1 Introduction
The aim of this chapter is threefold: (i) to provide an overview of the case system of “Standard” Modern Japanese (SMJ); (ii) to present a set of case frames borne by constructions that have presented a challenge to contemporary syntactic theories; and (iii) to account for some of such case frames in generative and functional terms as a guide for further research.
The Japanese case system has been classified as accusative, despite recent controversies over how to characterize the case system of Old Japanese (OJ) (e.g. Vovin Reference Vovin1997; Yanagida and Whitman Reference Yanagida and Whitman2009).Footnote 1 SMJ implements its accusative case system by postpositional particles, which have been referred to as kaku-joshi ‘case particles’ by traditional Japanese grammarians. These case particles are phonologically bound to the preceding words, but the fact that other elements may intervene between the case particles and the nouns they mark and that their scope may extend over more than one NP when they are coordinated (as illustrated in (1)) indicates that the case particles are phrasal clitics rather than nominal declensions:
(1)
Tarō-to Hanako-dake-ga eki-kara arui-ta. Taro-and Hanako-only-nom train.station-abl walk-pst ‘Only Taro and Hanako walked from the train station.’
One of the prominent features of the SMJ case system is that more than one nominative-marked NP may occur within a clause when the clause-initial one may be taken as being characterized by the remaining part of the clause (Takami and Kamio Reference Takami and Kamio1996: 217), as illustrated in (2):
(2)
Tarō-ga hahaoya-ga hyōban-ga ii. Taro-nom mother-nom reputation-nom good ‘Taro is such that his mother has a good reputation.’
Such multiple-nominative case frames are the hallmark of topic-prominent languages including Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese (Li and Thompson Reference Li, Thompson and Li1976) and have been a major problem for descriptions of the SMJ case system.
This chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 outlines the primary functions of the following case particles: ga (nominative), o (accusative), ni (dative), no (genitive), e (allative), kara (ablative), yori (ablative), made (terminative), de (instrumental), and to (comitative). Section 3 introduces a set of non-canonical case frames borne by Dative-Subject, Multiple-Nominative, Genitive-Subject, Causative, and Desiderative Constructions. Section 4 provides a summary of selected generative accounts of the nominative, accusative, and dative case assignment. Section 5 outlines an alternative functional account of case frames. Section 6 concludes the chapter.
2 Case Particles
The case particles in SMJ are listed in (3). Ga, o, and ni are distinguished from the other particles, in that they are omissible in colloquial speech, as illustrated in (4):Footnote 2
(3) Case Particles in SMJ: ga, o, ni, no, e, de, yori, kara, made, to
a.
Tarō(-ga) kesa daigaku(-ni) it-ta? Taro(-nom) this.morning university(-dat) go-pst ‘Did Taro go to university this morning?’ b.
Onigiri(-o) soto-de taberu-no? rice.ball(-acc) outside-instr eat-sfp ‘Are (we) going to eat rice balls outside?’
It has been the standard practice to treat no as in (5a) as an instance of the genitive particle, but no also functions as a marker of adnominal modification, as illustrated in (5b–c):Footnote 3
a.
Tarō-no atama/musume/hon Taro-gen head/daughter/book ‘Taro’s head/daughter/book’ (genitive case) b.
Tarō-ga itsumo-no basu-de kitaku-shi-ta. Taro-nom always-gen bus-instr going.home-do-pst ‘Taro went home by the bus he always rode.’ (attributive marker) c.
Tarō-ga jinja-e-no michi-o mitsuke-ta. Taro-nom shrine-all-gen way-acc find-pst ‘Taro found a way to the shrine.’ (attributive marker)
The particle no in (5a) relates the possessor noun to the head noun, while no in (5b–c) turns the adverb itsumo ‘always’ and the postpositional phrase jinja-e ‘to/toward the shrine’ into adnominal modifiers. In either case, no makes an element that it is attached to serve as an adnominal modifier. It remains an open question whether such uses of no as the one illustrated in (5a) may be analyzed as the genitive case marker or as a subtype of the adnominal modifier.Footnote 4
The major uses of the nominative ga are illustrated in (6a–d):
a.
Tarō-ga hon-o yon-da. Taro-nom book-acc read-pst ‘Taro read a book.’ b.
Tarō-ni/ga eigo-ga wakar-u. Taro-dat/nom English-nom understand-pres ‘Taro understands English.’ c.
Tarō-ni/ga ninjin-ga tabe-rare-ru. Taro-dat/nom carrot-nom eat-can-pres ‘Taro can eat carrots.’ d.
Tarō-ni/ga kono hon-ga yomi-yasui/nikui. Taro-dat/nom this book-nom read-easy/difficult ‘For Taro to read this book is easy/difficult.’
What is peculiar about ga is that there is no one-to-one correspondence between the nominative marking and its grammatical function. Ga marks not only subject arguments, but also non-subject arguments of a few simple stative predicates (e.g. iru ‘have,’ dekiru ‘can do,’ tokui-da ‘be good at’) and morphologically complex predicates formed by the potential morpheme -(rar)e ‘can’ and the “tough” morphemes -yasui/nikui ‘easy/difficult,’ as illustrated in (6b–d).
Another important point to note with respect to (6b–d) is that their subject arguments may bear either dative or nominative case. Examples (2) and (6b–d) illustrate that the nominative particle may mark more than one NP within a clause. Such multiple occurrence of a nominative-marked argument within a clause makes it impossible to define the nominative particle ga as the subject marker and requires us to define it with no appeal to grammatical relations.
Second, the accusative particle o functions as a marker of direct objects (as in (6a)), but o also may serve as a marker of source and path arguments of motion verbs (Haig Reference Haig1981; Miyake Reference Miyake1996), as exemplified in (7a–b):
a.
Tarō-ga heya-o/kara de-ta. Taro-nom room-acc/abl go.out-pst ‘Taro went out of the room.’ (source) b.
Tarō-ga kaigan-o arui-ta. Taro-nom beach-acc walk-pst ‘Taro walked along the beach.’ (path) c.
Chi-ga kizuguchi-*o/kara de-ta. blood-nom wound-acc/abl go.out-pst ‘Blood went out of the wound.’ (source)
Source arguments as in (7a) may be marked by either the accusative or ablative particle, while path arguments as in (7b) may be marked only by the accusative particle. In (7c), when the subject argument is not volitional, the source argument may not be marked by o (Miyake Reference Miyake1996: 145). That is, not all source arguments of motion verbs may receive accusative case.
Third, the dative ni has a wide range of uses including the goal, recipient, source, experiencer, benefactive, causee, and addressee, as illustrated in (8):
a.
Tarō-ga daigaku-ni dekaketa. Taro-nom college-dat go.out-pst ‘Taro went out to college.’ (goal) b.
Tarō-ga Hanako-ni hon-o watashi-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-dat book-acc hand-pst ‘Taro handed a book to Hanako.’ (recipient) c.
Tarō-ga Hanako-ni(/kara) pen-o kari-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-dat(/abl) pen-acc borrow-pst ‘Taro borrowed a pen from Hanako.’ (source) d.
Tarō-ni eigo-ga wakar-u. Taro-dat English-nom understand-pres ‘Taro understands English.’ (experiencer) e.
Tarō-ga musuko-ni hon-o katte-age-ta. Taro-nom son-dat book-acc buy-give-pst ‘Taro bought a book for his son.’ (benefactive) f.
Tarō-ga Hanako-ni hon-o kaw-ase-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-dat book-acc buy-caus-pst ‘Taro made Hanako buy a book.’ (causee) g.
Tarō-ga Hanako-ni hon-o yomu-yō susume-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-dat book-acc read-comp advise-pst ‘Taro advised Hanako to read a book.’ (addressee)
Fourth, the instrumental particle de started as a locative marker that specifies a location in which an event takes place and has acquired a wide range of meanings including instrument, manner, temporal duration, and material meanings (Mabuchi Reference Mabuchi2000: 18–28), as illustrated in (9):
a.
Tarō-ga kōen-de sanpo-shi-tei-ta. Taro-nom park-instr stroll.do-prog-pst ‘Taro was taking a walk in the park.’ (location) b.
Tarō-ga kagi-de doa-o ake-ta. Taro-nom key-instr door-acc open-pst ‘Taro opened the door with a key.’ (instrument) c.
Tarō-ga sanjikan-de shigoto-o oe-ta. Taro-nom three.hours-instr work-acc finish-pst ‘Taro finished his work in three hours.’ (temporal duration) d.
Tarō-ga kaze-de jugyō-o sōtai-shi-ta. Taro-nom cold-instr class-acc leave.early-do-pst ‘Taro left class early because of a cold.’ (cause)
The instrumental case has traditionally been defined as a marker of the semantic role of instrument, but it may mark a wide range of nouns (e.g. instrument, transportation, route, unit, manner, location, source, temporal duration, moved entity, material, cause, passive agent) in many languages including Japanese.
Finally, examples (10a–e) illustrate the rest of the case particles, e (allative), made (terminative), kara (ablative), yori (ablative), and to (comitative):
a.
Tarō-ga Tōkyō-ni/e/made mukatta. Taro-nom Tokyo-dat/all/term head-pst ‘Taro headed for Tokyo.’ b.
Tarō-ga san-ji-made sagyō-o tsuzuke-ta. Taro-nom 3-o’clock-term work-acc continue-pst ‘Taro continued his work until 3 o’clock.’ c.
Tarō-ga Kyōto-kara jitaku-ni modot-ta. Taro-nom Kyoto-abl home-dat return-pst ‘Taro returned home from Kyoto.’ d.
Hanako-ga Tarō-yori sono shigoto-ni tekinin-da. Hanako-nom Taro-abl that job-dat qualified-cop ‘Hanako is more qualified for the job than Taro.’ e.
Tarō-ga Hanako-to eiga-o mi-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-com movie-acc watch-pst ‘Taro watched the movie with Hanako.’
3 Non-canonical Case Frames
SMJ has not only the set of case frames expected for standard accusative languages, but also case frames that deviate from them. These non-canonical case frames are borne by Dative-Subject, Multiple-Nominative, Genitive-Subject, Causative, and Desiderative Constructions.
First, (11a–e) illustrate Dative-Subject Constructions (DSCs), in which subject arguments optionally receive dative case, while non-subject arguments receive nominative case. It remains controversial how to assign nominative case to non-subject arguments (see Koizumi Reference Koizumi, Shigeru and Saito2008 for a survey of generative accounts of DSCs in Japanese):Footnote 5
(11) Dative-Subject Constructions
a.
Tarō-ni/ga musuko-ga i-ru. Taro-dat/nom son-nom have-pres ‘Taro has a son.’ b.
Tarō-ni/ga ryōri-ga deki-ru. Taro-dat/nom cooking-nom can.do-pres ‘Taro can do the cooking.’ c.
Tarō-ni/ga eigo-ga wakar-u. Taro-dat/nom English-nom understand-pres ‘Taro understands English.’ (= (6b)) d.
Tarō-ni/ga ninjin-ga tabe-rare-ru. Taro-dat/nom carrot-nom eat-can-pres ‘Taro can eat carrots.’ (=(6c)) e.
Tarō-ni/ga kono hon-ga yomi-yasui/nikui. Taro-dat/nom this book-nom read-easy/difficult ‘For Taro to read this book is easy/difficult.’ (=(6d))
Examples (11c–e) may also bear a ‘nom–acc’ case frame. For example, in an imperative mood or with the auxiliary -ō-to-suru ‘try to,’ wakaru ‘understand’ can occur in the ‘nom–acc’ case frame, as illustrated in (12) (Sugioka Reference Sugioka1984: 164–165; see also Haig Reference Haig1979b):
a.
Boku-no kimochi-o wakar-e. I-gen feelings-acc understand-imp ‘Understand my feelings.’ b.
Kimi-wa boku-no kimochi-o wakar-ō-to-shi-na-i. you-top I-gen feelings-acc understand-vol-comp-do-neg-pres ‘You don’t try to understand my feelings.’
These two environments force a dynamic interpretation of wakaru and motivate the use of a ‘nom–acc’ case frame. Likewise, potential and some (but not all) “tough” constructions that take a transitive verb as their complement (e.g. 11d–e) may also bear a ‘nom–acc’ case frame.
Second, (13a–c) illustrate Multiple-Nominative Constructions (MNCs):
(13) Multiple-Nominative Constructions
a.
Tarō-ga hahaoya-ga hyōban-ga ii. Taro-nom mother-nom reputation-nom good ‘Taro is such that his mother has a good reputation.’ (=(2)) b.
Tarō-ga butsuri-ga tokui/nigate-da. Taro-nom physics-nom good.at/bad.at-cop ‘Taro is good/bad at physics.’ c.
Boku-ga kuma-ga kowakat-ta. I-nom bear-nom afraid.of-pst ‘I was afraid of bears.’
MNCs are divided into two subtypes, depending on whether the clause-initial subject argument is subcategorized by the predicate or not (Kuno Reference Kuno1973: ch. 4): (13a) is distinguished from (13b–c), in that the predicates in (13b–c) subcategorize for both the subject and the non-subject arguments, while the one in (13a) does not. A list of adjectives and nominal adjectives that require both of their arguments to bear nominative case is given in (14) (Kuno Reference Kuno1973: 81–82):
a. Competence: jōzu-da ‘be good at,’ negate/heta-da ‘be bad at,’ tokui-da ‘be good at, be proud of,’ umai ‘be good at’
b. Feeling: suki-da ‘be fond of,’ kirai-da ‘be hateful of,’ hoshii ‘want,’ kowai ‘be fearful of’
c. -Tai derivatives (composed of -tai ‘want’ and a transitive verb stem): yomi-tai ‘want to read,’ tabe-tai ‘want to eat’
It has been the standard practice within the generativist tradition to license nominative case in the presence of a tensed element since Chomsky (Reference Chomsky1981), but this raises the question of how to handle MNCs, since a clause may have only one tense marker (and therefore only one nominative-marked argument). MNCs have attracted much attention since the advent of the Principles-and-Parameters Theory (PPT) (Chomsky Reference Chomsky1981, Reference Chomsky1986b), since they require an elaboration/modification of the standard assumption about nominative case assignment in the PPT.
Third, examples (15a–c) illustrate Genitive-Subject Constructions (GSCs), which show up in dependent clauses such as relative clauses, (nominal and verbal) complement clauses, and adverbial clauses:
(15) Genitive-Subject Constructions
a.
Tarō-no/ga nakushi-ta kagi-o mitsuke-ta. Taro-gen/nom lose-pst key-acc find-pst ‘(I) found the key that Taro lost.’ b.
Tarō-ga kanojo-no/ga dekake-ta-koto-o shira-nakat-ta. Taro-nom she-gen/nom go.out-pst-nmlz-acc know-neg-pst ‘Taro didn’t know that she went out.’ c.
Tarō-no/ga shin-da-ato, Hanako-ga nihon-ni modot-ta. Taro-gen/nom die-pst-after Hanako-nom Japan-dat return-pst ‘After Taro died, Hanako returned to Japan.’
There is a restriction as to what may occur in those dependent clauses with genitive-marked subjects: no genitive-marked agentive argument may occur with an accusative-marked patientive argument in dependent clauses, as illustrated by (16a) (Harada Reference Harada1971: 28):
a.
Tarō-*no(/ga) isu-o kat-ta-koto-o Hanako-wa Taro-gen(/nom) chair-acc buy-pst-comp-acc Hanako-top shira-nakat-ta. know-neg-pst ‘Hanako didn’t know that Taro bought a chair.’ b.
Tarō-no/ga kat-ta isu-ga nusum-are-ta. Taro-gen/nom buy-pst chair-nom steal-pass-pst ‘The chair that Taro bought was stolen.’
Example (16b) shows that an agentive argument may receive genitive case when it is not accompanied by an accusative-marked patientive argument in the dependent clause. This restriction is consistent with an observation that subjects of unaccusative verbs in relative clauses and nominal complement clauses are much more likely to receive genitive case than those of unergative and transitive verbs in the same environments (Kim Reference Kim2009).
Harada (Reference Harada1971) makes an important observation that two “dialects” are available in SMJ, one that allows (16a) (Dialect A) and the other that does not (Dialect B). He goes on to argue that Dialect A is on the edge of losing its status as the majority, while Dialect B has been spreading among younger generations.Footnote 6 The ensuing debate concerning how to analyze GSCs has been under the assumption that what Harada terms Dialect A is obsolete.
Fourth, examples (17a–c) illustrate Causative Constructions (CCs), which are formed by attaching the causative morpheme -(s)ase to a verb stem. They bear case frames of the corresponding two-place (transitive) and three-place (ditransitive) verb constructions:
(17) Causative Constructions
a.
Tarō-ga Hanako-o/*ni gakkaris-ase-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-acc/dat feel.disappointed-caus-pst ‘Taro made Hanako feel disappointed.’ (base predicate = unaccusative) b.
Tarō-ga Hanako-o/ni aruk-ase-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-acc/dat walk-caus-pst ‘Taro made/let Hanako walk.’ (base predicate = unergative) c.
Tarō-ga Hanako-*o/ni hon-o kaw-ase-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-acc/dat book-acc buy-caus-pst ‘Taro made/let Hanako buy a book.’ (base predicate = transitive)
Causatives of transitive verbs bear a ‘nom-dat-acc’ case frame, while causatives of intransitive verbs exhibit variations in the causee case marking: causatives of unaccusative verbs (e.g. shinu ‘die’) only allow accusative causee marking, while causatives of unergative verbs (e.g. oyogu ‘swim’) allow either dative or accusative causee marking when the causees are animate.
The case alternation in (17b) has a semantic motivation: a volitional causee receives dative case, while a non-volitional causee receives accusative case (Shibatani Reference Shibatani and Shibatani1976: 251–253). The semantic contrast may be revealed by adding an adverb muriyari ‘forcibly’ to (17b) as in (18):
a.
Tarō-ga Hanako-o muriyari kaigan-e aruk-ase-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-acc forcibly beach-all walk-caus-pst ‘Taro made Hanako walk to the beach forcibly.’ (coercion reading) b.
??Tarō-ga Hanako-ni muriyari kaigan-e aruk-ase-ta. Hanako-dat ‘Taro let Hanako walk to the beach forcibly.’ (permission reading)
The low acceptability of (18b) indicates that the dative-marked causee in (17b) must be construed as volitional.
The prohibition on the accusative-marked causee in (17c) has often been attributed to the Double-o Constraint (DoC) (Harada Reference Harada1973; Shibatani Reference Shibatani1978). The DoC has attracted much attention in the Japanese linguistics literature and merits a brief digression here. The DoC bans examples (19a–c), each of which contains two accusative-marked nouns within a single verb phrase:
a.
Tarō-ga Hanako-*o(/ni) hon-o kaw-ase-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-acc(/dat) book-acc buy-caus-pst ‘Taro made Hanako buy a book.’ (causative of a transitive verb) b.
Tarō-ga eigo-*o(/no) benkyō-o shi-ta. Taro-nom English-acc(/gen) study-acc do-pst ‘Taro studied English.’ (light-verb construction) c.
Tarō-ga otoko-*o(/no) ude-o sashi-ta. Taro-nom man-acc(/gen) arm-acc stab-pst ‘Taro stabbed the man on the arm.’ (inalienable possession construction)
Interestingly, scrambling, topicalization, and relativization of one of the accusative-marked nouns improves the grammaticality of (19b–c).Footnote 7 Compare (19b–c) with (20a–b), respectively:
a.
Eigo-o Tarō-ga san-nen benkyō-o shi-ta. English-acc Taro-nom three-years study-acc do-pst ‘Taro has studied English three years.’ (scrambling) b.
Tarō-ga ude-o sashi-ta otoko Taro-nom arm-acc stab-pst man ‘The man who Taro stabbed on the arm’ (relativization)
Finally, (21) illustrates Desiderative Constructions (DCs), which are formed by attaching the desiderative morpheme -tai ‘want’ to a verb stem:
(21) Desiderative Constructions
Boku-ga wain-o/ga nomi-takat-ta. I-nom wine-acc/nom drink-want-pst ‘I wanted to drink wine.’
What is intriguing about DCs is that when the desiderative morpheme takes a transitive verb as its complement, its non-subject argument may receive either accusative or nominative case. The case alternation is caused by whether the complement verb phrase is construable as an attributive predication of the subject argument or its eventive predication: in the former, the non-subject argument receives nominative case, while in the latter, it receives accusative case.
4 Generative Accounts of Case Assignment in Japanese
This section gives a brief survey of representative generative accounts of nominative, accusative, and dative case assignment in Japanese. These three cases constitute the core part of the SMJ case system and deserve special attention.
The generative accounts are divided into two stages. The first is represented by Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1965, Reference Kuroda, Hinds and Howard1978), Kuno (Reference Kuno1973), and Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978), which assign the above-mentioned three cases on the basis of phrase structure rules and/or grammatical relations, while the second stage is represented by Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987), Heycock (Reference Heycock1993), Watanabe (Reference Watanabe1996), Ura (Reference Ura2000), and Hiraiwa (Reference Hiraiwa2001), which assign/license structural cases such as nominative and accusative on the basis of phrase structural position and treat dative (and other oblique) cases under the rubric of inherent cases.
4.1 Classical Transformational Accounts
Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1965) is the first generative account of case assignment in Japanese. He adopts the distinction between the deep and surface structure and divides NPs in deep structure into unmarked and (case-)marked NPs. Under the assumption that two phrase structure rules in (22) obtain in Japanese, Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1965: 165–166) proposes that the case particles other than ga and o are attached to NPs before application of the two transformational rules in (23):
a. S ―> NP VP Aux
b. VP ―> NP V
(23) Transformational insertion rules
a. Ø ―> ga in ##NP _____
b. Ø ―> o in NP _____ V
The rule in (23a) attaches ga to unmarked NPs that occur sentence-initially, while (23b) attaches o to unmarked NPs that occur immediately before the verb.
Kuroda (Reference Kuroda, Hinds and Howard1978: 34) proposes to replace (23) with (24), in order to accommodate DSCs such as (11a), under the assumption that (25b) is the deep structure of (11a), repeated below as (25a):
(24) Mark the first unmarked NP with ga and mark any other unmarked NP(s) with o.
a.
Tarō-ni/ga musuko-ga i-ru. Taro-dat/nom son-nom have-pres ‘Taro has a son.’ (= (11a)) b.
