merge approach to Romance clitics is feasible andwhether it holds any empirical advantage. Our conclusion is that key properties of clitic strings
follows by construction if clitic, verb clusters are built as Pair Merged sequences. Suchsequences are point-like from the point of view of phrasal syntax, explaining the incorporation
property of clitic string, i.e. the fact that single clitics cannot undergo movement operations
independently of the others. The lack of any necessary correspondence/mirroring of clitic orderwith respect to phrasal order in argumental structures is also expected. Slightly less familiar
issues (interpolation, enclisis, inversion) receive a principled explanation under the assumptionthat clitics are Pair Merged with different phase heads – and only phase heads. In short, Pair
Merge, which has been independently introduced to account for modification and conjunction,
provides an optimal tool for representing clitics in syntactic structures. This innovation comes
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at a price, namely in order to pursue a Pair Merge/Sequence account of clitics, we must gi
ve up Uniformity (specifically the UTAH) pursuing only the weaker requirement of conv
ergence at SEM. External Pair Merge of clitics is in compliance with basic tenets of min
imalism such as Duality of Semantics.

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Alexiadou, Susann Fischer and Melita Stavrou, 1–26. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag
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Manzini, M. Rita. 2022. Romance pronominal clitics as pure heads. Journal of Linguistics.
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The Categorial Status of Embedded Questions in Japanese
Norio Nasu1, Takayuki Akimoto2, Koji Shimamura1,3, Yusuke Yoda4
1

Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, 2Kogakuin University,
3

Kanazawa Gakuin University, 4Toyo Gakuen University

1. Introduction
The primary purpose of this paper is to show bipartite aspects of embedded questions (EQs) inJapanese in terms of their categorial status. EQs are known to show the same distribution as
noun phrases. For instance, not only a noun phrase but also an EQ can occupy the complementof a preposition as in (1a–b). However, some EQs occur in the environment where a nounphrase is disallowed, as indicated by the contrast between (1c) and (1d).
(1) a.
b.
c.
d.

The result depends on [ how much you study ].
The result depends on [ your effort ].
John wondered [ what the time was ].
*John wondered [ the time ].

The same contrast is found in Japanese. (2a) indicates that an EQ and a noun phrase can occur
with a postposition. In contrast, the predicate tohoonikureta ‘was at a loss’ in (2b) is notcompatible with a noun phrase but only occurs with an EQ.
(2) a.

Kekka-wa {[EQ doredakebenkyoosuru ka]/[DP kimino doryoku]}-ni
result-TOP
how.much studyQ
youreffort-onkakatteiru.
depend‘The result depends on {how much you study / your effort}.’b. John-wa {[EQ doo
hentoo-ou-bekika ]/*[DP hentoo]} tohoonikureta.
John-TOP
howreply-ACC do-shouldQ
reply was.at.a.loss‘John was at a loss {how he should reply/*reply}.’

This paper demonstrates that EQs are divided into nominal and clausal types and that clausal
EQs are further divided into argument and adjunct types.
There are three groups of predicates that occur with EQs. Predicates in Group 1 (e.g.,kininaru ‘be curious’, siraberu ‘investigate’) occur with an EQ, which is either case-marked orcaseless. They also take a nominal argument (see (3a, b)). Group 2 (e.g., tohoonikureru ‘be ata loss’) is compatible only with a caseless EQ, as illustrated by (4a, b). Predicates belonging toGroup 3 (e.g., kakaru ‘depend’) occur both with a noun phrase and an EQ (see (5a, b)). This
group minimally differs from Group 1 in that the EQ must be case-marked.

 We would like to thank the audience of GLOW in Asia XIII for their valuable comments and questions. Needless to say all

remaining errors and inadequacies are ours. This research is supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)(#18K00578) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
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Nasu, Norio et al.

(3) a.

John-wa[EQ dare-ga
katta ka ](-ga)
kininatta.
(Group 1)
John-TOP
who-NOM won
Q(-NOM)
was.curious‘John was curious about who had won.’b. John-wa[DP kekka ]-ga
kininatta.
John-TOP
result-NOM
was.curious‘John was curious about the result.’(4) a. John-wa[EQ doo iooka ](*-ni)
tohoonikureta.
(Group 2)
John-TOP
how say
Q (*-DAT)
was.at.a.loss‘John was at a loss what he would say.’b. *John-wa [DP hentoo ](-ni)
tohoonikureta.
John-TOP
reply (-DAT)
was.at.a.loss‘John was at a loss for the reply.’(5) a. Kekka-wa [EQ doredake doryokusuru ka ]*(-ni) kakatteiru. (Group 3)
result-TOP
how.much make.effort
Q *(-on) depend‘The result depends on how much effort you make.’b. Kekka-wa [DP kimino
doryoku]-nikakatteiru.
result-TOP
youreffort-ondepend‘The result depends on your effort.’
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 shows that while case-marked EQs are nominal,caseless EQs are clausal. Section 3 demonstrates that clausal EQs are further divided into two
types: the clausal EQ in Group 1 is an argument, whereas the one in Group 2 is an adjunct.
Section 4 argues that a nominal EQ consists of nominal layers, nP, and DP above a clausal
layer. Section 5 is the conclusion.
2. Nominal and Clausal Aspects of EQs
Based on diagnostics such as case-marking, prenominal modification, and coordination, thissection demonstrates that some EQs are nominal while others are clausal. Let us begin withcase-marking. As illustrated in (6), only noun phrases can be case-marked.
(6) John-wa {[DP zibun-no namae ]-o / [CP Bill-ga
katta to] (*-o)}John-TOP
self-GEN name -ACC
Bill-NOM won COMP(*-ACC)‘John told {his name / that Bill had won}.’tugeta.
told(7) shows the result of the case-marking test. Groups 2 and 3 are fairly straightforward. The
former resists case-marking, indicating that the EQ is clausal. The EQ in the latter is nominal
because case-marking is obligatory.
(7) a. John-wa[EQ dare-gakattaka ](-ga)kininatta.
(Group 1)
John-TOP
who-NOM won
Q (-NOM)
was.curious‘John was curious about who had won.’b. John-wa[EQ nanto iooka ](*-ni)
tohoonikureta. (Group 2)
John-TOPwhatsay
Q (*-DAT)
was.at.a.loss‘John was at a loss what he should say.’c. Kekka-wa [EQ doredakebenkyoosuru ka]*(-ni) kakatteiru.
(Group 3)
result-TOP
how.much study
Q *(-on) depend‘The result depends on how much you study.’
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Nasu, Norio et al.

A murky case is Group 1. At first sight, case-marking is optional. It is tempting to conclude
that the Group 1 EQ is nominal as it can be case-marked and that the caseless version resultsfrom the optional dropping of the nominative case particle. However, this analysis is untenable.
Fukuda (1993) observes that, in contrast to the accusative case, the nominative case is hard todrop (see (8a, b)). As indicated by (9), the nominative case on the subject EQ cannot be dropped.
(8) a.

sono
hon(-o)yonda hitothatbook(-ACC) readman‘the man who read that book’b.

(9) [Dare-gakuruka ]*(-ga)
zyuuyoo
who-NOM come Q*(-NOM) important‘Who will come is important.’kono
hito *(-ga) yonda hon
thisman*(-NOM) readbook‘the book which this man read’(adapted from Fukuda 1993: 169)da.
COP

It follows that case-marking on a Group 1 EQ is not optional, though it looks so. There are, infact, two versions of EQs in this group. One is case-marked, and the other is caseless.
The same observation applies to accusative-case marking. Some Group 1 predicates suchas sirabe- ‘investigate’ can mark an EQ with the accusative case. Although case marking looks
optional in (10), the case-marked and the caseless versions are not in free variation.
(10) John-wa [dare-gakitaka](-o)John-TOP who-NOM came Q (-ACC)‘John investigated who had come.’

sirabeta.
investigated(Group 1)

Kobayashi (2000) and Endo (2007) observe that case-marked and caseless EQs behave
differently with respect to the scope of a wh-phrase. While the wh-phrase in a caseless EQ cantake either embedded or matrix scope, the one in a case-marked EQ can take only embedded
scope. For concreteness, let us consider the following pair.
(11) a.

John-wa [Mary-ga nani-okattaka] sirabete-iru{nokai/ndai}?
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought Q
investigating-is {− WHQ /+ WHQ }i. ‘Is John investigating [ what Mary bought ]?’ii. ?‘What is John investigating whether Mary bought?’
b. John-wa [Mary-ga nani-okattaka]-o sirabete-iru{nokai/*ndai}?
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought Q-ACC investigating-is {− WHQ /+ WHQ }i. ‘Is John investigating [ what Mary bought ]?’ii. *‘What is John investigating whether Mary bought?’

Yoshida (2019) notes that colloquial Japanese has two interrogative particles. The particle
nokai is used only in a non-wh-question, while ndai is used only in a wh-question. When the
EQ shows up without case as in (11a), each of these particles can be used in accordance withthe scope interpretation of the wh-phrase. The particle nokai is compatible only with theembedded reading of the wh-phrase because the matrix clause becomes a polar question. When
the wh-question particle nodai is used, the matrix scope reading becomes available. In contrast,
the matrix scope reading is lost when the EQ is case-marked, as in (11b). Furthermore, this199

Nasu, Norio et al.

sentence tolerates only the polar question particle. It follows that the optionality of casemarking is only apparent. Case-marked and caseless EQs belong to different categories. Only
the former is nominal. The latter does not result from simple case dropping but is intrinsicallyclausal.
Another criterion is prenominal modification. As illustrated in (12), nouns can be
modified by demonstratives and relative clauses, whereas clauses cannot. The examples in (13)show that while the EQs of Groups 1 and 3 are compatible with prenominal modification, theGroup 2 EQ is not.
(12) John-wa {ano/reino}[maeniBill-ga
itteita ]John-TOP {that/aforementioned}
beforeBill-NOM
mentioned{[DP uwasa-o ] / *[CP Mary-ga
kekkonsita to ]}sinziteiru.
rumor-ACC
Mary-NOM married
COMP
believe‘John believes the rumor which Bill mentioned before.’‘*John believes that [that Mary had married] which Bill mentioned before.’ (lit.)(13) a. John-wa{ano/reino}[maeni Bill-ga
itteita](Group 1)
John-TOP{that/aforementioned}
before Bill-NOM mentioned[EQ kaisya-ga
doozinkenhi-oosaeru ka ]*(-ga) kininatte-iru.
company-NOM howlabor.cost-ACC control Q *(-NOM) curious-is‘John is curious about that/aforementioned [how the company would control thelabor cost] which Bill mentioned before.’ (lit.)b. *John-wa {ano/reino}[zuttosinpaisiteita ] (Group 2)
John-TOP{that/aforementioned}
all.this.while
worried[EQ dare-ni
soodansurebaiika ]tohoonikureteiru.
who-DAT
consult
good
Qis.at.a.loss‘John is at a loss that/aforementioned [who he should consult] which he has been
worried about.’ (lit.)c. Kaisya-no
syoorai-wa{ano/reino}[sikirini (Group 3)
company-GEN future-TOP{that/aforementioned}
often
kabunusi-ga
mondai-ni
siteiru ] [EQ donokurai rieki-ostockholder-NOM question-in
dohow.much profit-ACC
age-rareruka ] -nikakatteiru.
yield-canQ -ondepend‘The company’s future depends on that/aforementioned [ how much profit it canyield ] which stockholders often put into question.’ (lit.)
Recall that Group 1 EQs can be either case-marked or caseless. It is worth noting that only acase-marked EQ can be modified by prenominal modifiers, as illustrated by (13a). This
modification pattern reinforces the observation that a case-marked EQ is nominal while acaseless EQ is clausal. Recall also that while a Group 2 EQ cannot be case-marked, a Group 3
EQ must be case-marked. As predicted, the former resists prenominal modification, and thelatter is compatible with it (see (11b, c)).
The last test is a coordination by the conjunction to ‘and’. This conjunction is used for
coordinating nominal categories but not for clausal coordination.
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(14) a.

John-wa [DP kono uwasa ] to [DP ano uwasa ]-o sinziteiru.
John-TOP
this rumor
andthat rumor-ACC believe‘John believes this rumor and that rumor.’b. *John-wa [CP Bill-ga
gakusei dato]to [CP Mary-ga
senseiJohn-TOP
Bill-NOM student COP COMP and
Mary-NOM teacherdato ] sinziteiru.
COP
COMP
believe‘John believes that Bill is a student and that Mary is a teacher.’

As illustrated by (15a) below, case-marking is obligatory when Group 1 EQs are coordinatedby to. The obligatory case-marking indicates that the coordinated EQs are nominal. Group 3
EQs are also compatible with to-coordination (see (15c)). In contrast, Group 2 EQs are clausal,
as indicated by the lack of case-marking. As predicted, they resist this type of coordination (see(15b)).
(15) a.

John-wa [ Ohtani-ga hoomuran-onanbonutta ka ] to(Group 1)
John-TOP
Ohtani-NOM home.run-ACC how.many hit
Qand[Guerrero-ga
nankaisansinsita ka ] *(-ga)
kininatta.
Guerrero-NOM how.many.times
struck.out Q *(-NOM)
was.curious‘John was curious about how many home runs Ohtani had hit and how many times
Guerrero had struck out.’b. *John-wa [ sigoto-ohikiukeru bekika ] to(Group 2)
John-TOP
job-ACC
undertake should Q
and[dare-nisoodansu
bekika ]tohoonikureteiru.
who-DAT
consult
shouldQ
is.at.a.loss‘John is at a loss whether he should undertake the job and who he should consult.’c. Kaisya-no
syoorai-wa[donokurai rieki-oage-rareru ka] (Group 3)
company-GEN future-TOP how.much profit-ACC yield-canQ
to [donokurai keihi-okezur-eru ka ]-nikakatteiru.
and how.much cost-ACC
reduce-can Q -on
depend‘The future of the company depends on how much profit it can yield and how
much cost it can reduce.’

To summarize the discussion so far, there are two types of EQ. One is nominal, and the otheris clausal. Group 1 EQs are bi-categorial in that they are nominal when case-marked whileclausal without case-marking. Group 2 is clausal, and Group 3 is nominal.
3. Caseless (Clausal) EQs: Arguments or Adjuncts?
This section turns to clausal aspects of EQs. Recall that clausal EQs belong to either Group 1
or Group 2. Using four diagnostics, including omission, adjunct condition effect, ellipsis, andattachment of a focus particle sae, we attempt to clarify whether they are arguments or adjuncts.
It will turn out that a relatively clear distinction is made between the two groups. The first
criterion is omission. The common observation is that while arguments are obligatory in an
out-of-the-blue utterance, adjuncts are optional. In this respect, a Group 1 EQ in (16a) behaves
as an argument and a Group 3 EQ in (16b) behaves as an adjunct.
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(16) a. *John-wa ØEQ
kininatta.
John-TOP
was.curious‘John was curious.’b.

John-wa ØEQ
tohoonikurete-iru.
John-TOP
at.a.loss-is‘John is at a loss.’

Another criterion is adjunct condition effects. Given that an adjunct clause forms an island, it
is predicted that an EQ blocking extraction is an adjunct clause. To test this prediction, we use
comparative deletion, which involves operator movement, according to Kikuchi (1989).
However, there is a complication. As illustrated in (17), only a subset of adjunct clauses
displays this effect.
(17) a. John-wa [Bill-ga [ ti nomi nagara] ronbun-okaita yorimo
OpiJohn-TOP Bill-NOM
drink while paper-ACC wrote thanharukani ookuno
biiru-oi
nonda.
much
more
beer-ACC drank‘John drank much more beeri than Bill wrote a paper while drinking ei.’ (lit.)b. *John-wa [Bill-ga [ timorattanoni] humandatta yorimo Opi ]John-TOP
Bill-NOM
receivedthough unsatisfied thanharukaniookunohana-oiMary-niageta.
much
more
flower-ACC Mary-DAT gave
‘John gave Mary much more flowersi than Mike was unsatisfied though hereceived ei.’ (lit.)]

Sato (1999) points out that the different sensitivity to the adjunct condition is attributed to theposition to which the adjunct clauses are adjoined. He argues that adjunct clauses adjoined toa lexical projection do not exhibit adjunct condition effects; only those adjoined to functional
projections are islands. The nagara-clause in (17a) is a VP-adjunct, whereas the noni-clause in(17b) is adjoined to a position higher than VP. This difference is reflected in the interpretationof the focus particle sae. Consider the following examples.
(18) a.

John-wa biiru-onomi nagara kuruma-o untensi-sae
sita.
John-TOP beer-ACC drink while car-ACC
drive-evendid‘John even drove a car while drinking beer.’b. Mary-wa 8-saino
musuko-ga biiru-o
nonda noni home-sae
Mary-TOP 8-year.old son-NOM
beer-ACC drank though praise-even‘Mary even praised him though her 8-year-old son drank beer.’

sita.
did

The nagara-clause in (18a) is in the scope of the focus particle sae, which yields the followinginterpretation: “John drove a car while doing something else. Among those acts, drinking beer
was the last thing the speaker expected Bill to do.” However, the noni-clause in (18b) is
excluded from the scope of sae. Therefore, the sentence does not have the followinginterpretation: “Mary praised her son despite his mischievous acts. Among those acts, drinking
beer was the last thing the speaker expected him to.”. The particle sae is adjoined to the verbin (18a, b). Koizumi (1993) observes that the verb-adjoined sae takes scope over constituents
inside VP. However, a VP-external constituent is excluded from its scope.1 Given this property,
1

For example, while (i) has the readings (a) and (b), it does not allow (c). Since the topic-marked phrase is in CP,
it is excluded from the scope of the focus particle.
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along with the data in (18), it follows that the nagara-clause is a VP-internal element while thenoni-clause is a VP-external element.
Having observed that only adjunct clauses adjoined to functional projections block
extraction, let us consider whether clausal EQs display this effect.
(19) a. ?[Bill-ga [ ti yom-eru
ka ] kininatteiru yorimo Opi ] (Group 1)
Bill-NOM
read-canQ
curiousthanharukaniookunohon-oiJohn-wayonde-iru.
much
more
book-ACC John-TOP
read-has‘John has read much more booksi than Bill is curious whether he can read ei.’b. ?[Bill-ga [ ti yom-eru ka ] tohoonikurete-iru yorimo Opi] (Group 2)
Bill-NOM
read-canQ
at.a.loss-is
thanharukaniookunohon-oiJohn-wayonde-iru
muchmore
book-ACC John-TOP
read-has‘John has read much more books than Bill is at a loss whether he can read ei.’
Since neither Group 1 nor Group 2 shows a strong adjunct condition effect, a decisive
conclusion is hard to draw. All that can be said is that the EQs in these examples are VPelements. They can be either a VP-internal argument or a VP-adjunct, both of which tolerate
extraction. In order to obtain a robust conclusion, we need more diagnostics.
Ellipsis also serves to distinguish between arguments and adjuncts. A common
observation relevant to this point is that while an argument can be elided on its own, an adjunctcannot (Oku 1998, among others). Consider the following pair.
(20) a.

John-wa
kuruma-oaratta ga, Bill-wa
arawa-naka-tta.
John-TOP
car-ACC
washed but Bill-TOP
wash-NEG-PST‘John washed the car, but Bill did not wash the car.’b. John-wa
kuruma-o teinein aratta ga, Bill-wa kuruma-o arawa-naka-tta.
John-TOP
car-ACC
carefully washed but Bill-TOP car-ACC wash-NEG-PST‘John washed the car carefully, but ‘Bill didn’t wash the car.’
Not: ‘…, but Bill didn’t wash the car carefully.’ (i.e. no adjunct ellipsis reading.)

Although the second conjunct in (20a) does not contain the object argument kuruma-o ‘caracc’, it has the reading that Bill did not wash the car, whereby the object is elided. The second
conjunct in (20b) lacks the adverb teineini ‘carefully’ in the first conjunct. However, it fails tohave an ellipsis reading. It only means that Bill did not wash the car, but it does not mention
how he washed it. The contrast in (20) leads to the conclusion that an adjunct cannot be elided
alone.
The following example involves a Group 1 EQ. The second conjunct (21b) has a reading,whereby the EQ appearing in the antecedent sentence (21a) is elided on its own. This meansthat the relevant EQ is an argument.2 However, the EQ ellipsis reading is unavailable in (22),where a Group 2 EQ occurs.
(i)John-wa[VP biiru-onomi-sae ]sita.
John-TOP
beer-ACC
drink-evendid(a) ‘John even drank beer.’ / (b) ‘John drank even beer.’ / (c) *‘Even John drank beer.’2
A possible objection to this conclusion is that the ellipsis reading in (21b) does not result from the ellipsis of203

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(21) a.

John-wa [ zibun-no
tuma-gaikite-iru ka ] sinpai
site-ita
kedo,
John-TOP
self-GENwife-NOM alive-is Q
worry
doing-was but‘John was worried about whether his wife was alive, but …’
b. Bill-wa
sinpaisite-i-nakat-ta.
Bill-TOP
worry
doing-be-NEG-PST‘Bill was not worried about whether John’s wife was alive.’ (strict)‘Billi was not worried about whether hisi wife was alive.’ (sloppy)(22) a.

John-wa [ zibun-ga
doo su-bekika ] gakkoo-de tohoonikuretei-ta kedo,
John-TOP self-NOM how do-should Q school-at be.at.a.loss-PST
but‘John was at a loss at school what he should do, but …’
b. Bill-wa zitaku-de
tohoonikuretei-nakat-ta.
Bill-TOP home-at
be.at.a.loss-NEG-PST‘Bill was not at a loss at home.’
Not: ‘Bill was not at a loss at home what he should do.’(22b) can only mean that Bill was at a loss at home without mentioning what he was at a loss
about. This interpretation indicates that (22b) does not involve the ellipsis of the EQ appearing
in the antecedent (22a). The unavailability of this option leads to the observation that therelevant EQ is an adjunct.
Finally, co-occurrence with the focus particle sae is also sensitive to the argument-adjunctdistinction. This particle can take scope over a constituent larger than the one it is attached to.
Thus, in (23), although it is attached to the object noun phrase, it takes scope over vP too.
(23)

Johni, who is under age, not only drank alcohol, …
proi tabako-sae
sutta.
tobacco-evensmokedeven > tobacco: ‘he smoked even tobacco.’ (he smoked something else as well)even > vP: ‘he even smoked.’ (he did something else as well)the EQ alone but from that of a larger constituent. Suppose one assumes that the headless vP undergoes ellipsis
after the predicate raises out of vP. In that case, it is not detectable whether the EQ is an argument or an adjunct(Headless vP-ellipsis (Funakoshi 2014)). The vP-ellipsis analysis presupposes overt V-raising. However, thepredicate sinpai ‘worry’ in (21) is a verbal noun (VN). It is reported that a VN remains in situ. Hayashi (2015)
observes that when the VN predicate, kikoku ‘returning’, is retained as in (ib), a null adjunct reading isunavailable. In contrast, when the VN is contained in the ellipsis domain as in (ic), it becomes available.
(i)a. Taro-wa L.A.-keeyude Nihon-e kikoku
sita
kedo,
Taro-TOP L.A.-via
Japan-to returning(VN) did
but‘Taro went back to Japan via L.A., but …’
b. Ziro-wa kikoku
si-nakat-ta.
Ziro-TOP returning(VN) do-NEG-PST‘Ziro did not go back to Japan.’
Not: ‘Ziro did not go back to Japan via L.A.’ (i.e. no adjunct ellipsis reading)c. Ziro-wa
si-nakat-ta.
Ziro-TOP
do-NEG-PST‘Ziro did not go back to Japan via L.A.’ (i.e. adjunct ellipsis reading available)(Hayashi 2015: 77–78)
The VN predicate remains inside VNP in (21b). Ellipsis is not applied to the larger constituent involving theVN but to the EQ alone.
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To account for the larger scope, Aoyagi (1998) proposes that this particle undergoes LF raising
to a higher functional head to take scope over vP. Keeping this in mind, consider the following
examples.
John-wa sekininsya-na
noni, …
John-TOP person.in.charge-COP though‘Though he was a person in charge, …’
a. [ nani-osu-bekika-sae ] wasurete-ita.
(Group 1)
what-ACC do-should Q-evenforgotten-had.
even > EQ: ‘he had forgotten even what to do.’ (he forgot something else as well)even > vP: ‘he had even forgotten what to do.’ (he did something else as well)b. [nani-osu-bekika(*-sae)] tohoonikurete-ita (koto)(Group 2)
what-ACC do-should Q-even
at.a.loss-was
fact‘John was at a loss even what to do.’(24)

Although the focus particle can be attached to the Group 1 EQ, it cannot be attached to theGroup 2 EQ. This is in parallel with (25).
(25) a.

John-wa [ Bill-ga
baka dato-sae ]itta.
John-TOP
Bill-NOM
fool
COP COMP-evensaid‘John said even that Bill was a fool.’b. John-wa [ Mary-ga
kuru
to(*-sae)] heya-odeteitta.
John-TOP
Mary-NOM come when-even room-ACC left
‘John left the room even when Mary came.’

In (25a), sae is attached to the declarative complement clause, and the sentence is well-formed.
On the other hand, it is incompatible with a temporal adjunct clause as in (25b). The same
argument-adjunct asymmetry emerges in (24). That is, while the Group 1 EQ is an argument,
the Group 2 EQ is an adjunct. As discussed earlier, a Group 2 EQ does not exhibit an adjunctcondition effect, characteristic of an adjunct clause adjoined to a lexical projection. It follows
then that a Group 2 EQ is a VP-adjunct.
4. The Structure of Nominal EQs
4.1 DP and nP
This section demonstrates that Japanese nominal EQs have the following structure: the clausal
part (CP) is dominated by two nominal projections nP and DP.
(26)

[DP

Spec

[nP (Modifier) [nP [CP … ]

n

]]

D

]

As mentioned earlier, a nominal EQ is able to co-occur with prenominal modifiers such as
demonstratives and relative clauses.
(27)

Kyoo-notoday-GEN[ dooyattehowkaigi-demeeting-in
kakaku-oprice-ACC{ano/reino}[ maeni{that/aforementioned} before
osaeru ka]-ga
gidai-ni
control Q-NOM
agenda-on
205

hanasiatta ]discussed
nobotta.
was.put

Nasu, Norio et al.

