Showing papers in "Journal of East Asian Linguistics in 2000"

String vacuous overt verb raising

Abstract: Although evidence is abundant for overt syntactic verb raising in head initial languages, no convincing evidence has been found for comparable verb movement in head final languages such as Japanese. This state of affairs has led some researchers to conclude that there is no Head Parameter as such in UG. In this paper, we present arguments for overt verb raising in Japanese, thereby defending the validity of the Head Parameter with its two values [head initial] and [head final].

Subject/Object Drop in the Acquisition of Korean: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison

Abstract: This paper discusses the subject/object drop pattern found in child Korean and makes a cross-linguistic comparison among seven languages. Regardless of their target languages, children acquiring any language are found to start producing fewer overt subjects than adult speakers. But their production of overt subjects increases with age and quickly reaches the adult rate. Since even children acquiring null-subject languages produce overt subjects at the early stages of acquisition less often than adults, there seem to be some nonsyntactic factors which are at least partly responsible across languages for the initial nonproduction of overt subjects. Moreover, the actual subject-drop rate in a language cannot be predicted on the basis of how the language identifies null subjects. For example, we cannot predict that a "rich-agreement" language drops subjects more often than a "discourse-oriented" language or the other way around. Children instead seem to show sensitivity to actual frequencies of subject drop in their target languages. Korean data also confirm the universal tendency of more frequent subject than object drop. The subject/object drop pattern in child Korean and a cross-linguistic comparison among seven languages support performance-limitation accounts of the subject drop phenomenon in early English. The findings are most consistent with Valian's observation that early grammars show a high degree of sensitivity to characteristics of and frequency distributions in input.

The Syntax of Mandarin Bă: Reconsidering the Verbal Analysis

Abstract: The ba construction is central to the study of Mandarin grammar. It has received many attempts at analysis and comes up frequently as a syntactic test in discussions of other phenomena. Yet, not even its part of speech has ever been convincingly established. This paper presents the case for treating ba as a verb, considering both language-internal arguments and arguments from universal properties of parts of speech. These arguments are intended to have cross-theoretic validity.On the basis of the conclusion that ba is a verb, an analysis is developed within the framework of Lexical Functional Grammar. On this analysis, ba selects for a subject, an object, and a complement clause, and further stipulates that its object controls the TOPIC function of its complement clause.This analysis is shown to account for both the core data and the data which is problematic for other analyses. Finally, the analysis is confirmed by evidence from telicity effects in the ba construction, universal properties of verbs and prepositions, and its compatibility with the known historical development of the construction.

Default Accentuation and Foot Structure in Japanese: Evidence from Japanese Adaptations of French Words

Abstract: We examined accentuation patterns that appear in Japanese adaptation of French words. We argue that these patterns reflect the default accentuation of Japanese grammar: they correspond to accent patterns found in some marginal sectors of Japanese vocabulary (e.g., proper nouns) where the accent is predictable. Our Optimality Theoretic analysis defines the default accentuation as the head of a non-final bimoraic trochaic foot (essentially confirming the analyses of Yamada (1990) and Haraguchi (1991)). Certain aspects of Universal Grammar emerge in our data: shift of accent from epenthetic vowels and variation between penultimate and antepenultimate accent in heavy-light syllable sequences.

The Acquisition of Japanese Numeral Classifiers: Linkage between Grammatical Forms and Conceptual Categories.

Abstract: This study examines the acquisition of Japanese numeral classifiers in Japanese preschool children, ages 3 to 6, with a primary emphasis on developing comprehension ability Numeral classifiers, widely distributed in languages of East and Southeast Asia and the New World, are a group of morphemes that usually occur adjacent to quantity expressions The selection of numeral classifiers is determined by the inherent semantic properties of the noun whose quantity is being specified, suggesting that developing patterns of comprehension should be linked to underlying patterns of semantic and conceptual development Previous research claims that children acquire certain distributional patterns very early but that the acquisition of the semantic system is a very slow process We argue instead that different techniques and stimulus contrast sets reveal a much greater sensitivity to semantic relations in young children than was previously considered possible Reasons for the apparent slowness in classifier acquisition are also discussed

Linguistic Relativity in Japanese and English: Is Language the Primary Determinant in Object Classification?

Abstract: In the present study, we tested claims by Lucy (1992a, 1992b) that differences between the number marking systems used by Yucatec Maya and English lead speakers of these languages to differentially attend to either the material composition or the shape of objects. In order to evaluate Lucy's hypothesis, we replicated his critical object classification experiment using speakers of English and Japanese, a language with a number marking system very similar to that employed by Yucatec Maya. Our results failed to replicate Lucy's findings. Both Japanese and English speakers, who were comparable in their cultural and educational backgrounds, classified objects more on the basis of shape than material composition, suggesting that Lucy's original findings may have resulted not from differences between the number marking systems of Yucatec Maya and English but rather from differences in the cultural and educational backgrounds of his experimental groups. Alternative accounts of the cognitive consequences of inter-linguistic differences in number marking systems are discussed.