Tarō-ni musuko i-ru.
The rule in (24) assigns the nominative particle to musuko ‘son’ (since it is “the first unmarked NP” in (25b)) and derives the ‘dat-nom’ case frame in (25a). One problem that Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1965, Reference Kuroda, Hinds and Howard1978) leaves unanswered is how to derive the ‘nom-nom’ case frame in (25a).
Another problem with Kuroda’s account is that he does not uniquely identify what he means by the Aux (auxiliary) in (22a) except to suggest that the auxiliary is a tense marker or some other particle attached to the VP (Kuroda Reference Kuroda1965: 167). In other words, Kuroda fails to identify the syntactic domain in which (23) or (24) applies. Kuroda (Reference Kuroda, Hinds and Howard1978) leaves this problem unresolved and applies (24) to infinitival complement clauses of causative and potential constructions as well as finite clauses, under the assumption that (24) applies cyclically from the innermost to the topmost clause. This procedure makes case assignment in causative and potential constructions complicated (see Kuroda Reference Kuroda, Hinds and Howard1978: 30–41 for details).
Kuno (Reference Kuno1973) follows Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1965) in dividing NPs in the deep structure into unmarked and (case-)marked NPs and assuming that unmarked NPs receive case particles by transformational insertion rules in (26) (Kuno Reference Kuno1973: 330):
(26) Transformational rules
a. Indirect object marking: Attach ni to the second of three unmarked NPs, that is, the NPs that do not yet have a (case) particle.
b. Subject marking: Attach ga to the subject NP.
c. Object marking: Attach o to the first non-subject unmarked NP to the left of the main verb if it is [–stative], and ga if it is [+stative].
Three rules in (26) presupposes that (27a–c) are the deep structures of intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive sentences:Footnote 8
a.
Intransitive sentence: NP V AUX b.
Transitive sentence: NP NP V AUX c.
Ditransitive sentence: NP NP NP V AUX
The sentence-initial NPs in (27) are subjects and are marked by ga. Both the second NP in (27b) and the third NP in (27c) are the first non-subject unmarked NP to the left of the main verb and are marked by o when the verbs are non-stative. The transformational rule in (26a) assigns ni to the second NP in (27c), which counts as the indirect object. The second NP in (27b) is marked by ga when the two-place verb is stative (e.g. iru ‘have,’ wakaru ‘understand,’ dekiru ‘can do’). How the ‘nom-nom’ case frame of iru in (11a) is derived under Kuno’s proposal:
The question that remains is how to derive the ‘dat-nom’ case frame borne by iru ‘have.’ In order to derive the ‘dat-nom’ case frame borne by the small number of two-place stative predicates, Kuno proposes the ga/ni conversion, a transformational rule that changes the first NP marked by ga to the one marked by ni, as shown in (29) (Kuno Reference Kuno1973: 88–90):
(29) Ga/ni conversion
a.
Tarō-ga musuko-ga i-ru. b.
Tarō-ni musuko-ga i-ru.
What is peculiar about the ga/ni conversion is that it applies optionally when the two-place verb is stative and bears the ‘nom-nom’ case frame. This means that the ga/ni conversion may not apply when the verb is intransitive (and the NP marked by ga is the only argument of the verb) or when the object of a transitive verb is marked by o, as demonstrated by (30):Footnote 9
a.
Tarō-ga/*ni eki-e hashit-ta. Taro-nom/dat train.station-all run-pst ‘Taro ran to the train station.’ b.
Tarō-ga/*ni isu-o kowashi-ta. Taro-nom/dat chair-acc break-pst ‘Taro broke the chair.’
Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978: 235) posits the notion of subject as a theoretical primitive that requires no reference to phrase structural position and defines ga as the default subject marker as in (31b), which may be overridden by (31a):
a. Assign ni to subjects of two-place predicates that are specified for assigning ni to their subjects.
b. Assign ga to subjects (this rule applies optionally when (31a) already applies).
The essential idea behind (31) is that ni is assigned to subjects lexically (given that its distribution is restricted), while ga is assigned to subjects syntactically.
In order to derive the ‘dat-nom’ case frame as illustrated in (11) and the ‘nom-dat-acc’ case frame of ditransitive verbs, Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978: 236–237) proposes (32a–b), which apply to direct objects, and (32c), which applies to indirect objects:Footnote 10
a. Assign ga to direct objects of two-place stative predicates.
b. Assign o to direct objects (this rule applies optionally when (32a) already applies and does not apply to sentences that contain existential and some other verbs).
c. Assign ni to indirect objects.
The rule in (32b) is designed to handle the case alternations in (33), in which the predicates comprise the nominalized continuative form of the transitive verb suku/kirau ‘like/hate’ and the copula:
a.
Tarō-ga Hanako-ga/o suki-da. Taro-nom Hanako-nom/acc liking-cop ‘Taro likes Hanako.’ b.
Tarō-ga Hanako-ga/o kirai-da. hating-cop ‘Taro hates Hanako.’
Furthermore, in order to describe the dative–nominative alternations in (11a–c) and the nominative–accusative alternations in (33a–b), Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978: 235) proposes a rule that deletes any case particle followed by another one. The three steps in (34) shows how to derive the ‘nom-nom’ case frame from the ‘dat-nom’ case frame in (11a), while (35) shows how to derive the ‘nom-acc’ case frame from the ‘nom-nom’ case frame in (33a):
In addition to (31) and (32), Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978: 253–254) notes that when a subject receives the dative particle according to (31a), (32b) fails to apply, while when a direct object receives the accusative particle according to (32b), (31b) must apply and he generalizes this observation to (36):
(36) Obligatoriness of a nominative-marked NP (Shibatani Reference Shibatani1978: 256)
A finite clause must contain at least one nominative-marked NP.
Finally, let us consider how Shibatani derives the case frames of causative constructions as in (17b) as an illustration of how Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1965), Kuno (Reference Kuno1973), and Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978) handle case frames of complex clauses. First, Shibatani proposes the two deep structures in (37) for (17b) under the assumption that -(s)ase has two subcategorization frames: one with a causer argument (Tarō) and he other with an extra “target” argument (Hanako) in addition to the causer argument:
a.
[Tarō Hanakoi [Hanakoi aruk] ase-ta] b.
[Tarō [Hanako aruk] ase-ta]
Application of (i) equi NP deletion (i.e. a rule that deletes the subject of a complement clause when it is coreferential with the subject or object of the main clause), (ii) predicate raising (i.e. a rule that combines the matrix predicate with the embedded predicate), and (iii) tree pruning (i.e. a rule that deletes the node of S (sentence) if S loses its subject or verb phrase) to (37a) yields (38a), while application of (ii) predicate raising and (iii) tree pruning to (37b) yields (38b):
a.
[Tarō Hanako aruk-ase-ta] Subject/Agent Direct Object/Target b.
[Tarō Hanako aruk-ase-ta] Subject/Agent Agent
The two causative constructions in (38) are different with respect to the role of the causee Hanako: it is a direct object (or a “target” in terms of semantic roles) in (38a), while it is a non-subject agent in (38b).Footnote 11
Given (38a–b), Shibatani derives the ‘nom-dat’ case frame of (17b) from (31b) and another rule that assigns dative case to those agent arguments which do not function as subjects (Shibatani Reference Shibatani1978: 298), while deriving the ‘nom–acc’ case frame of (17b) from (31b) and (32b).
To summarize this subsection, Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1965, Reference Kuroda, Hinds and Howard1978), Kuno (Reference Kuno1973), and Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978) lay the foundation for both generative and functional accounts of the SMJ case system in the following four respects. First, Kuno (Reference Kuno1973) and Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978) build on Kuroda’s (Reference Kuroda1965) account of the nominative, accusative, and dative case particles and describe most, if not all, of the case frames of simple and complex clauses in SMJ. Second, Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1965) divides NPs into unmarked and (case-)marked and assigns nominative and accusative cases to the former ones syntactically (i.e. by transformational insertion rules). Both Kuno (Reference Kuno1973) and Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978) follow Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1965) in adopting the distinction between syntactic and lexical cases, but, unlike Kuroda, they treat those uses of dative case which mark recipient arguments of ditransitive verbs on a par with nominative and accusative cases and separate them from those uses of dative case which mark subjects of the small number of two-place stative predicates (e.g. iru ‘have,’ wakaru ‘understand’) and causee arguments of causative constructions.Footnote 12 Third, Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978) identifies the syntactic domain in which the case assignment rules apply as a finite clause and defines nominative case as the default case (as in (36)). Although Shibatani does not theorize the relationship between a finite clause and the nominative case assignment, it receives a theoretical formulation within the framework of PPT (see Section 4.2 below). Finally, Kuno (Reference Kuno1973), Kuroda (Reference Kuroda, Hinds and Howard1978), and Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1978) derive causative, potential, desiderative, and other complex predicate constructions by reducing their underlying bi-clausal structure into a mono-clausal one through equi-NP deletion, verb/predicate raising, and tree pruning (i.e. deletion of the S node of the embedded clause).Footnote 13 This clausal reduction remains the key element in all the subsequent work on complex predicate constructions in SMJ, no matter what its theoretical formulation may look like.Footnote 14
The polyfunctional nature of ga, o, and ni makes it challenging to provide a unified account of all their major uses. For example, ni receives a different treatment, depending on whether it marks indirect objects (i.e. recipient arguments of ditransitive verbs), subject arguments of some two-place stative predicates, or causee arguments of causative constructions. They leave the task for future studies, some of which will be reviewed in the next subsection.
4.2 Principles-and-Parameters Theory (PPT)
Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987) is the first full-scale PPT account of the case system of SMJ. The aim of this subsection is to outline Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987), which follows the spirit of Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1965) in making a distinction between nominative/accusative and dative (and all the other oblique) cases and formulates the relationship between a finite clause and the nominative case assignment within the framework of PPT (Chomsky Reference Chomsky1981, Reference Chomsky1986b).
In order to understand the outline of Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987), it is essential to provide a brief outline of Chomsky’s (Reference Chomsky1981) Case theory. There are three important principles proposed by Chomsky (Reference Chomsky1981) that underlie most PPT accounts of Case assignment (including Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987)). First, PPT assumes that all NPs with lexical content are assigned abstract Case and distinguishes abstract Case from its overt morphological realization (morphological case).Footnote 15 Second, Case is assigned under government and the choice of Case is determined by its governor (i.e. Case assigner) as shown in (39):Footnote 16
(39) Abstract Case assignment (slightly modified from Chomsky Reference Chomsky1981: 170)
a. NP is nominative if governed by a tensed INFL (when INFL contains AGR).
b. NP is accusative if governed by a transitive verb.
c. NP is oblique if governed by P.
d. NP is inherently Case-marked as determined by properties of its governor.
e. NP is genitive in [NP X] (X=N′ or VP).
All NPs with lexical content that have no abstract Case at S-structure are banned by the Case Filter (Chomsky Reference Chomsky1981: 49):
(40) Case Filter: *NP if NP has phonetic content and has no Case
Third, PPT draws a distinction between structural and inherent Case: the former includes nominative and accusative and is assigned at S-structure, while the latter (e.g. dative, ablative, instrumental) is associated with theta-marking and is lexically assigned at D-structure.
The rule in (39a) links the nominative Case assignment with finiteness of a clause and may be construed as a theoretical formulation of Shibatani’s (Reference Shibatani1978) observation that a clause must contain at least one-nominative-marked NP in Japanese (see (36)) (see Takezawa Reference Takezawa1987: 72–83 for related discussion). Another point to note is that there is a parallelism between the PPT distinction between structural and inherent Case and Kuroda’s (Reference Kuroda1965) account of nominative/accusative and oblique cases, in that he assigns nominative and accusative cases to unmarked NPs (i.e. NPs with no case marker in the deep structure), which are distinguished from (case-)marked NPs (i.e. those NPs which receive an oblique Case marker in the deep structure).
Given the assumption that SMJ is a configurational language (i.e. a language whose clauses contain a VP node) (see Saito and Hoji Reference Saito and Hoji1983 and Saito Reference Saito1985: ch. 2 for theory-internal justification), Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987) sets out to account for the case frames borne by DSCs and MNCs.
First, let us summarize Takezawa’s account of DSCs by focusing on how he would handle (11a), repeated below:
a.
Tarō-ni/ga musuko-ga i-ru. Taro-dat/nom son-nom have-pres ‘Taro has a son.’
DSCs such as (11a) raise the question of how to explain the nominative marking of their non-subject arguments and the dative marking of their subject arguments. In order to answer this question, Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987: 83–93) makes three proposals. The first is that two-place stative predicates such as iru ‘have’ in (11a) cannot assign any Case. This means that iru cannot assign accusative Case to its non-subject argument (musuko ‘son’ in (11a)) and that it must receive Case from elsewhere. The second proposal is that INFL moves down into a VP/AP in syntax in Japanese, so that it may govern non-subject arguments of DSCs. The operation in (41) shows how this operation (termed “INFL lowering”) applies (adapted from Takezawa Reference Takezawa1987: 84):
(41) NP INFL [VP. …. V NP] ―> NP [VP. …. V-INFL NP]
The above operation yields the consequence that the lowered INFL is in a sister relation to the non-subject argument and governs it. This explains why musuko in (11a) receives nominative Case.
The third proposal is about the dative marking of the subject arguments of DSCs. It is important to note that (41) leaves the subject argument in (11a) Caseless (since it is not governed by the lowered INFL) and may cause a violation of the Case Filter if there is no way to assign Case to the subject argument. In order to solve this problem, Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987: 90) proposes the following rule:
(42) The subject argument receives dative Case (ni) when it is not governed by a tensed INFL.
The rule in (42) assigns dative Case to the subject argument in (11a).Footnote 17 Takezawa states that this dative Case is distinct from the one assigned to recipient arguments of ditransitive verbs at D-structure and treats it as a postposition rather than a Case marker.
Before addressing the question of how to explain the dative–nominative alternation in (11a), Takezawa turns to MNCs. Let us consider how he would handle (13a) for illustration:
a.
Tarō-ga hahaoya-ga hyōban-ga ii. Taro-nom mother-nom reputation-nom good ‘Taro is such that his mother has a good reputation.’ (=(2))
What is notable about MNCs illustrated by (13a) is that neither Tarō nor hahaoya has any thematic relation with ii ‘good’ and that hyōban ‘reputation’ is the only thematic argument of the predicate. Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987: 97–100) assumes that MNCs such as (13a) involve a multiple adjunction of IPs and goes on to propose that INFL has a potential to assign nominative Case to more than one NP in Japanese (see footnote 19). Example (43) is what Takezawa would propose as a partial phrase structure of (13a):
(43) [IP Tarō [IP hahaoya [IP hyōban [VP ii]]]]
Given the multiple adjunction of IPs, INFL assigns nominative Case to the three NPs, Tarō, hahaoya, and hyōban in (13a) (all of which occur in the specifier of IP).
Given the above account of MNCs, Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987: 100) returns to the question of how to handle the dative–nominative alternation illustrated in (11a). He proposes that INFL must assign nominative Case to, at least, one NP, but that it optionally assigns nominative Case to other NP(s) in the same clause. The optional assignment of nominative Case accounts for the dative–nominative alternation as follows. First, when INFL assigns nominative Case only once, it must go to non-subject arguments of DSCs (otherwise they would not be able to receive any Case). Their subject arguments have no choice but to receive dative Case according to (42). On the other hand, when INFL assigns nominative Case more than once, subject (as well as non-subject) arguments receive nominative Case from the lowered INFL under the further assumption that the lowered INFL has an option of making a VP/AP transparent for government.
Heycock (Reference Heycock1993) takes a different tack in explaining MNCs and their multiple-nominative case frame. She follows the spirit of Fukui (Reference Fukui1986) in claiming that nominative Case in Japanese does not occupy a unique structural position (e.g. the specifier of IP) under the crucial assumption that there are an infinite number of VP-adjoined positions in which an infinite number of nominative-marked NPs can appear. Figure 12.1 is the partial phrase structure of (13a):
(44) [VP Tarō-ga [VP hahaoya-ga [VP hyōban-ga [V ii]]]]
Figure 12.1 Phrase structure of (13a)
Her proposal is that layers of predication (as diagrammed in Figure 12.1) may be built up recursively, with a subject–predicate structure (e.g. hyōban-ga ii, hahaoya-ga hyōban-ga ii) functioning as the predicate licensing a further subject, and that nominative Case is available to license NPs in VP-adjoined positions. The recursive subject–predicate relation leads Tarō and hahaoya, both of which are not a thematic argument of ii, to receive nominative Case.
Heycock (Reference Heycock1993: 172) further assumes that all theta-roles subcategorized by a lexical head are assigned within the smallest maximal projection of that head. This means that if a verb subcategorizes for two arguments (e.g. agent and patient arguments), they must occur within the domain of VP (i.e. the smallest maximal projection of V). This assumption yields the consequence that the subject argument of a simple sentence moves to adjoin to the VP, as shown in (45):
(45) [VP NPi-ga [VP ti V]]
The parallelism between (44) and (45) makes it possible to provide a configurational definition of ga: it marks any number of NPs that occur in VP-adjoined positions, whether they are theta-marked subjects or not.
What is novel about Heycock’s proposal is that she formulates the subject–predicate relations that obtain in Japanese MNCs in phrase structural terms and provides a definition of nominative Case with no reference to INFL. This move obviates the need to appeal to the assumption made by Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987) that INFL has a potential to assign nominative Case to more than one NP in Japanese, but leaves one important problem unsolved: how to assign nominative Case to non-subject arguments of DSCs. It is clear that Heycock’s structural definition of nominative Case does not apply to them, since non-subject arguments of DSCs are VP-internal (Heycock Reference Heycock1993: 190–193).Footnote 18
To sum up this section, Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987) maintains the PPT distinction between structural Case (i.e. nominative and accusative) and inherent Case (e.g. dative) and the government-based definitions of nominative and accusative Case in (39a–b) and derives the ‘dat-nom’ case frame of DSCs from the two technical assumptions: one, that Japanese requires INFL to move down to VP/AP when no Case assigner is available to non-subject arguments; and two, that dative Case is assigned to those subject arguments which are not governed by any tensed INFL. Takezawa further assumes that INFL may assign nominative Case to more than one NP in Japanese, in order to accommodate the multiple-nominative case frame of MNCs.Footnote 19 In contrast to Takezawa (Reference Takezawa1987), Heycock (Reference Heycock1993) dissociates nominative Case assignment from INFL and incorporates the traditional observation (e.g. Kuno Reference Kuno1973: ch. 3; Takami and Kamio Reference Takami and Kamio1996) that MNCs involve a recursive layering of predications by assuming that MNCs involve a multiple application of VP adjunction as diagrammed in Figure 12.1 and assigning nominative Case to the VP-adjoined positions.
5 A Functional Account of Case Assignment in Japanese
This section outlines a functional account of non-canonical case frames borne by DSCs and MNCs in Japanese within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) (Van Valin and LaPolla Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997; Van Valin Reference Van Valin2005). RRG is a functionalist theory that assumes a direct mapping between the semantic representation of a sentence and its syntactic representation. DSCs and MNCs serve as a basis for comparison of the generative and functional frameworks.
5.1 A Brief Summary of Role and Reference Grammar
5.1.1 Syntactic Representation: Clause Structure
RRG represents clause structure not in terms of X-bar syntax but in terms of a semantically based model termed the layered structure of the clause (LSC). The LSC contains three layers: the nucleus, core, and clause. The nucleus contains the predicate, the core contains the nucleus plus the argument(s) of the predicate, while the clause contains the core plus its modifier(s).Footnote 20 In addition, some languages have a precore slot (PrCS), which is the position of wh-words in languages such as English and Icelandic, and a left-detached position (LDP), which is the position of the pre-clausal element (e.g. a dislocated topic) that is often set off from the rest of the clause by an intonation break (cf. Chapter 18, this volume).Footnote 21 Figure 12.2 illustrates the LSC of a Japanese sentence with no element in the PrCS.
Figure 12.2 Formal representation of the LSC
RRG dissociates auxiliary elements (e.g. aspect, negation, modality, mood, tense) from the LSC. These operators modify one of the above-mentioned three layers. For example, an aspectual marker modifies the nucleus, a root modal marker modifies the core, while a tense marker modifies the clause. They constitute a distinct level of representation (termed the operator projection) from the LSC and are ordered by the universal principle in (46) (Van Valin and LaPolla Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997: 72):
(46) Universal Operator Linear Precedence Rule
CLAUSE ⊃ CORE ⊃ NUCLEUS
5.1.2 Semantic Representation: Verbal Semantics
The above syntactic representation is coupled with the semantic representation of the clause, based on the decompositional lexical representation of the predicate in the nucleus. The decompositional system is based on the Aktionsart classes in examples (47a–f) (Van Valin Reference Van Valin2005):
a.
State: The boy is afraid. b.
Activity: The soldiers marched in the park. c.
Achievement: The balloon popped. d.
Semelfactive: The pencil tapped on the table. e.
Accomplishment: The ice melted. f.
Active accomplishment: The soldiers marched to the park.
Semelfactive verbs denote a continuation of punctual events and pattern-like activity verbs (Smith Reference Smith1997), while active accomplishment verbs are lexicalized telic uses of activity verbs. Examples (48a–f) are the causative counterparts of (47a–f), respectively:
a.
Causative state: The dog frightens/scares the boy. b.
Causative activity: The sergeant marched the soldiers in the park. c.
Causative achievement: The cat popped the balloon. d.
Causative semelfactive: The teacher tapped the pencil on the table. e.
Causative accomplishment: The hot water melted the ice. f.
Causative active accomplishment: The sergeant marched the soldiers to the park.
The twelve predicate classes in (47) and (48) are represented by the following decompositional system (termed logical structure (LS)) adapted from Vendler (Reference Vendler1967), Dowty (Reference Dowty1979), and Smith (Reference Smith1997) (Van Valin Reference Van Valin2005: 45):
(49) Decompositional representations for Aktionsart classes
a.
State predicate′ (x) or (x, y) b.
Activity do′ (x, [predicate′ (x) or (x, y)]) c.
Achievement INGR predicate′ (x) or (x, y), or INGR do′ (x, [predicate′ (x) or (x, y)]) d.
Semelfactive SEML predicate′ (x) or (x, y), or SEML do′ (x, [predicate′ (x) or (x, y)]) e.