‘That issue of how we control the price that we had discussed before was put on theagenda in today’s meeting.’
Furuya (2008) observes that the demonstrative is located in Spec-DP in a head-final language
like Japanese. The placement of such an element in Spec-DP accounts for the illegitimacy of
extraction from a referential/definite noun phrase. According to Furuya, a numeral quantifier
can either stay in the associated noun phrase or float out of it as in (28). However, floating isblocked when the associated noun phrase is definite, as illustrated by (29). The noun phrase
sono hannin ‘those criminals’ is definite, referring to the same individuals appearing in thepreceding context.
(28)(3-nin) Suzuki sensei-wa [gakusei
3-CLF Suzuki teacher-TOP student‘Prof. Suzuki scolded three students.’(3-nin) ]-o
3-CLF -ACC

sikatta.
scolded(Furuya 2008: 155)(29)

I heard that (the) three criminals ran away.
*3-ninisonogokeisatu-wa[sono hannin ti
3-CLF
later
police-TOP
those criminal‘Later, the police caught those three criminals.’ (intended)]-otukamaeta.
-ACC caught(Furuya 2008: 156)

The illegitimate floating in (29) is attributable to the unavailability of this position on theassumption that extraction out of a noun phrase takes place via Spec-DP.
A similar blocking effect is observed in the EQ construction. As illustrated by (30), theextraction of a null operator is blocked in the presence of a demonstrative, which indicates that
the EQ contains a DP layer.
(30)

[Opi

[Bill-ga [ (*sono/*reino)[Mary-ga ti yonda ka ]]-oBill-NOM
that / aforementioned Mary-NOM readQ -ACCkinisite-iru]
yorimo] harukani
ookunohon-oJohn-wa
yonda.
concerned-is than
much
more
book-ACC John-TOP
read‘John read much more books than Bill is concerned about that /aforementioned
whether Mary read that we discussed before.’ (lit.)

Let us now turn to discuss the presence of nP. We adopt Kornfilt and Whitman’s (2011)
Functional Nominalization Thesis (FNT), which states that “[n]ominal properties of anominalization are contributed by a nominal functional projection” (p. 1298). This means that
items associated with nominals such as possessives, demonstratives, and prenominal adjectives
target a constituent that has already been nominalized. Bearing this in mind, consider thefollowing example.
(31)

Kyoo-no kaigi-deano
zyuuyoo-{na/*ni}
today-GEN meeting-in
that
important-{ADJ/*ADV}[EQ dooyatte
kakaku-oosaeru ka ]-ga
gidai-ninobotta.
howprice-ACC control Q -NOM agenda-on was.put‘That important how we control the price was put on the agenda in today’s meeting.’(lit.)
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Nasu, Norio et al.

Since the modifier zyuuyoo- ‘important’ carries an adjectival affix rather than an adverbial one,it is merged with a nominalized constituent, according to the FNT. Notice that since it ispreceded by the demonstrative in Spec-DP, it merges with D′. We assume that the adjective ismerged with nP. It could be argued that it is merged with D′. However, this option isunavailable due to the obligatory adjectival modification in the English poss(essive)-ing gerund.
(32) a. John’s {*careful / carefully} slicing the cheeseb. [DP John’s [D′ D [VP {*careful/carefully} slicing the cheese ]]]c. [DP John’s [D′ careful [D′ D [VP slicing the cheese ]]]The poss-ing gerund has the structure (32b) (Abney 1987, among others). In this structure, D
is directly merged with VP, which tolerates only adverbial modification. If an adjective could
be merged with D′ as in (32c), the poss-ing gerund would incorrectly allow adjectival
modification. It follows that an adjective does not occur inside DP but is merged with a lower
nominal projection, nP.
4.2 Extensions: Nominative-Genitive Conversion
A nominal EQ behaves in parallel with a clause in one respect. Neither of them licenses
nominative-genitive conversion (NGC). In Japanese, subjects may be marked either in thenominative case or the genitive case in certain clauses, including relative clauses andnominalized complement clauses, as illustrated below.
(33) a. John-wa[hi-{ga/no}
atara-nai]heya-niJohn-TOP
sunlight-{NOM/GEN}shine-NEG
room-in‘John lived in a room that didn’t get sunlight.’
b. John-wa[Mary-{ga/no}
kuru{koto/no} ]-oJohn-TOP
Mary-{NOM/GEN}
come
NMLZ-ACC‘John knows that Mary will come.’

sundeita.
lived
sitteiru.
know

However, NGC is not possible in all types of clauses. For instance, a declarative clause headedby the complementizer to does not allow it (see (34a)). It is noteworthy that the genitive subject
is not possible in a nominal EQ either (see (34b)).
(34) a.

John-wa [sono heya-wa hi-{ga/*no}atara-naito]John-TOP theroom-TOP sunlight-{NOM/*GEN} shine-NEG COMP
‘John said that the room didn’t get sunlight.’
b. John-wa[Mary-{ga/*no}kuruka ]-gakininatta.
John-TOP
Mary-{NOM/*GEN} come Q -NOM was.curious‘John was curious whether Mary would come.’

itta.
said

Then the question is why the nominal EQ behaves in parallel with a non-nominal clause rather
than with a nominalized clause with respect to NGC.
Pertinent to our discussion is Complementizer Blocking Effect (CBE) discussed byHiraiwa (2005). It refers to the ban on NGC in the presence of an overt complementizer, as in(35b).
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(35) a.

[John-{ga/no}arawareru] kanoosei-wa
hikui.
John-{NOM/GEN}
show.uppossibility-TOP low‘The possibility that John will show up is low.’ (lit.)b. [John-{ga/*no}arawareru toiu ] kanoosei-wa
John-{NOM/*GEN} show.up
COMP
possibility-TOP‘The possibility that John will show up is low.’ (lit.)hikui.
low

The illegitimate NGC in (34b) is also attributable to the CBE. That is to say, given that EQ is
a full-fledged CP involving ForceP in the sense of Rizzi (1997), it projects ForceP, which inturn is nominalized as a result of the merger with n as illustrated below.
(36) … [nP [ForceP[FinP[TP Bill would come]Fin ] ka-Force] n] …

Under Hiraiwa’s analysis, NGC becomes possible when C that immediately takes TP assumes
a nominal feature. However, this is impossible in (36) because what is nominalized is ForceP,and hence FinP, which immediately takes TP, does not carry a nominal feature.
Clauses with NGC and those without it display the difference in the predicate form. The
predicate in the former is realized in the predicate-adnominal (P.-A.) form as in (37a, b),
whereas the one in the latter is realized in the conclusive form as in (37c, d).
(37) a.

[seiseki-{ga/no}
yuusyuu-{na/*da}gakusei
grade-{NOM/GEN} excellent-{is.P.-A./*is.CONCL}
student‘students with excellent grades’
b. John-wa[Mary-{ga/no}
yuusyuu-{na/*da}{no/koto}]-oJohn-TOP
Mary-{NOM/GEN} excellent-{is.P.-A./ *is.CONCL}NMLZ -ACC
sitteiru.
know‘John knows that Mary is excellent.’c. John-wa[ Mary-{ga/*no}yuusyuu-{*na/da}
to ] itta.
John-TOP
Mary-{NOM/*GEN} excellent-{*is.P.-A./is.CONCL} COMP said
‘John said that Mary was excellent.’d. John-wa [ dare-{ga/*no}yuusyuu-{*na/da}ka]-o sitteiru.
John-TOP
who-{NOM/*GEN} excellent-{*is.P.-A./is.CONCL} Q-ACC know
‘John knows who is excellent.’

In Hiraiwa’s (2005) model, NGC and the P.-A. form are correlated and reduced to the nominalfeature carried by the TP-selecting complementizer. Then, the illegitimacy of the P.-A. form in
the EQ in (37d) is also rooted in the absence of the nominal feature in Fin since the EQ isnominalized by the nominal functional head n instead of nominal feature assignment.
There is another influential approach to NGC called the D-licensing analysis. Miyagawa(2011) argues that NGC is not a simple case alternation phenomenon but that nominative andgenitive subjects are licensed in different structures. The nominative subject is licensed via
Agree with T that inherits φ-features from C as in (38a). The genitive subject is licensed by D
via Agree in the structure that lacks a CP layer, as illustrated in (38b).

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Nasu, Norio et al.

(38) a. [CP C
b. [DP D

[TP T
[TP T

[vP Nominative Subject [v′[vP Genitive Subject
[v′

…
…

]]]]
]]]] (order irrelevant)

Our analysis of nominal EQs is compatible with this approach as well. Since an EQ involves
C, the nominative subject is licensed. However, the licensing of the genitive subject by D is
impossible. On the assumption that D, as well as C, is a phase head, as soon as D is merged in
the structure (26), TP is spelled out, and the subject becomes inaccessible from D (due toChomsky’s 2000 Phrase Impenetrability Condition). Consequently, the genitive subject fails
to occur in an EQ. In summary, we are neutral to these two different views of NGC. Whicheverview may be employed, the absence of NGC in EQs can be successfully accounted for in our
analysis.
5. Conclusion
Japanese EQs are either clausal or nominal. Clausal EQs are either arguments or adjuncts.
Although clausal and nominal EQs look identical apart from case-marking, they have different
internal structures. The nominal type contains DP and nP layers on top of CP. Clause structure
is often discussed based on visible morphemes and constituents on the clausal periphery.
However, the size variation among seemingly identical EQs in Japanese argues against thisapproach and shows that what you see is not always what you get.

209

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Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumi

Light nouns and extraction from null clausal arguments
Shuki Otani1, Yuta Tatsumi2
1

Osaka University (otani.tog@gmail.com)

2

Meikai University (ytats0074@meikai.ac.jp)

1. Introduction: Overt extraction from null positions
It has been assumed that there are two types of anaphora in natural languages (Hankamer andSag 1976). The two types of anaphora have been termed surface anaphora and deep anaphora.
One of the differences between surface and deep anaphora is only the former has an internal
structure in syntax. According to Merchant (2013), one reliable test for surface anaphora is thepossibility of extraction. If extraction from a null position is possible, the internal structure of
the null position must be present in syntax. Let us consider the examples in (1).
(1) a. Which films1 did he refuse to see t1, and which films2 did he agree to see t2?
b.*Which films1 did he refuse to see t1, and which films2 did he agree Δ ?
(Δ = [to see t2])
(Merchant 2013: 538)(1a) shows that an overt wh-movement is possible from a VP-ellipsis site. VP-ellipsis is an
instance of surface anaphora; the elided site has its internal structure, as shown in (1a). An
overt wh-phrase can move from the elided VP. However, an overt wh-movement is impossible
from the null position in (1b). This position is analyzed as a deep anaphor, which lacks its
internal structure in syntax. Overt extraction of a wh-phrase is thus impossible in (1b).
Let us now consider overt extraction out of an embedded clause in Japanese. As shown in(2), an embedded clause can be phonologically null in Japanese.
(2) Taro-wa [CP Hanako-ga
hon-o
yonda to ] itta.
Taro-TOP Hanako-NOM book-ACC read C said
Lit. ‘Taro said that Hanako read a book. Ziro said Δ.’

Ziro-mo
Ziro-also[CP Δ ] itta.
said

It has been observed that overt extraction out of an elided embedded clause is impossible inJapanese (Saito 2007, Takita 2010, Kasai 2014, Sakamoto 2019). The relevant examples areprovided in (3).
(3)

Overt extraction out of a null embedded CPa. Hon-o1
Taro-wa [CP Ziro-ga
t1 yonda to ] omotta kedo.
book-ACC
Taro-TOP
Ziro-NOM
read
C thought but
Lit. ‘Although a book1, Taro thought that read t1.’

We are immensely grateful to Seiki Ayano, Satoshi Ito, Tommy Tsz-Ming Lee, Hiroaki Nagatomi, Mamoru Saito,
Kensuke Takita, and Hideharu Tanaka for insightful comments. We would also like to thank the audience at
GLOW in Asia XIII and the LCCC research group at Osaka University, as well as the following people: Yuto
Hirayama, Ryoichiro Kobayashi, Kenta Mizutani, Kazushige Moriyama, and Koji Sugisaki. All remaining errors
are of course our own. This research is partially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 21K20016 awarded
to the second author.
211

Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumib.

Ronbun-o2 Hanako-wa [CP Ziro-ga t2 yonda to ] omotta.
article-ACC Hanako-TOP
Ziro-NOM
read
C thought
Lit. ‘An article2, Hanako thought that Ziro read t2.’
c. *Ronbun-o2 Hanako-wa [CP Δ ] omotta.
article-ACC Hanako-TOP
thought
Lit. ‘An article2, Hanako thought Δ.’
The sentence in (3a) is the antecedent for the sentences in (3b) and (3c). An overt element canmove out of an embedded clause, as in (3a,b). However, when an embedded clause isphonetically null, an overt element cannot be extracted out of the null clause, as shown in (3c).
It has also been observed that an overt element can be extracted from a null embedded
clause in the Exceptional Case-Marking (ECM) construction (Tanaka 2008, Sakamoto 2017,2019). An example of the ECM construction is provided in (4).
(4)

Taro-ga [Hanako-(ga/o)Taro-NOM
Hanako-NOM/ACC‘Taro said that Hanako is a genius.’

tensaigeniusda
COPto ] itta.
C saidIn (4), the embedded subject, Hanako, can be marked by the accusative case particle of -o.
When an ECM clause is phonetically null, overt extraction from the null clause is not allowed,
as in (5c).
(5)

a.

Taro-wa
Ayako-o1
orokanimo [ t1tensaiTaro-TOP
Ayako-ACC stupidly
geniusLit. ‘Taro, Ayako1, stupidly said that t1 is a genius.’b. Ziro-wa
Kanako-o2 orokanimo [ t2tensai
Ziro-TOP Kanako-ACC
stupidly
geniusLit. ‘Ziro, Kanako 2, stupidly said that t2 is a genius.’c. *Ziro-wa Kanako-o2
orokanimo[ Δ ]Ziro-TOP Kanako-ACC
stupidly
Lit. ‘Ziro, Lanako2, stupidly said Δ.’

da
COP

da
COP

to ] itta.
C saidto ] itta.
C saiditta.
said(Sakamoto 2019: 112)

Under the phasal ellipsis approach adopted in this paper, the unacceptability of (5c) indicatesthat the null ECM clause is derived by LF-copying. Based on these data, Sakamoto (2017, 2019)concluded that Japanese null clausal arguments are created by LF-copying, but not by PFdeletion.
This paper shows that an overt element can be extracted from some types of nullnominalized clauses in Japanese. We argue that it is possible to extract an overt element fromcertain null nominalized clauses because they are derived by PF-deletion.
2. Overt extraction from null clausal arguments
As shown in the previous section, it has been observed that Japanese clausal arguments largely
disallow overt extraction. However, Takahashi (2020) reports that an overt element can beextracted from certain null clausal arguments. Let us consider the examples in (6).

212

Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumi(6)

a. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga [ Hanako-ga t1 detekita no]-o mokugekisita.
this building-from-TOP Taro-NOM Hanako-NOM
came.out LN-ACC witnessed‘From this building, Taro witnessed Hanako came out.’b. Ano Biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga [ Hanako-ga t2 detekita no]-o mokugekisita.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM Hanako-NOM
came.out LN-ACC witnessed
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro witnessed Hanako came out t2.’c. Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga [ Δ ] mokugekisita.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM
witnessed
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro witnessed Δ.’(Takahashi 2020: 67, slightly modified)(6a) is an antecedent sentence for (6b,c). As shown in (6b), the locative PP with the topic
marker -wa can be extracted out of the embedded clause, headed by the light noun, no.
Importantly, (6c) shows that the PP (ano biru-kara-wa ‘that building-from-TOP’) can also be
extracted from the null embedded clause, in contrast to the data that we have seen in theprevious section. Based on this example, Takahashi (2020) assumes that Japanese null clausal
arguments can be derived by PF-deletion.
We can recall that in (3c) and (5c), where an overt extraction from a null clausal argument
is disallowed, the extracted phrase is an NP. Given that the extracted phrase is a PP in (6), one
may consider that overt extraction out of a clausal argument might be possible when an
extracted phrase is a PP. However, this is not the case. Overt PPs cannot be extracted out of anull embedded clause headed by the complementizer to, as shown in (7c).
(7)

Extraction out of a (null) embedded CPa. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga [CP Hanako-ga t1 detekita to ] omotta.
this building-from-TOP
Taro-NOM Hanako-NOM
came.out C thought
Lit. ‘From this building1, Taro thought that Hanako came out t1.’
b. Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga [CP Hanako-ga t2 detekita to ] omotta.
that building-from-TOP
Ziro-NOM
Hanako-NOM
came.out C thought
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro thought that Hanako came out t2’
c. *Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga [CP Δ ] omotta.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM
thought
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro thought Δ.’(cf. (6))

The unacceptability of (7c) shows that the syntactic category of an extracted phrase is irrelevantto the possibility of an overt extraction out of null clausal arguments.
Takahashi (2020) also observes that when an extracted phrase is not followed by the focus
particle of -wa, the resulting sentence is unacceptable, as in (8c).
(8)
a. Kono biru-kara1 Taro-ga [ Hanako-ga t1 detekita no ]-o mokugekisita.
this building-from Taro-NOM Hanako-NOM
came.out LN-ACC witnessed
Lit. ‘From this building1, Taro witnessed Hanako came out t1.’
b. Ano biru-kara2
Ziro-ga [ Hanako-ga t2 detekita no]-omokugekisita.
that building-from Ziro-NOM Hanako-NOM
came.out LN-ACC witnessed
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro witnessed Hanako came out t2.’
c. *Ano biru-kara2 Ziro-ga [ Δ ] mokugekisita.
that building-from Ziro-NOM
witnessed
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro witnessed Δ.’ (Takahashi 2020: 67, slightly modified)213

Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumi

The contrast between (6c) and (8c) shows that null clausal arguments allow overt extraction
from them when an extracted phrase appears with -wa. In this connection, note that a phrase
followed by the focus particle of -mo can also undergo overt extraction from a null clausal
argument, as shown in (9c).
(9) Mo ‘also’
a. Kono biru-kara1 Taro-ga [ Hanako-ga t1 detekita no ]-omokugekisita.
this building-from Taro-NOM Hanako-NOM
came.out LN-ACC
witnessed
Lit. ‘From this building1, Taro witnessed Hanako came t1.’
b. Ano Biru-kara-mo2
Ziro-ga [ Hanako-ga t2 detekita no ]-o mokugekisita.
that building-from-also Ziro-NOM Hanako-NOM
came.out LN-ACC witnessed
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro witnessed Hanako came out t2.’c. Ano biru-kara-mo2
Ziro-ga[ Δ] mokugekisita.
that building-from-also Ziro-NOM
witnessed
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro also witnessed Δ.’
In (9b), the locative of PP with -mo is moved out of the embedded clause. The same PP can beextracted even when an embedded clause is phonologically null, as shown in (9c).
3. More data on extraction from null clausal arguments
In this section, we introduce additional data on overt extractions out of null clausal arguments.
First, we observe overt extraction from the clause headed by tokoro, ‘place’. As shown in (10a),the light noun of tokoro can combine with a clause.
(10) Tokoro-clausesa. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga [Hanako-ga t1 detekita] tokoro]-o mokugekisita.
this building-from-TOP Taro-NOM Hanako-NOM
came.out tokoro-ACC witnessed‘From this building, Taro witnessed Hanako came out.’b. Ano biru-kara-wa1
Ziro-ga [[Hanako-ga t1 detekita] tokoro ]-o mokugekisita.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM Hanako-NOM
came.out tokoro -ACC witnessed‘From that building, Ziro witnessed Hanako came out.’c. Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga[ Δ ] mokugekisita.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM
witnessed
Lit. ‘From that building, Ziro witnessed Δ.’(10a) is the antecedent for the sentences in (10b,c). In (10b), the PP (ano biru-kara-wa) is
extracted from the tokoro-clause. The same locative PP can be overtly moved out of a null
tokoro-clause, as shown in (10c). The acceptability of (10c) indicates that overt extraction froma null tokoro-clause is possible.
Moreover, overt extraction from a null clause headed by mune ‘content’ is also possible.
Let us consider the examples in (11).

214Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumi(11) Mune-clausesa. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga keisatu-ni [ Hanako-ga t1 detekita mune ]-othis building-from-TOP Taro-NOM police-DAT Hanako-NOM
came.out MUNE-ACC
tsutaeta.
told
Lit. ‘From this building1, Taro told a police officer that Hanako came out t1.’
b. Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga tantei-ni[ Hanako-ga t2 detekita mune ]-othat building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM detective-DAT Hanako-NOM
came.out MUNE-ACC
tsutaeta
told
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro told a detective that Hanako came out t2.’c. Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-gatantei-ni[ Δ ] tsutaeta.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM
detective-DAT
told
Lit ‘From that building2, Ziro told a detective Δ.’
The PP (ano biru-kara-wa) is extracted from a mune-clause in (11b) and its phonologicallynull counterpart, as in (11c). The null mune-clause allows overt extraction, similar to thetokoro-clause.
Note further that overt extraction from a null clause headed by koto, ‘thing’, is also possible.
The relevant examples are provided in (12).
(12) Koto-clausesa. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga keisatu-ni [ Hanako-ga t1 detekita koto ]-o tsutaeta.
this building-from-TOP Taro-NOM police-DAT Hanako-NOM came.out koto-ACC told
Lit ‘From this building1, Taro told a police officer the event where Hanako came out t1.’
b. Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga tantei-ni[ Hanako-ga t2 detekita koto]-o tsutaeta
that building-from- TOP Ziro-NOM detective-DAT Hanako- NOM came.out koto-ACC told
Lit ‘From that building2, Ziro told a detective the event where Hanako came out t2.’c. Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-gatantei-ni[Δ]tsutaeta.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM detective-DAT
told
Lit ‘From that building, Ziro told a detective Δ.’
As shown in (12b), a PP followed by the focus particle -wa can move from a koto-clause.
Importantly, overt extraction of the same PP is possible even when the koto-clause is elided,
as in (12c).
We also find that an overt element cannot move out of a clause headed by the content noun,uwasa, ‘rumor’; this is illustrated in (13).
(13)

Clauses headed by the content noun uwasa ‘rumor’a. Kono biru-kara-wa1 Taro-ga [NP [CP Hanako-ga. t1 detekita toiu ] uwasa ]-o kiita.
this building-from-TOP Taro-NOM Hanako- NOM
came.out C.say rumor-ACC heard
Lit ‘From this building1, Taro heard the rumor that Hanako came out t1.’
b. Ano biru-kara-wa1
Ziro-ga [NP [CP Hanako-ga t1 detekita toiu ] uwasa]-o kiita.
that building-from-TOP Ziro- NOM
Hanako- NOM came.out C.say rumor-ACC heard
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro heard the rumor that Hanako came out t2.’215

Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumic. *Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga [NP Δ
that building-from- TOP
Ziro-NOM
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro heard Δ.’] kiita.
heard

In (13), an embedded CP containing the complementizer toiu, ‘say.C’, combines with thecontent noun uwasa, ‘rumor'. As shown in (13c), when the clause headed by the content NP is
phonologically null, the locative PP (ano biru-kara-wa) cannot move out of the null clause.
The data in (10), (11) and (12) show that the possibility of overt movement from a null clausal
argument varies according to the type of syntactic category of the clausal argument from which
the overt element moves. Our observation is summarized in Table 1. What is important here isthat only Type 3 (CP + Light Nouns) allows for overt extraction from null arguments. In thenext section, we will explain why Type 3 permits overt extraction from null nominalizedclauses.

ExamplesOvert Extraction+ Ellipsis

Type 1: Bare CP(7)

Type 2: CP + NP
(13)

Type 3: CP + Light Nouns(6) (9) (10) (11) (12)

BAD

BAD

OK

Table 1: Summary of the data so far
One may consider that the topicalized phrase could be base-generated in the sentence initial
position, rather than moved out of a null clausal argument. However, there is evidence thatthese phrases do undergo overt movement out of a null clausal argument. Let us consider theexamples in (14). Here, the preposed phrase is followed by the postposition -he, ‘to’, insteadof -kara, ‘from’, which we used in previous data.
(14) a. Kono biru-he-wa1
Taro-ga [ Hanako-ga
t1 haitteiku
this building-to-TOP Taro-NOM Hanako-NOM
enteredLit. ‘To this building1, Taro witnessed Hanako entered t1.’
b. Ano biru-he-wa2
Ziro-ga [ Hanako-ga
t2 haitteiku
that building-to- TOP Ziro-NOM Hanako-NOM
enteredLit. ‘To that building, Ziro witnessed Hanako entered.’c. Ano biru-he-wa2
Ziro-ga [ Δ ] mokugekisita.
that building-to- TOP
Ziro-NOM
witnessed
Lit. ‘To that building2, Ziro witnessed Δ.’