Chinese Conditionals and the Theory of Conditionals

Abstract: As is well known, in conditionals and, more generally, in structures involving adverbs of quantification, indefinite NPs like a cat display a variable quantificational force. Within DRT this phenomenon is analyzed by assimilating indefinites to variables. Unlike other variable-like elements, however, indefinites cannot be anaphoric to something else. That is, one cannot say things like "a cat usually meows if a cat is hungry" meaning "a cat usually meows if it is hungry." This is generally explained in terms of a novelty condition: indefinites must introduce novel variables. Cheng and Huang (1996) discuss and analyze two types of Chinese conditionals in which wh- words display quantificational variability. In one type of conditional, their behavior is fully analogous to that of indefinites. In the other, they behave like indefinites in the antecedent, while in the consequent they must be interpreted as bound pronouns. Thus, in DR-theoretic terms, Chinese wh-words obey the novelty condition in the antecedent but not in the consequent of a conditional. This behavior is unexpected. The present paper addresses this issue. The main claim is that a certain version of Dynamic Semantics leads one to expect elements with exactly the properties of Chinese wh-words. In particular, Dynamic Semantics makes it possible to reverse, in a sense, the classic DR-theoretic strategy. One can view indefinites as existentially quantified terms: however, their existential force can be overridden by operators in their local environment that wipe out their existential force, as it were, and get them to act like variables. If one takes this line, the Novelty Condition becomes dispensable and the problem disappears. The behavior of Chinese wh-words is also compared to that of other elements analyzable as indefinite pronominals, such as si in Italian or one in English.

An Island Effect in Japanese

Abstract: In this paper I develop an argument for a pied-piping approach to the apparent absence of island effects in Japanese, along the lines of Nishigauchi (1986, 1990) The argument (first mentioned in Watanabe (1992b), crediting Mamoru Saito) has to do with the behavior of multiple wh-phrases in situ which are in an island; such wh-phrases must all take the same scope On a covert pied-piping approach to island effects, the ban on distinct scopes follows straightforwardly; the island must be pied-piped to a scope position by the wh-phrases inside it, establishing the scope position for all of them I show that the ban on distinct-scope readings does exhibit several properties of islands, including additional-wh effects I then go on to investigate briefly the nature of pied-piping, developing a theory which accounts for the fact that wh-islands cannot be pied-piped

Richness of the Base and Root Fusion in Sino-Japanese

Abstract: The richness of the base hypothesis is one of the central notions in Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). The idea is that there is no language-specific input, but all crosslinguistic variations are generated out of interactions of universal constraints ranked in a language-dependent manner. Although this hypothesis is thus closely tied to the architecture of the theoretical framework, I argue that it is not only a conceptual development but enjoys empirical endorsement. Root fusion (cf. Ito and Mester (1996) for the terminology) in Sino-Japanese has been studied extensively, but it still leaves unresolved issues in connection with underlying representation: (i) the underlying morphemic shape and (ii) the status of coronal (under)specification. Earlier analyses which assume a particular underlying form are problematic because these issues present indeterminism of underlying representation. Arguing that those approaches are unmotivated, I propose and defend an alternative analysis based on the richness of the base hypothesis. My analysis avoids empirical and conceptual problems encountered by earlier studies since there is no reliance on a certain input. This proposal is preferable also from the language learning point of view. The argument developed in this paper therefore lends empirical support for the richness of the base hypothesis.

Voicing of Obstruents in Old Japanese: Evidence from the Sound-Symbolic Stratum.

Abstract: It is standard view in Japanese historical linguistics that voicing of obstruents in Old through Early Middle Japanese (c. 700–1200) was contrastive although largely limited to intervocalic position. However, Wenck (1959), Hayata (1977), and Takayama (1993) question this view by raising the possibility that early Japanese had only non-contrastive voicing of intervocalic obstruents. On this account, "voiced" and "voiceless" obstruents in intervocalic position were distinguished purely on the basis of prenasalization rather than voicing in early Japanese; the well-known weakening process of intervocalic /p/, which is commonly summarized as *p > *Φ > w, is recast as *p > *b > *β > w. This dissenting view is in fact more consistent with various sound change phenomena from Middle to Modern Japanese. This paper presents a novel piece of evidence from the sound-symbolic stratum which supports the view of Wenck, Hayata, and Takayama.

Syllabic Constituency and Sub-Syllabic Processes.

Abstract: Whether the syllable has internal structure or not is by no means a settled matter in generative phonology. This paper argues that the syllable has rich internal structure that may vary from language to language. Crucial evidence comes from phonological processes, such as partial reduplication, that target sub-strings of the syllable. In the case of Fuzhou, careful analysis of sub-syllabic processes provides a convincing argument for a highly articulated structure of the syllable.