Accomplishment BECOME predicate′ (x) or (x, y), or BECOME do′ (x, [predicate′ (x) or (x, y)]) f.
Active accomplishment do′ (x, [predicate1′ (x) or (x, y)]) & INGR predicate2′ (z, x) or (y) g.
Causative α CAUSE β, where α and β are logical structures of any type
State and activity are primitive predicates, while the other Aktionsart classes are built on these two primitive predicates, four operators (INGR (instantaneous change), BECOME (durational change), SEML (repetition of punctual events), and CAUSE (causation)), and their combinations.
A key component of the RRG linking system is the two-tiered system of semantic roles. The first tier is the decompositional representations of verbs in (49). The second tier comprises two semantic macroroles: actor (ACT) and undergoer (UND). They are generalized semantic roles that subsume a number of LS arguments for morphosyntactic purposes and correspond to the two major arguments of a transitive verb. The single argument of an intransitive verb can be either one, depending on the semantics of the verb (see below). Those LS arguments which are not an actor or undergoer are assigned non-macrorole [NMR] status. Examples (50a–f) illustrate the macrorole assignment:
a. John [Effector, ACT] killed Bill [Patient, UND].
b. Bill [Patient, UND] was killed by John [Effector, ACT].
c. John [Effector, ACT] gave a book [Theme, UND] to Bill [Recipient, NMR].
d. John [Experiencer, ACT] knew the student [Theme, UND].
e. John [Effector, ACT] ran to the park.
f. John [Patient, UND] disappeared suddenly.
Examples (50a–b) show that passivization does not affect macrorole assignment: an actor may be realized either as an argument in active constructions or an adjunct in passive constructions.
The number of macroroles that a verb receives is determined by the Default Macrorole Assignment Principles [DMAP]:
(51) Default Macrorole Assignment Principles
a. Number: the number of macroroles which a verb takes is less than or equal to the number of arguments in its LS:
1. If a verb has two or more arguments in its LS, it will take two macroroles.
2. If a verb has one argument in its LS, it will take one macrorole.
b. Nature: for verbs which take one macrorole:
1. If the verb has an activity predicate (do′) in its LS, the macrorole is actor.
2. If the verb has no activity predicate (do′) in its LS, the macrorole is undergoer.
When the number of macroroles that a verb takes does not follow from the DMAP, it must be specified in the lexical entry of a verb by a feature (MRα) (where α is the number of macroroles). For example, when a two-place verb has only one macrorole (contrary to (51a1)), the verb has the feature (MR1) in its lexical entry. The principles in (51b) applies only when a verb receives one macrorole and it specifies which macrorole (actor or undergoer) it is.Footnote 22
The relationship between LS arguments (i.e. argument positions in LS) and semantics macroroles is captured by the Actor-Undergoer Hierarchy (AUH) in Figure 12.3.
Figure 12.3 The Actor-Undergoer Hierarchy
The AUH states that, given the LS of a multi-argument verb, the leftmost argument will be the actor and the rightmost argument will be the undergoer.Footnote 23
5.1.3 Case Assignment
I adopt an RRG account of case assignment in (52–53) (adapted from Nakamura (Reference Nakamura and Darnell1999a)). The former is the set of Optimality-Theoretic [OT] constraints for case assignment. The latter consists of the ranking of these OT constraints and the minimal domain of case assignment (i.e. the one in which the OT constraints apply) for Japanese (see Van Valin and LaPolla Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997: 577–581 for a related proposal):
(52) OT constraints for case assignment
a. Some argument receives nominative case.
b. Non-macrorole core arguments receive dative case.
c. Undergoer arguments receive accusative case.
What is significant about (52a–c) is that they refer to macrorole status and the notion of core instead of referring to grammatical relations or phrase structural positions. The idea that non-macrorole core arguments (e.g. recipient arguments of ditransitive verbs) receive dative case as the default comes from Van Valin (Reference Van Valin1991). Another important point to note here is that (52a) and (53b) dissociate the nominative case assignment from the (finite) clause in the LSC and represent a crucial departure from the mainstream generative literature (see Section 4.2), which associates the nominative Case assignment/checking with a main (or an auxiliary) verb inflected for tense.
5.2 An RRG Functional Account of DSCs and MNCs
The first case frame to be considered is the ‘dat-nom’ case frame illustrated in (11a):
a.
Tarō-ni/ga musuko-ga i-ru. Taro-dat/nom son-nom have-pres ‘Taro has a son.’
The key to the RRG account of DSCs is the assumption that the dative-subject verbs receive only one macrorole contrary to (51a1) (Van Valin Reference Van Valin1991). These verbs are irregular, but not with respect to case assignment. Rather, their irregularity lies in the number of macroroles: they receive one less macrorole than would be expected for a two-place verb. This marked macrorole assignment is captured by supplying the lexical entry of the dative-subject verb with the feature (MR1). The principles in (51b) dictate that it is an undergoer, since the verb iru has no activity predicate do′ in its LS. The AUH requires musuko (the second argument of a two-place state predicate have′) to be associated with the undergoer. The remaining argument (Tarō) has no choice but to receive a non-macrorole status:
(54)
LS: have′ ( 
,)[MR1] MR: Non-MR Undergoer
,
)Given the macrorole assignment in (54), we can derive the ‘dat-nom’ case frame from the constraint ranking in (53a). Table 12.1 shows how the evaluation proceeds when (53a) receives the pair of a non-macrorole core argument and an undergoer argument as the input.
Note that (52b) also applies to recipient arguments of ditransitive verbs and causee arguments of causative constructions, as illustrated in (55):
a.
Tarō-ga Hanako-ni hon-o atae-ta. Taro-nom Hanako-dat book-acc give-pst ‘Taro gave a book to Hanako.’ b.
Tarō-ga Hanako-ni hon-o kaw-ase-ta. buy-caus-pst ‘Taro made/let Hanako buy a book.’ (=(17c))
The reason is that both the recipient and the causee arguments in (55) are non-macrorole core arguments.Footnote 24 Thus, (52b) gives a unified account of the dative case assignment in (11a) and (55a–b) (see Sadakane and Koizumi Reference Sadakane and Koizumi1995 and Van Valin and LaPolla Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997: 376–384 for related discussion).
The second case frame to be considered in this subsection is the case frame borne by MNCs such as (13a):
a.
Tarō-ga hahaoya-ga hyōban-ga ii. Taro-nom mother-nom reputation-nom good ‘Taro is such that his mother has a good reputation.’
What is peculiar about (13a) is that its syntactic subject has no thematic relation with the predicate ii ‘good.’ We may follow the spirit of Heycock (Reference Heycock1993) in assuming that an iteration of a nominative-marked NP in MNCs is licensed by the recursive layering of subject–predicate relations in (56):
a.
[hyōban ii] predication1 b.
[hahaoya [hyōban ii]] predication2 c.
[Tarō [hahaoya [hyōban ii]]] predication3
Layering in (56) suggests that each of the nominative-marked NPs is coupled with the (complex) predicate and that the leftmost nominative-marked NP (Tarō) is the subject of the whole sentence. This recursive layering of predications emerges when each of the nominative-marked NPs is licensed by virtue of the characterization condition (Takami and Kamio Reference Takami and Kamio1996: 224), according to which a non-argument NP may behave as the syntactic subject only when it is characterized by the rest of the sentence.
The question at hand is how to represent the recursive layering of predication relations in terms of the LSC. The Complex Nucleus Formation in (57) is the recast of the characterization condition in terms of the LSC:
(57) Complex Nucleus Formation (CNF) (adapted from Nakamura (Reference Nakamura1999b)):
MNCs such as (13a) involve a reanalysis in which the innermost nominative-marked NP and the predicate combine to form a complex nucleus only when it may be interpreted as denoting an inherent attribute of the next innermost nominative-marked NP.
Given the CNF, we may propose (58) as the LSC of (13a):Footnote 25
(58) [CLAUSE [CORE Tarō [CORE hahaoya [CORE hyōban [NUC ii]]]]]
The LSC in (58) describes a construction in which a core composed of hyōban ‘reputation’ and ii ‘good’ is reanalyzed as the first complex nucleus that licenses hahaoya ‘mother’ as its sole argument. This construction is, in turn, reanalyzed as the second complex nucleus that licenses the leftmost NP (Tarō) as its syntactic subject.Footnote 26
Under the assumption that the minimal domain of case assignment is the core in Japanese, the LSC of (13a) in (58) allows us to derive the multiple-nominative case frame from (53a). The LSC in (58) shows that (13a) has three cores, each of which contains only one argument. The constraint ranking in (53a) requires that when a core contains only one argument, it must receive nominative case. The constraint ranking (53a) applies to the three cores in (13a) simultaneously and yields the multiple-nominative case frame.
The CNF-based RRG account of MNCs recasts Heycock’s (Reference Heycock1993) proposal (that MNCs involve an iteration of VP adjunction licensed by a recursive layering of predications) in terms of the LSC. The crucial difference between them, however, is that the RRG account derives the multiple-nominative case frames of MNCs and the ‘dat-nom’ case frames of DSCs in a unified way, while Heycock (Reference Heycock1993) cannot do so, since her proposal to assign nominative case to VP-adjoined positions in MNCs does not extend to non-subject arguments of DSCs (see Section 4.2).
6 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have introduced in Section 2 the major uses of the nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, and other oblique case particles. I have surveyed in Section 3 those deviant case frames (from the standard accusative case patterns) which are borne by DSCs, MNCs, GSCs, CCs, and DCs. In Section 4, I have summarized the classical transformational and PPT accounts of case assignment in MSJ. In Section 5, I have provided an alternative functional account of DSCs and MNCs and their case assignment within the framework of RRG.
Although a large amount of work has been done about the Japanese case system and its realization in a variety of constructions (some of which have been surveyed in Section 3), many issues remain to be solved, including whether it is possible to maintain the generativist assumption that nominative case is assigned only in finite clauses (see Shibatani Reference Shibatani1978: 256–259 for its initial formulation) and how to describe and classify the various uses of dative and other oblique cases. These two and other related questions await further research.Footnote 27
1 Introduction
It is well known that Japanese has two postpositional particles that can mark the grammatical subject, as illustrated in (1), where ga is referred to as the nominative (subject) marker and wa as the topic marker.
a.
Donarudo Toranpu ga/wa daitōryō ni shimei sareta. nom/top president for was.nominated ‘Donald Trump was nominated as president.’
In ordinary language, the terms subject and topic can both be loosely defined as discussion focal points. Therefore, they frequently overlap functionally: many subjects are also topics, and many topics are commonly expressed as subjects. However, in linguistics, subject and topic refer to drastically different concepts. Subject is a grammatical relation between a given constituent (typically an NP) and the predicate. That is, the scope of a subject is limited to a clause, or to a sentence if the sentence is mono-clausal. Topic, on the other hand, references a much broader notion. It is not unusual to consider the topic of a paragraph or of a chapter, or even of an entire book. In other words, the scope of a topic is a discourse (or a text), a sequence of sentences organized by a specific purpose. While the distinction between subject and topic is likely to be universally significant in verbal communication, it is grammaticalized (morphosyntactically distinguished) in Japanese.
The difference between how subject and topic function makes elucidation of ga and wa a considerable challenge because they sometimes contrast on different grounds. When a sentence is examined in isolation, ga and wa can often be used interchangeably; however, when that same sentence is embedded in a discourse, either ga or wa might not be usable. Another reason for explanatory difficulty is that the selection criteria for these particles are not mutually exclusive. In the same sentence, ga might be appropriate according to one criterion, but wa might be preferable according to another. To put it differently, the distinction between ga and wa is primarily a matter of information packaging (Chafe Reference Chafe and Li1976: 28), that is, how the message is sent, rather than the content of the message itself. Speakers present information in a linguistically structured way in order to provide the addressee with guidance on how to manipulate and integrate such information according to their beliefs about the addressee’s knowledge and attentional state; for example, to highlight a constituent that should be paid special attention.
Nevertheless, elucidation of the difference between ga and wa is essential in Japanese linguistics because they have a partially overlapping distribution and explicating the differences between them has been a perennial problem. For more than two centuries, therefore, many researchers have investigated this fascinating issue.
Li and Thompson (Reference Li, Thompson and Li1976) propose a linguistic typology based on how essential the role played by the subject and/or topic is in a given language. According to their proposal, both are prominent in Japanese:
a. Subject-prominent: Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Dyirbal (Australian), Indonesian
b. Topic-prominent: Chinese, Lahu (Lolo-Burmese), Lisu (Lolo-Burmese)
c. Both subject-prominent and topic-prominent: Japanese, Korean
d. Neither subject-prominent nor topic-prominent: Tagalog, Illocano (Philippines)Footnote 1
The typical difference between subject and topic in English is illustrated in English in (3–4) and in Japanese in (5–6). As Chafe (Reference Chafe and Li1976: 49) points out, the (4b)-type sentences in English inevitably imply a contrast (e.g. the particular play vis-à-vis other plays), but the topic in topic-prominent languages does not. In (5b), the street in question is not necessarily contrasted with any other street.Footnote 2
a. John made such efforts in vain!
b.
But everyone praised John. Subject Predicate
a. I want to see “The Secret in the Wings.”
b.
(As for) that play, Mary saw it yesterday. Topic Comment
a.
Mata jiko desu ka? again accident cop int ‘An accident again?’ b.
Kono michi wa jiko ga ōi desu ne. this street top accident nom numerous cop sfp Topic Comment Lit. ‘This street, accidents are numerous.’
In this chapter, rather than proceeding straight into abstract discussions of the nature of ga and wa, we shall first familiarize ourselves with concrete examples of various phenomena that pertain to them. We will then move on to more theoretical considerations. In addition to the function of subject, Section 2 discusses the main effects that ga-marking creates, and Section 3 is concerned with those of wa-marking. Section 4 continues with examination of additional functions of wa. Section 5 illustrates the topic-subject construction, a quintessential feature of topic-prominent languages. Section 6 is devoted to the behavior of ga and wa in dependent clauses; Section 7 reconsiders the characteristics laid out in Section 2–6 in terms of more abstract and systematic approaches. Section 8 provides a case study, followed by conclusions in Section 9.
2 The Subject
In modern linguistics, archetypal subjects are known to control the following grammatical phenomena (Keenan Reference Keenan and Li1976).
a. Reflexives: Johni praised himselfi.
b. Deletion: Johni talked to Billj for a while and then Øi,*j left.
c. Backward pronominalization: When hei, ?j got home, Johni talked to Billj.
d. Backward deletion: On Øi, *j arriving home, Johni talked to Billj.
e. Verb agreement: Johni hatesi, *j themj.
f. Equi-NP deletion: Johni wants Øi, *j to help Billj.
2.1 Ga as the Subject Marker
Both ga-marked and wa-marked NPs generally fulfill the functions in (6):
a. Reflexives
Makii ga/wa jibun-jishini o hometataeta. nom/top self acc praised ‘Makii praised herselfi.’ b. Deletion
Makii ga/wa shibaraku Namikoj to hanashi-te kara Øi, *j nom/top for.a.while with talking after tachisatta. left ‘Makii talked with Namikoj for a while and then [Øi, *j] left.’ c. Backward pronominalization in Japanese is extremely awkward, if not ungrammatical.
d. Backward deletion
Øi, *j uchi ni kaette, Makii ga/wa Namikoj to hanashita. home to returning nom/top with talked ‘Upon [Øi, *j] arriving home, Makii talked with Namikoj.’ e. Honorific verb agreement
Kōchōi ga/wa watashij o goran ni nattai, *j. principal nom/top I acc looked (hon) ‘The principal looked at me.’ f. Equi-NP deletion
Makii ga/wa Namikoj ni Øi, *j hanasu tsumori da. nom/top to talk intend ‘Makii intends to [Øi, *j] talk to Namikoj.’
A topic can be a subject, but as shown in (4b) and (5b), it need not be. This is the most conspicuous case for distinguishing between the concepts of subject and topic. That is, with a non-subject topic, wa can mark non-subject NPs, but ga cannot. In (8), sono eiga ‘that movie’ is the direct object of mimashita ‘saw’; therefore, it cannot be marked by ga.
(8)
Sono eiga wa/*ga senshū mimashita. that movie top/nom last.week saw ‘That movie, (I) saw (it) last week.’
2.2 Ga as a Focus-marker
As will be discussed later in Section 3.3, when some attribute (a characteristic or quality inherent in an entity) is to be described, the entity is typically presented with wa. When ga is used instead in such sentences, the NP-ga is understood to be the focus, that is, the most informative part, of the sentence because it is unpredictable in the given context (Lambrecht Reference Lambrecht1994: 207) as illustrated in (9). In English, in addition to manipulation of intonation, this notion of focus can be expressed most clearly with a cleft construction as in the translations of (9).Footnote 3
a.
Kono rapputoppu ga karui. this laptop nom light ‘It is this laptop that is light (weight).’ b.
Shigeru ga kangoshi da. nom nurse is ‘It is Shigeru who is a nurse.’
However, when a sentence describes a temporally transient state of affairs of an entity, a focal interpretation does not necessarily arise. Rather, such sentences are interpreted as unmarked in terms of information structure.
a.
Kyō mo sora ga aoi. today also sky nom blue ‘The sky is blue again today.’ Not ‘It is the sky that is blue.’ b.
Shigeru ga nete iru. nom is.sleeping ‘Shigeru is sleeping.’ Not necessarily ‘It is Shigeru who is sleeping.’
When a question consists of an interrogative subject, the portion of the answer that corresponds to this unidentified entity is naturally the most informative, and, therefore, is marked by ga. In (11b), watashi wa is unacceptable because the sentence is not about the speaker him/herself, but, rather, about the event in which the speaker is a mere participant.
a.
Dare ga kore o tsukuttan desu ka? who nom this acc made is int ‘Who made this?’ b.
Watashi ga/#wa tsukurimashita.Footnote 4 I nom/top made ‘I made it.’ ‘It’s I who made it.’
In English, the future-tense markers be going to and will are interchangeable in many, if not most, contexts. However, if a lecturer enters your classroom and says, Oh, I forgot to bring the projector, and you decide to volunteer to bring it, you should say I’ll go get it, not #I’m going to go get it, because the latter indicates that the activity is pre-planned, not decided on site. This distinction can be captured by the use of ga and wa. In (12a), the use of ga conveys a decision made just at the time of the utterance, whereas the use of wa does not. On the other hand, in (12b), wa, but not ga, is appropriate if responding to the question, Is everybody going to the lecture this evening?
a.
Watashi ga/#wa motte-kimasu. I nom/top carry-come ‘I’ll go get (it).’ b.
Watashi #ga/wa ikimasu. I nom/top go ‘I’m going to go.’
3 The Topic
In this section, we examine the concept of topic, with which wa is commonly associated.
3.1 Identifiability
The following two sentences depict objectively the same situation:
a.
Hon wa tsukue no ue ni aru. book top desk gen top on exist ‘The book is on [the top of] the desk.’ b.
Tsukue no ue ni hon ga aru. desk gen top on book nom exist ‘There is a book on [the top of] the desk.’
Nevertheless, these two sentences are not interchangeable. Hon wa in (13a) cannot be used unless the speaker believes that the addressee can identify the referent (i.e. the book). This notion of identifiability is indispensable for topicality. By way of comparison, a subject need not be identifiable. English has a special sentence pattern referred to as the there-construction, which is used to introduce an unidentifiable entity into a discourse, as in the translation of (13b). Its Japanese counterpart uses the existential verb iru or aru.Footnote 5 When these verbs are used for this purpose, the subject uniformly occurs with the nominative ga, not with the topic marker wa.
In English, identifiable NPs are typically marked with the definite article the, as in (13a), and unidentifiable NPs by an indefinite article a/an, as in (13b). Notwithstanding such a distinction, identifiability is a supposedly universal cognitive category, whereas the definite article is a grammatical category, which can be idiosyncratic to a given language. In fact, among languages that employ definite articles (e.g. French, German, Greek, Italian), their use or non-use can vary considerably when depicting the same entity in the same situation (Lambrecht Reference Lambrecht1994: 79–87).
The referent of an interrogative NP – for example, dare ‘who,’ nani ‘what’ – is unknown to the speaker, that is, unidentifiable, so it cannot be marked by wa, although it can be marked by ga.
a.
Dare ga/*wa kimashita ka? who nom/top came int ‘Who came?’ b.
Nani ga/*wa miemasu ka? what nom/top visible int Lit. ‘What can be seen?’ ‘What can you see?’
Likewise, the referent of an indefinite NP – for example, dareka ‘someone,’ nanika ‘something’ – is supposed to be unidentifiable by the speaker and/or the addressee, and can therefore be marked by ga, but not by wa.
a.
Dareka ga/*wa kimashita ka? someone nom/top came int ‘Did someone come (here)?’ b.
Nanika ga/*wa miemasu ka? something nom/top visible int Lit. ‘Is something visible?’ ‘Can you see something?’
The next three subsections discuss how this essential notion of identifiability is established.
3.1.1 Anaphoric Topics
In a discourse, the most common way to make a referent identifiable is by using the mechanism of anaphora. The following is the opening passage of Momotarō ‘Peach Boy,’ a popular Japanese folktale. It illustrates how anaphora typically works:
(16)
Mukashi mukashi aru tokoro ni ojīsan to obāsan ga old.days certain place in old.man and old.woman nom sunde imashita. Aru hi ojīsan wa yama e were.living certain day old.man top mountain to shibakari ni, obāsan wa kawa e sentaku gather.firewood for old.woman top river to washing ni ikimashita. for went ‘A long, long time ago, there lived an old man and an old woman. One day, the old man went to the mountain to gather firewood, and the old woman went to the river to wash clothes.’
The old couple in (16) is first introduced into the discourse with ga (ojīsan to obāsan ga), which serves as the antecedent. At this point, they are unidentifiable and translated into English with the indefinite article an (an old man and an old woman). Although the reader does not know these referents, they are nonetheless registered in the reader’s mind. That is, they function as hitching posts for accumulation of new knowledge, to use Chafe’s (Reference Chafe and Li1976: 44) metaphor. Once the referents are registered, the NPs can be marked with wa (ojīsan wa… obāsan wa…), and in English the use of the definite article the is standard.