LN -ACCno ]-omokugekisita.
witnessedno ]-oLN -ACC

mokugekisita.
witnessed(14a) is the antecedent to (14b,c). What is important here is that the PP (ano biru-he-wa, ‘thatbuilding-to-TOP’) cannot function as an adjunct of the matrix verb mokukegiskita, ‘witnessed’,as in (15).
(15) *Ano biru-he-wa
Ziro-gathat building-to-TOP
Ziro-NOM
Lit. ‘To that building, Ziro witnessed.’

mokugekisita.
witnessed

The unacceptability of (15) shows that the topicalized phrase (ano biru-he-wa) in (14c) cannot
be an adjunct of the matrix verb. This, in turn, indicates that the topicalized phrase in (14c)216

Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumi

should be base-generated in the embedded clause, and then moved to the sentence initial
position. The same pattern should also hold for the topicalized phrases in the previous examples.
There is another piece of supporting evidence that the data discussed in the present paper
involve extraction out of a null embedded clause. The noun mune, ‘content’, can be used as ananaphoric noun (e.g., sono mune, ‘that content’ and onazi mune, ‘the same content’), without
combining with an overt clause. As shown in (16b,c), when mune is used as a noun, a locative
PP cannot appear in the sentence initial position, as opposed to the examples in (11).
(16) a. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga keisatsu-ni [ Hanako-ga t1 detekita
mune ]-othis building-from-TOP Taro-NOM police-DAT Hanako- NOM
came.out MUNE-ACC
tsutaeta.
told
Lit ‘From this building1, Taro told a police officer the event where Hanako came out t1.’
b. *Ano biru-kara-wa
Ziro-ga tantei-ni[ sono mune ]-otsutaeta.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM detective-DAT its mune-ACC told
Lit ‘From that building, Ziro told a detective its event.’c. *Ano biru-kara-wa
Ziro-ga tantei-ni[ onazimune]-o tsutaeta.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM detective-DAT the.same mune-ACC told
Lit ‘From that building, Ziro told a detective the same event.’(p.c. Yuto Hirayama)
The contrast between (11) and (16b, c) indicates that the topicalized locative phrases in (11)are not base-generated in the sentence initial position. If a topicalized phrase could appear in
the sentence initial position without involving movement, (16b, c) should also be acceptable;
this would be contrary to the fact. Based on these examples, we assume that in the extraction
data discussed thus far (especially (10), (11), and (12)), the topicalized phrases are extracted
out of a null clausal argument by movement, rather than base-generation.
4. Analysis
4.1 Overt extraction and ellipsis
In the previous section, we have seen that an overt element can be extracted from some nullclausal arguments. However, we have also observed that null CP arguments (Type 1 in Table
1) and null clauses with a content noun (Type 2 in Table 1) disallow for overt extraction. To
explain the contrasts in the possibility of overt extraction, we propose that null clausal
arguments that allow for overt extraction are derived by PF-deletion, whereas null clausal
arguments that disallow for overt extraction are created via LF-copying.
Bošković (2014) claims that ellipsis can target either a phase or phrasal complement. In(17), the phase head (Ph) takes the YP as its complement (we use the X-bar notation in (18) for
expository purposes only).
(17)

In (17), the entire phase (i.e., PhP) and phasal complement (i.e., YP) can be a target of the217

Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumi

ellipsis according to Bošković (2014). Following Bošković’s analysis, Sakamoto (2019)
proposes the generalization provided in (18).
(18) Phasal ellipsis (e.g., argument ellipsis) is implemented by LF copying, while phasal complement
ellipsis (e.g., sluicing) is implemented by PF deletion.
(Sakamoto 2019:126)
Under Bošković’s (2014) phase theory, we can make sense of the generalization in (18). Phases
are visible for syntactic operations like LF-copying. It seems reasonable to assume that whena phase undergoes ellipsis, the relevant ellipsis operation is implemented by LF-copying. On
the other hand, a phasal complement is assumed to be a target of Spell-Out, which transfers
information in narrow syntax to the PF-interface (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2001). It is thus not
surprising that phasal complements are targeted by a PF-related ellipsis, such as PF-deletion.
PF-deletion can be regarded as a phonological deletion of a spell-out domain (i.e., a phasal
complement): if a spelled-out constituent is not pronounced, the constituent is considered to beelided by PF-deletion.1
Following the phase-based theory of ellipsis, we argue that the data summarized in Table
1 can be explained if we assume that the clausal arguments discussed thus far have different
structures. First, let us consider overt extraction out of null CP arguments. The relevant
examples are repeated here as (19).
(19) Extraction out of a (null) embedded CPa. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga [CP Hanako-ga t1 detekita to ] omotta.
this building-from-TOP Taro-NOM Hanako-NOM
came.out C thought
Lit. ‘From this building1, Taro thought that Hanako would came out t1.’
b. Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga [CP Hanako-ga t2 detekita to ] omotta.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM
Hanako-NOM
came.out C thought
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro thought that Hanako would came out t2.’
c. *Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga[CP Δ ] omotta.
that building-from-TOP Ziro-NOM
thought
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro thought Δ.’
Following standard assumptions, we assume that bare CP arguments have the structure in (20).
(20)

Type 1: Bare CP arguments[VP [CP …YP-from … C ] V ](CP-phase, LF-copying)

Under the phase-based theory of ellipsis, a null clausal argument is derived by LF-copying of
the CP-phase (i.e., the shaded part in (20)). An overt element cannot be extracted out of thenull CP argument that is generated by LF-copying because the null clausal argument is copied
onto the structure at LF after overt extraction occurs. Thus, the sentence in (19c) is
unacceptable.
Next, let us consider clauses with the content noun of uwasa, ‘rumor’. The relevant
examples are repeated here as (21).
In the current paper, we assume that only phasal complements can undergo Spell-Out, and hence, be a target of
PF-deletion. For different assumptions regarding the size of the Spell-Out domain, see Bošković (2016), Saito(2017), and the references therein.
1218

Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumi(21) Clauses headed by the content noun uwasa ‘rumor’a. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga [NP [CP Hanako-ga. t1 detekita toiu ] uwasa ]-o kiita.
this building-from-TOP Taro-NOM
Hanako- NOM
came.out C.say rumor-ACC heard
Lit ‘From this building1, Taro heard the rumor that Hanako came out t1.’
b. Ano biru-kara-wa1
Ziro-ga [NP [CP Hanako-ga t1 detekita toiu ] uwasa]-o kiita.
that building-from-TOP Ziro- NOM Hanako- NOM
came.out C.say rumor-ACC heard
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro heard the rumor that Hanako came out t2.’
c. *Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-ga [NP Δ ] kiita.
that building-from- TOP Ziro-NOM
heard
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro heard Δ.’
Clauses with a content noun have been analyzed as involving a complementation structure, asin (22a) (Kuno 1973, Nakau 1973), or an adjunction structure, as in (22b).2(22) Type 2: CP + NP
a. CP + NP (Complementation Structure)[VP [NP [CP …YP-from … toiuC ] [N uwasa ] ] V ]b. CP + NP (Adjunction Structure)[VP [NP [CP …YP-from … toiuC ] [NP uwasa ] ] V ](NP-phase, LF-copying)(NP-phase, LF-copying)

Following Bošković (2014), we assume that the highest projection in each nominal domain orclausal domain is regarded as a phase. This means that the topmost NP is a phase in (22a,b).
To derive the elided part of the sentence in (21c), the whole NP must be a target of the relevant
ellipsis operation. Under the current phrase-based analysis of ellipsis, the ellipsis of the NP(i.e., a phase) is implemented by LF-copying, rather than PF-deletion. It is then predicted that
overt extraction out of a null content clause is not allowed.
Thus far, we have focused on null clausal arguments that disallow for overt extraction. As
discussed in Section 2, we found that clausal arguments headed by a light noun allow for overt
extraction. We propose that clausal arguments with a light noun contain the structure providedin (23).
(23) Type 3: CP + Light Nouns[VP [nP [√P [CP/IP …YP-from … ] √LN ] n ] V ](the complement of the n phase, PF-deletion)

Building on Kratzer (2006) and Moulton (2014), we assume that some clause-taking nominals
can combine with a clausal argument before they are nominalized by the nominalizer head, n.
In (23), light nouns such as no, tokoro, mune, and koto are analyzed as roots that take a clausal
argument. The clause-taking root is then nominalized by the nominalizer head, n. Following
Arad (2003), we assume that the nominalizer n is a phase head. In (23), the clause-taking lightnoun occurs in the complement of the nominalizer (i.e., the phase head). The phasal
complement can thus be a target of PF-deletion under the phase-theory of ellipsis. Overt
elements can be extracted out of the elided part in (23) before PF-deletion takes place. It istherefore predicted that the examples in (6), (9), (10), (11), and (12) are all acceptable.
From this connection, it is worth noting that the possibility of overt extraction does not
In this paper, we assume that toiu is a complementizer that arises from the complementizer to and the verb iu,‘say’, via grammaticalization. See Saito (2021) for a detailed analysis into the relevant grammaticalization process.
2219

Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumi

depend on the size of a target null clause. As shown in (24a), the mune-clause can include theovert complementizer toiu, ‘C.say’. Importantly, the clausal argument headed by the light noun,
mune, still allows for overt extraction, despite the presence of the overt complementizer, as in(24b).
(24) a. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga keisatsu-ni [nP [CP Hanako-ga. t1 detekita toiu ]this building-from- TOP Taro-NOM police-to
Hanako- NOM
came.out C.say
mune ]-otsutaeta.
LN.content- ACC told
Lit. ‘From this building1, Taro told a police office that Hanako came out t1.’
b. Ano biru-kara-wa2
Ziro-gatantei-ni[Δ]tsutaeta.
that building-from- TOP Ziro- NOM detective-to
told
Lit. ‘From that building2, Ziro told a detective Δ.’(cf. (11))
We can explain the acceptability of (24b) without any additional stipulations. There is an
ongoing debate regarding the size of prenominal clauses (Murasugi 1991, 2000, Miyamoto
2010, a.o.). Our present analysis is not affected by this debate. The presence of thecomplementizer, toiu in (24), may indicate that the clausal argument is a CP. However, ouranalysis still predicts that the null mune-clause allows overt extraction if the elided clausecombines with the light noun, mune, before the nominalizer head is introduced into thestructure.
4.2 Internally-Headed Relative Clauses
Thus far, we have argued that clauses headed by a light noun can allow for overt extraction
because these clausal arguments occur in the complement of the phase head (i.e., thenominalizer n). In this respect, it should be noted that the complementation structure given in(23) is available only with light nouns, such as no, tokoro, mune, and koto. It is also important
to note that some light nouns can appear in structures other than the one in (23). For example,
the light no and tokoro can function as the head noun of the so-called Internally-Headed
Relative Clauses (IHRCs), as shown in (25a, b).
(25) a. Taro-ga [ [ doroboo-ga kono biru-kara
detekita ] no]-otsukamaeta.
Taro-NOM thief-NOM this building-from came.out LNthing-ACC caught‘Taro caught a thief that came out from this building.’(IHRC)
b. Taro-ga [ [ doroboo-ga kono biru-kara
detekita ] tokoro]-otsukamaeta.
Taro-NOM thief-NOM this building-from came.out LNplace-ACC caught‘Taro caught a thief that came out from this building.’(IHRC)
c. Taro-ga [[ kono biru-kara
detekita ] doroboo]-o tsukamaeta.
Taro-NOM this building-from came.out thief-ACC
caught‘Taro caught a thief that came out from this building.’(Relative Clause)
The clausal arguments in (25a, b) have a meaning that is similar to the one expressed by thetypical relative clause in (25c). The crucial difference between IHRC and typical relative
clauses is that the head noun (i.e. doroboo ‘thief’) remains in the clause-internal position in theformer case. Importantly, when the light noun no and tokoro appear in IHRCs, the resulting
clausal arguments do not allow for overt extraction, as shown in (26) and (27).
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Otani, Shuki & Yuta Tatsumi(26) a. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga [ doroboo-ga t1 detekita
this building-from-TOP Taro-NOM thief-nom
came.out
Lit. ‘From this building1, Taro caught a thief that came out t1.’
b. *Ano biru-kara-wa
Ziro-ga [ Δ ] tsukamaeta.
that building-from- TOP Ziro-nom
caughtLit. ‘From that building, Ziro caught Δ.’no]-o
LN-ACCtsukamaeta.
caught(cf. (6))(27) a. Kono biru-kara-wa1
Taro-ga [ doroboo-ga t1 detekita tokoro]-otsukamaeta.
this building-from- TOP Taro-NOM thief-nom
came.out LN.place-ACC caught
Lit. ‘From this building1, Taro caught a thief that came out t1.’
b. *Ano biru-kara-wa
Ziro-ga [ Δ ] tsukamaeta.
that building-from- TOP Ziro- NOM
caughtLit. ‘From that building, Ziro caught Δ.’
The unacceptability of (26b) and (27b) show that the locative PP (ano biru-kara-wa, ‘thatbuilding-from-top’) cannot be extracted out of the null IHRCs.
Since the IHRCs in (26) and (27) are headed by the light noun no and tokoro, one may
consider that these examples may be problematic for our proposed analysis. However, ourcurrent analysis can capture the unacceptability of (26b) and (27b). Japanese IHRCs havereceived much attention in the literature (Kuroda (1974, 1992, 1999), Uchibori (1991), Mihara(1994) and Hoshi (1995), Shimoyama (1999), Watanabe (2004) a.o.). Aside from these details,
the previous studies can be classified into two approaches: one is the external-head analysis
given in (28a) and the other is the nominalization analysis represented in (28b).
(28) a. [VP [NP [ ... Head ... YP-from ... {noNML / tokoroNML} ] [NP [e] ] ] V ]b. [VP [NP ... Head ... YP-from ... {noNML / tokoroNML}] V ](LF-copying)(LF-copying)

It is important to note that in both analyses represented in (28), no and tokoro are analyzed asa nominalizer head. It has been independently observed that certain nominalizers result fromlight nouns due to grammaticalization (see Jhang 1994 for Korean kes, and Simpson 2008 fora similar grammaticalization process in Burmese). Based on this, we assume that when no andtokoro appear in IHRCs, they function as a nominalizer head, rather than light nouns.
In (28a), the clause combines with a phonologically null head (i.e., [e]). In this structure,a null clausal argument must be derived by LF-copying under the phase-based analysis ofellipsis. This is because both the nominalized clause and top-most clause-taking NP in (28a)are regarded as a phase under the current assumption (recall that we assume, following
Bošković (2014), that the highest projection in each nominal domain or a clausal domain isregarded as a phase). Similarly, the ellipsis of the nominalized clause in (28b) should be
implemented by LF-copying because the target constituent is a phase here, too. The null IHRCs
in (26b) and (27b) must be derived by LF-copying, and hence disallow overt extraction, as in
the examples of (7) and (13).
5. Summary
In this paper, we elaborated on Takahashi’s (2020) observation about overt extraction out ofnull clausal arguments, showing that clausal arguments headed by a light noun generally allow
for overt extraction. We proposed that light nouns such as no, koto, tokoro, and mune combine
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with a clausal element before the nominalizer head, n, is introduced into the derivation. The
proposed analysis can explain the patterns of overt extraction out of null clausal arguments intandem with the phase-based analysis of ellipsis, which was proposed by Bošković (2014) andSakamoto (2019).

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Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa

Deriving Wordhood Without Word: Wh-Compound Questions inJapanese and Renumeration
Yosuke Sato, Hisako Ikawa
Tsuda University, Rissho University

1. Introduction
One of the central issues that have been vigorously debated in the literature on the syntaxmorphology interface is how words and their formation rules relate to derivational rules
responsible for larger objects such as phrases and sentences in the syntax. 1 There are two
prominent positions on this issue within the generative framework. One is the so-called
Lexicalist Hypothesis (hereafter, LH) (Chomsky 1970; Di Sciullo and Williams 1987;
Anderson 1992; Bresnan and Mchombo 1995, among many others). This hypothesis holds thatwords are formed in the Lexicon to serve as unanalyzable terminal elements for the purposesof syntax. This position thus gives rise to the so-called Lexical Integrity Principle, namely, thatsyntax cannot have access to the internal structure or derivational history of words, which enter
syntax as atomic operands. The competing approach to the syntax-morphology interface
question stated above is upheld by the Distributed Morphology (hereafter, DM) (Halle andMarantz 1993; Marantz 1997; Harley and Noyer 1999; Embick and Noyer 2007; see also theso-called Nanosyntactic approach to word formation, e.g., Taraldsen 2019). The DM approach
hypothesizes that all complex objects, including ‘words’, are assembled through the samegenerative system in the syntax so principles composing ‘words’ are identical to thosecomposing larger objects like phrases and sentences. Accordingly, the DM proposes that there
is no principled distinction to be drawn between “word” and phrase; it is not only superfluous
but also undefinable since the theory postulates no dedicated module for word formation suchas the Lexicon.
Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the syntactic andmorphological structures of wh-compound questions in Japanese (Kageyama 1993; Harada
2014; Kimura and Narita 2016, 2017, 2021) to adjudicate between the two competing
approaches to the syntax-morphology interface regarding the notion of word and the locus ofword formation in the grammatical architecture. We will show that this type of question createsan ordering paradox for any version of the lexicalist theory and that it can be resolved under
the alternative DM-based theory dispensing with the pre-syntactic Lexicon. In so doing, we
will develop a purely syntactic analysis of wh-compound questions which capitalizes on the
proposal that certain sub-chunks of syntactic derivations can be spelled-out early andrenumerated into the current syntactic workspace as a derived terminal item (Uriagereka 1999;
Johnson 2004; Sato 2010; Harley 2011).
This paper is organized as follows. We will start in section 2 by providing three pieces ofevidence supporting the word status of wh-compounds in Japanese: sequential voicing, the1

We thank Hee-Don Ahn, Mike Barrie, Andy Barss, Andrew Carnie, Anna Maria Di Sciullo, Yoshi Dobashi, Takuya
Goro, Heidi Harley, Simin Karimi, Hiroko Kimura, Richard Larson, Seunghun Lee, Tommy Tsz-Ming Lee, Akiko
Nagano, Taichi Nakamura, Hiroki Narita, Hiro Oda, Yoshiki Ogawa, Satoshi Oku, Hajime Ono, Myung Kwan Park,
Jeff Punske, Ken Takita, Juan Uriagereka, Martina Wiltschko and Dwi Hesti Yuliani for comments and discussions.
All errors are our own. The project reported here is supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 19K00560 (Yosuke
Sato).
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Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa

Compound Accent Rule and lexical integrity effects. This is followed by two types ofarguments – partial fragment answers to wh-compound questions and islands/intervention
effects/additional wh-effects – demonstrating that syntax has access to the internal structure of
wh-compounds. These two arguments lead us to conclude that the very existence of whcompound questions, with various properties transcending the syntax-lexicon border, poses anordering paradox for any analysis couched within the lexicalist model. In section 3, we willdevelop our analysis of this type of question modeled after a DM-based analysis of phrasal
compounds proposed by Sato (2010) and Harley (2011). We will show how it derives syntactic
sensitivity of wh-compound questions through regular combinatorial procedures in thesyntactic derivation while at the same time deriving their lexical integrity effects through earlyspell-out and renumeration. Section 4 is the conclusion.
2. Wh-Compound Questions as an Ordering Paradox for the Lexicalist Hypothesis
Wh-compound questions in Japanese are illustrated in (1A). 2(1) Q: Kimi-wa
kinoo
nani-gayu-oyou-TOPyesterday what-porridge-ACC‘What-porridge did you eat yesterday?’
A: Tamago-gayu desu.
egg-porridge
COP‘(It was) an egg porridge.’tabeta-no?
ate-Q

In (1Q), nani-gayu ‘what-porridge’ consists of the wh-word nani ‘what’ and the head noun
kayu ‘porridge’. Note that this expression signals a genuine wh-question, for it must be
answered with a particular value to the wh-word such as tamago-gayu ‘egg-porridge’.
Examples in (2Q) and (3Q) are two further examples of wh-compound questions in Japanese.3
Note that the example in (3Q) instantiates a multiple wh-question employing the wh-compound
question strategy.
(2) Q: Omae-wa nani-iri-onigiri-ga
suki-nan?
you-TOP
what-containing-rice.ball-NOM
like-Q‘Lit. You like what-containing rice balls?’
A: Zibun-wa suziko-iri-onigiri-ga
suki-ssu-ne.
self-TOPsalted.salmon.roe-containing-rice.ball-NOM like-POL-SFP‘Lit. I like salted salmon roe-containing rice balls.’(3) Q: Oto-tyan-tesa
Tsudajuku-daigaku nani-gakubu
nani-gakka
Oto-TIT-TOP
Tsuda-University
what-faculty
what-department
dare-zemi-kiboo-nan-da-kke?
who-seminar-wishing-Q-COP-SFP‘Lit. Oto, you wish to get enrolled for whose-seminar of what-department from whatfaculty at Tsuda University?’

2

The glosses in this paper follow the Leipzig Glossing Rules. Below is the list of additional abbreviations usedin the data section of the paper: LINK, linker; POL, politeness marker; SFP, sentence-final particle; TIT, title.
3
See Namiki (2003) for various arguments for the compound status of X-iri Y expressions.
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Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa

A: Gakugei-gakubu eigoeibun-gakka
Yosuke-zemi-da-yo.
arts-faculty
English.language.and.literature-department Yosuke-seminar-COP-SFP‘Lit. It is Yosuke-seminar of the Department of English Language and Literature of theFaculty of Arts (at Tsuda University).’
Below is the list of possible combinations of wh-words, presented by Harada (2014), which
form input for wh-compounds in Japanese, together with some illustrative examples in eachcase.
(4) a.
b.
c.

nani ‘what’ → nani-nabe ‘what-hot.pot’, nani-kankei ‘what-relation’dare ‘who’ → dare-toku ‘who-benefit’, dare-mati ‘who-waiting’doko ‘where’→ doko-zyoohoo ‘where-information’, doko-keeyu ‘where-through’(Harada 2014:25)

2.1 Three Pieces of Evidence for the Word Status of Wh-Compound Questions inJapanese
There are three pieces of evidence showing that the wh-expressions in (1−3) form compounds.
First, it is well-known that in Japanese, sequential voicing, or rendaku, voices the initial
obstruent of the second member of a compound. This morphophonological process is illustrated
in (5a, b).
(5) a.
b.

ame‘rain’
neko
‘cat’

+
+

kasa
‘umbrella’sita‘tongue’→ amagasa‘umbrella’→ nekozita‘sensitive tongue’(Kubozono 1995:58)

In (5a), the initial consonant of the noun kasa ‘umbrella’, [k], changes to its voiced counterpart,[g], when the noun is compounded with another noun ame ‘rain’ to yield amagasa ‘umbrella’.
The same process accounts for the change from [s] to [z] in nekozita ‘sensitive tongue’ in (5b),which results from the compounding of two independent nouns, neko ‘cat’ and sita ‘tongue’.
Importantly for our present purposes, what we have thus far dubbed wh-compounds may
undergo sequential voicing, as shown in (6a, b). Here, the initial consonant of the second nouns(i.e., karami ‘related’ and kayu ‘porridge’), [k], changes to its voiced counterpart, [g], when
they are compounded with wh-words (i.e., doko ‘where’ and nani ‘what’, respectively).
(6) a.
b.

doko+‘where’nani+‘what’

karami‘related’kayu‘porridge’→ dokogarami‘related to where’→ nanigayu‘what-porridge’((6a) from Harada 2014:27)

Second, wh-compounds are subject to the same accent rule as other bona fide compounds
in Japanese. Kubozono (1995) observes that unlike phrases, compounds are subject to theCompound Accent Rule defined in (7).44This is our English translation of the Compound Accent Rule originally defined in Japanese by Kubozono.
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Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa(7) The Compound Accent Rule (Kubozono 1995:58)
The Compound Accent Rule destroys the lexical accent structures of the constituent parts ofa compound and integrates the two accentual phrases into a single accent phrase.
Let us see how this rule works, using (8a, b) as illustrative examples.
(8) a.
b.

sararì
iman-no+‘office.worker-GEN’sararì
iman+‘office.worker’sì
ntoo → sararì
iman-nosì
ntoo(phrasal accent)‘new.party’ ‘new party for office workers’sìntoo → sarariimansì
ntoo(compound accent)‘new.party’ ‘office workers’ new party’(Kubozono 1995:59)

In (8a), we have the nominal phrase sarariiman-no sintoo ‘new party for office workers’, whereits phrasehood is diagnosed by the presence of the genitive marker no. The nominal phrase has
phrasal accent in the sense that the lexical accent nucleuses of the two input nouns are retainedin the phrase. In (8b), we have instead sarariimansintoo ‘office workers’ new party’ without
the genitive marker. This expression exhibits compound accent in the sense that it has only one
accent nucleus even though the input noun phrases themselves are each associated with anindependent lexical accent, suggestive of the application of the Compound Accent Rule in (7).
With the forgoing accentual difference in mind, consider now examples in (9a, b).
(9) a.
b.

dòko-kara-no + zyòohoo →‘where-from-GEN’ ‘information’dòko+ zyòohoo →‘where’‘information’dòko-kara-nozyòohoo (phrasal accent)where-from-GEN information
dokoozyòohoo
(compound accent)‘where-information’(9a) illustrates the phrasal accent pattern of the phrase dòko-kara-no zyòohoo ‘informationfrom where’, which truthfully retains two original accent nucleuses from the input noun phrases
dòko-kara-no ‘where-from-GEN’ and zyòohoo ‘information’. This phrasal accent pattern is tobe contrasted with the compound accent pattern exhibited by dòkoozyoohoo ‘whereinformation’, which behaves on a par with (8b), not with (8a), with respect to the accent rule:
it only has one accent nucleus. This contrast, therefore, lends further support to our position
that what we have deemed wh-compounds thus far indeed constituent compounds (and hence
word-level units).
Finally, what we have termed wh-compounds so far exhibit so-called lexical integrity
effects. One manifestation of the lexical integrity effects is that compounds do not accept
modification into any component part thereof, unlike phrases. To illustrate, consider examples
in (10a, b).
(10) a.
b.

aozyasin (compound)→ * hanbun
aozyasin‘blueprint’‘half’
blueprint’aoi+ syasin (phrase) →hanbun aoi
blue
photo
‘half’
blue‘a half blueprint’syasinphoto‘a half blue photo’

In (10a), we have the compound aozyasin ‘blueprint’ which consists of aoi ‘blue’ and syasin‘photo’; its compoundhood is confirmed by the application of sequential voicing, which
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Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawachanges [s] to [z]. The ungrammaticality of *hanbun aozyasin ‘a half blueprint’ shows that
hanbun 'half’ cannot modify the adjectival member of the compound. This effect is notobserved with phrases, however, as shown by the grammaticality of hanbun aoi syasin ‘a half
blue photo’ in (10b), where the same adverb can modify part of the noun phrase. This is thus
one manifestation of the lexical integrity effect, namely, that compounds are impenetrable byany syntactic operations such as phrase-level modification. Keeping this effect in mind, theungrammaticality of (11a−c) shows that wh-compounds such as dare-toku ‘who-benefit’, naninabe ‘what-hot.pot’ and doko-zyoohoo ‘where-information’ indeed exhibit lexical integrity, for
no word may intervene between the first and second members of the relevant wh-compounds.5(11) a.

dare-(*tyoo)-toku
who-exceedingly-benefit‘intended: benefit-who-exceedingly’
c. nani-(*oo)-nabe
what-big-hot.pot‘intended: what-big.hotpot’c. doko-(*ura)-zyoohoo
where-secret-information‘intended: what-secret.information’(Harada 2014:26)

