The Syntax of Possession in Japanese (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics)

First Published in 2002. This volume is part of the 'Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics' series. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the syntax of possession expressions in Japanese at the sentential level. It starts with a background of possessive syntax and illustrates how Japanese presents us with an interesting case study of possessive syntax Cover 1 Original Title Page 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 Acknowledgments 12 List of Abbreviations 14 CHAPTER 1 Introduction 18 1.1 Issues in possessive syntax 18 1.2 A sketch of clausal possessives in Japanese 24 1.2.1 Lexical verbs of possession 25 1.2.2 The possessive/locative/existential parallelism 26 1.2.3 Adjectival modification and possessive syntax 29 1.3 Organization and synopsis 31 CHAPTER 2 Theoretical Assumptions 34 2.1 Conceptual background 34 2.2 Features and Checking Theory 35 2.3 The theory of Attract and the locality condition 36 CHAPTER 3 Nominal and Clausal Possessives 38 3.1 The Hungarian E-possessive 39 3.2 The Japanese E-possessive 44 3.2.1 Proposal: Possessor extraction in Japanese 45 3.2.2 Muromatsu (1997): Honorification as agreement? 47 3.2.3 A puzzle concerning scrambling 51 3.2.4 The Unambiguous Domination Constraint 55 3.3 Hungarian-Japanese contrasts 64 3.4 Previous analyses of the Japanese E-possessive 68 3.4.1 Homophonous aru 68 3.4.2 Homophonous aru AND iru 72 3.5 Summary of Chapter 3 74 CHAPTER 4 E-possessive and Locative 76 4.1 Previous approaches to the possessive/locative parallelism 78 4.1.1 Pragma-semantic approach 78 4.1.2 Homophonous transitive-intransitive pairs 81 4.1.3 Two types of small clause 85 4.1.4 Summary of Section 4.1 87 4.2 Proposal: Extending the E-possessive account 87 4.2.1 Existential interpretation and D-incorporation 88 4.2.2 Structures of the locative, the existential, and the E-possessive 91 4.2.3 How the E-possessive account works 98 4.2.4 "Subjecthood" in Japanese and Checking Theory 103 4.2.5 The scrambling puzzle revisited 107 4.2.6 Animacy alternation 110 4.2.7 Summary of Section 4.2 111 4.3 E-possessive and locative in Hungarian 112 4.4 Summary of Chapter 4 115 Appendix to Chapter 4: On the categorical status of the possessor and the locational phrase 116 CHAPTER 5 The Structures of Possessors 122 5.1 Proposal: the two positions of possessors 124 5.2 Alienable and inalienable possessors 126 5.2.1 The notion of inalienability in grammar 127 5.2.2 A thematic approach to inalienable possessors 129 5.2.3 The position of alienable possessors 132 5.2.4 Inalienability in Japanese 136 5.3 Attributive adjectives in Japanese 137 5.4 Hungarian-Japanese contrast 147 5.5 Summary of Chapter 5 148 Appendix to Chapter 5: A survey of inalienability in Japanese 149 I. Body Parts 149 II. Kinship terms 150 III. Part-whole 151 IV. Colors/shapes 152 V. Other Attributes 153 VI. Summary 153 CHAPTER 6 Inalienable Possession Construction with 'do' 154 6.1 Properties of the IPC with 'do' 155 6.1.1 Obligatory modification 155 6.1.2 Inalienability 157 6.1.3 Verb form 159 6.2 Proposal: the syntax of the IPC with 'do' 162 6.3 No possessor-raising in the IPC with 'do' 165 6.4 Small ν in possessives 169 6.4.1 Proxy verb suru? 169 6.4.2 The Bahuvrihi possessive in Yaqui 172 6.4.3 A note on possessional adjectives in English 178 6.5 Summary of Chapter 6 181 Bibliography 182 Index 196 Annotation First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company