3.1.2 Generic Topics
In addition to anaphora, when the referent is generic, that is, a class of entities as a whole, rather than an individual member of the class, it is identifiable. In Japanese, generic NPs are uniformly marked with wa. In English, by contrast, they can be expressed with a plural NP (17a), with a singular NP with the (17b) or a/an (17c), or with a singular NP with no article (17d).Footnote 6
a.
Ari wa/#ga satō o konomu. ant top/nom sugar acc like ‘Ants like sugar.’ b.
Nō wa/#ga ōku no nikutai-kinō o tsukasadoru. brain top/nom many bodily-function acc control ‘The brain controls many bodily functions.’ c.
Rakuda wa/#ga mizu nashi de 3-shūkan ikirareru. camel top/nom water without 3-weeks can.live ‘A camel can live for three weeks without water.’ d.
Wain wa/#ga hakkōshu da. wine top/nom fermented.liquor is ‘Wine is (a kind of) fermented liquor.’
3.1.3 Unique Topics
Some entities are known by the speaker and addressee uniquely, and they are therefore identifiable.
a.
Taiyō wa nishi ni shizumu. sun top west in set ‘The sun sets in the West.’ b.
Maki wa konai to itta. top not.come quot said ‘Maki said she won’t come.’
Under normal circumstances, taiyō ‘sun’ in (18a) refers to our sun. In (18b), if Maki is not known by both interlocutors, or if they know more than one person whose name is Maki, the referent must be properly introduced into the discourse, as happens in this illustrative sentence: Yesterday, I met Maki, a friend of mine. The person, then, can be referred to as an anaphoric topic.
3.2 Staging
An explanation of wa as a special rhetorical device of staging is relevant at this point.Footnote 7 A written text can begin with an NP-wa even when the reader is certainly unable to identify the intended referent. For instance, (19) would appear as an opening sentence of a novel:
(19)
Otoko wa kado o magaru to kyū ni tachidomatta. man top corner acc turn when suddenly stopped ‘The man stopped suddenly when [he] turned the corner.’
Although the man here is fictitious and therefore an unidentifiable entity, it is nonetheless more natural to mark otoko ‘man’ with the topic marker wa, rather than with the subject-marker ga. This stylistically specialized use of wa is limited to written texts. In spoken discourse, the speaker must supply some introductory passage – for example, Kinō hen na hito ni attan dakedo… ‘Yesterday I ran into a strange man, and…’ The speaker can then continue the story revolving around this person. Otherwise, the speech would sound strange, possibly incomprehensible. This function of wa is undoubtedly derived from the required identifiability of the wa-marked topic. The reader continues reading, believing that the entity will become identifiable.
3.3 Attribute Description
Participants in a described event need not be identifiable, as exemplified in (20a). However, when some attribute (e.g. tallness) is ascribed to an entity, the entity must be identifiable. Otherwise, the sentence would sound anomalous, for example (20b).
a.
Tsūkōnin ga mado o kowashita. passerby nom window acc broke ‘A passerby broke a window.’ b.
#Tsūkōnin ga se ga takai. passerby nom hight nom high ‘A passerby is tall.’
Therefore, adjectival and nominal predicates normally co-occur with NP-wa, rather than NP-ga.
a.
Kono rapputoppu wa omoi. [adjectival predicate] this laptop top heavy ‘This laptop is heavy.’ b.
Shigeru wa kangoshi da. [nominal predicate] top nurse is ‘Shigeru is a nurse.’
As discussed in Section 2.2, when ga marks the subject of such sentences, for example (9), the entity must be construed as a focal element.
4 Other Functions of Wa-marking
4.1 Contrast
Wa has a contrastive (cnt) function, in which case the NP does not have to be identifiable.
a.
Ōzei no hito wa pātī ni kimashita ga, omoshiroi many people cnt party to came but interesting hito wa hitori mo kimasendeshita. (Kuno Reference Kuno1972b: 270) people cnt one.person even did.not.come ‘Many people came to the party, but not a single one was interesting.’ b.
Tegami wa kimashita. letter top/cnt came ‘The letter came.’ [non-contrastive] or ‘A letter came (but there was nothing else in the day’s delivery).’ c.
Nani wa yurusarete, nani wa yurusarenain desu ka? what cnt permitted what cnt not.permitted is int ‘What is permitted, and what is not permitted?’ d. [Speaking about dangerous cities in the US]
Dono machi wa anzen desu ka? which city cnt safe is int ‘Which city is safe?’
The first half of (22a), ōzei no hito wa pātī ni kimashita ‘many people came to the party,’ is unacceptable if it stands by itself because ōzei no hito is unidentifiable and yet is marked by wa. However, when a contrast is added by means of the second clause, the whole sentence becomes acceptable. Example (22b) is ambiguous. If tegami ‘letter’ is identifiable (e.g. when the interlocutors have been talking about a specific letter), the sentence is interpreted as consisting of a topic, but if tegami is not identifiable, the addressee automatically interprets the sentence as contrastive, inferring that something else has not arrived. With a strong emphasis on contrast, even interrogative subject NPs can be marked with wa as shown in (22c–d). Whether or not this (contrastive) use of wa is distinct from topic marking will be discussed later.
4.2 Negative-scope Marking
Wa can mark the scope of negation (neg-scp), that is, specifying what is negated.
a.
Kenkyūsho wa yomimasen. research.book top/neg-scp not.read ‘I don’t read scholarly books.’ b.
Kenkyūsho wa kai wa shimasu ga yomi wa shimasen. research.book top buy cnt do but read neg-scp not.do ‘As for scholarly books, I buy them but don’t read them.’
In (23a), marking the direct object kenkyūsho ‘research book’ with the accusative particle o (unmarked in affirmative sentences) is possible, but when the sentence is negated, wa-marking sounds far more natural and idiomatic. Kenkyūsho wa here is thus ambiguous between the topic- and the negative-scope readings. If the interlocutors have been talking about scholarly books, wa is naturally understood as a topic marker. On the other hand, if the speaker of (23a) is responding to someone else’s comment that the speaker is a diligent researcher, this utterance would politely negate such a praise by indicating that s/he buys scholarly books but does not necessarily read them. In other contexts, when reading is a topic of conversation, the utterance can imply that the speaker reads something other than scholarly books, and thus the NP is also contrastive. In this case, the kenkyūsho entity is introduced into the discourse by this very utterance.
In any case, wa-marking of an NP can enable the hearer to project negation early on when interpreting an utterance. This function is particularly significant because in Japanese a predicative negation marker does not appear until the very end of the clause.
In (23b), the first wa is normally construed as a topic marker, but the second and third occurrences of NP-wa cannot be topics because it is unlikely that the utterance is about buying and reading things in this context. While both the second and the third wa can be analyzed uniformly as contrastive, I prefer to consider the third wa as negative-scope marking because this function is most saliently perceived here.Footnote 8
Negative-scope marking wa can appear freely with constituents other than NPs or internally to predicative elements (McGloin Reference McGloin and Hinds1987: 173–174).
a.
Tabe wa shinakatta. [verb] eating neg-scp did.not ‘(I) didn’t eat (it).’ b.
Kono kyōkasho wa atarashiku wa nai. [adjective] this textbook top new neg-scp not ‘This textbook is not new.’ c.
Jōzu ni wa kakenai. [adverbial] well neg-scp cannot.write ‘(I can write it, but) I can’t write (it) well.’ d.
Zenbu wa dekinakatta. [adverb] all neg-scp could.not ‘(I did some, but) I couldn’t do (them) all.’
When a wa-marked constituent is not in a negative clause, it is understood to be contrastive:
a.
Sono ryōri wa tabe wa shita. [verb] that dish top eating cnt did ‘(I) tried [tasted] that dish (but I didn’t like it).’ b.
Kono kyōkasho wa atarashiku wa aru. [adjective] this textbook top new cnt exist ‘This textbook is new (but it has some undesirable features).’ c.
Jōzu ni wa kakeru. [adverbial] well cnt can.write ‘I can write it eloquently (but that doesn’t guarantee credibility).’ d.
?Zenbu wa dekita. [adverb] all cnt could.do ‘I could do (them) all (but…).’
The speaker of (25a) unambiguously implies that s/he wishes to convey some message covertly that contrasts with her/his experience eating a particular type of meal; for example, s/he did not like it. While (25b) is easily interpretable in a similar way, (25c) requires more presupposition (i.e. contextual support); for example, evaluation of eloquence as an undesirable trait. I cannot think of any plausible context for (25d), however. These examples indicate that, whereas the negative-scope wa can co-occur freely with a constituent other than an NP, the use of wa with such a constituent is substantially restricted in affirmative clauses.
As I have discussed in this subsection, the distinctions among topic, contrast, and negative-scope marking are not clear-cut. Rather, one may wonder whether they are even distinct concepts. Nevertheless, the topic appears sufficiently different from the others because it must be identifiable, while the other two need not be. Furthermore, it is inconceivable that the marked entity is a topic when wa appears inside a predicate; for example, tabe wa shita ‘tasted’ in (25a). On the other hand, contrast and negative-scope marking are intertwined, as seen in (24–25). It is reasonable to consider that negative-scope marking is a subtype of contrast marking. These three concepts are mutually compatible, and when the NP is simultaneously the topic, contrastive, and with negation, wa-marking becomes stylistically obligatory.
5 The Wa–ga Construction
As mentioned in the chapter’s introductory section, a single Japanese sentence can have both a distinct topic (NP-wa) and a subject (NP-ga). The topic in this construction delimits the applicability of the statement that includes the subject referent.
a.
Maki wa zubanuketa sainō ga aru. top outstanding talent nom exit Lit. ‘Maki, there is an outstanding talent.’ ‘Maki is an outstanding talent.’ b.
Watashi wa tomodachi ga ōi. I top friend nom numerous Lit. ‘Me, friends are numerous.’ ‘I have many friends.’ c.
Sakana wa sake ga oishii. fish top salmon nom delicious ‘Of (all the various types of) fish, salmon is (the most) delicious.’
A commonly employed translation strategy into English for the wa–ga construction is as for X, for example, As for Maki, there is an outstanding talent for (26a). However, Chafe (Reference Chafe and Li1976: 50) cautions that this strategy is misleading because the original Japanese sentence does not carry contrastive connotation (i.e. vis-à-vis someone other than Maki), but as for X inevitably does so.
6 Dependent Clauses
6.1 Types of Dependent Clauses
There are three types of dependent clauses in Japanese: (i) subordinate clauses, (ii) noun-modifying clauses, and (iii) quotative clauses. Subordinate clauses usually augment the main clause with such additional information as time, condition, or reason. A statement asserts the content of the main clause, but not that of a subordinate clause. For example, in When my father died, I inherited the house, the speaker reports his/her inheritance, not the father’s death.
Because the topic is the entity about which the speaker makes an assertion, subordinate clauses cannot contain a topic. In (27a), Maki is the topic as well as the subject, but when the sentence is converted into a subordinate clause, as in (27b), Maki is no longer the topic, although remaining as the subject of katta ‘bought’ and must be marked with ga.
a.
Maki wa kabu o katta. top stock acc bought ‘Maki bought stocks.’ b.
[Maki ga/#wa kabu o katta toki]sub kaisha wa nom/top stock acc bought when company top tōsan sunzen datta. bankruptcy right.before was ‘When Maki bought the stocks, the company was about to go bankrupt.’
Like subordinate clauses, noun-modifying clauses (relative clauses) do not assert their contents. Therefore, the topic marker wa does not occur in them.
(28)
[Watashi ga/#wa kinō mita]rel eiga wa omoshirokunakatta. I nom/top yesterday saw movie top was.not.interesting ‘The movie I saw yesterday was not interesting.’
Quotative clauses – which represent utterances or thoughts of a person other than the speaker – are the exception to the rule of topic exclusion in dependent clauses. When an NP is marked with wa in the original, reported speech, wa can be maintained even when the clause is embedded into a larger, reporting clause. This is due to the fact that in a quotative sentence two voices (the original speaker’s and the reporting speaker’s) are represented, and each speaker’s perspective (i.e. designation of a topic in this case) can be separately maintained. In (29b) shiken wa muzukashikatta ‘the examination was difficult’ is a quotative clause, and Maki wa … to itta ‘Maki said that…’ a reporting clause. Unlike (29b), wa-marking is anomalous in the conditional subordinate clause, as in (29c).
a.
Shiken wa muzukashikatta. examination top was.difficult ‘The examination was difficult.’ b.
Maki wa [shiken wa muzukashikatta]quot to itta. top examination top was.difficult quot said ‘Maki said that the examination was difficult.’ c.
[Shiken ga/#wa muzukashikatta-ra]sub gakusei wa (kōsu examination nom/top if.difficult student top course o) toranai. acc not.take ‘If (its) examination is difficult, students won’t take the course.’
When wa marks a contrast, rather than a mere topic, it can occur in subordinate clauses, as in (30b) or in noun-modifying clauses, as in (31b).
a.
[Kuruma ga/#wa kowareta node]sub mukae ni ikemasen. car nom/top broke because pick.up for cannot.go ‘Because (my) car broke down, (I) can’t come [go] pick (you) up.’ b.
[Kuruma ga/wa kowarete-mo ōtobai ga aru node]sub car nom/cnt broke-though motorcycle nom exist because mukae ni ikemasu. pick.up for can.go ‘Although (my) car broke down, (I) can come [go] pick (you) up because (I) have a motorcycle.’
a.
[Watashi ga/#wa mita]rel eiga wa totemo bōryoku-teki datta. I nom/top saw movie top very violent was ‘The movie I saw was unusually violent.’ b.
[Watashi ga/wa mite Maki ga/wa minakatta]rel eiga car nom/cnt seeing nom/cnt did.not.see movie wa totemo bōryoku-teki datta. top very violent was ‘The movie that I saw but Maki didn’t see was unusually violent.’
6.2 Switch Reference
Nariyama (Reference Nariyama2002) investigates complex sentences with respect to the interaction between ga- and wa-marking of the subject on the one hand, and the referents of ellipted subjects on the other. She contends that, although Japanese does not have a switch-reference system proper,Footnote 9 such an interaction demonstrates a property analogous to switch reference. According to her analysis, while ga in a subordinate clause signals different subjects, as in (32a), wa in either the main or subordinate clause signals same subjects, as in (32b–c).
a.
[Hanakoi ga haitte kuru nari]sub Øj to o shimeta. nom entering come as.soon.as door acc closed ‘Immediately after Hanakoi entered (the room), Øj closed the door.’ b.
[Øi byōki na noni]sub Hanakoi wa kaisha e itta. sick cop although top company to went ‘Although Øi was sick, Hanakoi went to work.’ c.
Hanakoi wa [byōki na noni]sub Øi kaisha e itta. top sick cop although company to went ‘Although Hanakoi was sick, Øi went to work.’
These are reasonable generalizations that capture well native speakers’ intuitive speech-comprehension strategy based on their knowledge that (i) the domain of a topic (i.e. NP-wa) can span multiple clauses, whereas that of a subject (i.e. NP-ga) is intra-clausal, and (ii) a topic cannot appear in a subordinate/noun-modifying clause. Nevertheless, they are not strict rules because they can easily be overridden by other, more robust factors. For example, as Nariyama is aware, the ga-marked NPs in (33) are coreferential with the ellipted main-clause subjects due to the idiosyncrasies of the conjunctions utilized (cf. Hasegawa Reference Hasegawa1996 for the characteristics of te-linkage).
a.
[Hahai ga terebi o mi nagara]sub Øi itta. mother nom TV acc watch while said ‘My motheri said (something) while Øi watched TV.’ b.
[Tarōi ga haitte ki-te]sub Øi denki o keshita. nom entering come-te light acc switched.off ‘Taroi came in, and Øi switched off the light.’
Analogously, the wa-marked NPs in (34) are not coreferential with the elliped subjects.
a.
[Øi ayamattemo]sub watashij wa yurusanai. apologize.even I top not.forgive ‘Even if Øi apologizes, Ij won’t forgive (her/himi).’ b.
[Tanaka-sani wa kyonen kekkon shita]sub to Øj omou. top last.year married quot think ‘(I) think that Ms. Tanaka got married last year.’
The interpretation of (34a) is based on our daily experience, not on the lexico-syntactic information: when occurring in succession, ayamaru ‘apologize’ and yurusu ‘forgive’ are normally performed by different individuals. In (34b), fluent speakers of Japanese are aware that under ordinary circumstances, the subject referent of the verb omou ‘think’ in its non-past tense is the speaker him/herself, regardless of the subject of the quotative clause. Therefore, Nariyama’s generalizations should be regarded as practical guidelines.
7 Event-reporting versus Topic-comment Sentences
Until now, we have assumed that ga and wa themselves designate various meanings. However, Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1990) cautions that these meanings are rather epiphenomenal, derived from the fundamental differences between two types of sentences (p. 263). What should be addressed, he continues, are the effects ga and wa bring to the whole sentence (p. 264).Footnote 10 At this point, this position may seem plausible given that when wa appears in a negative clause, its function is negative-scope marking, but when its appearance is in an affirmative clause, its function is to mark a topic or contrast (Section 4.2). This is admittedly a circular statement, even though the purpose of the previous sections is not theoretical rigor but, rather, to lay out all possible interpretations of ga and wa in various linguistic environments. In this section, we will re-examine the data more theoretically.
Shibatani attributes his idea of these two types of sentences to Daizaburo Matsushita (1878–1935) and several other Japanese and European grammarians. I choose to discuss the issue invoking the theory of Franz Brentano (1838–1917), further developed by Anton Marty (1847–1914), whose works are more accessible to English-speaking readers.
7.1 Thetic versus Categorical Judgments
The notion of subject originated as a logical (semantic) term in ancient times. Aristotle (350 bce, Categories Section 1) defined subject as what a statement is about, and predicate as what a statement says about its subject; for example, “S is P” or “S is not P.” However, Brentano (Reference Brentano and Rancurello[1874] 2009: 110) argued that the subject–predicate distinction must be defined in linguistic terms, not in cognitive terms. Therefore, although most sentences have a subject linguistically, not all sentences have a logical sense of subject. Some sentences – for example, There is a dog or It’s raining – are deemed subjectless with respect to traditional subject–predicate structure. Since Kuroda’s (Reference Kuroda1972) introduction of this Brentano–Marty theory to linguistic circles, sentences with the traditional sense of subject are said to represent a categorical judgment, whereas those without such a subject represent a thetic judgment.Footnote 11
A categorical judgment requires two separate acts: the recognition of the referent of the subject, and then affirmation or denial of what the predicate attributes to the subject referent (i.e. there are two information units). Because both acts are judgments in themselves, this type is also called a double judgment. In other words, a categorical judgment represents a universally valid statement about the entire category (including singleton categories) referred to by the subject. A thetic judgment, on the other hand, is cognitively undivided (only one information unit), and it merely involves the recognition or rejection of the material of judgment.Footnote 12
Kuroda (Reference Kuroda1972: 160) contends that ga is used in a non-topic or unmarked sentence that represents a thetic judgment; an event or state of affairs is taking place in which the referent of the ga-marked NP is involved, as in (35a). Wa, on the other hand, is used in a topical sentence that represents a categorical judgment about the referent of the wa-marked NP, as in (35b).Footnote 13
a.
Inu ga hashitte iru. dog nom is.running ‘A dog is running.’ b.
Inu wa hashitte iru. dog top is.running ‘The dog is running.’
In (35a), the situation is such that the speaker witnesses an event of running. An act of running necessarily involves an actor, and this actor is recognized as a dog. It can be paraphrased as There is a dog running. When, on the other hand, the dog is not an arbitrary dog, but one with which the speaker is familiar, say Lassie, s/he would say The dog is running in lieu of Lassie is running, that is, (35b). Here, the speaker’s interest is directed toward the particular dog that is not merely a participant in the running event. Hence (35b) is recognized as a categorical judgment.
To recapitulate, in this conceptualization, ga is construed to mark the syntactic subject of a sentence that represents a thetic judgment, whereas wa marks an entity qua logical subject in a statement of categorical judgment.
7.2 Functional Sentence Perspective
Another theoretical framework we should consider is the Prague School notion of functional sentence perspective.Footnote 14 Adopting it, Kuno (Reference Kuno1972b: 269–270) characterizes ga and wa as follows:
a. Ga as a subject marker indicates that its referent is new and unpredictable information. The sentence with ga is of the type of either neutral description or exhaustive listing [the latter is synonymous with the focus construction discussed in Section 2.2]. When the predicate represents a state (but not existence) or a habitual or generic action, only the exhaustive-listing interpretation is obtained.
b. Wa marks either theme [i.e. topic in our terminology] or contrast. The theme must be either anaphoric or generic, while there is no such constraint on the contrasted element.
These functions are illustrated in (37):
a.
(What happened next?) Mary blamed John for the accident. [neutral description] b.
Mary (and only Mary) blamed John for the accident; among those under discussion, it was Mary who blamed John for the accident. [exhaustive listing] c.
Speaking of Mary, she blamed John for the accident. [theme] d.
Mary blamed John for the accident (but Susan didn’t). [contrast]
Kuno provides the following sentences with ga and wa:
a.
Jon ga kimashita. [neutral description or exhaustive listing] nom came ‘John came.’ b.
Jon ga baka desu. [exhaustive listing only] nom fool is ‘(Among the people being discussed) John, and only John, is stupid.’ ‘It is John who is stupid.’ c.
Jon ga mainichi gakkō ni iku. [exhaustive listing only] nom everyday school to go ‘(Among the people being discussed) John, and only John, goes to school every day.’ ‘It is John who goes to school every day.’
When the predicate represents a state of affairs, for example (38b), or a habitual action, for example (38c), the sentence can receive only the exhaustive-listing interpretation (p. 271). Kuno continues that what is common between the ga for neutral description (the descriptive ga) and the ga for exhaustive listing is that the subject conveys new information (p. 272). Neutral descriptions “represent nothing but new information” (p. 298), whereas in sentences with exhaustive listing, the NP-ga is the focus of new information. Kuno’s neutral description with ga corresponds fairly well to the concept of thetic judgment.
Deguchi (Reference Deguchi2012) argues that not all wa-sentences uniformly represent categorical judgments, nor do all ga-sentences represent thetic judgments. According to Deguchi, ga-sentences represent thetic judgments only in Kuno’s neutral descriptions, but they involve categorical judgments in the exhaustive-listing interpretation. Likewise, wa-sentences involve categorical judgments only when they are thematic; when wa is contrastive, they involve thetic judgments.