It is clear from the above that the wh-N expressions in the examples thus far constitute a
subspecies of genuine compounds in Japanese and hence a word within the lexicalist theory of
the syntax-morphology interface, according to which compounds are formed in the presyntactic lexicon. In the next subsection, however, we will introduce data pointing to the
opposite conclusion that wh-compounds allow syntactic operations to peek into their internal
structure.
2.2 Three Pieces of Evidence for Syntactic Access to the Internal Structure of WhCompounds
We will now provide data showing that the internal structure of wh-compounds is actuallyaccessible to syntactic processes and conditions, contrary to the conclusion reached in section
2.1. First, direct evidence for syntactic access to the internal structure of a wh-compound isavailable from Kimura and Narita’s (2016, 2017, 2021) observation. Kimura and Narita
observe that a wh-compound yields a regular wh-interpretation for its wh-constituent part alone
embedded within. This observation is evidenced by the availability of partial answers to suchcompound questions as illustrated in (12A) and (13A).
(12) Q: Keisatu-wa
nani-gorosi-no
hannin-otukamaeta-no?
police-TOP
what-slaughter-LINK
culprit-ACC
caught-Q‘lit. [The [what-slaughter] culprit] did the police catch?’
A: Noraneko (da/desu).
stray.cat
COP/COP-POL‘Stray cat(s)’(Kimura and Narita 2017:142)

5

We will come back to a more in-depth examination of the unacceptability status of (11a−c) in section 3.2.
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Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa(13) Q: Kimi-wa
nani-nabe-okinoo
you-TOP
what-hot.pot-ACC
yesterday‘lit. You ate [what-hot.pot] yesterday?’
A: Kimuti-(nabe) da-yo.
Kimchi-hot.pot COP-SFP‘It was Kimchi hotpot (that I ate yesterday).’tabeta-no?
ate-Q

According to Kimura and Narita (2017), the fragment answer in (12A) is derived through insitu scattered non-constituent deletion, according to which everything undergoes deletion
except for the focused constituent staying in its thematic position, as schematically depicted in(14).
(14) [Keisatu-wa [[[N1 NORANEKO]-[N2 gorosi]-no hannin]-otukamaeta] no] da/desu].
police-TOP
stray.cat-slaughter-LINK
culprit-ACC caught-Q COMP COP/COP-POL‘Lit. It is that the police caught the [stray cat-slaughter culprit].’ (Kimura and Narita 2017:148)
To the extent that Kimura and Narita’s analysis is tenable, the grammaticality of the partial
answer pattern shows that whatever syntactic process is responsible for a wh-question construal
has access to the internal structure of wh-compounds so that it may picks its internal wh-word.
(13A) illustrates the same point. The wh-compound in the set-up question in (13Q) is naninabe ‘what-hot.pot’, but one may answer the question by giving a value to the wh-constituent
alone in addition to repeating the wh-part plus the head noun, as indicated in (13A). This finding
further supports our conclusion that wh-compounds are penetrable by syntactic processes suchas wh-construal.
We will now turn to the second type of arguments to demonstrate syntactic accessibility towh-compound questions. We will demonstrate that wh-compound questions exhibit movement
restrictions characterizing genuine wh-questions, such as island effects, intervention effects(Hoji 1985; Beck 1996; Beck and Kim 1997; Tomioka 2007, among others) and additional wheffects (Watanabe 1992; Saito 1994). Since this indicates that the formation of wh-compound
questions follows the same syntactic rules as that of regular wh-questions, it lends further
credence to our conclusion that this type of question allows syntactic derivation to peek into its
internal structure.
Let us start with island effects, using (15a, b) as illustrative examples.
(15) Wh-island effects
a. * Kimi-wa[CP(=island) kono-ken-dedare-gatokusita-no-ka] siritagatteiru-no?
you-TOP
this-matter-in
who-NOM benefited-COMP-Q want.to.know-Q‘*Whoi do you want to know whether ti benefited in this matter?’b. * Kimi-wa[CP(=island) kono-ken-ga
dare-toku-na-no-ka]
siritagatteiru-no?
you-TOP
this-matter-NOM who-benefit-COP-COMP-Q want.to.know-Q‘Lit. Whoi do you want to know whether this matter [ti-benefited]?’(15a) illustrates the wh-island constraint. Here, the wh-phrase dare-ga ‘who-NOM’ cannot yield
matrix wh-scope interpretation due to the intervention of the embedded interrogative head,
which blocks association between the wh-phrase and the matrix interrogative no or (covert)
movement of the wh-phrase to the matrix specifier of the relevant marker. (15b) minimally230

Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa

differs from (15a) in that the wh-phrase in the former now takes the wh-compound form, daretoku ‘who-benefit’. Strikingly, (15b) remains ungrammatical on a par with (15a). This is thus
our first indication that wh-compound questions are formed in the syntax in the same way as
regular wh-questions.
Second, it is widely acknowledged in the literature on Japanese/Korean syntax that
ungrammaticality results when a certain class of operators such as negative polarity items,
universal quantifiers and disjunctive phrases c-command an in-situ wh-phrase. Furthermore,this intervention effect won’t surface when the wh-phrase in question undergoes scramblingout of the c-command domain of the interveners. For instance, (16a) is ungrammatical because
the wh-phrase nani-o ‘what-ACC’ remains in the c-command domain of the disjunctive phrase
John-ka Bill-ga ‘John or Bill’ as the intervener. This example is to be contrasted with thegrammatical example in (16b), where the same wh-phrase scrambles out of the c-commanddomain to the sentence-initial position.
(16) a. * John-ka
Bill-ganani-oJohn-orBill-NOM
what-ACC‘What did John or Bill eat?’b. Nani-oJohn-ka
Bill-ga
what-ACC
John-orBill-NOM‘What did John or Bill eat?’tabeta-no?
ate-Q
ti

tabeta-no?
ate-Q

Exactly the same distribution is observed when the wh-phrase is replaced with a wh-compound
question, nani-nabe-o ‘what-hotpot.ACC’. This point is evidenced by the contrast between (17a)and (17b), which is completely parallel to that between (16a) and (16b).
(17) a. * John-ka
Bill-ganani-nabe-otabeta-no?
John-orBill-NOM
what-hot.pot-ACC ate-Q‘lit. [What-hot.pot] did John or Bill eat?’b. Nani-nabe-oJohn-ka
Bill-ga
ti tabeta-no?
what-hot.pot-ACC
John-orBill-NOM
ate-Q‘lit. [What-hot.pot] did John or Bill eat?’
The parallels between compound and regular wh-phrases go deeper with respect to theintervention effect. The intervention effect is lifted in embedded clauses (Tomioka 2007), as
witnessed by (18a) with a regular wh-phrase nani-o ‘what-ACC’ in the embedded clause. Again,(18b) with the wh-compound nani-nabe-o ‘what-hot.pot-ACC’ does not exhibit the intervention
effect in the embedded context in the same way as (18a).
(18) a. * Mary-wa[CP John-ka
Bill-ganani-otabeta-atode] dekaketa-no?
Mary-TOP
John-orBill-NOM
what-ACC ate-after
left-Q‘*Whati did Mary leave after John or Bill ate ti?’b. Mary-wa[CP John-ka Bill-ga
nani-nabe-otabeta-atode] dekaketa-no?
John-TOP
John-or Bill-NOM what-hot.pot-ACC ate-after left-Q‘lit. [What-hot.pot]i did Mary leave after John or Bill ate ti?’
Finally, novel data concerning additional wh-effects provide further support for our current
231

Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa

position. This effect is illustrated in (19a, b). (19a) is a baseline example illustrating the whisland violation (see also (15a)). This violation, however, is somewhat ameliorated when an
extra wh-phrase is added to the matrix clause, as shown by the grammaticality of (19b).
(19) a.* John-wa[CP Mary-ga nani-otabeta-kadooka] siritagatteiru-no?
John-TOP
Mary-NOM what-ACC ate-whether
want.to.know-Q‘lit. Whati did John wonder whether Mary ate ti?’b. John-wa[CP Mary-ga nani-otabeta-kadooka] dare-ni
tazuneta-no?
John-TOP
Mary-NOM what-ACC ate-whether
who-DAT
asked-Q‘lit. Whoi did John ask ti whether Mary ate what?’
Wh-compounds exhibit this matrix/embedded asymmetry with regards to the additional wheffect. Examples (20a, b) both involve the wh-compound nani-nabe ‘what-hot.pot’. The
ungrammaticality of (20a) shows that this compound is subject to the relevant effect in thematrix clause whereas the grammaticality of (20b) indicates that the effect is canceled when amatrix wh-phrase is added.
(20) a.* John-wa[CP Mary-ga nani-nabe-otabeta-kadooka] siritagatteiru-no?
John-TOP
Mary-NOM what-hot.pot-ACC ate-whether
want.to.know-Q‘lit. Whati did John wonder whether Mary ate ti?’b. John-wa[CP Mary-ga nani-nabe-otabeta-kadooka] dare-ni tazuneta-no?
John-TOP
Mary-NOM what-hot.pot-ACC ate-whether who-DAT asked-Q‘lit. Whoi did John ask ti whether Mary ate what?’To summarize, we have documented evidence to show that wh-compounds are accessible
to regular syntactic operations and conditions. In the rest of this section, we will suggest one
more supporting argument for this conclusion based on non-interrogative readings of the whcompounds.
It has been commonly held since Kuroda (1965) that wh-words in Japanese areindeterminate pronouns whose meanings may vary among an interrogative pronoun, an
existential quantifier, a universal quantifier, and a negative polarity item, depending on theparticles (e.g., no, ka, and mo) locally associated with the wh-words in question. (21a)illustrates the use of dare ‘who’ as the negative polarity item triggered by the particle mo.
Interestingly, the wh-compound counterpart to (21a), shown in (21b), retains the same reading.
Examples in (22a−c) illustrate the availability of the universal reading of some wh-compounds.
6
Furthermore, (23b) shows that a wh-compound, darekasan-zemi ‘lit. someone-seminar’, mayalso be used as an existential wh-compound in the same way as a regular wh-word likedarekasan-no zemi ‘someone’s seminar’ (witness (23a)).
(21) a. Boku-wa
dare-no-zemi-mo
ukenakatta.
I-TOP
who-GEN-seminar-MO didn’t.take‘I didn’t take anybody’s seminar.’b. Kono kizi-wa
dare-toku-ni-mo
naranai.
thisarticle-TOP who-benefit-to-MO not.become‘This article does not benefit anyone.’6

We thank Tommy Tsz-Ming Lee (personal communication, August 2022) for encouraging us to check theavailability of the negative polarity reading with wh-compounds and for much fruitful discussions on this point.
232

Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa(22)a.

b.

c.

(23) a.

b.

Boku-wakyoo-wa nani-ryoori-de-mo
ii-yo.
I-TOP
today-TOP what-cuisine-COP-MO good-SFP‘I am okay with any cuisine for today.’Kare-wa Azia-no
gengo-nara
nani-go-de-mo
hanaseru-yo.
he-TOP Asia-GEN
language-if
what-language-COP-MO can.speak-SFP‘He can speak any language as long as it is an Asian language.’
Kinkyuusaigaizi-wa
doko-zyoohoo-moamari
tayorininaranai.
emergency.disaster.time-TOP where-information-mothat.much unreliable‘In case of emergency and disaster, no information from anywhere is so reliable.’Boku-wa
dareka-san-no
zemi-dake-wa
sindemouketakunai-na.
I-TOP
someone-TIT-GEN
seminar-only-TOP even.if.I.die would.not.take-SFP‘I would not like to take someone’s seminar even if it costs me my life.’
Boku-wa
dareka-san-zemi-dake-wa
sindemouketakunai-na.
I-TOP
someone-TIT-seminar-only-TOP even.if.I.die
would.not.take-SFP‘lit. I would not like to take [someone-seminar] even if it costs me my life.’

We take these examples, then, as strong evidence for syntactic accessibility of wh-compounds.
2.3 The Janus-Faced Profile of Wh-Compound Questions and the Ordering Paradox
Let us take stock of our findings. On one hand, we have presented data from sequential voicing,
the Compound Accent Rule and lexical integrity to show that wh-compounds are recognized
as words formed in the Lexicon according to the LH. On the other hand, we have also shownthat wh-compounds not only create a genuine wh-question licensed by the interrogative C head,yielding partial answers targeting the wh-part alone, but also exhibit robust movement
restrictions such as island effects, intervention effects and additional wh-effects. This mutuallycontradictory mixture of the various properties of the wh-compound question is summarized in
Figure 1.

Compound/Word → Lexicon
Sequential voicing
Compound accent pattern
Lexical integrity effects

Phrasal/Sentential → Syntax
True wh-question licensed by the Q headpartial answers targeting the wh-part alone
island/intervention/additional wh-effects

Table 1: Wh-Compound Questions: Lexical Wordhood and Syntactic Penetrability
It is clear from Table 1 that wh-compound questions simultaneously exhibit lexical
wordhood and syntactic penetrability. To see theoretical implications of this finding for thesyntax-morphology interface question we started our paper with, consider some representative
definitions of lexical integrity proposed in the lexicalist literature shown in (24–26).
(24) Principle of Lexical Integrity (Anderson 1992:84)
The syntax neither manipulates nor has access to the internal structure of words.

233

Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa(25) The Lexical Integrity Principle (Bresnan and Mchombo 1995:181–182)
Specifically, the morphological constituents of words are lexical and sublexical categories –stems and affixes – while the syntactic constituents of phrases have words as the minimal,
unanalyzable units.
(26) The Atomicity Thesis (Di Sciullo and Williams 1987:48–49)
Words are ‘atomic’ at the level of phrasal syntax and phrasal semantics. The words have‘features’ or properties, but these features have no structure, and the relation of these features
to the internal composition of words cannot be relevant in syntax.’
Given the ‘feed-forward’ view of the morphology-syntax interface within which the LH is
defined, the grammaticality of partial answers as illustrated in (12A) and (13A) would be
mysterious, for a wh-compound should be atomic for syntax, as clearly stated in all the threedefinitions of Lexical Integrity given above. For the same reason, the output of the syntax, i.e.,
the left-member of a wh-compound with a wh-interrogative/existential/universal/negative
polarity reading licensed by appropriate quantificational particles, should not be able to serve
as input for compounding, a lexical process in the Lexicon, but our findings indicate otherwise.
In this sense, wh-compounds raise a real architectural paradox for the LH-based conception of
the syntax-morphology interface.
It is important to note that the paradox occurs precisely because the Lexicon is postulated
in the lexicalist framework as an independent pre-syntactic module dedicated for word
formation, thereby maintaining the LH as a syntax-morphology interface principle. For thisreason, in the following section, we will put forth a purely syntactic analysis of wh-compounds
within the DM framework which dispenses with the Lexicon as an autonomous grammaticalmodule.
3. Renumerating Wh-Compounds: On the Re-Definition of ‘Word’ and ‘Wordhood’Our analysis of the derivation of wh-compound questions in Japanese is modeled after a DMbased analysis of phrasal compounds proposed by Sato (2010) and Harley (2011) (see also
Carnie 2000). The reason is that phrasal compounds exhibit the same ordering paradox for thelexicalist theory of the syntax-morphology interface as do wh-compound questions so that aplausible analysis of the former may point toward the kind of analysis needed for the latter.
In phrasal compounds, the first member is clearly formed in the syntactic module because
its well-formedness is subject to regular syntactic rules and may be accessible to phrase-levelinterpretations. To illustrate these points, consider (27) and (28).
(27) a. She had that [I’m-so-proud-of-myself] look.
b. * She had that [Myself-is-so-proud-of-me] look.
(28) a.
b.

(Bruening 2018:3)[Charles-and-Di syndrome] died when she died.
He baked me [a sweet I-love-you cake], but I don’t think he really does. (Bruening 2018:7)(27a) contains a well-formed compound because the lefthand member of the compound, I’m
so proud of myself, is itself syntactically well-formed. This is not the case in (27b) because thefirst member of the attempted phrasal compound, Myself is so proud of me, is ungrammatical.
(28a, b) show that part of a phrasal compound is accessible by syntactic anaphoric processes.
234

Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa

In (28a), the underlined part of the phrasal compound can be referred back to by she. In (28b),
the underlined part of the phrasal compound provides an antecedent for the verb phrase ellipsis
site to yield the sloppy reading that I don’t think he really does love me.
3.1 Sato’s (2010) DM-Style Analysis of Phrasal Compounds based on Renumeration
Sato (2010) proposes a purely syntactic analysis of phrasal compounds within the DM
framework which draws on a combination of Johnson’s (2004) concept of renumeration with
Uriagereka’s (1999) Multiple Spell-Out Model of syntax, whereby the Spelled-Out structure is
returned to the main derivational workspace as a derived simplex lexical item or “giant
compound”. To illustrate Sato’s analysis, consider the derivation of [an-[I-drank-too-much]headache], shown in (29a−c).
(29) Deriving the Phrasal Compound, [an-[I-drank-too-much] headache]a. Assemble TP:
TP
N(=Numeration) = {an, headache}b.

I drank too much
Spell-Out & Renumerate TP:TP
N = {an, α,I drank too muchc.

headache}I-drank-too-much

Merge α with N and D:
DP
D
an

N
α

N
headacheI-aadrank-too-much
In (29a), the TP is assembled by syntax. It undergoes early spell-out and is returned to thenumeration as a syntactic subtree, as shown in (29b), following Johnson’s (2004) theory of
Renumeration. The renumerated item is now returned to the derivational workspace as a
derived lexical item or α, as depicted in (29c). The item then merges with headache and thenwith a to yield the phrasal compound, as desired. This analysis thus allows for a unified
treatment of phrasal compounds and regular noun + noun compounds such as a nurse shoe, as
indicated in its syntactic derivation shown in (30).
(30) Deriving the Noun + Noun Compound, a nurse shoe
DP
D
a

N
N
nurse

N
shoe
235

Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa

3.2 Renumerating Wh-Compound Questions in Japanese
Having laid out the analysis of phrasal compounds, we are now in a position to develop ouranalysis of wh-compound questions in Japanese which we have seen to raise essentially thesame ordering problem as phrasal compounds. We will show how our analysis based onrenumeration can successfully account for syntactic accessibility/penetrability of whcompound questions through regular combinatorial processes in syntax while at the same time
deriving their ‘lexical integrity’ effects through early spell-out. Consider the step-by-stepderivation, shown in (32a−d), of the phrasal compound nani-nabe ‘what-hotpot’ from (13),repeated here as (31).
(31) Q: Kimi-wanani-nabe-okinootabeta-no?
you-TOP
what-hot.pot-ACC
yesterday ate-Q‘lit. You ate [what-hot.pot] yesterday?’
A: Kimuti-(nabe) da-yo.
Kimchi-hot.pot cop-sfp‘It was Kimchi hotpot (that I ate yesterday).’(32) Deriving the Wh-Compound Question in (31Q)
a. Merge √nabe with n and D[Q]:
DP

b.

c.

D[Q]
nP
nani
nabe
Percolation of the [Q] feature onto the DP:
DP[Q]
D
nP
nani
nabe
Spell-Out and Renumerate the DP:
DP [Q]
N= {
D
nani

d.

nP
nabe

α[Q], √nabe, v, T, C}

nani-nabe

Merge α with √nabe, v, T and C plus [Q] agreement between α and C
CP
TP
vP
√P
α[Q]

C[Q]
T

v

Q-Agreement√tabeFirst, the DP is assembled from nani ‘what’ and nabe ‘hot.pot’, as in (32a). We assume,236

Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa

following Nishigauchi (1986, 1990), that [Q] feature percolates from the D head onto its
dominating DP, as in (32b). The DP structure is then spelled-out early and renumerated, as in(32c), before it returns to the derivational workspace as a derived terminal node with the [Q]feature and successively merges with √tabe, v, T and C, followed by Q-agreement between α
and the interrogative particle.
Let us now check to see how the Janus-faced hybrid nature of wh-compound question
formation, summarized in Table 1, can be accommodated in our system. On one hand, thecluster of syntactic properties noted in the table manifest themselves because it is derived in
the syntactic derivation in accordance with regular syntactic conditions regulating whinterrogative formation and island/intervention effects. On the other hand, the signature lexical
properties associated with wh-compound questions summarized in the table can be derived as
an epiphenomenal consequence of the derivation in which the compound parts undergo spellout/renumeration and are returned to the derivational cascade as a derived giant compound
which is synonymous with the lexicalist notion of ‘word’. More broadly, then, one notable
theoretical implication of our analysis is that it puts forth a new DM-compatible system toderive ‘wordhood’ using basic assumptions of minimalist syntax without necessarily invoking
the notion of ‘word’. This point cannot be emphasized enough, for the issue how wordhood
arises in such a framework has never been properly addressed in the literature. According toour system, ‘word’ in a language L may be re-characterized in terms of (subsets of) “possible
spell-out domains” in L whereas ‘wordhood’ in L is nothing but a byproduct attached torenumerated items in L on a language-particular basis.
Before leaving this section, we address one question with our analysis. Recall from section
2.1 that wh-compounds exhibit a lexical integrity effect to the effect that nothing may intervene
between the wh-word and the head noun of the compound, as illustrated in (11a−c). The
question is how our approach can block such examples. To take (11b), nothing in our systemappears to block the derivation where nabe ‘hotpot’ merges with the adjective oo ‘big’, and theresulting syntactic object, in turn, merges with the D head nani ‘what’ to yield nani-oo-nabe‘lit. what-big-hotpot’.7
We think that there is no need to block such examples because they are actually
grammatical, and that their alleged lexical integrity effects can be explained away by
independent factors related to encyclopedic knowledge of the stems involved. For example,
nabe in Japanese by itself is ambiguous between a pan (a cooking utensil) or a cuisine (a typeof food severed), but once it is modified by scaler adjectives such as ookii ‘big’, it
prototypically loses the latter reading but can only yield the former reading due to theirselectional restrictions on the type of its modifiees. The contrast between (33a) and (33b)supports this observation.
(33) a.

oo-nabe ‘big pot’ (a pan; #cuisine)
big-potb. * Kimuti-oo-nabe ‘intended: Kimchi hot.pot’
Kimchi-big-pot

It follows then that merging the wh-word nani ‘what’ and oo-nabe ‘big pot’ as a wh-compound
asking for the identity of the kind of cuisine results in semantic anomaly, as shown in (11b),
though it is perfectly grammatical as far as syntactic derivation is concerned. Our position thatthe perceived unacceptability of (11b) is due to encyclopedic knowledge of the lexically
7 We thank Ken Takita (personal communication, August 2022) for asking us this question and Satoshi Oku (personalcommunication, August 2022) for sending us an answer to the question to be outlined below and helpful discussions.
237

Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa

ambiguous stem is further supported by the observation that in a restricted range of culturalcontexts, nabe may be used exceptionally to specify the name of a cuisine as long as therelevant cuisine is widely known to be served using a large-sized pan. One such case is theexpression shown in (34), where oonabe can combine with imo ‘taro’ to yield imonioonabe‘taro-and-meat soup hotpot’.
(34) Kinoo-wa
Yamagata-de
imoni-oo-nabe-oitadaki-masi-ta.
Yesterday-TOP Yamagata-in
taro.and.meat.soup-big-pot-ACC eat-POL-PST‘Yesterday, I enjoyed eating a taro-and-meat soup big hotpot in Yamagata.’
A similar characterization applies to (11c). (35a) illustrates one instance of the whcompound headed by zyooho ‘information’ separated from a wh-word by an intervening
modifier. As for (11a), we did not manage to find any such wh-compound, but there are still
attested examples as in (35b), structurally akin to (11a), where the two members of thecompound, kappuru and toku, are disrupted by a degree modifier, metya ‘extremely’, but theresult is acceptable.
(35) a.

b.

Sore-tte
doko-soosu-zyoohoo?
that-TOP
where-source-information‘intended: That is information from [where-source]?’
Kappuru-metya-tokutabi-puran
couple-extremely-benefit
travel-plan‘intended: a travel plan that benefits a couple’4. Concluding Remarks
In this paper, we have shown that wh-compound questions in Japanese transcend the traditional“word vs. phrase/sentence” boundary as postulated by the lexicalist model of the syntaxmorphology interface and that this intermodular nature of the questions poses a non-trivial
ordering paradox for such a model. We have argued that their wordhood and internal syntactic
accessibility fall out most naturally if they are formed exclusively within the syntactic
derivation, as argued in the anti-lexicalist framework such as the DM. One broad implicationof our analysis is that one may eliminate the notion of ‘word’ from the theory of grammar infavor of the syntactic definition of “the set of possible spell-out domains” in a derivationalmodel, with ‘wordhood’ being an epiphenomenal effect attached to the renumeration process
in the computational cycle.
In a DM-worldview with no clear lexicon-syntax divide, more and more phenomena are
expected to be found that blur the distinction between ‘word’ and ‘phrase/sentence’. For
reasons of space, we will only mention below two such cases. First, Ogawa (2022) shows thatcertain nouns may take a complex syntactic object as their complement, as in (36); note thatthe formal noun kiri undergoes sequential voicing, suggestive of the inclusion of a syntacticphrase within an ostensibly ‘word’ domain. Second, (37) illustrates just “off-the-cuff” phrasal
compounds in casual Japanese speech. This type of compound is freely generated on the spot,
taking the output of combinatorial syntax as its input for compounding (see also Ackema andNeeleman 2004 and Carnie 2000).

238

Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa(36) Taro-to-wa[TP/CP getsuyoobini wakareta] {kiri/giri}
Taro-with-TOP
on. Monday left
after
‘We have not seen Taro since we left him on Monday.’atteinai.
have.not.seen(Ogawa 2022:3)(37) [CP Getuyoo itigen-ni-wa
zettaiderenai]
zoku
mondayfirst.period-to-TOP
absolutely cannot.attend
tribe‘a tribe (of university students) who absolutely cannot attend any first period class on Mondays.’239

Sato, Yosuke & Hisako Ikawa

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Takahashi, Yohei

Nonrestrictive Relative Clauses as a Limiting Case of CP
Sequences*
Yohei Takahashi**Tokyo University of Information Sciences

1. Introduction
The aim of this study is to examine the validity of Form Sequence (FSQ) proposed by Chomsky(2019, 2020, 2021a, 2021b) as a computational device for generating order-restricted units.
Following the original insight of Chomsky that every emergence of XP is the limiting case ofa sequence, I explore the possibility that FSQ also applies to CP sequence. Then, I argue that
FSQ provides a persuasive explanation of the syntax of non-restrictive relative clauses (NRCs)
in languages like English (what Cinque (2008, 2020) categorizes as a variety of non-integrated
NRC). As a result, in spite of the failure to lessen the computational burden, it becomes possible
to provide a better typology of relative constructions in terms of ways of structure building byadopting FSQ to give an order-restricted unit together with MERGE or whatever it substitutesfor. This article proceeds as follows: Section 2 provides the background of this study. Section
3 offers a proposal for the syntax of English NRCs in terms of FSQ, demonstrating a numberof their characteristics as an independent clause that they show can be explained under the
proposal that English NRCs are a part of CP sequences together with matrix CPs. Section 4
discusses empirical consequences of the proposal with reference Cinque’s (2020) diagnoses
and some implications for licensing ellipsis. Section 5 concludes this article and provides somefuture prospects of this study.
2. Background
Section 2.1 provides a brief description of FSQ and summarizes its problems. Then, Section
2.2 presents a brief review of English NRCs, highlighting the fixed postnominal linear order,
their characteristics as an independent clause, and their property of unboundedness. In Section
2.3, we will first review some of the major syntactic approaches to NRCs, then point out longstanding dilemmas arising in exchange for accommodating the properties.
2.1 FSQ and Open Problems
In several seminal studies of (2019, 2020, 2021a, 2021b), Chomsky proposes Form Sequence(FSQ) as a computational component that produces an order-restricted flat structure like (1)taking n members X of WS.
(1) a. WS = [{X1, ..., X2}] → MERGE & and Apply FSQ → WS = <(&), X1, X2>
b. Every emergence of XP is the limiting case of a sequence.
*

An earlier version of this article was presented at GLOW in Asia XIII, hosted by the Department of Linguistics
and Modern Languages of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I would like to the participants of the conference
and the anonymous reviewers for the invaluable comments. I am grateful to Norimasa Hayashi and Miyuki
Sawada for their comments and helpful suggestions after my flash talk. Also, for the earlier version of this research,
I received much cooperation and many useful comments as well as a set of insightful data, for which I would liketo thank Shigeo Tonoike, Guglielmo Cinque, Hiroki Egashira, and Josh Bowers. Of course, I am solely responsible
for all remaining errors in this paper.
**
y3takaha21@rsch.tuis.ac.jp242

Takahashi, Yohei

The expected candidates benefitting from FSQ are unbounded unstructured sequences like (2a),and any syntactic object (SO) conventionally restricted by Coordinate Structure Constraint(CSC) like (2b) (cf. the works of Chomsky mentioned above, as well as Goto and Ishii (2021)).
(2) a. John, Bill, my friends, the actor of who won the Oscar, ... ran, danced, took a vacation...
(Chomsky (2021b: 31))b. (i) John lived [CoP [PP on a farm] and [PP with his family]](ii)*which farm did John live on which farm and with his family (Ibid., 32, slightly modified)However, as recognized by Chomsky in the works mentioned above, FSQ leaves much roomfor further investigation, which can be summarized as follows:(3) a. In addition to the instances discussed so far, to what extent does FSQ explain linguistic facts?
b. Under the theory of Simplest MERGE, can we replace Pair-MERGE with FSQ as a device forgenerating order-restricted units?
c. What does FSQ imply for other core components of the computational system?
This study starts by addressing the assumption of (1b) in order to address the question of (3a),because empirical studies of FSQ have been very limited in the literature (e.g., Goto and Ishii(2021)). On the other hand, regarding (3b), there have been many studies that have sought toremove Pair-MERGE of (cf. Chomsky (2004)) from the computational system under the tenetof Simplest MERGE. If FSQ is available for generating order-restricted flat linguistic units,then it is naturally expected to serve as an aid to meeting this goal. Finally, the examination of(3c) is also important. FSQ is in fact a complex operation that consists of Form Set, merger of&, and rendering a flat SO.
2.2 Brief Review of English NRCs
Compared with restrictive relative clauses (RRCs), it is widely known that English NRCs show
characteristics of an independent clause.1 For example, they can be illocutionary independent
from a matrix clause. The relative CP in (4a) carries an interrogative force, the one in (4b)carries an imperative force, and the one in (4c) carries an optative force.
(4) a.
b.
c.

It may clear up, in which case would you mind hanging the washing out?
He said he’d show a few slides towards the end of his talk, at which point please remember to
dim the lights!
(Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1061))
My friend, who God forbid you should ever meet...
(Cinque (2020): 153)

Another demonstration of this nature comes from the fact that matrix clauses cannot take scopeover NRCs in terms of c-command. (5) shows the failure to license the negative polarity item
(NPI) any in the relative CP.
(5) *I didn’t see a man, who had had any drinks.

(Nakamura and Kaneko (2002: 80))

Moreover, some instances of NRCs may exhibit Root Transformation. (6a) is an instance ofSee, for instance, Loock (2007), who provides an intricate classification of English NRCs from semantic andpragmatic perspectives.
1

243

Takahashi, Yohei

negative constituent preposing while (6b) is an instance of tag-question.2(6) a. This car, which only rarely did I drive, is in excellent condition.
b. I just ran into Susan, who was your roommate at Radcliffe, wasn’t she?
(Hooper and Thompson (1973: 489-490))
On the other hand, although it seems somewhat controversial, it is reported that English allows
stacking of NRCs in terms of antecedent specification (cf. Vries (2006)).
(7) a.
b.
c.

The sole, which I bought yesterday, which was caught in Scotland, was delicious.
(Kempson (2003: 303))
This man, who came to dinner late, about whom nobody knew anything, ...
(Vries (2006: 252))??
Sam Boronowski, who took the qualifying exam, who failed it, wants to retake it.
(McCawley (1998: 447 and n.13))

It seems safe to say that relative clause stacking is one kind of realization of linguistic
unboundedness. Taking these facts into consideration, we are tempted to explore the possibility
that English-type NRCs may be explained in terms of FSQ.
2.3 Major Approaches and Dilemmas
The history of research on the syntax of NRCs is rich. With the transition of the theoreticalframework, they have received a fresh explanation in terms of a newly conceived theoreticaldevice. 3 Prior to minimalism, two conflicting approaches had been entertained: the Main
Clause Approach (e.g., Ross (1967), Emonds (1979), and McCawley (1981)), where an
independent clause undergoes relativization as result of transformation; and the Adjunction
Approach (e.g., Jackendoff (1977), Demirdache (1991), and Citko (2008)), in which a relative
CP merges with its antecedent via adjunction.4 On the other hand, analyses by Kayne (1994)
and Bianchi (1999) were proposed during the development of Kayne’s antisymmetry theory.
Such Antisymmetry Approaches assume NRC CPs to move out of the scope of relative
determiner at LF. Furthermore, Vries (2006) entertains the Coordinate Structure Approach, inwhich an antecedent XP and NRC form a coordinate structure in terms of semantic specifying
coordination. Later, Vries (2012) and Gobbo (2017) proposed the involvement of a functional
head, through which the anti-c-commanding effect of NRCs is intended to be explained.5
Through the careful examination of each proposal, we can recognize that one of the
major concerns at stake has been how to salvage their nature as an independent clause. As longas scope is defined in terms of c-command, we can rephrase this problem in a minimalist
fashion, asking why an English-type NRC and its host clause are invisible to each other. The
I thank Hiroki Egashira for drawing my attention to the availability of Root Transformation.
See also Hayashi (2018) for a concise yet thorough summary of major approaches to NRCs. Hayashi also
develops the Counter-Cyclic Pair-MERGE Approach to English NRCs in the work.
4
Demirdache’s approach also adopts a movement of NRC CP at LF.
5
Gobbo (2017) assumes English NRCs to be non-integrated following the distinction defined by Cinque (2008,2020). Del Gobbo hypothesizes bi-functional layers for their syntax, CommaP and ForceP. In the sense of Potts(2005), the former functional head Comma induces a variable for the content of the constituent in its scope, so itbars any binding from a matrix clause. On the other hand, the latter functional head Force is attributive to Koev
(2013), who argues that this head introduces an operator-variable construction within the scope of Force.
2
3

244

Takahashi, Yohei

leading approaches that we have just reviewed face a difficult dilemma between guaranteeing
their explanatory force and emphasizing the desiderata of the computational system. For
example, suppose that we choose Main Clause Approach; it could elegantly capture theinterpretational compatibility of NRC with a corresponding independent clause. However,transformation is no longer a viable computational option within the minimalist framework.
Next, consider the Adjunction Approach, while leaving aside the controversial status ofadjunction inside the computational system. The widely accepted view that adjunction induces
structural antisymmetry, commonly segmentally notated by {α, {α, β}}, apparently contradicts
the scope fact mentioned above. That is because if adjunction were adopted, the putative matrix
SO α could c-command β, putatively regarded as the relative CP, thereby wrongly predictingthat (5) would be acceptable. How then about the Coordinate Structure Approach? Under thetheory of Simplest MERGE, of course, there is no room to accept trinary MERGE of anantecedent, Coordinator head (e.g., ‘Co’ of Vries (2006)), and relative CP within thedesideratum of the computational system. However, even if we followed the tenet of binary
MERGE maintaining the Coordinate Structure Approach, we would be obliged to adopt
stipulative devices, saying, for example, that although CoP and NRC are in a sister relation,
CoP does not c-command NRC. Lastly, concerning Functional Head Approach, further
scrutiny is required as to whether categories like ‘Par(enthesis)’ (e.g., Vries (2012)) and‘Comma’ (e.g., Potts (2005), Gobbo (2017)) are universal in the architecture of UG specified
for English. Granted that they are, we still have to make some stipulation to exempt asymmetricc-command of NRCs by the heads, which inevitably complicates the tenet of Simplest MERGE.
3. Proposal: English NRCs as a Limiting Case of CP Sequences
We are now ready to argue for an alternative approach to the syntax of English-type NRC. I
adopt (8) as a theoretical hypothesis:(8) Any SOs related in terms of coordination (&) undergo FSQ in Narrow Syntax (NS) after theyexhaust the elements of WS.
Then, I propose (9) for the derivation of English-type NRCs.
(9) a.

b.

English-type NRCs as a Limiting Case of CP Sequences
In languages like English, matrix and NRC CPs undergo FSQ in NS after they exhaust theelements of WS.
< (&){CP1 C ... XPi ...}, {CP2 whi C ...whi... }>where...
CP1 = matrix clause;
CP2 = NRC;
XP = antecedent;
wh = E-type relativizer (cf. Sells (1985), Demirdache (1991), Gobbo (2017))

In (9b), the binding relation among the related elements, i.e., antecedent XP and upper andlower wh, is captured in terms of the latest version of Form Copy.6 Within the relative CP, two
An anonymous reviewer questioned how our alternative could accommodate the Weak Cross Over (WCO)
effect attested in English NRC without positing the IM of wh relativizer.
6245

Takahashi, Yohei

occurrences of wh relativizer form IM Configuration; thus, I assume that Predicate Abstractionof Heim and Kratzer (1998) can be executed in terms of this configuration.7 From a typetheoretical view, it is predicted that two sequential CP inputs carry the same truth-value,
namely t. As assumed in (9b), the wh relativizer in SpecCP is an E-type pronoun, thus identified
as type e. If it forms IM Configuration with the lower wh with the semantic type e, it
consequently fulfills the role of Predicate Abstraction, rendering the IP projection into type <e,t>. I adopt a conventional tree notation in (10) for the sake of convenience.
(10)

Matrix CP: t&… XPi …

NRC CP: t

whi: eC′: <e, t>

C

IP: <e, t>… whi: e …
We note the remarkable fact that the characteristics that we reviewed in Section 2 can beaccommodated under this proposal. First, the clausal independence of each CP exemplified in(4a-c) naturally follows from its consistent lack of structural hierarchy. Second, the matrix
clause and NRC form a linear flat sequence where neither mutual nor antisymmetric ccommand is observed, correctly predicting why the NPI licensing in (5) is impossible. Third,
concerning (6-7), the constant linear order Matrix CP > NRC CP is fixed by the application of
FSQ without going into the dilemma entailed by any approaches that posit the (in)direct mergerof antecedent XP and relative CP.8(i) ? I met Johni, who hisi sister is really fond of ti.
In his recent publications, Chomsky repeatedly emphasizes that derivation is so strictly Markovian that thecomputational system cannot detect whether IM took place in the previous derivational steps. The interpretational
device INT does nothing but detects a determined configuration for discontinuous SOs to be recognized as Copies
no matter how their configuration was formed, namely External MERGE (EM) or IM. If so, the EM option opens
up the possibility that the relevant WCO effect is derived under our alternative approach, which obviously requires
further scrutinization.
7
As in the case of RRC, the emergence of a wh relativizer suggests the involvement of operator movement (IM).
However, as has been much discussed in the literature, wh relativizers in NRCs are not so much an operators asbound pronouns, given their contextual dependency. If we adopt the latter position, it seems somewhat mysterious
why the bound pronoun moves to SpecCP. However, although it requires further examination, I suppose that Form
Copy under IM Configuration might be a solution if the interpretive system INT can recognize two base-generated
occurrences of a wh relativizer as Copies of the same item. I thank Shigeo Tonoike and Miyuki Sawada for having
turned my attention to this issue.
8
The directionality of linearization of two CPs in English NRC is the same as canonical instances of FSQ, namely
a sequence that carries a coordinator follows one without it. Of course, I admit a principled explanation as to why
this is so is lacking.
246

Takahashi, Yohei

4. Empirical Consequences
In this section, I will further argue the empirical consequences entailed by the alternative FSQ
account, referring to Cinque’s (2020) diagnoses that sharply contrast the differences between
integrated NRCs and non-integrated NRCs. See (11).9(11) Table 1
Example(i) Illocutionary Independency(ii) Antecedents other than DP(iii) Non-Adjacency(iv) Split Antecedents(v) Parasitic Gaps

Integrated NRC
Italian che / qui NRC
No
No
No
No
Yes

Non-Integrated NRC
English, Italian il quale NRC
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No

I have already discussed how illocutionary dependency is tolerated under the FSQ account.
While non-integrated NRCs form a flat sequence structure with a matrix CP, integrated NRCs
do not, and RRC CPs are literally integrated into the structure of matrix CP. If so, contrast (i)naturally follows. In what follows, let us consider how (ii-v) are accommodated under thealternative account.
4.1 Antecedents other than DP
First, while the antecedent of RRCs is limited to NP, that of NRCs can take various categories
of XP projection. The paradigms in (12) are taken from English, which presents instances of
non-integrated NRCs: (12a) has a CP antecedent, (12b) an AP antecedent, and (12c) a VP
antecedent.
(12) English
a. Sheila was beautiful, which was too bad.
b. She was fond of her boy, which Theobald never was.
c. Joe debated in high school, which Chuck did too.

(Ross (1969a: 357))(Jespersen (1949: 124))(Thompson (1971: 84))

The same pattern as (12) is also attested in (13) regarding Italian il quale NRCs, which can be
categorized as non-integrated NRCs: (13a) has a CP antecedent, (13b) an AP antecedent, and(13c) a VP antecedent.
(13) Italian il quale NRC
a. Carlo lavora troppo poco. La qual cosaverrà certamente notata.
C.
works toolittle which.thingwill
certainly
noticed‘Carlo works too little, which will be certainly noticed.’ (Cinque (1988: 467), italicized mine)b. Maria è suscettibile. La qual cosa
sua sorella di certonon è.
M.
is touchy
which.thing
her sistercertainly
not is‘Maria is touchy, which her sister is certainly not.’(Cinque (2020: 151), italicized mine)c. Maria interveniva sempre. La qual cosa faceva anche sua madre.
M.
intervened always which.thing did
also
her mother‘Maria was always speaking up, which her mother also used to do.’ (Ibid., 151, italicized mine)
9

Some of the facts reported in Cinque’s work are omitted in the table and the discussion below.
247

Takahashi, Yohei

On the other hand, Italian che / qui NRCs, which are categorized as integrated NRCs, do nottolerate antecedents other than DP. See (14), in which there are integrated counterparts of (13).
(14) Italian (che / qui NRC)
a. *Carlo lavora troppo poco. Che verràcertamente notata.
C.
works toolittlethat.will.come
certainly
noticed‘Carlo works too little, which will be certainly noticed.’ (Cinque (2020: 150), italicized mine)b. *Maria è suscettibile. Che sua sorella di certonon è.
M.
is touchythat her sistercertainly
not is‘Maria is touchy, which her sister is certainly not.’(Ibid., 151, italicized mine)c. *Maria
interveniva sempre. Che faceva
anche sua madre.
M.
intervened always that did
also
her mother‘Maria was always speaking up, which her mother also used to do.’(Ibid., 151, italicized mine)
This characteristic can be predicted in the FSQ account because there are no factors to preventthe account from integrating the insight that a wh relativizer in non-integrated NRCs is an Etype pronoun. E-type pronouns are considered able to pick up a reference denoted by any
syntactic category. Thus, the facts illustrated in (12-13) safely follow under the account.
4.2 Non-Adjacency
The term “adjacency” here indicates the state where an antecedent and relative CP are linearlyand directly next to each other. It is reported that while integrated NRCs must be strictly
adjacent to their antecedents, non-integrated NRCs need not be. (15) is taken from Fabb (1990),
where the adverb yesterday intervenes between the antecedent and the relative clause.
(15)

I met John yesterday, who I like a lot.

(Fabb (1990: 59))

This fact poses a threat to any proposals that assume the direct merger of the relative CP to theantecedent XP. However, the FSQ account can accommodate this fact because it does notassume such merger, but instead relates a whole matrix clause that contains the antecedent andthe relative CP in terms of a sequential unit. Even if the adverb were accidentally placed at theend of the matrix CP sequence, it would not contradict the grammaticality.
4.3 Split Antecedents
Split antecedents are known as a discourse grammar phenomenon in which pronouns refer tomore than one antecedent in an ongoing discourse. Cinque points out that non-integrated NRCs
can have split antecedents, although integrated NRCs cannot.
(16) English
Kim likes muffinsi, but Sandy prefers sconesj, whichi+j/*that they eat with jam.
(Cinque (2020: 154), gloss modified)(17) Italian il quale NRC
Se Carloi non amava più Annaj, i qualii+j d’altra parte non si erano mai
volutiif C.
no longer loved A.
who at.any.rate they.really.never-PAST loved
veramente bene, una ragione c’era.
really.gooda reason there.was248

Takahashi, Yohei

Intended reading: ‘If Carlo no longer loved Anna, who at any rate loved each other, there was areason.’(Ibid., 148, gloss modified)(18) Italian che/qui NRC* Se Carloi non amava più Annaj, chei+j d’altra parte non si erano mai
volutiif C.
no loved more A.
who at.any.rate they.really.never-PAST loved
veramente bene, una ragione c’era.
really.gooda reason there.was
Intended reading: ‘If Carlo no longer loved Anna, who at any rate loved each other, there was areason.’(Ibid., 148, gloss modified)
I suppose that under the alternative account, these can be explained in terms of the availability
to host an E-type pronoun and the constant flat structure derived by FSQ. First, it is widely
accepted that E-type pronouns can refer to more than one reference in a sentence, so therelativizers in (16) and (17) can be bi-referential if they are E-type pronouns. Furthermore, as
seen in (19), taken from Evans (1980), typical instances of E-type pronoun do not require
structural binding by an antecedent, and this is safely met in the proposed sequential model.
(19) a. Few congressmen admire Kennedy, and they are very junior.
b. John owns some sheep and Harry vaccinates them in the Spring.

(Evans (1980: 339))

4.4 Parasitic Gaps
The final diagnosis adopted from Cinque (2020) is the contrast in the availability to licenseparasitic gaps inside relatives. Cinque thoroughly shows that while RRCs and integrated NRCs
allow parasitic gaps inside the relative CP, non-integrated NRCs do not.10(20) English
a. John is a man who everyone who knows pgi admires ti. (RRC)
b. *John is a man who Bill, who knows pgi, admires ti.
(NRC) (Safir (1986: 673))(21) Italian che/qui NRC
La sola personai che quelli che conoscono pgi bene non possono non ammirare
The only person that those that know
well cannot.but
admireti è Gianni.
is G.
‘One person who the Rossi, who knows well, have always admired is Gianni.’(Cinque (2020: 151))

Dubinsky (2006) raises other intriguing contrasts attributable to the difference between restrictive andappositive modification, such as (i-ii).
(i) Susan didn’t/*did sketch the building after sneaking any glances at it.
(restrictive)(ii) Susan didn’t sketch the building, only sneaking (*any) glances at it.
(appositive)
Bošković (2019, 2020) pursues the possibility of deriving the unavailability of extraction from VP adjuncts likeadverbials from that of coordination in a parallel manner. Taking these issues into consideration, we are temptedto adopt the FSQ approach under consideration for such instances as (ii), arguing that two VPs form a sequence,and thus extracting something from there violates the matching condition. I leave this issue for future research.
10249

Takahashi, Yohei(22) Italian il quale NRC*Una personai che i Rossi, i quali conoscono pgi bene, hanno sempre ammirato ti è
one personthat the R. who know
well have always admired is
Gianni.
G.
Intended reading: ‘One person that the Rossi, who know well, have always admired is Gianni.’(Ibid., 151)
Before arguing how this contrast can be accommodated under the alternative account, let me
briefly examine background issues around parasitic gaps. It has been widely recognized thatparasitic gaps must not be c-commanded by real gaps (e.g., Taraldsen (1981)). However, thetransition in the theoretical framework requires us to reconsider this premise. First, Chomsky(2021b) claims that given the instance of adjunct control in (23b), it is natural to think thatcomputation can also look inside the adjunct that includes a parasitic gap in (23a).
(23) a. what1 did John1 file what2 [without [what3 John2 reading what4]]b. John1 wrote a memoir [without John2 once referring to himself] (Chomsky (2021b: 35))
Second, taking the controversial status of adjunction into consideration, we are not surewhether we can maintain the insight that the adjunction of any SOs that contain a parasitic gap
entails the configuration where real gaps do not c-command parasitic gaps. Thus, we should
adopt an alternative approach rather than following the anti-c-commanding reasoning. Instead,I here assume Hayashi’s (2021) proposal on the licensing of parasitic gaps under Form Copy.
Hayashi explains why parasitic gaps are parasitic to real gaps in terms of a requirement of Form
Copy that INT cannot recognize an IM Configuration across more than one phase. See (24a,b).
(24) a.

Which article did John file without reading?
IM Gapb.

{ζ wh1 ... {ε {δ wh2 ...{γ John file wh3}} {β without wh4{α reading wh5}}}}

IM Copy
Phase level: α, γ, ζ

IM Copy

IM Copy(Hayashi (2021: 4))

In (24b), we can see two kinds of IM Configuration: IM Copy and IM Gap. IM Copy is what
we used for an A′-chain created by the application of IM. First, the IM Copy created from α toβ corresponds to the operator movement within the adjunct SO, raising wh4 to the adjunct
SpecCP while leaving wh5 in-situ as a parasitic gap. Second, the IM Copy created from γ to δ
takes place in the matrix clause, raising wh2 to the matrix SpecvP while rendering wh3 into areal gap. Third, the IM Copy created across δ, ε, and ζ is a regular wh-movement that places
wh1 in the matrix SpecCP. On the other hand, the IM Gap (M(arkovian)-Gap in the sense ofChomsky (2021b)) is created between wh2 and wh4. Note that since the derivation proceeds ina strictly Markovian manner, INT cannot look at a derivational history, so the recognition of
Copy is totally independent from the actual execution of IM. Thus, as long as both wh2 and wh4
are visible in the single phasal cycle, it follows that INT can recognize them as Copies.
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Takahashi, Yohei

With this in mind, we now consider how the contrast in the grammaticality observed
between RRC and non-integrated NRC as demonstrated in (20a, b) arises. Recall here thatconcerning the derivation of RRC, I do not adopt the FSQ account, but tentatively assume themerger of a relative CP to the antecedent, predicting (25) for (20a).
IM Gap(25) ... a man {β who1 C everyone {δ who3 who C {γ knows who4}} {α admires who2}}
IM Copy
IM Copy
In (25) we find three IM Configurations associated with who. The formation of IM Copy <who3,
who4> takes place inside the deeply embedded RRC, moving who3 in the SpecCP of δ whileleaving who4 in-situ as the parasitic gap. On the other hand, the other formation of IM Copy
<who1, who2> takes place inside the upper RRC, moving who1 in the SpecCP of β while leaving
who2 in-situ as the real gap. Consequently, when the derivation reaches phase β, INT canrecognize who1 and who3 as Copies in terms of IM Gap (M-Gap), thus explaining why (20a) is
grammatical.
Now, let us turn to the unacceptable instances of NRC of (20b). In this case, the FSQ
account is adopted. See (26).
(26) WS =[& (SQ1)<{β who1 C Bill {α admires who2}}>*IM Gap

IM Copy(SQ2)<{δ who3 who C {γ knows who4}}>...]IM Copy

As with (25), the formation of IM Copy is executed in each sequence (SQ) in (26) as well.
However, it is predicted that INT fails to recognize <who1, who3> as Copies in terms of IM
Gap because there is no hierarchical antisymmetry between two SQs, thus explaining why(20b) is ungrammatical.
4.5 Accommodating One-Substitution and VP-Ellipsis under the FSQ AccountBefore leaving Section 4, I would like to remark on possible consequences of the FSQ account.
Although Chomsky (2021a) suggests a difference in results of FSQ from those of Pair-MERGE
in terms of extractability, I find it plausible to say that FSQ has different implications from
Pair-MERGE for the purpose of licensing ellipsis. McCawley (1988) shows an interesting
contrast concerning one-substitution between English RRC and NRC.11
According to Guglielmo Cinque (personal communication), one-substitution in the Italian counterpart of (27)is also possible in both RRCs and integrated NRCs evidenced by the fact that integrated che NRCs can be a partof the pro-form uno.
(i)Tom ha un violino, che era un tempo appartenuto a Heifetz, eanche Jane ne ha uno 。
T.
has aviolin that was atimebelonged to H.
andalso J. it has one‘Tom has a violin which once belonged to Heifetz, and Jane has one too.
’
11

251

Takahashi, Yohei(27) a. Tom has [a violin which once belonged to Heifetz]i, and Jane has onei too.
(RRC)
b. Tom has [a violin]i, which once belonged to Heifetz, and Jane has onei too.
(NRC)
(McCawley (1988: 420))
As assumed earlier, suppose that (27b) is derived under the FSQ account while (27a) involves
the merger of the relative CP to its antecedent. As a result, we get (28a, b) for (27a, b),
respectively.
(28) a.

b.