One of the justifications that Deguchi provides is that the neutral-description ga and the contrastive wa appear in the same linguistic environments, as in (39), and so do the exhaustive-listing ga and the thematic wa, as in (40). While undoubtedly needing more scrutiny,Footnote 15 this approach merits serious consideration.
(39) Thetic judgment
a.
Ame ga futte iru. [neutral description] rain nom is.falling ‘It’s raining.’ b.
Ame wa futte iru. [contrastive] top is.falling ‘It’s raining (but…).’
(40) Categorical judgment
a.
Jon ga sono hon o yonda. [exhaustive-listing] nom that book acc read ‘It was John who read the book.’ b.
Jon wa sono hon o yonda. [thematic] top that book acc read ‘John read the book.’
To encompass both theories of thetic-categorical judgment and functional sentence perspective, let us use the terms event-reporting for thetic judgments and neutral descriptions, and topic-comment for categorical judgments and thematic sentences. Then, ga in an event-reporting sentence represents an unmarked, neutral subject, whereas ga in the context where a categorical judgment is expected, for example, to ascribe an attribute to an entity, the NP-ga is recognized as a focus. On the other hand, in a topic-comment (i.e. the traditional subject–predicate) sentence, wa marks the topic, whereas the contrastive wa appears to be totally dependent on the context. This generalization leads to the conclusion that neither ga nor wa itself determines in which of the two types a given sentence must be interpreted.
7.3 Contextual Effects
Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1990: 264) advises that the functions of ga and wa cannot be resolved without recourse to context, and that, historically, the function of wa was acknowledged as making the entity emphatic, and/or separating it from other entities.Footnote 16 He declines to posit two distinct wa’s (thematic and contrastive), nor two distinct meanings to ascribe to wa. The innate potential of wa to separate/isolate a given entity from others naturally makes it thematic, and when the context provides a contrast or covertly implies one, the emphatic force of wa makes that contrast even more significant.
While this is an elegant, very persuasive analysis, it cannot account for the fact that the use of wa is sometimes not sanctioned unless a strong contrast is involved, for example, (41):
a.
#Dare wa kimashita ka? who top came int ‘Who came?’ b.
Dare wa kite, dare wa konakattan desu ka? who top coming who top came.not is int ‘Who came, and who didn’t?’
According to Shibatani’s account, (41a) must be legitimate in the first place, and then the contrastive effect becomes emphasized in (41b). However, (41a) by itself is quite anomalous.
For the function of ga, Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1990: 271) cites Nishiyama (Reference Nishiyama and Inoue1979) and points out that attributing the exhaustive-listing function to ga itself is untenable. Consider the following examples, adjusted by me:
a.
Kyō wa nani ga yasui? today top what nom inexpensive ‘What is inexpensive today?’ b.
Ninjin ga yasui. Sorekara tamanegi mo yasui. carrot nom inexpensive and onion also inexpensive ‘Carrots are inexpensive. And onions are also inexpensive.’ c.
#Ninjin dake ga yasui. Sorekara tamanegi mo yasui. carrot only nom inexpensive and onion also inexpensive Lit. ‘Only carrots are inexpensive. And also onions are inexpensive.’
Dake ‘only’ is an incontrovertible exhaustive-listing marker. If ga has the same function, (42b) should be equally as odd as (42c). However, (42b) sounds quite natural. Shibatani argues that the exhaustive reading is derived from the combination of ga’s potential to mark focus and the Gricean implicatures, for example, if the second sentence in (42b) is absent, the addressee naturally supposes that only carrots are inexpensive via the Maxim of Quantity. This account regarding ga appears conclusive.
8 A Case Study
In this section, let us consider the distinction between ga and wa in a real discourse. Noda (Reference Noda1996: 108–117) maintains that the selection between ga and wa for subject marking depends upon the following factors:
While identifiability is likely subsumed under the concept of categorical judgment, this is a practical guideline for disentangling the issues pertaining to ga and wa when we examine the following text drawn from a logic textbook, translated from English into Japanese by myself. At each point where either ga or wa must be chosen, a blank square is inserted. The proper filler of each square is discussed following each sentence.
a. The Visor Television Company1 shipped 1,000 television sets to a large department store chain. During the next three months, 115 of the sets2 were returned.
b.
Baizā-terebi-gaisha □1 terebi 1,000-dai o ōte Visor-television-company TV 1,000-units acc major depāto chēn ni shukka shita ga, 3-kagetsu department.store chain to shipped but 3-months inai ni sono uchi 115-dai □2 henpin sarete kita. within that within 115-units were.returned
□1 Baizā-terebi-gaisha ‘Visor Television Company’ is a fictitious entity and, therefore, unidentifiable. Recall that unidentifiable entities cannot be topics, that is, cannot be marked with wa (cf. Section 3.1). By contrast, the use of ga is justified (cf. Section 2.1). Indeed, many native speakers of Japanese would select ga here. Nevertheless, to me, wa is a more natural selection here than ga because of wa’s rhetorical effect of staging (cf. Section 3.2). This example illustrates that the choice between ga and wa can be based on stylistic preference, and not only on grammatico-pragmatic rules.
□2 Ga is more appropriate than wa because 115-dai ‘115 units’ is indefinite. Wa would be possible only if a strong contrast were intended, which is unlikely in this case.
a. In each case3, the picture reception4 was good, but there was no sound5.
b.
Sorera no terebi □3 gazō □4 seijō da ga, those gen TV picture normal is but onsei □5 denakatta. sound did.not.emit
□3 Wa must be selected because sorera no terebi ‘those TVs’ is clearly anaphoric (cf. Section 3.1.1). Additionally, it is in the first component of the wa–ga construction (cf. Section 5).
□4 This clause is in the second part of the wa–ga construction, but the use of ga is anomalous. This irregularity is due to the salient contrast being expressed (cf. Section 4.1), that is, the picture reception was normal, but something else was not operating properly. Therefore, wa must be selected.
□5 Like 4, the use of wa is justifiable here because this is the second part of the contrast, indicating what was not working. However, I prefer ga for its focusing potential (cf. Section 2.2), that is, it was the sound that did not function properly. Here, again, some native speakers of Japanese might select wa because it does not violate any grammatical or pragmatic constraint.
a. Examining the first group of ten returned sets, a plant inspection supervisor6 noticed that, in every set, a particular wire7 to the speaker had been improperly soldered.
b.
Seihin-kanri-kakarichō □6 saisho no 10-dai o product-control-supervisor first 10-units acc kensa shita tokoro, izure mo supīkā e no haisen inspected When everyone speaker to gen connection no handa-zuke ni mondai □7 atta. gen soldering In problem existed
□6 Ga must be selected because seihin-kanri-kakarichō ‘plant inspection supervisor’ is the subject of the subordinate clause (Section 6.1), X ga Y o kensa shita tokoro ‘when X inspected Y.’
□7 Ga is naturally selected here because this is a typical instance corresponding to the English there construction (there was a soldering problem) with the existential verb aru (Section 3.1). However, the selection of wa is also reasonable because mondai ‘problem’ is already implied by the preceding sentence. Therefore, although the word mondai has not been previously explicitly mentioned, it can be construed as an anaphor, which is normally marked by wa.
a. She also noticed that the same person – Bill Evans,8 a fairly new employee – had done the soldering.
b.
Mata, saikin koyō sareta Biru Ebansu □8 handa-zuke o and recently was.employed soldering acc okonatta koto mo kakunin sareta. did fact also was.confirmed
□8 This must be ga because the NP in a dependent, noun-complement clause (cf. Section 6.1), the fact that Bill Evans did the soldering.
a. The supervisor9 inspected the next group of returned sets and found the same improperly soldered wire in each.
b.
Kakarichō □9 tsugi ni modotte kita terebi o kensa shi, supervisor next returned TV acc inspection do.and onaji mondai o hakken shita. same problem acc discovered
a. She10 concluded that Bill Evans’s faulty soldering11 was the cause of the problem.
b.
Shitagatte, kakarichō □10 Biru Ebansu no sagyō no ochido consequently supervisor gen operation gen failure □11 mondai no gen’in da to no ketsuron ni itatta. problem gen cause cop quot gen conclusion to arrived
□10 Anaphoric wa.
□11 This must be ga because the NP is the subject of the dependent, noun-complement clause, … to no ketsuron ‘the conclusion that….’
This exercise has demonstrated how syntactic and pragmatic constraints intertwine with stylistic preferences, which naturally leads to idiolectal variations.
9 Conclusions
This chapter has examined the postpositional particles ga and wa when they mark the grammatical subject.
When the speaker wishes to comment on an entity that is already introduced into the discourse and is activated in the interlocutors’ minds at the time of utterance, wa is the default choice. When, on the other hand, the speaker or the addressee or both cannot identify the entity, ga is likely to be selected. Because the referents of interrogative NPs (e.g. dare ‘who’) and indefinite NPs (e.g. dareka ‘someone’) are unidentifiable, the use of wa as a topic marker would be anomalous.
When the speaker ascribes an attribute (e.g. a physical characteristic) inherent to an entity, that entity must be identifiable (if not, the utterance is odd, for example, A person is kind) and, consequently, marked with wa. If ga appears in such a sentence, the NP is interpreted as the focus of attention, that is, It is X that is Y. When the sentence describes a transient state of affairs of an entity (e.g. the sky being clear), it is considered as event reporting, and ga is selected.
In order to characterize ga and wa, we need to identify the function of the sentence, for example, thetic versus categorical judgment, or commenting on the topic or reporting an event. That is, ga and wa are not essential in the determination of these functions. In fact, the marking of the subject with either particle is not obligatory. Especially in spoken Japanese, subjects frequently occur as bare NPs.
While the contrast between ga and wa is one of the most, if not the most, widely investigated topics in Japanese linguistics, uncertainties still remain:
A. As Deguchi (Reference Deguchi2012) questions, do all ga-sentences involve thetic judgments, and wa-sentences categorical judgments?
B. If both thematic and contrastive functions of wa are to be derived from wa’s characteristics of emphasis and separation, as Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1990) argues, then why is wa sometimes unacceptable without a strong implied contrast?
C. In terms of language processing, at what point in an utterance do native speakers determine the interpretation of ga and wa? This question is particularly significant in complex sentences.
D. When are their uses optional, and when obligatory?
In terms of materials for investigation, most researchers analyze easily interpretable sentences/passages constructed by native speakers, but large corpora and anomalous usage by non-native speakers can provide precious data as well.
1 Introduction
There are multifarious ways of expressing negation in Japanese. One typologically notable fact about Japanese negation is that clausal negation is expressed by negative heads that appear following predicates, but not by negative adverbs (which are available in languages like English). Japanese has several distinct types of clause negators, including nai and zu/nu, that can appear in various kinds of clauses. Clausal negation is constrained by diverse syntactic and morphological restrictions depending on the clause type. Japanese also abounds with lexical negative expressions containing negative affixes, which behave differently from clausal negators.
This chapter provides an overview of how negation is expressed in Japanese by illustrating some important properties of negative expressions and is organized as follows: Section 2 shows how clausal negation is marked in various types of clauses. Section 3 is a discussion of negative scope and negative polarity items (NPIs). Section 4 discusses properties of lexical negative expressions comprising negative markers morphologically. Section 5 is a conclusion.
2 How Clausal Negation is Expressed in Japanese
Japanese has a number of clausal negative markers, illustrated in this section, that follow main predicates (except for the negative existential nai, which behaves as an independent predicate).
2.1 Negative Nai
Nai ‘not’ is most commonly used as a clausal negator. It appears with various kinds of predicates and serves to reverse the polarity of the proposition expressed in the clause.
a.
Ken ga hashira-nakat-ta. nom run-neg-pst ‘Ken did not run.’ (verb+negation) b.
Ken wa se ga takaku na-i. top height nom high neg-npst ‘Ken is not tall.’ (adjective+negation) c.
Ken wa gakusei de na-i. top student cop neg-npst ‘Ken is not a student.’ (nominal+negation) d.
Tana ni hon ga na-i. shelf loc book nom neg-npst ‘There are not books on the shelf.’ (negative existential)
The examples in (1a–c) illustrate that nai works as a clausal negator, occurring after verbs, adjectives, and nominal predicates. In (1d), the negator stands on its own morphologically. In all cases, the negative nai displays adjectival inflection, which differs from the inflectional patterns of verbs.Footnote 1 The adjectival inflectional pattern of nai can be clearly seen by comparing yoma-nai ‘read-not’ and kawaii ‘cute’ in (2).
(2)
yoma-na-i ‘read-not’ kawai-i ‘cute’ Mizen (Irrealis) yoma-na-karo (u [will]) kawai-karo (u) Ren’yō (Adverbal) yoma-na-ku (naru [become]) kawai-ku (naru) yoma-na-kat (tari [conj]) kawai-kat (tari) Shūshi (Conclusive) yoma-na-i kawai-i Rentai (Attributive) yoma-na-i (toki [when]) kawai-i (toki) Katei (Hypothetical) yoma-na-kere (ba [if]) kawai-kere (ba)
In traditional Japanese grammar, nai is classified into three different categories, depending on the type of predicate it occurs with (Hashimoto Reference Hashimoto1935: 277–280). Nai combined with verbs is categorized as jodōshi ‘auxiliary verb,’ and nai combined with adjectives as hojo-keiyōshi ‘auxiliary adjective.’ (In the former, the preceding verb appears in the irrealis form, and in the latter, the adjective takes the adverbal form.) The existential nai is categorized as keiyōshi ‘adjective,’ because it behaves as an independent word.
The negative nai occurring after main verbs is a bound morpheme. When nai is separated from the verb by a focus particle (e.g. wa, mo, sae), the semantically empty verb suru ‘do’ is inserted to the left of it for morphological support.
(3)
Ken wa hashiri mo shi-nakat-ta. top run also do-neg-pst ‘Ken did not run as well.’
In cases where nai occurs with an adjective, no morphological support is added even when it is separated from the preceding host by a focus particle, as demonstrated in (4).
(4)
Ken wa isogashiku (mo) na-i. top busy also neg-npst ‘Ken is not busy as well.’
The morphological status of the negative marker nai associated with adjectives is different from that attached to verbs.
The tripartite classification of nai in traditional grammar is solely based on morphological criteria. If distributional/syntactic criteria are taken into account, a different picture emerges. One way of evaluating the categorical status of nai is to put predicates in a small clause complement selected by omou ‘think.’
(5)
*Ken wa [Eri o {kawaiku/*hashira-naku}] omot-ta. top acc {cute/run-neg} think-pst ‘Ken thought Eri {cute/not run}.’
In the small-clause construction, omou takes an adjective predicate as its complement. Thus, this construction can be used as a diagnostic to assess whether or not a given instance of nai is an adjective. Since nai associated with hashiru ‘run’ in (5) is a decategorized (or non-adjectival) grammatical negator, in spite of its adjectival conjugation, it cannot precede omou. Nevertheless, (6) shows that there are cases where nai can appear as a small-clause predicate in an adjectival construction. Specifically, nai appearing on negated adjectives is a negator that functions as an adjective categorically, that is, an adjectival negator.Footnote 2 The bound auxiliary nai associated with warikireru and iru behaves in the same way in the adjectival construction.
(6)
Ken wa [sore o {warikire-naku/ira-naku/omoshiroku naku}] omot-ta. top it acc {be.satisfied-neg/need-neg/interesting neg} think-pst ‘Ken thought it {not satisfactory/not necessary/not interesting}.’
The acceptability of embedding warikire-nai ‘not satisfied’ and ira-nai ‘not need’ under omou illustrates that nai here functions as an adjective. This shows that even the bound form nai (combined with verbs) – which is identified as an auxiliary verb – can be an adjective categorically. Given that nai inflects just like an adjective, it is plausible to hypothesize that the decategorized grammatical marker nai (combined with ordinary verbs) has been derived from the adjectival nai via grammaticalization; that is, the bound form of nai originates as an adjective, and nai appearing in ira-nai and warikire-nai represents the remnant use of the original adjectival nai (see Section 4).Footnote 3
Furthermore, (7) illustrates that even if nai stands as an independent word, it does not necessarily serve as an adjective categorically.
(7)
Watashi wa [sore o {shikata ga naku/*naku}] omo-u. I top it acc {doing.way nom neg/neg} think-npst ‘I think it {unavoidable/not existing}.’
The traditional categorization classifying the existential nai as an adjective faces a problem, because (7) shows that the existential nai is not an adjective (Kishimoto Reference Kishimoto2007). On the other hand, nai included in shikata ga nai ‘cannot help’ is a genuine adjective, and thus does not have an affirmative form (*shikata ga aru [doing.way nom be] ‘avoidable(?)’).
The (inanimate) existential displays a morphological irregularity, in that the existential nai is the negative form of the existential verb aru ‘be (inanimate),’ but stands on its own (without combining with any predicate).
(8)
Tana ni hon ga ar-u. shelf loc book nom be-npst ‘There are books on the shelf.’ (affirmative existential)
In contrast, a regular pattern is observed for another existential verb iru ‘be (animate),’ because its negative form is i-nai [be-neg], where the verb iru is combined with the negative nai.
(9)
Asoko ni onnanoko ga {i-ru/i-na-i}. there loc girl nom {be-npst/be-neg-npst} ‘The girls are (not) there.’
These facts raise the question of how the negative existential nai is related to aru. Note that the existential nai must be a non-adjectival (or decategorized) negator, for it cannot stand as a small-clause predicate, as shown in (7). Given this, one reasonable account would be that the negative existential nai is derived from ara-nai by dropping the verb part, owing to the lack of the form *ara- (for aru) (cf. Kato Reference Kato1985: 31–32). This analysis gains support from the fact that the negative potential ari-e-nai [be-pot-neg] does comprise the verb aru, and further, that the archaic negative existentials ara-nu and ara-zu include ara-.Footnote 4
2.2 Older Negators
Clausal negation can be expressed by old negative auxiliaries like zu and nu. In classical Japanese, nu is the attributive form, and zu is the adverbal and conclusive form of the same auxiliary. In contemporary Japanese, due to a historical change of conjugation paradigms, nu and n (the reduced form of nu) fill the slot of the (non-past) conclusive, as well as the attributive form, while zu and zu ni are predominantly used to form adverbial clauses.
a.
Watashi wa sore ga wakara-{n/nu}. I top that nom understand-{neg/neg} ‘I cannot understand that.’ b.
Wake ga wakara-zu(ni), watashi wa sō shi-ta. reason nom understand-neg I top so do-pst ‘Without knowing the reasons, I did so.’
In contemporary Japanese, zu and n(u), unlike nai, can be combined with only verbs.Footnote 5 Nevertheless, forms such as ōkara-zu ‘not too many,’ sukunakara-zu ‘not too few,’ and supōtsuman-rashikara-nu (furumai) ‘unsportsmanlike (behavior),’ which comprise zu/nu compounded with adjectives or adjectival suffixes, are found in archaic expressions, because zu/nu were allowed to combine with adjectives in classical Japanese.Footnote 6
2.3 Polite Forms and Negation
In Japanese, politeness can be grammatically coded (cf. Chapter 26, this volume). There are two major ways of turning clauses into polite forms. One is to place desu at the end of clauses, and another is to add masu, which follows a verbal predicate in the adverbal form. Their basic paradigms are given in (11).
(11)
Affirmative Negative V+masu (npst) yomi-masu yomi-masen (pst) yomi-masen yomi-masen-deshita V+desu (npst) NA yoma-na-i desu (pst) NA yoma-nakat-ta desu Adj+masu (npst) yasashiku wa ari-masu yasashiku (wa) ari-masen (pst) yasashiku wa ari-mashita yasashiku (wa) ari-masen-deshita Adj+desu (npst) yasashi-i desu yasashiku-na-i desu (pst) yasashikat-ta desu yasashiku-nakat-ta desu
The politeness marker desu can be either a genuine politeness marker or the polite form of the copula da ‘be.’ Politeness marker desu appears after predicates conjugated as adjectives, including the negative nai.
a.
Sore wa {omoshiro-i/omoshiroku na-i} {desu/*deshita}. that top {interesting-npst/interesting neg-npst} {pol/pol.pst} ‘That is (not) interesting.’ b.
Ken wa hashira-na-i {desu/*deshita}. top run-neg-npst {pol/pol.pst} ‘Ken {does/did} not run.’
The politeness marker desu does not have a past tense form, and tense is indicated by the preceding predicate, as in omoshiro-i desu [interesting-npst pol] versus omoshirokat-ta desu [interesting-pst pol]. Verbal predicates can occur with desu only when they accompany nai, which has adjectival inflection, as in (12b).Footnote 7 If the verb is directly combined with desu, unacceptability results, as *hashir-u desu [run-npst pol] or *hashit-ta desu [run-pst pol].
Politeness can also be expressed by using masu and its negative form masen (a combined form of mas(u)+n(u) (neg)). Masu/masen can be hosted only by verbal predicates in the adverbal form.
a.
Ken wa hashiri-{masu/mashita/masen/masen-deshita}. top run-{pol/pol.pst/neg.pol/neg.pol-pol.pst} ‘Ken {does/did/does not/did not} run.’ b.
Sore wa utsukushiku (wa) ari-{masen/masen-deshita}. that top beautiful top be-{neg.pol/neg.pol-pol.pst} ‘That {is/was} not beautiful.’ c.
Sore wa utsukushiku *(wa) ari-{masu/mashita}. that top beautiful top be-{pol/neg.pol.pst} ‘That {is/was} beautiful.’
The past form of the affirmative masu is mashita. The negative non-past form of masu is masen, but its past form is masen-deshita, where another past politeness marker deshita follows masen.Footnote 8 It is possible to combine masu/masen with non-verbal predicates, in which case the supportive verb aru ‘be’ in the adverbal form, that is, ari-, is inserted to the left of the politeness markers, as in (13b). The positive polite forms ari-masu/ari-mashita are not usable for adjectives unless they are preceded by focus particles like wa, mo, sae, etc. (at least in Standard Japanese), as shown in (13c). No such problem arises in the case of the negative form masen. The negative polite forms in (13b) are legitimate regardless of whether a focus particle intervenes between the adjective and the politeness markers.
The copula appears with not only nouns (e.g. gakusei da ‘be a student’) but also adjectival nouns (e.g. shinsetsu da ‘be kind’).Footnote 9 The polite copula desu inflects for the past tense, as in (14a), but does not have a negative form. When negated, the copular clause has the form in (14b), where the politeness marker desu follows the negator.
a.