RRC (27a)
WS = [&,<{C, {Tom, {INFL, {v*-have, {a, {violin, {which, C, once, INFL, v-belong, to,Heifetz}}}}}}}>,<{C, {Jane, {INFL, {v*-have, {one, too}}}}}>]NRC (27b)
WS = [&,<{C, {Tom, {INFL, {v*-have, {a, violin}}}}}>,<{which1, {C, {which2, {INFL, {once, v-belong, {to, Heifetz}}}}}}}>,<{C, {Jane, {INFL, {v*-have, {one, too}}}}}>]

Given this prediction, the contrast at stake naturally follows because the computational system
can access the full NP with the RRC only in (28a), while it cannot in (28b) because the NRC
and its host clause form not a constituent but a sequence. Furthermore,
McCawley (1998:
450) raises a similar observation concerning VP ellipsis in NRC.
(29) a. John sold Mary, who had offered him $600 an ounce, a pound of gold, and Arthur did Ø too.
(Ø = OK sell Mary a pound of gold / *sell Mary, who had offered him $ 600 an ounce, a poundof gold)
b. John sold a violin, which had once belonged to Nathan Milstein, to Itzhak Perlman, and Marydid Ø did too.
(Ø = OK sell a violin to Itzhak Perlman / *sell a violin Mary, which had once belonged to Nathan
Milstein to, to Itzhak Perlman)
If the reasoning for (28a, b) holds, the reason why the elliptical Vs cannot refer to the NRCs
can be also derived in the same vein.
5. Conclusion and Future Prospects
In this article, I sought to demonstrate the possibility of FSQ as a computational device,primarily focusing on the question of (3a) concerning the extent to which FSQ can explain
linguistic facts. I claim that non-integrated NRCs as in English can be good candidates for
applying FSQ because a number of facts that seem difficult to be explained by (Pair-)MERGE
of the relative CP to its antecedent can be explained under the FSQ account. Consequently,
FSQ can be evidenced as a viable computational device for generating a flat sequential unit in
NS. The FSQ account can shed a new light on the typology of relative constructions in termsof the details of structure building. As has been much discussed in Hayashi (2018), it is(uno = un violino, che era un tempo appartenuto a Heifetz)
252

Takahashi, Yohei

problematic that we have only Set-/Pair-MERGE to accommodate the syntax of relative
constructions. However, if FSQ is available as well, the typology is somewhat improved, as
shown in Table 2 in (30).
(30)

Table 2Computational method for
associating relative CP with
antecedent

Structural relation of relative
CP to antecedent(i) RRC

MERGE

Adjunction to NP(ii) Integrated NRC

MERGE

Adjunction to DP(iii) Non-Integrated NRC

FSQFlat sequential CP(iv) Complement clause

MERGE

Complementation

Types of relative
construction

For future prospects, it is highly expected that the proposed account helps us reach anunderstanding of other appositive constructions (cf. Potts (2005)). I leave this issue for future
research.

253

Takahashi, Yohei

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Varieties of Tough-Constructions and FormCopy*
Kensuke Takita1, Masako Maeda2, Taichi Nakamura3
1

Doshisha University, 2Kyushu University, 3Tohoku University

1. Introduction
The goal of this paper is two-fold: First, it is illustrated that there is a hitherto understudied
type of tough-construction in Japanese (which we call CP-tough; see Oh & Takezawa 2021 asa notable exception), in addition to the rather well-known one where tough-predicates directly
attach to verbal stems (which we call vP-tough; see Inoue 1978, Takezawa 1987, a.o.). In
particular, it is observed that the CP-tough exhibits an unexpected behavior with respect toislands, unlike their vP-tough counterparts. Second, it is proposed that this unexpected islandinsensitivity can be captured if we adopt Chomsky’s (2021) notion of FormCopy (FC), which
may assign a copy relation to two identical elements created by External Merge (EM) without
recourse to Internal Merge (IM).
This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we examine the properties of CP-toughthrough a comparison with vP-tough. Section 3 offers proposals and analysis of the observation
concerning the island-insensitivity. Section 4 is a conclusion.
2. Observations
This section examines the syntactic properties of CP-tough, comparing it with vP-tough. It isobserved that they virtually share all the properties, but they exhibit a crucial difference withrespect to the island-effects.
(1a) is a typical instance of the tough-constructions in Japanese (see Inoue 1976, 1978,
2004, Montalbetti, Saito & Travis 1982, Saito 1982, Kuroda 1987, Takezawa 1987, a.o.), wherea class of tough-adjectives like -niku ‘tough’ and -yasu ‘easy’ take a vP-complement headed
by a verbal stem (i.e. yom(-i) ‘read’). 1 On the other hand, in (1b) another class of toughadjectives like muzukasi ‘tough’ and yasasi ‘easy’ takes a CP-complement headed by no andaccompanied with the nominative Case-marker ga. Note also that the verb in the CP takes thetensed form (i.e. yom-u ‘read’).

An earlier version of this paper was presented at Workshop “Explanatory Theory of UG to Satisfy Strong
Minimalist Thesis: Its Contours and Conceptual Basis,” held at the 39th Annual Meeting of The English LinguisticSociety of Japan (online), November 2021. We would like to thank the participants, especially Hironobu Kasai,
Hisatsugu Kitahara, Masayuki Komachi, Koichi Otaki, and Asako Uchibori for their helpful comments anddiscussions. We also thank the audience at GLOW in Asia XIII, especially C.-T. Jim Huang and Mamoru Saito
for their comments and questions, and the Organizing Committee for allowing this paper to be included in the
online proceedings. All errors are of course ours. This research is supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI Grant
Numbers 18K00659 given to Kensuke Takita, 18K12412, 21K00586 (PI: Nobuaki Nishioka), 18K00574 (PI:
Yoichi Miyamoto) given to Masako Maeda, and 21K00568 given to Taichi Nakamura, Masako Maeda is also
supported by the JSPS Core-to-Core Program, A. Advanced Research Networks “International Research Network
for the Human Language Faculty” JPJSCCAJ221702004 (PI: Yoichi Miyamoto).
1
Inoue (1978) identifies four types of tough-constructions in Japanese, all of which have the form of vP-tough,and argues that examples like (1b) belong to what she calls Type I (see also Inoue 2004). Following Kuroda (1987)
and Takezawa (1987), among others, we take Type I as a genuine instance of tough-constructions, leaving it for
future research to explore the properties of the CP-tough counterparts of the other three types.
*

Takita, Kensuke et al.

(1) a.

b.

Konna ronbun-ga1 gakusei-nitotte[vP hitori-dee1yomi]-niku/yasu-i
this.kind paper-Nom student-for
oneself-by
read-tough/easy-is‘This kind of paper1 is tough/easy for students [to read e1 by oneself].’
Konna ronbun-ga1 gakusei-nitotte[CP hitori-dee1yomu no]-ga
this.kind paper-Nom student-for
oneself-by
read
C-Nom
muzukasi/yasasi-i
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) This kind of paper1 is tough/easy for students [that they read e1 by oneself].’

We call the type in (1a) vP-tough and the one in (1b) CP-tough, respectively.
CP-tough and vP-tough share several syntactic properties. First, it is well known that vPtough allows a PP to become the subject, as shown in (2a-b) (see Inoue 1978, Montalbetti, Saito& Travis 1982, Saito 1982, Kuroda 1987, Takezawa 1987, a. o.). (2c) is a CP-tough counterpartof (2b), showing that it also allows PP-subjects.
(2) a.

[PP Kono tosyokan-kara]-ga1[vP e1hon-onusumi]-niku/yasu-i
this
library-from-Nom
book-Acc
steal-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [From this library]1 is tough/easy [to steal books e1].’(adapted from Montalbetti, Saito & Travis 1982:360)
b. [PP Konna ronbun-kara]-ga1 gakusei-nitotte[vP e1 rei-othis.kind paper-from-Nom student-for
example-Acc
inyoosi]-niku/yasu-i
cite-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [From this kind of paper]1 is tough/easy for students [to cite examples e1].’c. [PP Konna ronbun-kara]-ga1 gakusei-nitotte[CP e1 rei-othis.kind paper-from-Nom student-for
example-Acc
inyoosuruno]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
cite
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [From this kind of paper]1 is tough/easy for students [that they cite examples e1].’

The second property has to do with long-distance dependency. As shown in (3), in vP-tough, NPand PP-subjects can be linked to the gap within the complement CP embedded under the vP. (3a)contains an NP subject and (3b) contains a PP subject. The examples in (4) show that long-distance CPtough is also possible, with both NP- and PP-subjects.
(3) a. Konote-no zassi-ga1
John-nitotte [vP [CP maituki e1 teikikoodokusiteiru
this.kind-Gen magazine-Nom J.-formonthly
subscribe.regularlyto]hito-niii]-niku/yasu-i
that
people-to say-tough/easy-is‘This kind of magazine1 is tough/easy for John [to say to other people [that he takes e1
regularly every month]].’(adapted from Takazawa 1987:195)
b. [PP Anna taipu-no zyosei-to]-ga1
John-nitotte [vP [CP e1 kekkonsite-mo-ii
that
type-Gen woman-with-Nom J.-formarry-even-goodto]tomodati-ni ii]-niku/yasu-i
that
friend-to
say-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [To that kind of woman]1 is tough/easy for John [to say [that he may get married e1]].’(adapted from Takezawa 1987:196)
258

Takita, Kensuke et al.

(4) a.

b.

Konote-no zassi-ga1
John-nitotte [CP [CP maituki e1 teikikoodokusiteiru
this.kind-Gen magazine-Nom J.-formonthly
subscribe.regularlyto]hito-niiuno]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
that
people-tosay
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘This kind of magazine1 is tough/easy for John [that he says to other people [that he takes e1
regularly every month]].’[PP Anna taipu-no zyosei-to]-ga1
John-nitotte [CP [CP e1 kekkonsite-mo-ii
that
type-Gen woman-with-Nom J.-formarry-even-goodto]tomodati-ni iu no]-ga muzukasi/yasasi-i
that
friend-to
say C-Nom tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [To that kind of woman]1 is tough/easy for John [that he says [that he may get marriede1]].’The third property is related to the subject-object asymmetry found in tough-constructions
in English. Stowell (1986) observes that unlike embedded objects, embedded subjects cannot
be related to tough-subjects, as shown in (5).2(5) a.
b.
c.
d.

*Betsy1 is easy [to expect [CP e1 fixed the car]].
*John1 is easy [to believe [CP e1 kissed Mary]].
??
This car1 is hard [to claim [CP Betsy fixed e1]].
??
That language1 is impossible [to say [CP Greg will learn e1]].

In contrast, Takita & Goto (2016) observe that this subject-object asymmetry is absent in vPtough in Japanese. There is no contrast between (6a), where the object gap of the embedded
clause is related to the tough-subject, and (6b), where the subject of the embedded clause is the
gap.3(6) a.

Zibun-no2 gakusei-ga1 John-nitotte2 [vP [CP Mary-ga
e1 hihansita
self-Gen
student-Nom J.-for
M.-Nomcriticizedsinzi]-niku/yasu-i
believe-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) Self’s2 student1 is tough/easy for John2 [to believe [that Mary criticized e1]].’

to]
that

2

Given the reported grammaticality of examples like (i), we assume that examples like (5c-d) are basically fine,contra Stowell (1986). See also Nanni (1978) and Grover (1995).
(i)

a.
b.
c.

This book1 is difficult [to convince people [CP that they ought to read e1]].
(adapted from Chomsky 1981:314)
Mary1 is tough for me [to believe [CP that John would ever marry e1]].
(adapted from Kaplan & Bresnan 1982)
A guy like John1 is hard [to imagine any woman [believing [she could marry e1]]].
(adapted from Hicks 2009:542)

3

Following Takita & Goto (2016), the tough-subjects in (6) are forced to reconstruct so as to ensure that the gaps
within the embedded CP are not simply pro. The following example adapted from Montalbetti, Saito & Travis(1982:361) shows that X-nitotte ‘for X’ can participate in binding.
(i)Mary-nitotte2 John-ga1 [vP itiban e1 zibun-no2
kazoku-no
M.-for
J.-Nommost
self-Gen
family-Gen‘John1 is the easiest for Mary2 [to consult e1 about self’s2 family].’259

koto-osoodansi]-yasu-i
matter-Acc consult-easy-is

Takita, Kensuke et al.

b.

Zibun-no2 gakusei-ga1 John-nitotte2 [vP [CP e1 Mary-o hihansita
to]self-Gen
student-Nom J.-for
M.-Acc criticizedthatsinzi]-niku/yasu-i
believe-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) Self’s2 student1 is tough/easy for John2 [to believe [that e1 criticized Mary]].’The examples in (7) show that CP-tough does not exhibit any subject-object asymmetry either.
(7) a.

b.

Zibun-no2 gakusei-ga1 John-nitotte2 [CP [CP Mary-ga
e1 hihansita
to]self-Gen
student-Nom J.-for
M.-Nomcriticizedthatsinziru no]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
believe C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) Self’s2 student1 is tough/easy for John2 [that he believes [that Mary criticized e1]].’
Zibun-no2 gakusei-ga1
John-nitotte2 [CP [CP e1 Mary-o hihansita
to]self-Gen
student-Nom
J.-forM.-Acc criticizedthatsinziru no]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
believe C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) Self’s2 student1 is tough/easy for John2 [that he believes [that e1 criticized Mary]].’To sum up so far, CP-tough shares all the major properties with vP-tough, despite thedifference of the complement status, vP and CP. There is one striking difference, however,when it comes to the island-effects.
Let us first consider how vP-tough behaves with respect to islands. As shown in (8),Takezawa (1987) observes that vP-tough with NP-subjects is island-insensitive. The gap inside
the complex NP can be associated with the matrix NP-subjects.
(8) a.

b.

Konote-no hanzai-ga1 keisatu-nitotte [vP [[e1 okasita]
ningen]-othis.kind-Gen crime-Nom police-forcommitted man-Acc
sagasi]-niku/yasu-i
search.for-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) This kind of crime1 is tough/easy for the police [to search for [a man [who committede1]]].’(adapted from Takezawa 1987:203)
Sooiu
ronbun-ga1 watasi-nitotte [vP [[e1kaita]
gakusei]-othat.kindpaper-Nom I-for
wrote
student-Acc
hyookasi]-niku/yasu-i
evaluate-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) That kind of paper1 is tough/easy for me [to evaluate [a student [who wrote e1]]].’(adapted from Takezawa 1987:203)

On the other hand, he observes that vP-tough with PP-subjects is island-sensitive. The
ungrammaticality of (9a-b) indicates that the gaps within the island cannot be related to thematrix PP-subjects.

260

Takita, Kensuke et al.

(9) a.

b.

*[PP Anna taipu-no zyosei-to]-ga1
John-nitotte [vP [[e1 kekkonsiteiru] otoko]-tothattype-Gen woman-with-Nom J.-formarry
man-tohanasi]-niku/yasu-i
talk-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [PP To that kind of woman]1 is tough/easy for John [to talk to [a man [who get marriede1]]].’(adapted from Takezawa 1987:215)*[PP Sooiu kinyuukikan-kara]-ga1
John-nitotte [vP [[itumo e1 okane-othat.kind financial.agency-from-Nom J.-foralwaysmoney-Acc
takusankariteiru] hito]-osinyoosi]-niku/yasu-i
a.lot
borrow
man-Acc trust-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [PP From that kind of financial agency]1 is tough/easy for John [to trust [a person [whoalways loans a lot of money e1]]].’(adapted from Takezawa 1987:216)

The contrast between (8) and (9) leads Takezawa (1987) to propose that the gaps in vP-toughwith NP-subjects can be either pro or a trace, while the ones in vP-tough with PP-subjects
always arise from (null operator) movement. His proposals can be schematized as in (10).4(10) a.
b.

NP-ga1
NP/PP-ga1

X-nitotte [AP … [vP … pro1 … V-v]-niku/yasu]-i
X-nitotte [AP … [vP (Op1) … t1 … V-v]-niku/yasu]-i

Let us now examine the behavior of CP-tough. The relevant examples are given in (11) and (12). (11a)is a case of vP-tough with NP-subjects, and (11b) is its CP-tough counterpart. The fact that bothof them are grammatical suggests that the pro-strategy depicted in (10a) is available for CPtough with NP-subjects as well as vP-tough with NP-subjects.
(11) a.

b.

Konna
ronbun-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte [vP [[itumo e1 kaku] gakusei]-othis.kindpaper-Nom teacher-for
alwayswrite
student-Acc
hyookasi]-niku/yasu-i
evaluate-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) This kind of paper1 is tough/easy for teachers [to evaluate [a student [who always writese1]]].’
Konna
ronbun-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte [CP [[itumo e1 kaku] gakusei]-othis.kindpaper-Nom teacher-for
alwayswrite
student-Acc
hyookasuru no]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
evaluate
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) This kind of paper1 is tough/easy for teachers [that they evaluate [a student [who always
writes e1]]].’

What is crucial for our purpose is the contrast between (12a) and (12b). (12a) is a case of vPtough with PP-subjects, and it is island-sensitive just like (9). On the other hand, its CP-toughcounterpart in (12b) is significantly better than (12a). This suggests that CP-tough with PPsubjects is not island-sensitive.

4

The null operator Op is put in the parenthesis in (10) because it is not crucial for the current discussion if andwhere it appears.
261

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(12) a.

b.

*[PP Konna ronbun-kara]-ga1
kyoosi-nitotte [vP [[itumo e1 rei-othis.kind paper-from-Nom
teacher-for
alwaysexample-Acc
inyoosuru] gakusei]-ohyookasi]-niku/yasu-i
cite
student-Acc
evaluate-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [From this kind of paper]1 is tough/easy for teachers [to evaluate [a student [who always
cites examples e1]]].’[PP Konna ronbun-kara]-ga1
kyoosi-nitotte [CP [[itumo
e1 rei-othis.kind paper-from-Nom
teacher-for
alwaysexample-Acc
inyoosuru] gakusei]-ohyookasuru no]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
cite
student-Acc
evaluate
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [From this kind of paper]1 is tough/easy for teachers [that they evaluate [a student [whoalways cites examples e1]]].’The same pattern can be observed even with NP-subject cases when the movement strategy
depicted in (10b) is forced. Takita & Goto (2016) observe that island-effects emerge even for
vP-tough with NP-subjects, when the NP-subjects are forced to undergo reconstruction. Thatis, reconstruction ensures that the gap is not pro but a trace. In fact, the example in (13a) is
ungrammatical, whose NP-subject contains the anaphor zibun ‘self’ and forced to reconstruct
into the position inside the complex NP island. Crucially, its CP-tough counterpart (13b) isgrammatical, patterning with (12b).
(13) a.

b.

*Zibun-no2 ronbun-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte2[vP [[zyugyoo-de e1 hihansita]
self-Gen
paper-Nom teacher-forclass-incriticizedgakusei]-ohyookasi]-niku/yasu-i
student-Acc
evaluate-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) Self’s2 paper1 is tough/easy for teachers2 [to evaluate [a student [who criticized e1 inclass]]].’
Zibun-no2 ronbun-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte2[CP [[zyugyoo-de e1 hihansita]
self-Gen
paper-Nom teacher-forclass-incriticizedgakusei]-o hyookasuru no]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
student-Acc evaluate
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) Self’s2 paper1 is tough/easy for teachers2 [that they evaluate [a student [who criticized e1
in class]]].’The grammaticality of (13b) indicates that CP-tough with NP-subjects is not island-sensitive
even when reconstruction is forced.
We have examined complex NP islands, but the same pattern is observed for other kindsof islands as well.5 The examples in (14) and (15) show this point with adjunct islands, where
the gap is contained in the conditional clause headed by nara ‘if.’ The examples in (14) are thecases with PP-subjects and the NP-subjects in (15) are forced to reconstruct. In both cases, thevP-tough versions are ungrammatical but their CP-tough counterparts are not.

5

We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting us to check with islands other than complex NPs.
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Takita, Kensuke et al.

(14) a. *[PP Konna ronbun-kara]-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte [vP [itidodemo e1 rei-othis.kind paper-from-Nom teacher-for
even.just.once
example-Acc
inyoosita-nara] gakusei-otyuuisi]-niku/yasu-icited-ifstudent-Acc warn-tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [From this kind of paper]1 is tough/easy for teachers [to warn a student [if he/she has cited
examples e1 even just once]].’b. [PP Konna
ronbun-kara]-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte [CP [itidodemo e1 rei-othis.kind paper-from-Nom teacher-for
even.just.once example-Acc
inyoosita-nara] gakusei-otyuuisuru no]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
cited-ifstudent-Acc warn
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [From this kind of paper]1 is tough/easy for teachers [that they warn a student [if he/she
has cited examples e1 even just once]].’(15) a.

b.

*Zibun-no2 ronbun-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte2[vP [zyugyoo-de e1 hihansuru-nara]
self-Gen
paper-Nom teacher-forclass-incriticize-if
gakusei-ohyookasi]-niku/yasu-i
student-Acc
evaluate-tough/easy‘(lit.) Self’s2 paper1 is tough/easy for teachers2 [to evaluate a student [if he/she criticizes e1 inclass]].’
Zibun-no2 ronbun-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte2[CP [zyugyoo-de e1 hihansuru-nara]
self-Gen
paper-Nom teacher-forclass-incriticize-if
gakusei-ohyookasuru no]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
student-Acc evaluate
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) Self’s2 paper1 is tough/easy for teachers2 [that they evaluate a student [if he/she criticizes
e1 in class]].’To summarize the discussion so far, it is observed that CP-tough resembles vP-tough inmany respects while a striking difference emerges when it comes to islands. This raises aninteresting and hitherto unnoticed puzzle.
3. Proposals and Analysis
The problem boils down to the following question: Given that the pro-strategy is not available
for the NP-subject with forced reconstruction cases and the PP-subject cases, how can the gap
within islands be linked to the subjects without recourse to movement/IM only in CP-tough?
We propose that FormCopy (FC) proposed by Chomsky (2021) provides the key to the puzzle.
The quotations from Chomsky (2021) given in (16)-(17) lie behind the notion of FC.
According to Chomsky (2021), a derivation is a series of states of a unique workspace updated
by applying Merge, and one important property is that derivations are strictly Markovian,namely the system completely lacks memory. Hence, when there are two identical elements(called inscription) in a given state of workspace of a derivation, the system cannot tell whether
they are created by IM or separately introduced by EM.
(16)“The concept [of occurrence] is needed only when several inscriptions are taken to beoccurrences of one another. The operative notion is relational. Therefore the notion occurrence
can be eliminated in favor of a rule FormCopy (FC) assigning the relation Copy to certain
identical inscriptions. One condition on FC is that it observe STABILITY.”(Chomsky 2021: 17)263

Takita, Kensuke et al.

“FC, like other operations, appropriates Σ from the third factor toolkit and operates at the phaselevel, keeping to MS to select an element X, then searching for a structurally identical element
Y under the conditions on Σ, and assigning the relation Copy to <X, Y>.”(Chomsky 2021: 20)(where Σ is “an operation Σ that searches LEX and WS and selects items to which O [= anoperation that incorporates Σ] will apply” (Chomsky 2021: 17))

(17)

In order to assign a copy relation to these two identical inscriptions, the operation FC may
apply to them, even when they are independently introduced by EM. This gives rise to theconfiguration called Markovian-gaps, which is claimed to have the property described in (18).
“FC is not subject to conditions that hold for the structure-building operation Merge. We expect,
then, to find configurations subject to FC but not Merge, though at a particular stage ofderivation earlier application of Merge is not detectable because of the Markovian property ofderivations, which renders history of derivation inaccessible.”(Chomsky 2021: 20-21)(18)

Let us illustrate how the framework employing FC works, taking a parasitic gap case like(19a) as a concrete example (adapted from Chomsky 2021: 35). In (19b), which is a roughstructure of (19a), there are four inscriptions of what. In order to ensure the attested
interpretation of (19a), all of them must stand in a copy relation. As for the pairs <what1, what2>and <what3, what4>, just IM followed by FC suffices, while the pair <what1, what3> requires
more, because the without-clause constitutes an island, blocking IM. Chomsky (2021) thenargues that FC determines that they are in a copy relation.
(19) a.
b.

What did John file e without reading pg?
what1 did John1 file what2 [without [what3 John2 reading what4]]c.

John1 wrote a memoir [without John2 once referring to himself]

Note that it is independently required that FC may apply across the without-island-boundary;otherwise the copy relation for the pair <John1, John2> in (19b) as well as the one in (19c) fails
to be established, predicting them to be ungrammatical contrary to fact.
We then propose that the vP-tough examples are analyzed as follows. (20a) is the structure
where the pro-strategy is employed, where α abbreviates arbitrary many phases so as to cover
the long-distance cases, and phases are given in shading. Since NP-subjects are possible nomatter whether islands are involved unless they are forced to be reconstructed (see (8) and(11a)), we assume that they can make use of the pro-strategy, which utilizes a different
mechanism from FC. The structures in (20b-c) are the cases where vP-tough has a PP-subject,
or its NP-subject is forced to reconstruct. (20b) involves no island, so NP/PP2 can be moved tothe edge of vP-phase in a successive-cyclic way from the position of NP/PP3, yielding no
problem for FC. As for the pair <NP/PP1, NP/PP2>, although there is a phase-boundary
between NP/PP1 and NP/PP2, it can be licensed by FC just like the pair <what1, what3> (andthe pair <John1, John2>) in (19b) can be licensed. Hence, (20b) is legitimate.

264

Takita, Kensuke et al.

(20) a.
b.
c.