Eri wa gakusei {desu/deshita}. top student {cop.pol/cop.pst.pol} ‘Eri {is/was} a student.’ b.
Ken wa gakusei de wa na-i {desu/*deshita}. top student cop top neg-npst {pol/pol.pst} ‘Ken is not a student.’ c.
Ken wa gakusei de wa {na-i/nakat-ta} desu. top student cop top {neg-npst/neg-pst} pol ‘Ken {is/was} not a student.’
In (14b), desu serves as a genuine politeness marker, and thus does not inflect for tense. In this case, the preceding negative nai inflects for tense, as shown in (14c).
When the copular form is de aru, where the copula de is combined with the existential verb aru, masu/masen are used to express politeness.
(15)
Ken wa gakusei de (wa) top student cop top {ari-masu/ari-masen/ari-mashita/ari-masen-deshita}. {be-pol/be-neg.pol/be-pol.pst/be-neg.pol-pol.pst} ‘Ken {is/is not/was/was not} a student.’
Since the copular expression de aru contains the verb aru alongside the copula de, it is possible to form polite sentences by adding the polite forms masu/masen at the clause end. The polite forms with the copula show the same morphological behavior as those associated with adjectival predicates, except that no focus particle is required in the affirmative polite form, as in gakusei de (wa) ari-masu/mashita, unlike the adjective case.
2.4 Modal Negation
Modal expressions can be divided into true modals (e.g. darō ‘will,’ mai ‘will not,’ yō ‘will’) and quasi-modals (e.g. hazu ga nai ‘should not,’ beki da ‘should’) (cf. Nitta Reference Nitta1991: 52–59). The former class of expressions does not inflect. But the latter class does and often has negative forms. Note that the true modal mai ‘will not’ (which allegedly originated from the Old Japanese auxiliary maji) is a dedicated negative expression (with no overt negation marker), while many true modals do not have negative forms.
Japanese has a fairly large inventory of periphrastic quasi-modals, many of which are grammaticalized to varying degrees, and often show irregular syntactic behaviors. While some quasi-modals cannot be negated (e.g. hō-ga ii/yoi ‘had better’ versus *hō-ga yoku-nai), others can be (e.g. hazu da ‘must’ versus hazu {de/ga/(de) wa} nai ‘must not,’ -te ii/yoi ‘may’ versus -te wa ike-nai ‘may not’). Some quasi-modals like sō da ‘likely’ allow a negator to either precede or follow them.Footnote 10
(16)
Ame ga sukoshimo {furi sō de na-i/fura-na(sa) sō da}. rain nom at.all {fall likely cop neg-npst/fall-neg likely cop} ‘It is {not likely/likely not} to rain at all.’
When a negator follows the modal, it expresses a modal negation, but when it occurs in the reversed order, the negation of the proposition is expressed. In either case, nai can license negative polarity items (NPIs) like sukoshimo ‘at all,’ which are licensed only in negative contexts, as shown in (16).
By contrast, modal expressions like ni chigainai ‘must’ (< chigai-nai [discrepancy-neg]) and -te (mo) kamawanai ‘OK’ (< kamawa-nai [care-neg]) do not license NPIs, because nai included in the morphological sequence does not function as a clausal negator.
(17)
Ken wa sukoshimo {*hashit-ta/hashira-nakat-ta} ni chigaina-i. top at.all {run-pst/run-neg-pst} dat must-npst ‘Ken {must/must not} run at all.’
In this type of modal expression, the occurrence of NPIs is permitted only when the preceding clause is negative. If, on the other hand, nai included in modals functions as a clausal negator, sukoshimo is not licensed when the preceding clause is negative. Example (18) shows that nai appearing in -te wa nara-nai ‘must’ is a negator visible to the syntax, and cancels out the negative import of the preceding clause (if it is negative).Footnote 11
(18)
Sukoshimo {hanashi-te/*hanasa-naku-te} wa nara-na-i. at.all {talk-ger/talk-neg-ger} top become-neg-npst ‘You {must/must not} talk at all.’
Modals sometimes show behavioral differences as to whether they can precede the modal darō ‘will.’ In particular, the negative presumptive mai does not allow darō to follow, unlike many other modal expressions, including ones formed with nai, which are allowed to precede darō.
a.
Sonna koto wa {kamawa-n/kamawa-na-i/kamau-beki-de-na-i} that fact top {care-neg/care-neg-npst/care-should-cop-neg-npst} darō. will ‘(We){will not/will not/should not} care about that fact.’ b.
*Sonna koto wa shiru-mai darō. that fact top know-may.not will ‘(We) will not know that fact.’
The modal darō expresses a positive presumptive meaning, and mai, a negative presumptive meaning. Given that mai and darō are both presumptive modals, it is conceivable that they compete for the same slot syntactically, making it impossible for the two expressions to co-exist in a clause.
Some modals (e.g. -te wa ike-nai ‘must not,’ -te wa nara-nai ‘must not’) express prohibition. Notably, -te wa dame da/desu ‘not good’ expresses prohibition in a way similar to -te wa ike-nai ‘must not,’ -te wa ike-masen ‘must not (polite form).’
(20)
Kore o tabe-te wa {dame desu/ike-masen/ike-nai}. this acc eat-ger top {bad cop.pol/must-neg.pol/must-neg} ‘You must not eat this.’
The expression dame da/desu can also be used to give a negative evaluation.
(21)
Kare no seiseki wa dame desu. he gen score top bad cop.pol ‘His scores are not good.’
If dame da/desu expresses a prohibitive meaning, it can license NPIs, as in (22a). When used as indicating a negative evaluation, dame da/desu does not work as a clausal negative marker, in which case it cannot license NPIs, as in (22b).
a.
Kore shika tabe-te wa dame desu. this only eat-ger top bad cop.pol ‘You must not eat except this.’ (Prohibitive) b.
*Kare no seiseki shika dame datta (yō da). he gen score only bad cop.pst seem cop ‘(It seems that) only his scores were not good.’ (Evaluative)
In addition, dame da/desu can express a prohibitive meaning without combining with any predicate, as in Kore shika dame {da/desu} ‘Only this is OK.’ In this case, the putative predicative meaning needs to be decided according to the context where it is used. Thus, the elliptical expression can be assumed to carry a meaning which may be represented approximately as “It is only this that you can X, where X = eat, use, touch, etc.”
2.5 Negative Yes–No Questions
In Japanese, yes–no questions are derived from declarative clauses by simply adding an interrogative particle at the clause end. Yes–no questions can be direct or indirect questions (and of course, they can be either affirmative or negative).
a.
Ken ga {ki-ta/ko-nakat-ta} no (desu ka)? nom {come-pst/come-neg-pst} nmlz cop.pol q ‘{Did/Didn’t} Ken come?’ b.
Mari wa [Ken ga ki-ta {ka/kadōka}] shit-te i-ru. top nom come-pst {q/whether} know-ger be-npst ‘Mary knows whether Ken came.’
Direct yes–no questions are indicated by the question particle ka or no (< no ka or no desu ka), but indirect yes–no questions, which typically appear as embedded clauses selected by predicates like shiru ‘know,’ tazuneru ‘ask,’ etc., are indicated by ka or kadōka ‘whether.’ Note that kadōka can only be used in embedded yes–no questions.
In replying to direct yes–no questions, hai ‘yes’ or iie ‘no’ is used to confirm or disconfirm the status of information that the questioner inquires about. For non-negative direct yes–no questions, the answer is hai if an affirmative statement follows, and the answer is iie if a negative statement follows.
(24)
Q: Ken ga ki-mashita ka? nom come-pol.pst q ‘Did Ken come?’ A: Hai, {ki-mashita/*ki-masen-deshita}. yes {come-pol.pst/come-neg.pol-pol.pst} ‘Yes, (he) {came/did not come}.’ B: Iie, {*ki-mashita/ki-masen-deshita} no {come-pol.pst/come-neg.pol-pol.pst}. ‘No, (he) {came/did not come}.’
Hai and iie do not strictly correspond to yes and no in English, for answers to the negative yes–no question in (25) could be hai or iie regardless of whether the following statement is affirmative or negative.
(25)
Q: Ken ga ki-masen-deshita ka? nom come-neg.pol-pol.pst q ‘Didn’t Ken come?’ A: Hai, {ki-mashita/ki-masen-deshita}. yes {come-pol.pst/come-neg.pol-pol.pst} ‘Yes, (he) {came/did not come}.’ B: Iie, {ki-mashita/ki-masen-deshita}. no {come-pol.pst/come-neg.pol-pol.pst} ‘No, (he) {came/did not come}.’
A clausal negator used in yes–no questions indicates either the denial of the statement or the speaker’s expectation that the non-negated statement is true. (The difference in meaning conveyed by the yes–no questions is often distinguishable by intonation.) When nai indicates the denial of the proposition, the answer is hai if a negative statement follows, and iie if an affirmative statement follows. When the negative marker encodes the speaker’s expectation, the answer is hai if an affirmative statement follows, and the answer is iie if a negative statement follows.
The fact that how hai and iie are used is fixed according to the logical meaning encoded in yes–no questions is further confirmed by looking at examples containing negative and positive polarity items. First, observe how the hearer responds to the yes–no question in (26).
(26)
Q: Dare-ka ki-masen ka? someone come-neg.pol q ‘Won’t someone come?’ A: Hai, ki-masu. yes come-pol ‘Yes, (someone) will come.’ B: Iie, ki-masen. no come-neg.pol ‘No, (no one) will come.’
To the yes–no question in (26), which contains a positive polarity item dare-ka ‘someone,’ the speaker must address the expectation that someone will come. Thus, the answer to the yes–no question is hai if the hearer knows that someone will come, and iie if this is not the case.
When the NPI dare-mo ‘anyone’ is included in yes–no questions, the answering pattern is reversed, as in (27).
(27)
Q: Dare-mo ki-masen ka? anyone come-neg.pol q ‘Will no one come?’ A: Hai, ki-masen. yes come-neg.pol ‘Yes, (no one) will come.’ B: Iie, ki-masu. no come-pol ‘No, (someone) will come.’
The yes–no question in (27), which includes the NPI dare-mo ‘anyone,’ expresses the meaning of ‘Is it the case that no one will come?’ Thus, if the situation where no one will come holds, the answer to the question is hai, but if this does not hold, the answer is iie. The difference in the propositional content conveyed by the negative yes–no question gives rise to the observed patterns of hai-iie answers.
2.6 Negation in Conjunctive Clauses
In Japanese, there are two negative -te conjunctive forms, that is, naku-te and nai-de, which can connect two clauses. Coordination is also possible with coordinating particles. Negated coordinate clauses show different scope properties, depending on how they are coordinated.
2.6.1 Nai-de versus Naku-te
The gerundive -te conjunctive forms, which can be affirmative or negative, specify a number of semantic relations, including “means, accompanying situation, reason/cause, temporal sequence, coordination” (see, for example, Nihongo Kijutsu Bunpō Kenkyūkai 2008; Yoshida Reference Yoshida2012: 33–53). When the conjunctive -te is combined with negated verbs, two variants, that is, naku-te and nai-de, can be formed (see, for example, Masuoka and Takubo Reference Masuoka and Takubo1992: 187–188).Footnote 12
a.
Koko ni wa {ko-naku-te/ko-nai-de} yo-i. here loc top {come-neg-ger/come-neg-ger} good-npst ‘It is all right not to come here.’ b.
Watashi wa isogashiku {naku-te/*nai-de} yo-i. I top busy {neg-ger/neg-ger} good-npst ‘It is all right for me not to be busy.’
The nai-de form can be derived only from verbs, but naku-te can be derived from either verbs or adjectives. One intriguing fact about nai-de and naku-te is that which form can be used is determined depending on the semantic relation expressed by the conjunctive -te clause.Footnote 13
To be concrete, in cases where the conjunctive forms are taken to specify the relation of means or accompanying situation to the following clause, only the nai-de form (derived by combining nai with verbs) can be used.
a.
Ken wa kagi o {tsukawa-nai-de/*tsukawa-naku-te}, top key acc {use-neg-ger/use-neg-ger} doa o ake-ta. door acc open-pst ‘Ken opened the door without using a key.’ (Means) b.
Ken wa raito o {tsuke-nai-de/*tsuke-naku-te}, top light acc {turn.on-neg-ger/turn.on-neg-ger} benkyō-shi-te i-ru. study-do-ger be-npst ‘Ken is studying without turning on the light.’ (Accompanying situation)
If the -te conjunctive clauses specify the semantic relations of cause/reason (while expressing the subject’s judgments or emotional states) or coordination (with different subjects), both nai-de and naku-te can be used (cf. McGloin Reference McGloin and Shibatani1976: 373–381).
a.
Kodomo ga yasai o {tabe-nai-de/tabe-naku-te}, child nom vegetable acc {eat-neg-ger/eat-neg-ger} komat-te i-ru. worry-ger be-npst ‘(I am) worried because the children will not eat vegetables.’ (Reason/Cause) b.
Ken ga {ko-nai-de/ko-naku-te} Mari ga ki-ta. nom {come-neg-ger/come-neg-ger} nom come-pst ‘Ken did not come, but Mari came.’ (Coordination)
Note that when reason/cause and coordinate meanings are expressed, not only verbs but also nouns and adjectives can occur in the naku-te form.
a.
Ken ga akaruku-naku-te, watashi wa shinpai-shi-ta. nom cheerful-neg-ger I top worry-do-pst ‘I was worried because Ken was not cheerful.’ (Reason/Cause) b.
Ken ga isogashiku-naku-te, Mari ga isogashikat-ta. nom busy-neg-ger nom busy-pst ‘Ken was not busy, but Mari was busy.’ (Coordination)
Naku-te can be used in contexts where both verbs and adjectives can appear. The data suggest that when two clauses are connected by way of conjunctive -te forms, a variety of semantic relations are specified, but that there are semantic restrictions on the use of nai-de and naku-te forms.Footnote 14
2.6.2 The Scope of Negation in Coordination
Two clauses containing subjects can be coordinated with the verb in the first conjunct appearing in either the adverbal form (ren’yōkei) or the -te form. There are also coordinate constructions where coordinating particles like mo and tari are attached to verbal constituents in their conjuncts. In the coordinate constructions, it is possible to place a negator in the second conjunct, but the negator may or may not take scope over the first conjunct.
In cases where a predicate in the adverbal form or the -te conjunctive form is used for coordination, the first conjunct is not interpreted in the negative if the second conjunct is negated.
a.
Ken ga hashiri, Eri ga hashira-nakat-ta. nom run nom run-neg-pst ‘Ken ran and Eri did not run.’ b.
Ken ga hashit-te, Eri ga hashira-nakat-ta. nom run-ger nom run-neg-pst ‘Ken ran and Eri did not run.’
In the two types of coordinate constructions in (32), nai takes scope only over the second conjunct.
Another form of coordinate structure can be constructed with particles used as coordinators (like mo). In (33), like (32), only the second conjunct contains a negator, but both first and second conjuncts are understood to be negated.
(33)
Ken ga hashiri mo Eri ga hashiri mo shi-nakat-ta. nom run also nom run also do-neg-pst ‘Neither Ken nor Eri ran.’
The data in (32) and (33) illustrate that the possibility of negating the first conjunct by a clausal negator in the second conjunct differs depending on the type of coordination involved.
2.7 Negative Imperatives and Exclamatives
In Japanese, both affirmative and negative clauses can be turned into imperatives, but they are subject to different imperative formation rules. Some imperative clauses behave as negated clauses even without overt negative markers. Exclamatives inherently carry negative meanings, and some of them behave like clauses containing a clausal negator.
2.7.1 Negative Imperatives
There are several ways of forming negative imperative clauses. (In contemporary Japanese, imperatives can be formed on verbs, but not on adjectives and adjectival nouns.Footnote 15) Verbs inflect for meirei-kei ‘imperative form.’ Thus, affirmative imperatives can be formed by using this form, as in (34a), and it is also possible to construct affirmative imperatives by adding the imperative marker nasai to the verb in the adverbal form, as in (34b).
a.
Tabe-ro! eat-imp ‘Eat!’ b.
Tabe-nasai! eat-imp ‘Eat!’
These strategies are not available for negative imperative formation. Negative imperatives are derived instead by adding the negative imperative particle na after the verb.
(35)
Tabe-ru na! eat-npst imp ‘Do not eat!’
In negative imperatives, the verb must appear in the non-past conclusive form. It is not possible to form a negative imperative with the verb in the past form, as *Tabe-ta na! cannot be an imperative.Footnote 16
Another strategy to form imperatives is to use the conjunctive -te forms of verbs. The verbal imperative in this form may be regarded as involving truncation of an auxiliary verb like kudasai (< kudasaru ‘be given’). Both affirmative and negative imperatives can be formed by appeal to this strategy. Notably, the nai-de form, but not the naku-te form, can be used to derive this type of negative imperative.
(36)
{Tabe-te/Tabe-nai-de/*Tabe-naku-te} (kudasai)! {eat-ger/eat-neg-ger/eat-neg-ger} be.given.imp ‘(Do not) Eat!’
Imperative clauses can also be formed by adding koto ‘fact’ after the non-past, but not the past, form of the verb. When koto is involved in imperative formation, both affirmative and negative imperatives can be constructed.
(37)
Kore o {tabe-ru/*tabe-ta/tabe-na-i} koto! this acc {eat-npst/eat-pst/eat-neg-npst} fact ‘(Do not) eat this!’
2.7.2 Exclamatives
Exclamatives formed with ka or mon(o) ka show some peculiar syntactic distributions. Some exclamatives behave as negated clauses syntactically, but others do not, as confirmed by the behavior of NPIs.
First, observe that in Japanese, exclamative clauses are most typically constructed by adding ka or mon(o) ka at the clause end.
(38)
Ken ga sonna tokoro ni ik-u {ka/mono ka}! nom that.kind place loc go-npst {q/thing q} ‘Ken will never go to that kind of place!’
Exclamatives with ka or mon(o) ka can be assumed to derive from rhetorical questions – a cross-linguistically common strategy for exclamative formation. The clause in (38) needs to be pronounced with a special intonation pattern so as to be qualified as an exclamative. Semantically, (38) makes the assertion that the described act will never be done.
Exclamatives differ from other types of clauses in that they intrinsically convey negative meanings, and cannot include clausal negators.
(39)
*Ken ga sonna tokoro ni ika-na-i {ka/mon(o) ka}! nom that.kind place loc go-neg-npst {q/thing q} ‘Ken will never go to that of kind place!’
While the exclamative clauses formed on ka or mon(o) ka are not compatible with clausal negators, they show a difference in acceptability when NPIs like dare-ni-mo ‘to anyone’ are included.
a.
{Sonna yatsu to/*dare-to-mo} hanas-u ka! {that.kind guy with/anyone-with} talk-npst q ‘I will not talk with {that kind of guy/anyone}!’ b.
{Sonna yatsu to/dare-to-mo} hanas-u mon(o) ka! {that.kind guy with/anyone-with} talk-npst thing q ‘I will not talk with {that kind of guy/anyone}!’
Both exclamative expressions in (40) inherently carry negative meanings, but the NPI dare-to-mo ‘with anyone’ can appear in (40b), but not in (40a). This shows that only the exclamative with mon(o) ka projects negative scope, under which NPIs are licensed (see Section 3).
Moreover, clauses with ka and mon(o) ka can be exclamatives even when they include a wh-phrase dare-ga [who-nom].
a.
Dare ga sonna tokoro ni ik-u {ka/mon(o) ka}! who nom that.kind place loc go-npst {q/thing q} ‘Who will go to that kind of place! (= I will never go to that kind of place!)’ b.
*Doko ni ik-u {ka/mon(o) ka}! where loc go-npst {q/thing q} ‘Where will I never go!’
Since (41a) contains a wh-phrase, it looks like a wh-question, but it is not. Rather, (41a) is an exclamation making the (strong) negative assertion that the speaker will never perform the described act. This type of exclamative can be formed only when dare-ga serves as a subject, and cannot be formed with other wh-phrases, as shown in (41b).
3 Syntactic Aspects of Negation
This section discusses syntactic aspects of negation, with particular attention to the syntactic behavior of negative polarity items (NPIs).
3.1 Kinds of Negative Polarity Items
Japanese has a fairly large inventory of NPIs. As previously noted, they are licensed under the scope of negation, and cannot appear in affirmative clauses, as illustrated in (42).
(42)
Sono eiga wa {kesshite/chittomo/sonnani} {omoshiroku nakat-ta/ that movie top {never/least/very} {interesting neg-pst/ *omoshirokat-ta}. interesting-pst} ‘That movie was {never/least/not too/not very} interesting.’
Semantically, some NPI adverbs (e.g. kesshite ‘never,’ sukoshimo ‘in the least,’ hitori-mo ‘even one’) and the NPI particle shika ‘only’ occurring after Determiner or Postpositional Phrases (DPs/PPs) (e.g. gakusei shika ‘only students’) intensify the meanings of words they modify, and others (e.g. kanarazushimo ‘(not) necessarily,’ amari ‘(not) too much,’ and sonnani ‘(not) very much’) weaken or soften them.Footnote 17
There are several types of NPIs. NPIs can be derived by combining an indefinite pronoun with mo (e.g. dare-mo ‘anyone’ nani-mo ‘anything,’ and doko-ni-mo ‘to anywhere’), as illustrated in (43a).
a.
Ken wa nani-mo {*tabe-ta/tabe-nakat-ta}. top anything {eat-pst/eat-neg-pst} ‘Ken {ate/did not eat} anything.’ b.
Ken wa dochira-mo tabe-ta. top both eat-pst ‘Ken ate both.’
Not all indefinite pronouns with mo behave as NPIs, however; for example, dochira-mo ‘both,’ dore-mo ‘both,’ and itu-mo ‘always’ are not NPIs. Thus, (43b), which includes dochira-mo, is well formed even though it is not a negative clause.
Furthermore, it is cross-linguistically observed that “minimizers” indicating the smallest natural number (i.e. “one”) often serve as NPIs. In Japanese, minimizer expressions like hito-ri mo ‘even one person’ are NPIs.
(44)
Gakusei ga hito-ri mo {*ki-ta/ko-nakat-ta}. student nom one-cl also {come-pst/come-neg-pst} ‘(Not) a single student came.’
While minimizers referring to “one” combined with mo ‘also’ generally serve as NPIs, NPIs combined with to ‘even’ do not necessarily have to refer to “one.”
(45)
Kono gakusei wa mik-ka to {*mot-ta/mota-naka-ta}. this student top three-day even {hold-pst/hold-neg-pst} ‘This student {could/could not} continue even for three days.’
Any number expression combined with to can serve as an NPI as long as it is conceived of as referring to the minimal or the least amount. In (45), mik-ka ‘three days’ is regarded (pragmatically) as the minimal length of time during which the students should continue working, and thus mik-ka to counts as an NPI (see, for example, Nihongo Kijutsu Bunpō Kenkyūkai 2007: 269–271).
NPIs are divided into two classes, according to whether they are licensed by a negator located in a higher clause. Many NPIs are subject to the so-called clause-mate condition. In (46a), the NPIs, constrained by the clause-mate condition, are not admitted, because they appear in the complement clause selected by the negated copula de wa nai ‘(It) is not the case that.’ On the other hand, NPIs like kanarazushimo (subete) ‘necessarily (all)’ do not need to appear in the complement clause in which nai is located, as shown by the acceptability of (46b).
a.
*[Ken ga {nani-mo/kono hon shika} yon-da] no de nom {anything/this book only} read-pst nmlz cop wa na-i. top neg-npst ‘It is not the case that Ken ate {anything/only this book}.’ b.
[Ken ga kanarazushimo subete no hon o yon-da] nom necessarily all gen book acc read-pst no de wa na-i. nmlz cop top neg-npst ‘It is not necessarily the case that Ken read all the books.’
There are apparent exceptions to this generalization. As observed by Muraki (Reference Muraki, Hinds and Howard1978), complex negative expressions like koto ga nai ‘have not experienced’ and kioku ga nai ‘have no memory’ allow NPIs like dare-ni-mo ‘to anyone’ to appear in the noun-complement clause even if nai is located in the matrix clause.
a.
Ken wa [[dare-ni-mo at-ta] (*toiu)] kioku ga na-i. top anyone-dat meet-pst (that) memory nom neg-npst ‘Ken does not remember that he met anyone.’ b.
Ken wa [[dare-ni-mo awa-nakat-ta] (toiu)] kioku ga ar-u. top anyone-dat meet-neg-pst (that) memory nom be-npst ‘Ken remembers that he did not meet anyone.’
A complex predicate like kioku ga aru invokes restructuring, whereby a bi-clausal constituent is reanalyzed as a single clause. Consequently, dare-ni-mo, which is constrained by the clause-mate condition, is licensed in (47a). This restructuring process is not instantiated when the complementizer toiu ‘that’ is introduced in the noun-complement clause. Thus, (47a) is not acceptable if toiu is present. In (47b), the presence or absence of the complementizer does not affect the grammaticality of the sentence, since the clausal negator is located inside the noun complement clause.
Another interesting property of NPIs is that many of them can occur as elliptical answers to questions.
a.
Q: Minna ki-mashita ka? all come-pol.pst q ‘Did all people come?’ b.
A: Iie, {dare-mo/hito-ri mo/*hito-ri shika}. no {anyone/one-cl also/one-cl only} ‘No, {no one/not one person/only one person}.’
Example (48a) is an affirmative question, which does not contain a clausal negator, and the elliptical answers do not contain any overt negator. Nevertheless, NPIs are allowed to occur in such elliptical answers because a negative meaning is expressed (implicitly). According to Watanabe (Reference Watanabe2004), this is one characteristic of “negative concord items (NCI),” which could be identified as a subclass of NPIs.
NPIs with the negative particle shika ‘only’ are distinguished from other NPIs (i.e. NCIs), in the sense that they cannot form elliptical answers, as in (48). Moreover, shika, in opposition to NPIs like dare-mo ‘anyone,’ cannot be iterated in a single clause.
a.
Ken wa dare-ni-mo nani-mo age-nakat-ta. top anyone-dat anything give-neg-pst ‘Ken did not give anything to anyone.’ b.
*Ken wa kodomo ni shika hon shika age-nakat-ta. top child dat only book only give-neg-pst ‘Ken gave only books to only children.’
The unacceptability of (49b) suggests that nai can license only one instance of shika per clause. DPs/PPs accompanying shika fall into the class of NPIs, but display a number of unique behaviors distinguishing them from other NPIs.
Finally, note that some alleged NPIs are licensed by predicates that do not project negative scope syntactically.
(50)
Sore wa zenzen {chiga-u/mu-imi-da}. that top at.all {differ-npst/neg-meaning-npst} ‘That is totally {different/meaningless}.’
The adverb zenzen ‘at all’ is often considered to be an NPI licensed under the scope of negation, but strictly speaking, it is not, because it is licensed by semantically negative predicates that do not project negative scope.
3.2 The Extent of Negative Scope
One interesting fact about clausal negation is that negative scope is projected syntactically. This fact can be easily confirmed by looking at where NPIs (e.g. Ken shika ‘only Ken’) – which are licensed under the scope of negation – can appear in the clause. In Japanese, negative scope extends over the entire clause in which a negator is located; in simple clauses, NPIs are licensed by a clausal negator, whether they occur in subject or object position.
a.
Ken ga kore shika kawa-nakat-ta. nom this only buy-neg-pst ‘Ken bought only this.’ b.
Ken shika hon o kawa-nakat-ta. only book acc read-neg-pst ‘Only Ken bought the book.’
English differs from Japanese in that NPIs in subject position are not licensed by the clausal negator not, as in (52).
a. *Anyone did not buy the book.
b. John did not buy anything.
Example (53) illustrates that NPIs in the matrix clause are not licensed by a negator located in the embedded clause.
(53)
*Eri shika [Ken ga ko-nakat-ta to] it-ta. only nom come-neg-pst that say-pst ‘Only Eri said that Ken did not come.’
These facts indicate that the extent of negative scope is fixed structurally, and that it does not extend beyond the clause in which a clausal negator is located.
The absence of a subject–object asymmetry in the licensing of NPIs, as witnessed in (51), is a reflection of the fact that the nai, unlike English not, takes clause-wide scope. Kishimoto (Reference Kishimoto2005: 68–84) suggests that the difference in the extent of negative scope between English and Japanese should be attributed to the presence or absence of Neg-head raising, as depicted in (54).Footnote 18
a.
Japanese: [TP SUBJ [NegP [VP OBJ V-v] Neg] Neg-T] b.
English: [TP SUBJ T [NegP Neg [vP V-v OBJ]]]
The scope of negation extends over the projection of the head in which Neg is included: TP in (54a) and NegP in (54b). In Japanese, a Neg-head is located in a structural position high enough to license a subject NPI by virtue of its head movement to T.Footnote 19 By contrast, in English, the scope of negation does not fall over the subject in TP due to the absence of Neg-raising.
The presence of Neg-head raising in Japanese is confirmed by the fact that nai resists addition of a focus particle to its right.
(55)
*Ken ga hashira-naku mo ar-u. nom run-neg also be-npst ‘Ken also does not run.’
Note that it is possible to insert a focus particle like mo after adjectives (e.g. kawaiku mo ar-u [cute also be-npst]) and verbs (e.g. hashiri mo su-ru [run also do-npst]). Since focus particles cannot be placed inside complex words without a syntactic break, the unacceptability of (55) supports an analysis of the negative nai forming a complex head with tense (by virtue of Neg-head raising).Footnote 20
The negator nai combined with verbs in matrix clauses generally takes clause-wide scope. Nevertheless, in the causative construction, where nai is embedded under the causative verb suru ‘make,’ the negative scope does not include the subject, that is, the causer.
a.
Ken wa [Eri shika soko ni ik-e-naku] shi-ta. top only there loc go-pot-neg make-pst ‘Ken caused only Eri to be able to go there.’ b.
Ken wa [Eri o soko ni shika ik-e-naku] shi-ta. top acc there loc only go-pot-neg make-pst ‘Ken caused Eri to be able to go only there.’ c.
*Ken shika [Eri o soko ni ik-e-naku] shi-ta. only acc there loc go-pot-neg make-pst ‘Only Ken caused him to be unable to go there.’
Syntactically, the causative verb takes a clausal complement, and in the causative construction (56), the negator is located in the complement clause, as in [TP Subj [TP… naku] suru]. Since the subject of the causative verb is located in the matrix rather than the embedded clause, it cannot be an NPI. The data show that the negator does not take clause-wide scope if it is deeply embedded in a complex predicate. This fact is naturally expected if scope is structurally defined, as often assumed.
3.3 The Focus of Negation
Negative clauses containing a clausal negator often have a prominent constituent to be negated, that is, the focus of negation, which may or may not be syntactically marked. One way of indicating this syntactically is to attach the topic marker wa to a constituent (cf. Chapter 13, this volume).
(57)
Ken ga kono ko wa home-naka-ta. nom this child top praise-neg-pst ‘Ken did not praise this child.’
In (57), the wa-marked object is interpreted contrastively rather than thematically (cf. Kuno Reference Kuno1973: 37–61). Thus, (57) does not make a flat denial of the proposition that Ken praised the child, but rather asserts that this child does not belong to the group of people who Ken praised. This suggests that the wa-marked object counts as the focus of negation in (57) by virtue of the fact that the sentence is uttered with the presupposition that there is a set of alternatives to the individual referred to by the topic (McGloin Reference McGloin and Shibatani1976: 389–397).
The interpretation of quantified expressions is differentiated according to whether they count as the focus of negation. When a quantified subject like zen’in ‘all’ is focused, due to the presence of wa-marking, as in (58a), the sentence necessarily expresses partial negation, nai taking scope over the universal quantifier (not > all). In (58b), on the other hand, the quantifier (without wa-marking) does not necessarily count as the focus of negation.
a.
Kono kaigi ni zen’in wa ko-nakat-ta. this meeting loc all top come-neg-pst ‘Not all people came to this meeting.’ (not > all) b.
Koko kaigi ni wa zen’in ga ko-nakat-ta. this meeting loc top all nom come-neg-pst ‘All people did not come to this meeting.’ (all > not, not > all)
The preferred interpretation for (58b) is the one where the universal quantifier takes scope over negative nai (all > not), but the reverse ‘not > all’ interpretation is also possible.
Japanese has a complex negative form like {wake/no} de wa nai ‘it is not the case that.’ When this form is used, the negator takes scope over the complement clause, and a focused constituent is determined not syntactically but pragmatically.
(59)
[Ken ga hon o yon-da] {wake/no} de (wa) na-i. nom book acc read-pst {reason/that} cop (top) neg-npst ‘It is not the case that Ken read the book.’
Example (59) can express a variety of meanings, depending on where focus falls, such as ‘The event of Ken’s reading the book did not take place,’ ‘It was not Ken that read the book,’ and ‘It was not the book that Ken read.’
3.4 Double Negation and Pleonastic Negation
In general, a clause may contain more than one negator, and double negation can be expressed by stacking negative markers. When two negators are used in a single clause, as in (60), the clause conveys an affirmative meaning, due to the fact that negating a negative clause logically entails an affirmative clause.
a.
Ken wa hashira-naku (wa/mo) na-i. top run-neg (top/also) neg-npst ‘It is not the case that Ken will not run.’ b.
Reigai no na-i rūru wa na-i. exception gen neg-npst rule top neg-npst ‘There is no rule without exceptions.’
Although (60a) is taken to be affirmative semantically, it makes a weaker assertion, often implying a hesitation, because it signifies the possibility that Ken will run under certain conditions. No such weakening effect is observed for a different kind of double negative sentence in (60b), however. Logically, (60b) carries the same logical meaning as the affirmative clause Rūru ni wa reigai ga ar-u [rule loc top exception be-npst] ‘there are exceptions to the rule,’ but makes a stronger assertion than the positive clause.Footnote 21
In general, the clausal negator nai expresses logical negation, but there are cases where it does not. In (61), the before-clause carries the same meaning regardless of whether the predicate is negated, suggesting that nai in the before-clause serves as a pleonastic negative marker (see, for example, Miyaji Reference Miyaji1956).
(61)
Kare wa {nokku-shi-na-i/nokku-su-ru} mae-ni doa o he top {knock-do-neg-npst/knock-do-npst} before door acc ake-ta. open-pst ‘He opened the door before he knocked.’
Cross-linguistically, pleonastic negation is fairly common; for instance, as noted in Horn (Reference Horn and Horn2010), in French, pleonastic negation appears in before-clauses, just as in Japanese, as in avant qu’elle ne parle ‘before she speaks.’
3.5 NPIs in Non-negative Contexts
NPIs are usually licensed falling under the scope of a clausal negator. Nevertheless, the NPI kore-ijō can occur in certain non-negative contexts, including complement clauses taken by certain negative predicates that do not project negative scope.
3.5.1 Kore-ijō
The NPI kore-ijō ‘anymore’ patterns with the NPI any in English, which can sometimes be licensed without overt negation. Because kore-ijō behaves as an NPI, declarative clauses comprising kore-ijō give rise to a difference in acceptability, according to whether they contain a clausal negator.
(62)
Ken wa jiken-nitsuite kore-ijō {hanasa-nakat-ta/*hanashi-ta}. top accident-about anymore {speak-neg-pst/speak-pst} ‘Ken {did not talk/talked} about the accident anymore.’
Nevertheless, a clausal negator is not necessary for kore-ijō in certain syntactic contexts. It can occur in conditional clauses, before-clauses, and comparative clauses without overt negation.
a.
[Kore-ijō {hashire-ba/hashir-u mae-ni}] Mari wa kitto anymore {run-if/run-npst before} top surely taore-ru darō. fall.down-npst will ‘If/Before she runs anymore, Mari will surely fall down.’ b.
[Kore-ijō hashir-u yori] aruk-u hō-ga-i-i. anymore run-npst than walk-npst should ‘You should walk rather than run anymore.’
Kore-ijō is not licensed in after-clauses and when-clauses, if they are not negated, however.
(64)
*[Mari ga kore-ijō hanashi-ta {ato/toki}] Ken ga de-te it-ta. nom anymore speak-pst {after/time} nom go.out-ger go-pst ‘{After/When} Mari spoke anymore, Ken went out.’
A comparison of the examples in (62–64) and their translations shows that kore-ijō behaves in exactly the same way as any in English, which can sometimes be licensed without overt negation.Footnote 22
3.5.2 Negative Predicates
Simple negative predicates like kobamu/kyohi-suru ‘refuse’ and hitei-suru ‘deny’ express negative meanings intrinsically. They do not license NPIs like sukoshimo ‘at all,’ because they do not project negative scope. Nevertheless, kore-ijō can be embedded felicitously in their complement clause, although it cannot appear in the matrix clause.
a.
Mari wa [{kore-ijō/*sukoshimo} shōgen-su-ru] koto o top {anymore/at.all} testimony-do-npst fact acc kyohi-shi-ta. refuse-do-pst ‘Mari refused [to testify {anymore/at all}].’ b.
*Mari wa shōgen o {kore-ijō/sukoshimo} kyohi-shi-ta. top testimony acc {anymore/at.all} refuse-do-pst ‘Mari refused her testimony {anymore/at all}.’
Japanese abounds with complex predicates (see, for example, Kageyama Reference Kageyama1993). Kore-ijō is allowed to appear in complement clauses taken by certain types of compound predicates, such as syntactic V-V compound verbs whose second verb is -kaneru ‘cannot do’ (denoting some kind of negation), as shown in (66).
(66)
Watashi wa [shigoto o kore-ijō hikiuke]-{kane-ru/*sokone-ta}. I top job acc anymore accept-{cannot.do-npst/fail-pst} ‘I {cannot/failed to} accept jobs anymore.’
It is worth noting here that -sokoneru ‘fail’ does not license kore-ijō, even though it looks like a negative predicate.
Furthermore, observe that tough-adjectives, such as -zuai, ‘hard,’ -gatai ‘hard’ and -nikui ‘difficult,’ form complex adjectives permitting the occurrence of kore-ijō.
(67)
[Shigoto o kore-ijō job acc anymore hikiuke]-{zura-i/gata-i/niku-i/*yasu-i}. accept-{hard-npst/hard-npst/difficult-npst/easy-npst} ‘It is {hard/hard/difficult/easy} to accept jobs anymore.’
The tough-adjectives -zurai, -gatai, and -nikui, in opposition to -yasui ‘easy,’ express negative meanings inherently, so that they allow kore-ijō to appear in their complement clauses.
4 Lexical Negation
Japanese has a number of “lexical affixes” that express negative meanings. There are both negative prefixes (originated from Chinese) and negative suffixes (that have morphological affinity with clausal negators).
4.1 Negative Prefix
Japanese has a number of lexical prefixes that express negation, represented by hi- (非) ‘negation,’ fu- (不) ‘negation,’ mi- (未) ‘incompletion,’ and mu- (無) ‘negation’ (see, for example, Nomura Reference Nomura1973).Footnote 23
a.
hi-: hi-jōshiki (na) [neg-common.sense] ‘unreasonable,’ hi-seiki (no) [neg-proper] ‘non-regular’ b.
fu-: fu-kigen (na) [neg-temper] ‘sullen,’ fu-tashika (na) [neg-certain] ‘uncertain’ c.
mi-: mi-keiken (no) [neg-experience] ‘unexperienced’ d.
mu-: mu-kiryoku (na) [neg-power] ‘apathetic’
All the prefixes in (68) have their roots in Chinese. Thus, they are most typically attached to Sino-Japanese words, but can sometimes be associated with native Japanese words (e.g. fu-kakujitsu [neg-certain (SJ)] ‘uncertain’ versus fu-tashika [neg-sure (NJ)] ‘unsure’).
In categorical terms, the negative prefixes are combined with nouns and adjectival nouns (or their roots), and often induce a change in the lexical category of the base. The categorical status of the expressions can be discerned most conspicuously by looking at how attributive forms are morphologically realized.
a.
jōshiki no han’i → hi-jōshiki na hito common.sense gen range neg-common.sense cop man ‘the range of common sense’ ‘an unreasonable man’ (N → A) b.
tashika na shōko → fu-tashika na shōko solid cop evidence neg-solid cop evidence (A → A) ‘solid evidence’ ‘weak evidence’ c.
kakokei no dōshi → hi-kakokei no dōshi past.form gen verb neg-past.form gen verb ‘verbs in the past form’ ‘verbs in the non-past form’ (N → N)
Lexical negative expressions take different attributive forms, depending on whether they are categorized as nouns or adjectival nouns. When a given expression takes the na form, it is categorized as an adjectival noun, but when it takes the no form, it is categorized as a noun. The examples in (69) illustrate that the lexical-negative expressions do not necessarily match in category with the bases.
The negative hi-, fu-, mi-, and mu- are dedicated prefixes, which never assume the role of clausal negators, and do not license the occurrence of NPIs.
a.
*Sono kōshō shika mu-imi da. that negotiation only neg-meaning cop ‘Only that negotiation is meaningless.’ b.
*Kare wa sukoshimo fu-kigen da. he top at.all neg-temper cop ‘He is ill-tempered at all.’
This illustrates that lexical affixes do not project negative scope syntactically even when they carry negative meanings.
4.2 Negative Adjectives with the Suffix Nai
Japanese has several types of lexical negative expressions formed with the addition of -nai. The negative -nai deriving a lexical negative expression functions as a suffix morphologically. As far as the complex negative adjectives with nai are concerned, there are two major sources. One type of morphologically complex adjectives is formed by combining nai with a noun, as in (71a), and the other, with a verb, as in (71b).Footnote 24
a.
N+nai: yurugi-nai [shake-neg] ‘unshakable,’ sonshoku-nai [inferiority-neg] ‘comparable,’ abunage-nai [danger-neg] ‘without danger,’ nukari-nai [fault-neg] ‘shrewd,’ etc. b.
V+nai: tsumara-nai [clog-neg] ‘boring,’ tamara-nai [bear-neg] ‘unbearable,’ suma-nai [do.without-neg] ‘sorry,’ kudara-nai [go.down-neg] ‘unbearable,’ uka-nai [float-neg] ‘depressed,’ etc.
The complex adjectives listed in (71) serve as single-word adjectives syntactically. Notably, they do not have affirmative forms; for example, yarikire-nai ‘unbearable’ and abunage-nai ‘without danger’ do not have affirmative counterparts *yarikireru ‘bear (?)’ and *abunage-aru ‘dangerous (?).’ There is also a minor type of complex negative adjectives, consisting of an adjective plus nai, such as sewashi-nai ‘restless,’ which has presumably been derived by compounding sewashii ‘busy’ with nai.
4.2.1 Noun-based Complex Nai-adjectives
A fairly large number of nai-adjectives belong to the type N+nai. Many, if not all, have periphrastic counterparts where the noun part is marked with nominative case (Kishimoto and Booij Reference Kishimoto and Booij2014).
a.
Ken no shinnen wa [yurugi ga na-i]. gen faith top shaking nom neg-npst ‘Ken’s faith is unshakable.’ b.
Ken no shinnen wa [yurugi-na-i]. gen faith top shaking-neg-npst ‘Ken’s faith is unshakable.’
With complex adjectives with the N+nai sequences, since nai is a genuine lexical adjective, no positive counterparts can be derived by replacing nai with aru regardless of whether the noun is case-marked (i.e. the hypothesized affirmative form *yurugi (ga) aru [shaking nom be] ‘shaky(?)’ is not acceptable).
The two variants of the complex adjectives with the N+nai sequence have essentially the same core meaning. This fact suggests that they should be created by the grammatical process of noun incorporation, as illustrated in (73).
(73)
[tp N [a na-]i] → [tp [a N-na-]i]
The resultant adjectives behave as single words, because incorporation is a process whereby two syntactically independent elements are formed into single lexical units. Accordingly, the two variants of the complex adjectives display a number of distinct syntactic behaviors, two of which are discussed below.
First, when the noun is marked with nominative case, it is possible for nai to accommodate a modifying expression, but when the noun appears without case marking, noun modification is not allowed.
a.
Ken no shinnen wa [isasaka no yurugi] mo na-i. gen faith top little gen shaking also neg-npst ‘Ken’s faith is totally unshakable.’ b.
*Ken no shinnen wa [isasaka no yurugi]-na-i. gen faith top little gen shaking-neg-npst ‘Ken’s faith is totally unshakable.’