NP-ga X-nitotte [AP [vP [α … pro …] V-v]-niku/yasu]-i
NP/PP1-ga X-nitotte [AP [vP NP/PP2 [α … NP/PP3 …] V-v]-niku/yasu]-i*NP/PP1-ga X-nitotte [AP [vP __ [island NP/PP2 [α … NP/PP3 …]] V-v]-niku/yasu]-i*FC

The structure in (20c) on the other hand schematizes the illegitimate cases where the gap resides
within an island, which is put in a box (see (9), (12a) and (14a) for PP-subjects and (13a) and(15a) for NP-subjects with forced reconstruction). As shown in (20c), no inscription of NP/PP
can appear on the vP-edge, which is shown by underscore: IM is blocked because it crosses anisland, and EM is barred because the vP-edge is not a theta-position for the NP/PP (cf.
Chomsky’s (2021) Duality of Semantics). Provided that FC is subject to phase-locality, there
is no way to establish a copy relation between NP/PP1 and NP/PP2, because not only vP but
also an island-boundary intervenes between them, unlike (20b). Therefore, the analysis
employing FC still captures the island-sensitivity of vP-tough.
Let us now turn to the CP-tough cases. (21a) is the case employing the pro-strategy and(21b) involves no island, hence they are legitimate in the same way as the cases in (20a-b).
What is crucial is (21c), where the gap is embedded within an island (see (12b), (13b), (14b)and (15b)). Since the gap is located within the island, no inscription of NP/PP can appear on
the CP-edge for the same reason as (20c). Recall that applying FC into an island itself ispossible as discussed in (19b). Then, if FC can assign a copy relation to the pair <NP/PP1,
NP/PP2>, the observations made in Section 2 can be explained. We claim that the copy relationin question can indeed be established because the relevant CP is not a phase, unlike the vPcomplement of vP-tough.6(21) a.
b.

NP-ga X-nitotte [AP [CP [α … pro …] V-v-T-C]-ga muzukasi/yasasi]-i
NP/PP1-ga X-nitotte [AP [CP NP/PP2 [α … NP/PP3 …] V-v-T-C]-ga muzukasi/yasasi]-ic.

NP/PP1-ga X-nitotte [AP [CP __ [island NP/PP2 [α … NP/PP3 …]] V-v-T-C]-ga
OKFCmuzukasi/yasasi]-i

We argue that the lack of tense-alternation found in the CP-complement of CP-tough plays
an important role for the claim that the CP in question does not count as a phase. As shown in(22a-b), the embedded verb cannot take the past tense form (cf. (1b) and (2c), respectively).

6

For the sake of concreteness, we assume that the island containing the NP/PP can escape the embedded vPphase via movement to the CP-edge as in (i), so that there is only one island-boundary when the pair <NP/PP1,
NP/PP2> is formed.
(i)NP/PP1-ga X-nitotte [AP [CP [island NP/PP2 …] [TP … [vP t’island [VP … tisland … V]-v]-T]-C]-ga muzukasi/yasasi]-i
Note that the same strategy cannot be employed for vP-tough, because there remains the vP-phase boundary on
top of the island-boundary, as in (ii).
(ii)*NP/PP1-ga X-nitotte [AP [vP [island NP/PP2 …] [VP … tisland … V]-v]-niku/yasu]-i
We thank C.-T. Jim Huang (p.c.) and Mamoru Saito (p.c.) for clarifying this point.
265

Takita, Kensuke et al.

(22) a.

Konna ronbun-ga1 gakusei-nitotte[CP hitori-dee1 yomu/*yonda
this.kind paper-Nom student-for
oneself-by
read/have.readno]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) This kind of paper1 is tough/easy for students [that they read/have read e1 by oneself].’b.

[PP Konna
ronbun-kara]-ga1
gakusei-nitotte[CP e1rei-othis.kind paper-from-Nom student-for
example-Acc
inyoosuru/*inyoo-sitano]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
cite/cited
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [From this kind of paper]1 is tough/easy for students [that they cite/cited examples e1].’This kind of lack of tense-alternation has been taken as a hallmark of defective CP in Japanese,
typically found in obligatory control structures like (23a) (Uchibori 2000, Fujii 2006, a.o.).
(23) a.

b.

Gakusei-ga [CP PRO hitori-dekonna
ronbun-o yomu/*yonda to] kimeta
student-Nom
oneself-by this.kind paper-Acc read/have.read C decided‘Students decided [PRO to read/have read this kind of paper by oneself].’
students1 decided [CP C [IP students2 to read this kind of paper by oneself]]

In fact, Chomsky (2021) assumes that the CP complement in obligatory control is a defective
phase, so that the controller-controllee pair (namely <students1, students2>) in (23b) can belicensed by FC, even though the lower inscription student2 is not on the CP-edge.
It is then predicted that island-effects emerge if a gap of CP-tough within an island isfurther embedded within another island. This prediction is indeed borne out, as shown by thecontrast found in (24) and (25). In (24a), where the PP is the tough-subject, the complex NP
containing the gap is the object of the most deeply embedded complement CP. Since there is
no island, nothing prohibits this complex NP moves up to the edge of the defective CP, so FC
can apply crossing just one island-boundary (see footnote 6). On the other hand, the complex
NP containing the gap is embedded under the other complex NP headed by riyuu ‘reason.’ Inthis case, the sentence is degraded compared to (24a), indicating that it exhibits an island-effect.
Under the proposed analysis, the higher complex NP island (labeled as “island1”) blocks the
movement of the lower complex NP (labeled as “island2”) together with the gap to the edge ofthe defective CP. Since FC fails to apply, the ungrammaticality of (24b) follows.
(24) a.

[PP Konna ronbun-kara]-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte [CP [CP [[itumo e1 rei-othis.kind paper-from-Nom teacher-for
alwaysexample-Acc
inyoosuru] gakusei]-o hyookasita to] koohyoosuru no]-ga muzukasi/yasasi-i
cite
student-Acc evaluatedthat announce
C-Nom tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [From this kind of paper]1 is tough/easy for teachers [that they announce [that they haveevaluated [a student [who always cites examples e1]]]].’

266

Takita, Kensuke et al.

b.

*[PP Konna ronbun-kara]-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte [CP [island1 [[island2 [itumo
e1this.kind paper-from-Nom teacher-for
alwaysrei-oinyoosuru] gakusei]-o hyookasita] riyuu]-okoohyoosuru
example-Acc cite
student-Acc evaluatedreason-Acc announceno]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) [From this kind of paper]1 is tough/easy for teachers [that they announce [the reason [whythey have evaluated [a student [who always cites examples e1]]]]].’The same explanation applies to the contrast found in (25), where the NP-subject is forced toreconstruct.
(25) a.

b.

Zibun-no2 ronbun-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte2[CP [CP [[zyugyoo-dee1 hihansita]
self-Gen
paper-Nom teacher-forclass-incriticizedgakusei]-o hyookasita to]koohyoosuru no]-gamuzukasi/yasasi-i
student-Acc evaluatedthat
announce
C-Nom
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) Self’s2 paper1 is tough/easy for teachers2 [that they announce [that they evaluated [astudent [who criticized e1 in class]]]].’*Zibun-no2 ronbun-ga1 kyoosi-nitotte2[CP [island1 [[island2 [zyugyoo-dee1
self-Gen
paper-Nom teacher-forclass-inhihansita]
gakusei]-o hyookasita] riyuu]-okoohyoosuruno]-gacriticized
student-Acc evaluatedreason-Acc announce
C-Nom
muzukasi/yasasi-i
tough/easy-is‘(lit.) Self’s2 paper1 is tough/easy for teachers2 [that they announce [the reason [why theyevaluated [a student [who criticized e1 in class]]]]].’The observations in (24) and (25) provide a clear parallelism with parasitic gaps. It is wellknown that island-effects show up when the adjunct containing a parasitic gap is further
embedded under another island, as shown in (26a) (see Kayne 1983, Chomsky 1986, Nunes
2001, 2004, a.o.). Under the current framework, the effect should be captured in the way
depicted in (26b) (adapted from Nunes 2001: 327).
(26) a.
b.

*Which book did you borrow e after leaving the bookstore without finding pg?
w.b.1 did you borrow w.b.2 [island1 after leaving the bookstore [island2 without w.b.3 finding w.b.4]]*FC

That is, FC fails to apply from which book1 to which book3 because of the higher island (namely
island1).
4. Concluding Remarks
To conclude, it is observed that there is a striking difference between vP-tough and CP-toughwith respect to island-effects, although they are quite similar in other properties. It is thenproposed that the observation regarding island-effects can be captured by employing
Chomsky’s (2021) notion of FormCopy (FC), including a surprising parallelism with267

Takita, Kensuke et al.

obligatory control and parasitic gaps. This paper thus contributes to offering an empiricalargument for FC, which is a direct consequence of the Markovian property of derivations,which in turn has emerged from the recent discussion on Merge and Workspace.
As a final remark, let us point out that there is one important remaining issue, which has
to do with Chomsky’s (2021) account of the well-known restriction on parasitic gaps that Amovement fails to license them. Assuming that “[f]rom an A-position, FC searches A-positions(Chomsky 2021: 28, Proposition [L]),” the ungrammaticality of (27a) results from the failureof applying FC to the pair <what1, what3> as shown in (27b) (the legitimate applications of FC
to <what1, what2> and <what3, what4> are omitted).
(27) a.
b.

*What was filed e [without John reading pg]?
what1 was filed what2 [without what3 John reading what4] (adapted from Chomsky 2021: 35)*FC

If this is the case, a tough-subject must not be able to stand in the copy relation with a “nulloperator,” which is nothing but an inscription appearing at the edge of the embedded clause
under the current assumptions, as in (28b), which is the alleged underlying structure for (28a).
But it is crucial for the proposed analysis of tough-constructions in Japanese that the toughsubjects can be paired with the lower inscriptions.
(28) a.
b.

Many books1 are easy for John to read e1.

(adapted from Chomsky 2021, 28)*FCmany books1 are [many books2 easy [many books3 for John to read many books4]]*FC

Meanwhile, Saito (2022: 171) suggests that “one can maintain the FC approach, and at thesame time, abandon [L] on the assumption that improper movement is ruled out on independent
grounds.” Therefore, we believe that exploring a way to resolve this issue remains an important
issue.

268

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References
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Hicks, Glyn. 2009. Tough-constructions and their derivation. Linguistic Inquiry 40:535-566.
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Kuroda, S.-Y. 1987. Movement of noun phrases in Japanese. In Issues in Japanese linguistics,
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Chicago Linguistic Society.
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University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Nunes, Jairo. 2001. Sideward movement. Linguistic Inquiry 32:303-344.
Nunes, Jairo. 2004. Linearization of chains and sideward movement. Cambridge, MA: MIT
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gendaiteki-kadai [Contemporary issues in lexicon studies], ed. by Hideki Kishimoto, 2549. Tokyo: Kurosio.
Saito, Mamoru. 1982. Case-marking in Japanese: A preliminary study. Ms., MIT.
Saito, Mamoru. 2022. Two notes on Copy Formation. Nanzan Linguistics 17:157-178.
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Takezawa, Koichi. 1987. A configurational approach to case-marking in Japanese. Ph.D.
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Takita, Kensuke, and Nobu Goto. 2016. Labeling and tough-movement. Paper presented at the24th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference Satellite Workshops, NINJAL, Tokyo,
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269

Yagi, Yusuke

Definite Expressions for Tenses: More Analogy between
Pronouns and Tenses
Yusuke Yagi
University of Connecticut

1 Introduction
It has been claimed that there is an analogy between pronouns and tenses in that they can beanaphoric and bound variables (Partee, 1973; Kamp, 1979, 2017; Kratzer, 1998). This study
adds one more observation to this analogy, arguing that some temporal pronouns have to beinterpreted as definite descriptions, more specifically, as E-type (or d-type) pronouns (Cooper,
1979; Heim, 1990; Elbourne, 2001, 2005, a.o.). I further show that the novel data presented
here pauses an empirical challenge for dynamic analyses for anaphora (Kamp, 1981; Heim,
1982a; Groenendijk & Stokhof, 1991, among many others), which competes with the E-type
analysis in accounting for anaphoric relation. The rest of this paper is organized as follow.
Section 2 presents data and offers an analysis. Section 3 discusses an empirical challenge fordynamic analyses. Section 4 concludes. The formal detail of the analysis is laid out in Appendix.
2

Split Antecedence in Conjunction

The data point discussed in this study is represented by the English sentence in (1).
(1) a. Alex was in a park at five, and Bill was in a station at six.
b. Each of them got a phone call at that time / then.
c. Alex got a phone call at five, and Bill got a phone call at six.
The data is an instance of split antecedence. Sentence (1b) is interpreted as (1c), which reveals
that the temporal pronouns at that time / then are anaphoric to two different times, at five andat six. Thus, these pronouns are not interpreted as referring to the contextually salient time.
There is no unique salient time in the context. Moreover, the singular morphology of at thattime (contrary to at these times) suggests that the pronoun does not refer to a plurality of times.
Putting the issue into more technical terms, suppose that temporal expressions carry areferential index – at five carries index 1, at six carries index 2, for instance. Then no indexation
to the temporal pronouns achieves the reading in (1c). Assigning either 1 or 2 alone does not,because the pronouns should eventually refer to both at five and at six. However, assigning both
1 and 2 goes against the singular morphology of at that time, hence unwelcome.
It is important to notice that the interpretation hinges on the quantifier in the subject positionof (1b). The interpretation disappears if the quantifier is replaced by them.
(2) (After (1a))
a. They got a phone call at that time / then.
b. Not: Alex got a phone call at five, and Bill got a phone call at six.
I argue that the interpretation in (1) and its unavailability in (2) are accounted for by adopting
the E-type strategy, which I lay out in the next section.
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Yagi, Yusuke

2.1
E-type Strategy
The E-type strategy crucially employs situation semantics. I base my proposal on theformalization by Heim (1990). The basics of the formalization are as follow.
(3) a. Propositions are properties of situations, of type ⟨s,t⟩, where s is a type of situations.
b. Situations are structured w.r.t. the part-of relation ≤.
For every pair of situations s, s′, s ≤ s′ iff s = s′ or s is a part of s′.
I.e., s ≤ s′ iff s = s′ or s′ is an extension of s.
c. Quantifiers quantify over pairs of an individual and a minimal situation.
d. Situation s is a minimal situation w.r.t. propositions p1,..., pn iffs ∈ (p1 ∩ p2 ∩ ... ∩ pn) ∧ ∀s′[s′ ≤ s ∧ s' ∈ (p1 ∩ p2 ∩ ... ∩ pn) → s = s']A central claim of the E-type strategy is that pronouns are not a syntactic primitive. Rather
they are decomposed into a definite determiner THE, a predicate P, and a situation variable s.
Semantically, it denotes the unique individual x such that P(x)(s).
(4) Decomposition of pronoun pro
LF: [THE [P s]]⇝
ιx[P(x,s)]Given the above settings, the analysis accounts for the classic donkey sentence every man who
owns a donkey beats it in the following way. Suppose the following (semi)-lexical definitionsin (5). In (5c), the predicate P in it is specified as donkey, which is arguably salient in the context.
Composing (5a-c) results in (6).
(5) a.

every Pe,st Qe,st⇝ For every situation s and individual x:
if s is a minimal situation such that P(x, s),then there is a situation s' such that s ≤ s' ∧ Q(x, s').
b. man who owns a donkey⇝ λxe.λss.∃y[man(x, s) ∧own(x, y, s) ∧ donkey(y, s)]c. beats it
LF: beats [THE [donkey s]]⇝ λx e .λs s . beat(x, ιz[donkey(z, s)])(6) Every man who owns a donkey beats it⇝ For every situation s and individual x:
if s is a minimal situation such that ∃y[man(x, s) ∧ own(x, y, s) ∧ donkey(y, s)],then there is a minimal situation s' such that s ≤ s' ∧ beat(x, ιz[donkey(z,s')]).
In (7), situation s contains one man and one donkey (and nothing else), since s is a minimal
situation satisfying the restriction. s', which is a minimal extension of s also contains the man
and the donkey, plus beating relation between then. The uniqueness requirement of THE is satisfied
because s' contains only one donkey.
2.2
Analysis
The temporal expression in (1) talks about the times of eventualities (events or states)
271

Yagi, Yusuke(Davidson, 1967; Parsons, 1990, a.o.) – the eventuality of Alex being in a park holds at five,for instance. Thus, it is convenient to have eventualities in our system as well, in addition tosituations.1 Then we obtain definitions of the conjuncts in (1a) as (7). (7a) should be read astrue iff there is an event e such that e takes place at five, and e is an event of Alex being in apark in s. (See Appendix for formal details.)(7)

a. Alex was in a park at 5 ⇝ λs. ∃e[time(e) = 5 ∧ in_a_park(e, A, s)]b. Bill was in a station at 6 ⇝ λs. ∃e[time(e) = 6 ∧ in_a_station(e, B, s)]

I propose that then / at that time bear the LF representation in (8). It is decomposed as other Etype pronouns. Since these pronouns are lexically specified as temporal pronouns, they
inherently contain the TIME predicate. These temporal pronouns modify sentences as at five/at
six do above. Thus, the scope of each in (1) is defined as (9), where i is a variable for times.
(8) at that time / then
LF: [THE [TIME s]](9) got a phone call then⇝λx.λs. ∃e[got_a_phone_call(e, x, s) ∧ time(e) = ιi[time(s) = i]]
The quantifier in question each is defined as other quantifiers: it quantifies over situations
and individual. The domain of individual quantification is provided by of them, which I for
now take a set of individuals, for simplicity. The domain of situation quantification C isprovided by a context (von Fintel, 1994). In the case at hand the domain is restricted to p1 ∪ p2,
where p1 is (7a) and p2, (7b). I define each as follow.
(10) eachC of them Qe,st⇝ For every individual x in them and for every situation s∈C:
if x exists in s and s is a minimal situation such that s ∈ C,
then there is a minimal situation s' such that s ≤ s'∧ Q(x, s')
Combining (9) and (10) results in (11).
(11) eachC of them Qe,st⇝ For every individual x in them and for every situation s ∈ C:
if x exists in s and s is a minimal situation such that s ∈ C,
then there is a minimal situation s' such thats ≤ s' ∧∃e[got_a_phone_call(e, x, s') ∧time(e) = ιi[time(s') = i]]Since the quantification is over minimal situations, the quantified situations contain either
Alex being in a park or Bill being in a station, but not both. Still, the restriction if x exists in s isrequired to prevent overgeneration. Without it, each quantifies over pairs ⟨a, sa⟩, ⟨a, sb⟩, ⟨b, sb⟩,and ⟨b, sb⟩, where a is Alex, b Bob, sa a minimal situation of (7a), sb a minimal situation of (7b).
But then scope also requires that there should be s' where Bill got a phone call at five, and s'
1

The combination of event semantics and situation semantics is also argued for by Kratzer (2021).
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where Alex got a phone call at six. This is not a reading available in (1b). The existence
restriction limits the quantification to be over pairs ⟨a, sa⟩ and ⟨b, sb⟩, avoiding this issue.
The scope requires that the time of event e is the time of situation s'. s' is a minimal
extension of situation s. s is a minimal situation that contains an event(uality) taking place atfive or six. I thus argue that the time of s is also at five or six, unless specified otherwise bytemporal modifiers. Then the time of minimally extended situation s' should also be at five orsix. It in turn requires that the time of event e be at five or six, deriving the intuitively correctinterpretation.
The unavailability of the reading without a quantifier is also accounted for. It is obviousthat the reading hinges on the quantification over minimal situations. Since they does not
induce the necessary quantification, the reading becomes unavailable.
Summarizing this section, I have argued that the decomposition of the temporal pronouns
plus the E-type strategy derives the interpretation of (1b).
3Discussion: E-type analysis v.s. Dynamic Analysis
In this section I argue that the interpretation of (1b) pauses an empirical challenge for dynamic
analyses (Kamp, 1981; Heim, 1982b; Groenendijk & Stokhof, 1991, a.o.).
Dynamic systems analyze sentences as an instruction to update an assignment. Moretechnically, sentences are considered as pairs of an input assignment and an output assignment,
the latter of which is a result of updating the input assignment along with the instruction givenby the sentence. Indefinite NPs are no longer taken as quantificational expressions. They
introduce what is called discourse referents; drefs, to which an assignment assigns a certain
object. Drefs introduced are specified as a superscript of NPs, and an introduction of drefs instruct
to update the input assignment in a certain way, as exemplified in (12).
(12) Au man came.
⇝ λi.λj. i[u] j ∧ man( j(u)) ∧ came( j(u)), wherea. i[u] j should be read as ‘ j differs from i at most the value assign to u’.
I.e., for all v: if v ≠ u then i(v) = j(v)Here, the sentence updates the assignment i to j so that ( j differs from i at most in the value itassigns to u and) j assigns u an individual x such that x is a man and x came. This new assignment
j will in turn become an input to the next sentence, for example, in (13). Since (13) does notcontain an indefinite or a proper noun, it does not update the input assignment (as specified in j= h), but it tests if the input assignment satisfies a new requirement, namely that j assigns u
an individual x who (came in and) sat down.
(13) Heu sat down.
⇝ λj.λh. j = h ∧sat_down(u j)Suppose, following Kamp (1979, 2017), that temporal expressions like at six introduce
discourse referents as well. Suppose further that the temporal pronouns pick up a discourse
referent via coindexation. A challenge that arises when applying the system to (1b) is obvious.
In sentence (14a), at five and at six should be contraindexed to pass the referential information
to (14b). If they are coindexed, say as u1, the second expression at six updates the input
assignment so that the output assigns u1 the time six, losing the referential information about the273

Yagi, Yusuke

time five. But if they are contraindexed, the issue pointed out in the introduction arises. Th
pronoun should be able to refer to both at five and at six, so u1 or u2 alone does not suffice.
However, putting both u1 / u2 goes against the singular morphology of the pronoun.
(14) a. Alex was in a park at fiveu1 , and Bill was in a station at sixu2 .
b. Each of them got a phone call then??
In general, as long as the conjunction in (1a) is internally dynamic, the system faces theissue just discussed. One may argue then to propose an internally non-dynamic conjunction
toward an analysis. However, the interpretation in question is also available when aconjunction is clearly internally dynamic. In (15), in order for his to pick up a proper discourse
referent (introduced by a man), the conjunction must be internally dynamic.
(15) a. A man was in a park at five, his friend was in a station at six.
b. Each of them got a phone call then.
Summarizing, I’ve pointed out that the interpretation of (1b) pauses a challenge fordynamic analyses.
4
Concluding Remark
This study aimed at arguing that then/at that time is analyzed as an E-type pronoun. The
proposal presents another instance of the similarity between pronouns and tenses (Partee, 1973;
Kratzer, 1998). The data raises an empirical issue for dynamic analyses as well.
As a concluding remark I would like to point out an extension of the analysis and a loose end.
As an extension: data parallel to (1) can be composed with different types of pronouns, like it orthere, as (16). It indicates that the proposal is not construction specific. The data is robustly
widespread, and the analysis accounts for the distribution. The relevance of events shown inAppendix is further justified by the data with an event pronoun.
(16) a. Alex saw a monkey, and Bill saw a donkey.
b. Each of them caught it.
(17) a. Alex was in a park, and Bill was in a station.
b. Each of them got a phone call there.
(18) a. Alex caught a monkey, and Bill caught a donkey.
b. Each of them did it quickly.
However, this is not the end of investigations of constructions like (1). As far as I know, thisconstruction has never been discussed in the literature, and it pauses further interestingquestions which I currently do not an answer for. One is that the construction induces thedegradation by a crossover (Postal, 1971).
(19) a. John saw a monkey, and Bill saw a donkey.
b. # It kicked each of them.
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Suppose that the object quantifier moves to take scope over the subject pronoun, as (20a). At
LF it is decomposed. I follow Elbourne (2008) and assume that the predicate position is filled
by DONKEY _ OR _ MONKEY . Then the LF is represented as (20b).
(20)

a.
b.

Each of them1 [it kicked t1]
LF: Each of them1 [ [THE [ DONKEY _ OR _ MONKEY s]] kicked t1 ]This LF does not raise any semantic anomaly. Also, it suggests one technical difficulty inanalyzing crossover phenomena in E-type analyses. A widespread view of crossoverphenomena is that it is the coindexation of the crossed-over element (here, it) and the trace ofthe moved quantifier that causes the degradation due to Binding Condition C. No suchcoindexation, however, is supposed in LF (20b). The application of the standard analysis seems
unsuccessful.
The technical issue discussed in the previous paragraph is probably a general problem of Etype analyses. Solving this puzzle is clearly beyond the scope of this paper, and I leave it for
future research.
Another empirical question is on the analysis of (21), which is similar to (1) but the former
contains a quantifier in the conjuncts.2(21) (This camp is about fostering a sense of responsibility. )a. This year, every boy was assigned a cat and every girl was assigned a rabbit.
b. Each of them had to take care of it on a daily basis.
Suppose, as above, that the quantifier each quantifies over minimal situations in C, where C is aset of situations where (at least) one of the conjuncts in (21) is true. Then it is obvious that thepresent proposal does not account for the anaphoric relation. In each minimal situation s, either
every boy was assigned a cat, or every girl assigned a rabbit. Thus, s contains either every boy
and their cats, or every girl and their rabbits. There is no unique rabbit or cat in these situations,so the uniqueness presupposition cannot be satisfied.
Intuitively, each has to quantifier over each minimal ’assigning’ situation, where one boy is
assigned one cat or one girl is assigned one rabbit. Since the domain of quantification C isprovided contextually, we may be able to argue that C is specified as such. However, thisargument needs careful justification, which I leave for future work.
Appendix: Formal Detail of Situation Semantics + Event Semantics
As illustrated in the analysis, existential quantification over eventuality takes place in a low position,
at least lower than the lambda abstraction over situation variables. I achieve this result by partly
following Champollion (2015), who argues that verbs have existential quantification over eventsin it. I depart from Champollion, however, in that verbs also take their argument(s) bythemselves.
For a situation semantics part, I follow Elbourne (2005) in that names like Alex is of typese. The types for other functions taking the canonical individual type e are also lifted accordingly.
In the current proposal, then, one-place predicates pred1 and two-place predicates pred2 aredefined as
I appreciate an anonymous reviewer of 3rd Tsinghua Interdisciplinary Workshop on Logic, Language and Meaningfor pointing
2

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(22)

a.
pred1 := λuse.λfvt.λss .∃e[pred1(e, u(s), s) ∧f (e) ]
b. pred2 := λuse.λu'se .λfvt.λss.∃e[pred2(e, u(s), u'(s), s) ∧f (e) ]

Then for instance Alex slept is computed as(23)

a. slept1 := λuse.λfvt.λss.∃e [slept(e, u(s), s) ∧ f (e) ]b. Alex := λss.ac. Alex slept ⇝ λfvt.λss.∃e [slept(e, a, s) ∧ f (e)]In this case the variable f is saturated by predicate true, which is true of any events.
(24)a. true((23c))⇝ λss.∃e [slept(e, a, s) ∧ true(e)]⇝ λss.∃e [slept(e, a, s)]In other case the variable f lets adverbs modify the existentially quantified event. Temporal adverb
at five, for instance, is defined as (25), where a variable V is for the type of (26), ⟨vt, ⟨s, t⟩⟩,abbreviated as vt, st.
(25) at five ⇝ λVvt,st.λfvt.λss.V ( λev.[time(e) = 5 ∧ f (e)], s )Combining (25) and (23c) yields (26), whose f again waits for being saturated by true or for
another adverb to modify the event.

(26) at five((17c))⇝λfvt.λs's . [λf .λs.∃e [slept(e, a, s) ∧ f (e)]] (λev.[time(e) = 5 ∧ f (e)], s' )⇝λfvt.λs's . ∃e [slept(e, a, s') ∧ time(e) = 5 ∧ f (e)]With a proper definition of at six, and applications of true the propositions in the
conjunction in (1a) are translated as (27a, b).
(27) a. λs'. ∃e [in_a_park(e, a, s') ∧ time(e) = 5]b. λs. ∃e [in_a_station(e, a, s') ∧ time(e) = 6]
The temporal pronoun is defined in a similar way, as (28).
(28) then/at that time ⇝ λVvt,st.λfvt.λss.V ( λev.[time(e) = ιi[time(s) = i]], s )For ease of discussion, I assume that in (1b) each of them undergoes quantifier raising, yielding
the LF structure in (29).
(29)[(ii) Each of them [(i) [ t1 got a phone call] [then] ]]The constituent (i), with Lambda Abstraction over the variable/trace t1 induced by the QR,
is interpreted as (30). Since got_a_phone_call takes the lifted individual type se, I
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argue that the QR induces lambda abstraction over se-type.
(30)

λuse.λfvt.λss. ∃e[got_a_phone_call(e, u(s), s) ∧ time(e) = ιi[time(s) = i] ∧ f (e)]Each, which should take (30) as its scope, is defined as follow, where the variable Q is for thetype of (30), ⟨se, ⟨vt, ⟨s, t⟩⟩⟩.
(31)

each
⇝ λust.λCst.λQ.λss. ∀u'∀s'∈ C[u' (s') <e u(s) ∧ exist(u' (s'), s') ∧ s' ∈ Min(C) ∧ s' ≤ s]
→ ∃s'' [s'' ≤ s ∧ s' ≤ s'' ∧ Q(u', true, s'')]I take the domain of individual De contains plural individuals, which is formed from atomic
individuals by summation ⊕ (Link, 1983, a.o.). The first argument of each, namely u', takes
a situation s and returns a plural individual. This serves as the domain of individual
quantification. The argument is saturated by them, which I simply define as (32) in the case athand where them refers to the plurality of Alex and Bill.3(32) them ⇝ λs s . a ⊕ b
Notice that while u' is evaluated w.r.t. s', which is a minimal situation in C, u' is evaluated w.r.t.
s. This is because s' does not contain such a plural individual, for its minimality. The argument
u' then restricts the quantification over u' via the part-of relation <e. y <e x holds iff x and y
are individuals and y is an atomic part of x. Thus, the quantification over u' is restricted so thatu'(s) is a part of u(s). The second argument C is a set of situations, the domain of situation
quantification provided by context. The third argument Q is the scope of quantification.
Composing (31) and (32) yields (33), deriving the interpretation we have been pursuing. Supposethat of them denotes a⊕b, and C = (27a) ∪ (27b).
(33) eachC of them got a phone call then⇝ λss. ∀u'∀s' ∈ C[u'(s') ≤e a⊕ b ∧ exist(y, s') ∧ s' ∈ Min(C) ∧ s' ≤ s]
→ ∃s''[s'' ≤ s ∧ s' ≤ s'' ∧∃e [got_a_phone_call(e, u'(s''), s'') ∧ time(e) = ιi[time(s'') = i]]]

In a fully generalized E-type theory, them should be decomposed as then in this study, and picks up Alex and Billthrough the interplay of the definite determiner and a predicate. I leave the formalization of this process for future
research.
3

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References
Champollion, L. (2015). The interaction of compositional semantics and event semantics.
Linguistics and Philosophy, 38(1), 31–66.
Cooper, R. (1979). The interpretation of pronouns. In F. Heny & H. Schnelle (Eds.), Syntax
and Semantics 10: Selection from the Third Gröniingen Round Table, 61–92. New York:
Academic Press.
Davidson, D. (1967). The logical form of action sentences. In N. Rescher (Ed.), The Logic ofDecision and Action, 81–94. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Elbourne, P. (2001). E-Type anaphora as NP-deletion. Natural Language Semantics, 9(3), 241–
288.
Elbourne, P. (2005). Situations and individuals. MIT Press.
Elbourne, P. (2008). Ellipsis sites as definite descriptions. Linguistic Inquiry, 39(2), 191–
220.Publisher: The MIT Press.
von Fintel, K. (1994). Restrictions on quantifier domains. PhD thesis, UMass, Amherst.
Groenendijk, J. & Stokhof, M. (1991). Dynamic predicate logic. Linguistics andPhilosophy14(1), 39–100. Publisher: Springer.
Heim, I. (1982). The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. PhD thesis, UMass
Amherst.
Heim, I. (1990). E-Type pronouns and donkey anaphora. Linguistics and Philosophy, 13(2),137–177. Publisher: Springer.
Kamp, H. (1979). Events, instants and temporal reference. In Semantics from Different Pointof View (Springer Series in Language and Communication 6) 376–417. Berlin: Springer.
Kamp, H. (1981). A theory of truth and semantic representation. In Groenendijk, J., Janssen,T., & Stokhof, M. (Eds.), Formal methods in the Study of Language, 189–222. Amsterdam.
Kamp, H. (2017). Event, discourse representations and temporal Reference. Semantics andPragmatics, 10, 1–68.
Kratzer, A. (1998). More structural analogies between pronouns and tenses. In Proceedings of
SALT VIII, 92–110.
Kratzer, A. (2021). Situations in natural language semantics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2021 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford
University.
Link, G. (1983). The Logical of Plurals and Mass Terms: A Lattice-theoretic Approach, 302–
323. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Parsons, T. (1990). Events in the semantics of English: A study in subatomic semantics.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Partee, B. (1973). Some structural analogies between tenses and pronouns in English. Journalof Philosophy, 70, 601–609.
Postal, P. (1971). Cross-over phenomena. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.

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Mandarin bridging: experimental data and theoretical
implications
Ziling Zhu, Dorothy Ahn
Rutgers University

1. Introduction
This project experimentally investigates the distribution and the licensing conditions ofbridging in Mandarin, a classifier language. Bridging, also known as associative anaphora(Clark 1975, Hawkins 1978), is a phenomenon where a definite expression is licensed in acontext that does not immediately seem to meet the uniqueness presupposition. Instead, it islicensed based on some relation established in the context. Schwarz (2009) distinguishes two
types of bridging based on the nature of this relation: part-whole bridging where the entity is
uniquely identified within a salient situation, and producer-product bridging where the entity
is uniquely identified based on some relation to another discourse referent. He further showsthat this difference is reflected in languages that distinguish between uniqueness-denoting
definiteness and familiarity-denoting definiteness, with the former being used for part-wholebridging and the latter being used for producer-product bridging.
The way in which Mandarin marks definiteness has been investigated in a number of works,
including Jenks (2018) and Dayal & Jiang (2021). The two studies propose different theoreticalanalyses of Mandarin definites and thus predict different patterns for Mandarin bridging. For
example, Jenks (2018) predicts bare nouns to be used in part-whole bridging only anddemonstrative descriptions to be used in producer-product bridging. Dayal & Jiang’s (2021)
analysis of Mandarin demonstratives, on the other hand, rules out the use of demonstratives ineither type of bridging. In order to test these predictions against systematically collected data,
we conducted a sentence rating task where participants were asked to rate the naturalness ofthe two types of bridging, varying the form of the definite noun between bare nouns (che ‘car’)and demonstrative constructions (na-liang-che ‘that-CLASSIFIER-car’).
Our results suggest that both bare nouns and demonstrative constructions are felicitous inboth types of bridging in Mandarin, different from what Jenks and Dayal and Jiang would
predict. Our results call for a more gradient view on Mandarin bridging, where both bare nouns
and na constructions can semantically denote both types of definiteness but may haveinteractions at the pragmatic level that result in distributional differences.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the background, presenting thegeneral claim on two types of bridging and zooming into the specific arguments about
Mandarin bridging. In Section 3, we present our sentence rating study and discuss the results,
which suggest that both bare nouns and demonstrative constructions are felicitous in both typesof bridging in Mandarin. Section 4 concludes with a discussion of implications and remaining
questions.
2. Background
2.1 Bridging
Bridging, or associative anaphora (Clark 1975, Hawkins 1978), is a phenomenon where adefinite expression is licensed based on some relation to a context. Schwarz (2009) argues that

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280

two types of bridging must be distinguished: part-whole bridging that identifies the target
referent based on situational uniqueness, and producer-product bridging that identifies thetarget based on relational anaphora to another discourse referent.
In part-whole bridging as in (1a), the steering wheel can be identified because there is only
one such wheel in the minimal situation that contains the driving event introduced in the first
sentence. In producer-product bridging as in (1b), the relevant author can be identified
assuming that there is a unique author that stands in a writing relation with the book introducedin the first sentence.
(1) a. Jane was driving down the street. The steering wheel was cold.
b. Jake bought a book today. The author is French.

[part-whole][producer-product]

Although English uses the definite article the for both cases, as shown in (1), there arelanguages that make morphosyntactic distinctions between uniqueness-denoting andfamiliarity-denoting definiteness, thus distinguishing between part-whole and producerproduct bridging, respectively (Schwarz 2009, 2013, a.o.). For example, Fering uses theuniqueness-denoting a in part-whole bridging, and the anaphoricity-denoting di in producerproduct bridging (Ebert 1971). German makes the same morphophonological distinction
between uniqueness and familiarity in part-whole and producer-product bridging, respectively(Schwarz 2009).
In this work, we examine bridging in Mandarin, a classifier language that lacks an overt
definite determiner. In the next section, we first introduce some preliminary empirical data on
Mandarin definite expressions and then present two theoretical views on Mandarin bridging(Jenks 2018, Dayal and Jiang 2021).
2.2 Mandarin bridging
Mandarin does not have an overt definite article. Instead, bare nouns, which occur freely in thelanguage, as well as demonstrative descriptions containing the demonstrative na and theclassifier allow definite readings, as shown in (2).
(2) a.

b.

gou
yao
guo
malu.
dog
want
cross
road
‘The dog wants to cross the road.’
na-tiao-gou yao
guo
malu.
that-CL-dog want
cross
road
‘That dog wants to cross the road.’

Semantic analyses of definite bare nouns and demonstrative descriptions vary in the literature.
In the rest of this section, we review two recent accounts of these definite expressions anddiscuss their empirical predictions.
2.2.1 Jenks (2018)
Jenks (2018) argues that the difference between a bare noun and a na construction aligns withthe uniqueness vs. familiarity distinction made in Schwarz (2009), where uniqueness-based
definiteness is expressed with bare nouns and familiarity-based definiteness is expressed withna constructions. Jenks discusses three observations that support the claim about Mandarin
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bare nouns. First, larger-situation definites in Mandarin are expressed by bare nouns. These
definites are licensed by general world knowledge. For example, in (3), the bare noun yueliang‘the moon’ is licensed because their descriptive content mandates that there is a unique moon.
(3) Yueliang sheng shang
moon
rise
up
‘The moon has risen.’

lai
come

le.
LE

Second, immediate-situation definites are expressed by bare nouns. In (4), the sentence isinterpreted in a specific context, where a specific individual finished a specific bowl of soupthat is unique in the relevant situation. Hence, definiteness is licensed, and it is expressed by
the bare noun tang ‘soup’.
(4) Hufei he-wan-letang.
Hufei drink-finish-LE soup
‘Hufei finished the soup.’
Third and most relevant to our project, he observes that part-whole bridging is expressedby bare nouns, as in (5).
(5) Chezi bei
jingcha lanjie
le yinwei mei you tiezhi zai paizhao
shang.
car PASS police intercept LE because NEG have sticker at license.plate on‘The car was intercepted by the police because there wasn’t a sticker on the license plate.’
Jenks notes that anaphoric uses of bare nouns are much more restricted. For example, inan anaphoric context as in (6), a bare noun is infelicitous and a demonstrative construction isneeded instead.
(6) Jiaoshili
zuo-zhe yi-ge-nansheng he
yi-ge-nusheng.
classroom inside sit-PROG one-CL-boy
andone-CL-girlWozuotianyudao#(na-ge)-nansheng.
Iyesterday
meet
that-CL-boy‘There are a boy and a girl sitting in the classroom. I met the boy yesterday.’Based on these observations, Jenks argues that Mandarin bare nouns carry a uniqueness-based
iota operator, while na constructions carry an indexed iota operator, which resolves referent
through anaphora. He further proposes that there is a principle that maximizes the use of index
whenever possible (Index!), explaining why bare nouns are ruled out and na constructions are
realized in anaphoric contexts in Mandarin. Finally, he notes that there is an exception to thisgeneralization, which is that in subject positions, bare nouns can be anaphoric due to their topic
status.
Jenks’ analysis of Mandarin bare nouns and na constructions make specific predictions on
their distribution with respect to the two kinds of bridging. Jenks predicts that bare nouns would
be reserved for part-whole bridging, while na constructions would be reserved for producerproduct bridging. Bare nouns are predicted to be felicitous in producer-product bridging only
if they appear in the subject position.
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2.2.2 Dayal and Jiang (2021)
Dayal and Jiang (2021, see also Dayal 2021) argue that na constructions are similar to English
that, and that both demonstratives carry an anti-uniqueness presupposition. In other words,
there is another entity that meets the description outside the minimal situation in which themain predicate is evaluated. As English demonstrative that constructions cannot be used as
anaphora in bridging, as shown in (7), Mandarin na constructions are ruled out for the same
reason.
(7) Mary bought a house.
a. The roof needed to be replaced.
b. #That roof needed to be replaced.
Moreover, Dayal and Jiang note that the antecedent noun type might play a role in
Mandarin producer-product bridging. They observe the contrast in (8), noting that non-subject
bare nouns can also be used in producer-product bridging. They note that this observation is in
conflict with what is predicted in Jenks (2018).
(8) a. #Paul renwei na shou shi hen youmei, jishita bu
renshi shiren.
Paul think that CL poem very beautiful although he NEG know poet
‘Paul thinks that poem is very beautiful although he doesn’t know of the poet.’b. Paul du-le yi ben youqu-de shu. Ta xiang jian zuozhe.
Paul read-LE one CL interesting book he want meet author‘Paul read an interesting book. He wants to meet the author.’
Dayal and Jiang thus predict the felicitousness of bare nouns in bridging contexts to be more
gradient, especially based on the type of antecedent used. They, however, predict na
constructions to be ruled out in any kind of bridging contexts because the unavailability ofbridging uses is one of the main characteristics of English that, whose distribution they claim
overlaps completely with that of na.
In summary, Jenks predicts the two noun types are reserved for different types of bridging
and for bare nouns to only allow producer-product bridging in subject positions, while Dayal
and Jiang predict that Mandarin demonstratives to be ruled out in bridging contexts altogether.
In this work, we tested the two predictions presented above to better understand the
distribution of bare nouns and na constructions in bridging. Because the empirical claims in
the two papers differ, we conducted a rating task against a larger number of Mandarin speakers,
carefully manipulating the possible factors that can affect the interpretation.
3. Experiment
We conducted a sentence rating task looking at Mandarin bridging constructions. The two main
factors we investigated were a) the bridging type (part-whole vs. producer-product), and b) thedefinite expression (bare noun vs. na construction). In addition to the two main independent
variables, we further manipulated the antecedent type to address the effect of antecedent inbridging discussed in Dayal and Jiang (2021), as well as the syntactic position in which thedefinite expression occurs in the second sentence, based on Jenks’ (2018) argument that subject
bare nouns allow an anaphoric reading. This section summarizes our methodology and the282

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results.
3.1 Stimuli
Our target stimuli contained 8 part-whole bridging and 8 product-producer bridging sentencepairs. Within each item, we manipulated the anaphor noun type (bare noun vs. demonstrative),the antecedent noun type (indefinite, bare, and demonstrative), and the syntactic position of theanaphor. Half of the stimuli involved animate nouns, while the other half had inanimate nouns.
We discuss each factor in detail below.
First, bridging type included part-whole and producer-product bridging. Part-wholebridging is defined as a relation where the entity labeled as the “part” is physically containedin the entity labeled as the “whole”. Producer-product bridging is defined as a relation where
the entity labeled as “product” has a one-to-one correspondence to the entity labeled as the“producer”. In order to avoid a context where both kinds of bridging might be available, we
made sure that the producer-product bridging did not contain any relations where the “product”
was physically contained within the “producer”. The complete list of entities are presented in(9).
(9) a. Part-whole relations:
Inanimate group: (brake, car), (roof, house), (seat, bike), (screen, laptop);
Animate group: (forehead, horse), (nose, dog), (mouth, shark), (tail, cat).
b. Producer-product relations:
Inanimate group: (key, lock), (password, account), (remote, TV), (charger, phone);
Animate group: (author, book), (painter, painting), (director, film), (speaker, presentation).
Second, we manipulated the different syntactic forms that the antecedents and anaphors
may take. The antecedent was either a bare noun, such as (10a), a demonstrative construction
with na and a classifier, such as (10b), or an indefinite noun phrase with the indefinite article
yi ‘one’ and a classifier, such as (10c). The anaphor was either a bare noun or a demonstrative
construction. Crucially, the two theories have different predictions on which noun form(s) the
two types of bridging would use (Section 3.3).
(10) a.

che
car
‘car’
b. na liang
chethat CL car‘that car’c. yi liangche
one CL car‘one car’[BARE][DEM][INDEF]

Third, we varied the syntactic positions where the referents (antecedents and anaphors)appear. The syntactic positions are limited to the subject and object of a simple declarative
sentence.
Finally, half of the items involved animate nouns while half of the items involved
inanimate ones, as shown in the full list in (9). Previous literature consistently use inanimate
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objects as part-whole bridging examples, and animate ones for producers in the narrowly
defined producer-product bridging (i.e., animate producers and inanimate products). The mixmatch of the two variables, (in)animacy and bridging type, in the stimuli allows us to examine
whether a noun form is reserved for a certain bridging type.
We present two example target stimuli in (11): a part-whole bridging item with inanimate
referents in object positions, where both the antecedent and the anaphor are bare nouns, as in(11a); a producer-product bridging item with inanimate referents in subject positions, where
the antecedent is an indefinite noun phrase and the anaphor is a demonstrative construction, asin (11b).
(11) a.

b.

qu-nian wo maile che.
Wo zongwangji jiancha shache.
Last-year I buy
asp carI always forget check brake‘I bought the car last year. I always forget to check the brake.’yi-bu-shouji mashang jiuyao meidian-le, dan na-ge-chongdianqi qiahao
huai-le.
One-CL-phone soon
will no.battery-LE but that-CL-charger happen.to break-LE‘A phone is running out of battery, but that charger happens to be broken.’

The 16 sets of target stimuli, with the factors varied as above, resulted in a total of 96 target
stimuli. Each participant only saw one variation within each stimuli set, thus seeing 16 target
sentences in total. In addition to the target stimluli, we included 24 syntactically well-formed
controls with semantic oddness (12a), pragmatic oddness (12b), or no linguistic violations(12c). This set of control sentences were added in order to have a more systematic
understanding of what the ratings mean. Comparing the participants’ ratings of the target
sentences against semantically odd, pragmatically odd, and felicitous sentences allows us tolocate the target ratings against a larger set of Mandarin data, and also helps us determine
whether an infelicitousness of a sentence is due to semantic or pragmatic violations. The detailsof the control stimuli can be found in Zhu and Ahn (2022).
(12) a.

b.

c.

Zhang Xiaoming shi ge jie-le-hun-de danshenhan, wo he ta hen shu.
Zhang Xiaoming is CL
marriedbachelor
I and he very close‘Zhang Xiaoming is a married bachelor. I’m close to him.’[semantically odd]
Zuotian xiayu de shihou xiayu le.
yesterday rain
DE timerain
LE‘Yesterday it was raining when it was raining.’[pragmatically odd]
Xiaoxue zhengli hao keben,
jueding jintian qu-shangxue.
Xiaoxue organize good textbook decide
today go.to.school‘Xiaoxue organized the textbooks and decided to go to school today.’[neutral]

In Zhu and Ahn (2022), we determined that an instruction asking Mandarin speakers to rate
based on ‘naturalness’ best captures distinctions between semantically odd and pragmatically
odd sentences. Based on this, we used the instruction shown in (13).

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285(13) Qing gei
juzi
de ziranchengdu dafen.
Please give sentence DE natural degree
rate.
1 fen
wei zui-bu-ziran,
7 fen
wei zui-ziran.
1 point ismost-not-natural
7 point ismost-natural‘Please rate the naturalness of the sentence(s). 1 means least natural, and 7 means most natural.’
3.2 Participants and procedure
We recruited 120 native Mandarin speakers (18-64; gender-balanced) via Prolific. Participants
were redirected to a PCIbex survey, where they were asked to first provide some demographic
and language background information, and then complete the sentence judgment task.
Participants were compensated $2-3 for their time.
Each participant was presented with 40 stimuli, randomized in order: 8 part-whole and 8
producer-product bridging sentences (pseudo-randomized in referent noun type, animacy, andsyntactic position), as well as 24 controls. Participants were asked to rate the naturalness ofthese sentences on a 7-point Likert scale, as in Fig. 1.

Figure 1: Sample question (a control item with semantic violations)
3.3 Predictions
Jenks (2018) predicts that bare nouns are reserved for part-whole bridging, while
demonstratives are reserved for producer-product bridging, with the exception that bare nouns
are felicitous in producer-product bridging in subject positions. Therefore, anaphor noun type
would significantly change the sentence ratings under the same bridging type. Bare noun
anaphors would lead to higher ratings in part-whole bridging, while demonstrative
constructions would lead to higher ratings in producer-product bridging. Bare nouns in subject
positions would also lead to higher ratings in producer-product bridging.
Dayal & Jiang (2021) predict that Mandarin demonstrative na is ruled out in bridging
contexts altogether, similar to English that. Therefore, demonstrative constructions would leadto lower ratings in any type of bridging. In contrast, bare noun anaphors would lead to higher
ratings in both part-whole and producer-product bridging contexts. Moreover, they predict that
gradient differences would be observed for bare nouns in bridging contexts, when antecedent
noun type varies.
3.4 Results
We fit a Cumulative Link Mixed Model in R to compare ratings in different conditions. For
part-whole bridging (Fig. 2), our results showed a main effect of animacy (p < 0.001) andsyntactic position (p < 0.05). In the animate group (blue bars), no significant difference was285

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found for either antecedent or anaphor noun type (p > 0.1). In the inanimate group (yellowbars), we identified a main effect of anaphor noun type (p < 0.01). Moreover, Fig. 2 (as wellas Fig. 3) indicates the average ratings of controls, including semantically odd sentences (redsolid line), pragmatically odd sentences (red dashed line), and neutral sentences (black line).

Figure 2: Ratings as function of anaphor noun type, grouped by antecedent noun type,in part-whole bridging.
For producer-product bridging (Fig. 3), we found a main effect of syntactic positions (p < 0.01)
and significant interaction of antecedent noun type INDEF in subject positions (p < 0.05).

Figure 3: Ratings as function of anaphor noun type, grouped by antecedent noun type,in producer-product bridging.
For both bridging types, neither anaphor noun type nor antecedent noun type leads tosignificant rating differences (p > 0.1). Furthermore, the ratings of all bridging sentences are
significantly above the ratings of pragmatically odd and semantically odd sentences (p < 0.001).
4. Discussion and conclusions
We have provided systematic empirical observations for Mandarin bridging. Our results showthat both bare nouns and demonstrative constructions are felicitous in part-whole and producerproduct bridging.
First, our results are not accounted for by Jenks’ analysis. Jenks argues that demonstratives
are preferred in producer-product bridging with the exception of bare nouns in subject positions.
However, bare noun anaphors are actually rated higher than demonstratives in both types of286

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bridging. Hence, Jenks’ prediction is not borne out. The only exception exists in inanimate
part-whole bridging, where bare noun anaphors are indeed rated higher than demonstratives.
The absence of this contrast in the animate part-whole bridging might be due to examples withbody-parts such as nose and forehead. The tendency for bare nouns referring to body parts torefer to the speaker’s own seems to have interfered with the rating. We suspect this might have
led to the observed interaction of animacy and anaphor noun type. We plan to launch a followup reading time task to evaluate Jenks’ theory in more depth.
Second, Dayal and Jiang (2021) makes too strong a prediction for Mandarin
demonstratives, with their anti-presupposition analysis. In contrast to their prediction,
Mandarin demonstrative constructions with na are in fact felicitous in both types of bridging,unlike English demonstratives. Moreover, the antecedent noun type did not lead to significant
rating differences of bare nouns in bridging contexts. The observed interaction between
indefinite antecedents and subject positions can be explained away by the dispreference ofindefinite expressions in subject positions in Mandarin.
We further note that the difference between anaphor type is not categorical as predicted by
Jenks’ analysis. Instead, all ratings were significantly higher than pragmatically andsemantically odd control sentences we included in the experiment. We argue that this calls fora more gradient view of bridging in Mandarin, where both bare nouns and na constructions candenote familiarity. There have been some recent discussions on the competition between
different definite expressions in a given context, including definites and demonstratives (PatelGrosz and Grosz 2017, Schlenker 2005, a.o.). These definite expressions have shown varying,gradient distributions, which are not categorical, similar to what we have observed for
Mandarin bridging.

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