Example (74b) is excluded, because the word-internal nominal element yurugi cannot be expanded to a phrase. No problem arises with noun modification in (74a), because the modified noun is a syntactically independent element.Footnote 25
Secondly, the complex adjectives with the N+nai sequence show a difference with regard to the licensing of an NPI like sukoshimo ‘at all,’ depending on whether the component noun is case-marked or not.
a.
Ken no shinnen wa (sukoshimo) yurugi ga nakat-ta. gen faith top at.all shaking nom neg-pst ‘Ken’s faith has not been shaken (at all).’ b.
Ken no shinnen wa (*sukoshimo) yurugi-nakat-ta. gen faith top at.all shaking-neg-pst ‘Ken’s faith has not been shaken (at all).’
When the noun is case-marked, the complex adjective has a structure where the noun stands as an independent phrase lying outside the adjective nai, and the adjectival base nai serves as an operator to project negative scope. Example (75a) is acceptable, since the NPI sukoshimo is licensed by nai. On the other hand, if nai forms part of a complex word, it does not possess the ability to project negative scope; hence (75b) is not acceptable.
4.2.2 Verb-based Complex Nai-adjectives
Negative adjectives with the morphological sequence of V+nai generally do not carry the same meaning as their putative phrasal counterparts, in contrast with N+nai adjectives. For instance, the adjective yarikirenai ‘unbearable’ and its apparent phrasal counterpart yarikire-nai ‘cannot finish’ do not carry the same meaning. Moreover, the two expressions have different categorical status.
a.
Ken wa [sono kettei o yarikirenaku] omot-ta. top that decision acc unbearable think-pst ‘Ken thought that decision to be unbearable.’ b.
*Ken wa [sono shukudai o yarikire-naku] omot-ta. top that homework acc can.finish-neg think-pst ‘Ken thought that homework to be unfinishable.’
The small clause complement of omou ‘think’ can accommodate an adjective, but not a negated verb (see Section 3.1). Then, the data show that while yarikirenai ‘unbearable’ is an adjective, yarikire-nai ‘cannot finish’ consists of the verb plus a grammatical negator. Needless to say, the phrasal expression yarikire-nai does have an affirmative variant yarikireru ‘can finish,’ since nai here functions as a clausal negator. If the adjective yarikirenai ‘unbearable’ is taken to be derived from the verbal expression yarikire-nai ‘cannot finish,’ a puzzling problem arises, because, under this analysis, it must be stated that an “adjective” can somehow be created out of a phrasal expression lacking categorical properties as an adjective.
The presence of complex adjectives with the V+nai sequence at first glance looks mysterious, but this does not come as a surprise if single-word V-nai adjectives are derived via lexicalization from phrasal expressions comprising the adjectival nai, not a negator, as depicted in (77).
(77) [TP [AP [VP V] na]-i] → [TP [A V-na]-i]
This view is reasonable, for there are a fairly large number of idiomatic expressions where nai combined with verbs serves as an adjective categorically (e.g. warikire-nai ‘unsatisfied,’ te ni oe-nai ‘uncontrollable’), which can appear as in the small-clause clause selected by omou.
(78)
Ken wa [sore o {warikire-naku/te ni oe-naku}] omot-ta. top that acc {satisfy-neg/hand loc carry-neg} think-pst ‘Ken thought that to be {unsatisfactory/uncontrollable}.’
Example (78) shows that nai appearing in warikire-nai and te ni oe-nai is an adjective and not a regular clausal negator. Note that these are phrasal adjectival expressions without affirmative variants (*warikireru ‘satisfy’ is not acceptable in the intended sense). Moreover, nai must be independent of the verbs syntactically, for the verb part can be separated from nai by particles, as the acceptability of warikire wa shi-nai [satisfy top do-neg] and te ni oe wa shi-nai [hand loc carry top do-neg] shows.
The presence of an auxiliary negator counting as an adjective (categorically) motivates the lexicalization process (77).Footnote 26 The process of lexicalization, which reduces adjectival phrases to single-word adjectives, thus differs from the process deriving the adjectives of the N+nai type by incorporating a noun into the genuine adjective nai, although these operations both derive complex nai-adjectives.
Finally, negative expressions like yurugi-nai/yuruga-nai ‘unshakable’ and nukari-nai/nukara-nai ‘shrewd’ form apparent doublets. These expressions in fact have different sources. Yurugi-nai is formed from yurugi ga nai. Since *yurugi ga aru is not acceptable, yurugi-nai must be derived by incorporating the noun yurugi ‘shaking’ into the adjective nai (nb: yurugi is a noun converted from the adverbial form of the verb yurugu ‘shake’).Footnote 27 Yuruga-nai, on the other hand, is an ordinary verbal expression. Thus, the affirmative form yurugu ‘shake’ is available, and the verb part can be separated from nai, as in yurugi wa shi-nai [shake top do-neg].
4.3 Other Negative Suffixes
Japanese has several other types of lexical negative suffixes (and some of them no longer express negative meanings as a result of semantic shifts). Some representative suffixes include zu, nu, nashi, and zaru. A sample list of lexical negative expressions with zu is given in (79).
a.
oya-shira-zu [parent-know-neg] ‘wisdom tooth’ b.
seken-shira-zu [world-know-neg] ‘greenhorn’ c.
haji-shira-zu [shame-know-neg] ‘person without shame’Footnote 28 d.
neko-ira-zu [cat-need-neg] ‘ratsbane’ e.
tsuchi-fuma-zu [soil-step-neg] ‘the arch (of a foot)’
The examples in (80) illustrate some cases of lexical negative expressions formed with the negative suffix -nu.
a.
mi-shira-nu (hito) [see-know-neg (person)] ‘unknown (person)’ b.
kaera-nu (hito) [return-neg (person)] ‘a deceased (person)’ c.
nani-kuwa-nu (kao) [any-eat-neg (face)] ‘an innocent-looking (face)’
Since, in classical Japanese, the negative nu is the attributive form of the negative auxiliary zu, the fixed (idiomatic) expressions formed with nu are used as noun modifiers in (80). Note also that in classical Japanese, the auxiliary zu has another attributive form zaru, and thus, some lexicalized expressions include zaru, as in (81).
a.
itsuwara-zaru (kimochi) [deceive-neg (feeling)] ‘candid feeling’ b.
shir-are-zaru (sekai) [know-pass-neg (world)] ‘unknown world’
There are also lexical negative expressions derived by combining a noun with nashi ‘without,’ as exemplified in (82).
a.
ikuji-nashi [courage-without] ‘coward’ b.
soko-nashi (no) [bottom-without (gen)] ‘bottomless’
The compound expressions listed above are fixed expressions, which can be assumed to have been derived via lexicalization from their phrasal counterparts containing a clausal negator (e.g. seken-shira-zu ‘greenhorn’ versus seken o shira-zu… [world acc know-neg] ‘not know the world…’). Needless to say, lexical negative expressions do not possess internal structures visible to the syntax, so the negative markers included in these expressions do not project negative scope, as the unacceptability of *sukoshimo seken-shira-zu [at.all world-know-neg] ‘greenhorn at all’ shows. Note also that many lexical negative expressions are completely lexicalized and constitute bahuvrihi compounds (one type of exocentric construction); for instance, oya-shira-zu ‘wisdom tooth,’ which comprises oya ‘parents’ and shira-zu (< shiru ‘know (v)’) ‘knowing,’ refers to a kind of tooth, that is, it denotes neither a kind of parent nor a kind of knowledge.
5 Concluding Remarks
This chapter has provided an overview of how negation is expressed in Japanese. Japanese has several distinct types of clausal negators, including nai and zu/nu. Negative expressions can be formed in various types of clauses. Clausal negators project negative scope, and NPIs are licensed under the scope of negation (although there are also NPIs that are allowed to appear in certain non-negative contexts). In Japanese, unlike English, the scope of clausal negation extends over the subject (in simple clauses), which can readily be ascertained by where NPIs are allowed to appear.
Negation can be expressed not only at the clause level but also at the lexical level. Lexical negations possess properties different from those of clausal negations. Japanese has both negative prefixes, which have a Chinese origin, and negative suffixes, many of which have the same morphological forms as clausal negators. This fact suggests that many of the lexical negative expressions with negative suffixes have probably emerged via lexicalization of periphrastic expressions. Notably, none of the lexical negative expressions project negative scope syntactically.
One important fact about Japanese negation is that the most common negator nai has adjectival inflection, which suggests that it has been derived from a lexical adjective, and this motivates a number of idiosyncratic properties of negation in Japanese. Remarkably, owing to the fact that the negative nai can be a lexical adjective, as well as a grammatical negator, Japanese has a fairly large inventory of complex negative adjective expressions that contain negative nai but lacks affirmative forms.
Research on Japanese negation has a long tradition, but still, there is much to be learned. Much more work needs to be done to find out precisely how the intricate system of negation works in Japanese. With a view to furthering our understanding on Japanese negation, it will be particularly fruitful to make cross-linguistic comparisons, which would allow us to uncover both universal and language-specific aspects of Japanese negation.
1 Introduction
A basic function of predicates in natural language is to position events and situations in time, and they do so in two main ways. One is by ordering them in time with respect to the time of other events, such as the time at which the predicate is uttered by the speaker, a category of meaning known as tense. In (1), for example, the event of the waitress setting coffee in front of me is ordered earlier than the time at which this sentence is being spoken, an ordering commonly called “past” tense.
(1)
Wētoresu ga watashi no mae ni kōhī o oi-ta. waitress NOM I GEN front LOC coffee ACC put-PST ‘The waitress set the coffee in front of me.’
Predicates also interact with other elements in the sentence to define various kinds of structure that events or situations take as they unfold in time, such as whether they occur at a single point in time or at multiple points in time, or whether they are accompanied by some kind of change or occur continuously through time with no change, all of which fall under a category of temporal meaning known as aspect.Footnote 1 The event in (1), for example, defines an aspectual structure consisting of a series of activities of the waitress culminating in an endpoint at which a change occurs in the location of the coffee from not being in front of me to being in front of me.
Tense and aspect interact very closely, and it is not always apparent where the boundary between them lies, leading some native Japanese grammarians to question whether Japanese even has forms that express tense. This chapter will present an overview of the range of temporal meanings of both these kinds in Japanese, with a focus on understanding in what ways they are similar or distinct, and in what ways the expression of such meanings in Japanese shares universal characteristics seen across all languages and in what ways it exhibits unique characteristics.
2 Japanese and the Traditional Western Categories of Tense
In Western linguistic frameworks, tense has traditionally been understood in terms of a three-way distinction of past, present, and future, a distinction that many Western languages, including English, mark formally on the predicate. As seen in (2), however, Japanese does not make such a three-way distinction on the predicate itself.
a.
Sengetsu made koko ni kōban ga at-ta. last.month until here loc police.box nom exist-pst ‘There was a police box here until last month.’ b.
Asoko ni kōban ga ar-u. over.there loc police.box nom exist-npst ‘There is a police box over there.’ c.
Kono kōban wa ato 10 nenkan koko ni ar-u (darō). this police.box top more 10.years here loc exist-npst probably ‘This police box will (probably) be here another 10 years.’
Unlike the three distinct forms seen in the English predicates was/is/will be in (2), Japanese makes only a two-way distinction, represented here in the -u and -ta endings of the predicate ar-u ‘exist,’ which we will in this chapter call the -RU and -TA forms of the verb.Footnote 2 As this example shows, the -TA form corresponds to the past tense form, whereas the -RU form combines both present and future meaning in a single “non-past” tense form. This two-way distinction in form is seen in all three predicate classes in Japanese, including adjectives (marked by the endings -i versus -katta) and the copula (da versus datta).
a.
ōki-i ‘is large’ vs. ōki-katta ‘was large’ b.
shizuka-da ‘is quiet’ vs. shizuka-datta ‘was quiet’
How then does Japanese cover three tenses using only two tense forms? In (2), the -RU form of the verb ar-u ‘exist’ receives by default a literal present reading, and in order to receive a future reading requires the help of special forms such as temporal adverbs (e.g. ato 10 nenkan ‘10 more years’) and sentence-final modals (e.g. darō ‘probably’). But the verb ar-u is actually unusual in this respect. With most verbs, the opposite is true, as they receive by default a future reading in the -RU form and require special marking with adverbs and other forms to receive a present-like reading, as can be seen in the examples in (4).
a.
Kinō eiga o mi-ta. yesterday movie acc watch-pst ‘Yesterday I watched a movie.’ b.
Eiga o mi-ru. movie acc watch-npst ‘I’m going to watch a movie.’ c.
Mainichi eiga o mi-ru. every.day movie acc watch-npst ‘I watch a movie every day.’
The behavior of the verb mi-ru ‘watch’ in (4) is typical of verbs indicating that something happens, called “eventive” predicates, as opposed to predicates that indicate unchanging situations, such as ar-u ‘exist,’ called “stative” predicates. Eventive predicates encompass a wide range of event types, including ones brought about by human control (e.g. taberu ‘eat,’ yomu ‘read,’ aruku ‘walk’) and ones occurring apart from human control (e.g. shinu ‘die,’ tsuku ‘arrive,’ kumoru ‘become cloudy’), comprising well over 90% of the native Japanese verb corpus. The distinction between stative and eventive meaning is an aspectual one, associated with two very different ways in which situations unfold in time, as will be discussed in detail in Section 3.
Examples (2) and (4) provide our first major example of how tense and aspect interact: the default tense reading of the single form -RU depends on the aspectual character of the predicate, future in the case of eventive predicates, and literal present in the case of stative predicates, as summarized in Table 15.1.
Table 15.1 Default tense readings of -RU and -TA
| Stative predicates | Eventive predicates | |
|---|---|---|
| Past | -TA (e.g. at-ta ‘was’) | -TA (e.g. mi-ta ‘watched’) |
| Present | -RU (e.g. ar-u ‘is’) | ― |
| Future | ― | -RU (e.g. mi-ru ‘will watch’) |
To express tense in the non-default cases left blank in Table 15.1 requires some kind of special marking, such as the use of temporal adverbs for stative predicates to receive a future reading, as in (2c) or for eventive predicates to receive a present-like reading, as in (4c). The kind of present reading seen in (4c) is, however, somewhat unusual: it expresses a habitual present that does not necessarily mean that the event holds exactly at the time of speech. To express a “true present” meaning requires another form, the -te-i(ru) form, one of whose functions is to indicate that the event is literally in progress at the time of speech.
(5)
Ken wa (ima) eiga o mite-i-ru. top now movie acc watch-prog-npst ‘Ken is (now) watching a movie.’
With the aid of extra devices such as this, the full range of three tense readings becomes possible with both stative and eventive predicates, as summarized in Table 15.2.
Table 15.2 Full range of three tense readings with -RU and -TA
| Stative predicates | Eventive predicates | |
|---|---|---|
| Past | -TA (e.g. at-ta ‘was’) | -TA (e.g. mi-ta ‘watched’) |
| Present | -RU (e.g. ar-u ‘is’) | Adverb + -RU for habitual (e.g. mainichi mi-ru ‘watch every day’) OR -te-iRU for present progressive (e.g. mite-i-ru ‘is watching’) |
| Future | Adverb + -RU (e.g. ato 10 nenkan ar-u ‘will be for 10 more years’) | -RU (e.g. mi-ru ‘will watch’) |
The way -te-i(ru) is positioned in Table 15.2 might suggest that it is a third tense form alongside -RU and -TA. But this would not explain how the -te-i(ru) form itself is a -RU form with a contrasting -TA form -te-i(ta) illustrated in (6).
(6)
Ken wa yūbe uchi de eiga o mite-i-ta. top last.night home loc movie acc watch-prog-pst ‘Ken was watching a movie at home last night.’
The contrast between (5) and (6) is in fact just a special case of the contrast between literal present and past that -RU and -TA receive with stative predicates as seen earlier in (2). -Te-i(ru) does not therefore contribute any tense meaning beyond that already present in the -RU form, but rather contributes meaning of an aspectual kind, presenting a situation as unchanging in very much the same way that stative predicates do. The presence or absence of -te-i- introduces in this way a two-way aspectual distinction that cross-cuts the tense distinction between -RU and -TA, resulting in the four distinct predicate forms summarized in Table 15.3.
Table 15.3 Cross-cutting tense and aspect patterns with -RU, -TA, and -te-i(ru)
| Aspectual distinction | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tense distinction | -RU (e.g. Eiga o mi-ru ‘will watch a movie’) | -te-i-RU (e.g. Eiga o mite-i-ru ‘is watching a movie’) |
| -TA (e.g. Eiga o mi-ta ‘watched a movie’) | -te-i-TA (e.g. Eiga o mite-i-ta ‘was watching a movie’) | |
The literal present reading that -te-i(ru) receives in its -RU form is thus no more than a property it shares with stative predicates in general.
2.1 What Is It That Is Ordered by Tense?
As noted above, tense has traditionally been understood to order the situation expressed in a sentence with respect to the time that the sentence is spoken, or speech time. A past tense sentence such as (7a) encodes, for example, the order represented in (7b), where < means “occurs earlier than.”
a.
2011 nen ni Tōhoku chihō de daishinsai ga oki-ta. 2011.year tmp area loc major.earthquake nom occur-pst ‘In 2011 a major earthquake occurred in the Tohoku area.’ b. time of earthquake < time of speech
Future tense, conversely, orders the time of speech earlier than the event expressed (time of speech < time of event), and present tense situates the time of speech and time of the event at the same time, or at least in an overlapping relationship with each other.
As pointed out by Klein (Reference Klein1994), however, this definition of tense encounters difficulty in explaining the past tense meaning of examples such as (8).
(8)
Hon no hyōshi wa aka dat-ta. (adapted from Klein Reference Klein1994) book gen cover top red cop-pst ‘The cover of the book was red.’
Example (8) is not saying that the time of the book’s being red occurs earlier than the time of speech, as this sentence could be true even if, as is likely, the book’s cover is still red at the time of speech. Rather, the situation of the book being red is tied to a particular point in time that is under discussion in the previous context – for instance, at a point when I entered the room and saw the book lying on the coffee table. The particular point in time under discussion is what Klein (Reference Klein1994) calls “topic time,” a renaming of what was called “time of reference” in an earlier classic study of tense by Reichenbach (Reference Reichenbach1947), the term we will adopt in this chapter. In (8), what the so-called past tense orders as earlier than the time of speech is not the time of the situation itself, but rather this time of reference, although the time of reference is included within the overall time of the situation expressed – the book’s cover being red.
This points to the need for not two but three basic elements in describing tense in natural language: the time of speech (S), the time of reference (R), and the time of the event or situation expressed by the predicate (E). In his system, Reichenbach distinguishes between “simple” tenses where R and E are identical or overlap and “complex” tenses where R and E are distinct from one another. An example of each of the three simple tenses present, past, and future is given in (9), with the ordering relationship between S, R, and E as indicated – = means “occurs at the same time as,” ⊃ means “includes the time of,” and ⊂ means “is included in the time of.”
a.
Aki wa ima uchi ni i-ru. E ⊃ R ⊃ S top now home loc be-npst ‘Aki is at home now.’ b.
Aki wa 10 ji ni uchi o de-ta. E = R < S top 10:00 tmp home acc leave-pst ‘Aki left home at 10:00.’ c.
Aki wa 10 ji ni uchi o de-ru. S < R = E top 10:00 tmp home acc leave-npst ‘Aki will leave home at 10:00.’
The time of reference in each of (9) is specified by temporal adverbs such as ima ‘now’ and 10 ji ni ‘at 10:00’ and in each case coincides with the time at which the event occurs – the event is, as it were, being viewed from the point in time of the event itself.
But events are not always viewed from the point in time that they occur. There are cases where the event is viewed from another point in time separate from the event itself, that is, where R and E are not the same. These are what Reichenbach calls “complex” tenses and include the so-called English present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect, examples of which are given in (10) with their Japanese counterparts.
a.
Aki wa (mō) uchi o dete-i-ru. E < R ⊃ S top already home acc leave-res-npst ‘Aki has (already) left home.’ b.
(Watashi ga denwa-shi-ta toki) Aki wa (mō) uchi o I nom phone-do-pst time top already home acc dete-i-ta. E < R < S leave-res-pst ‘At the time that I called, Aki had already left home.’ c.
(Watashi ga tsuku koro ni wa) Aki wa (mō) uchi I nom arrive-npst time tmp ctr top already home o dete-i-ru (darō). E < R and S < R acc leave-res-npst probably ‘At (by) the time I arrive, Aki will probably have left home.’
In each of these examples, the event of Aki leaving home is seen from the standpoint of a later point in time under discussion, so that E < R. In (10a), for example, the time referred to is the present moment of speech and the earlier event of Aki’s leaving is viewed from that time of reference, as opposed to the simple past example in (9b). The time of reference R is here again specified by temporal adverbs or temporal adverbial clauses such as those headed by toki ‘time’ and koro ‘(about the) time.’
There are also sentences where the event is viewed from an earlier time than the event itself, that is, where R < E. Examples are the so-called prospective tenses seen in (11).
a.
Aki wa uchi o de-yō.to-shite-i-ru. S ⊂ R < E top home acc leave-vol-do-prog-npst ‘Aki is about to leave home.’ b.
(Sono toki) Aki wa uchi o de-yō.to-shite-i-ta. R < S and R < E that time top home acc leave-vol-do-prog-pst ‘(At that time) Aki was about to leave home.’ c.
(Sono koro ni wa) Aki wa uchi o de-yō.to-shite-iru that time tmp ctr top home acc leave-vol-do-prog-npst (darō). S < R < E probably ‘At (by) that time, Aki will probably be about to leave home.’
In the case of complex tenses, the ordering relationship between E and S is not always specified. In both (10c) and (11b), for example, we cannot tell from the meaning of the sentence whether Aki’s leaving home has, at the time of speech, actually occurred (E < S) or is yet to occur (S < E), even though the relationship between E and R and between S and R is clear in both cases.
We have so far assumed without question, following Reichenbach, that the various orderings of S, E, and R are matters of tense and are expressed using similar mechanisms of tense. But the Japanese examples show that there is a significant difference in the way that the ordering of E and R is expressed as compared to the ordering of S and R. As seen in (9), when R and E overlap (i.e. either E = R or E ⊃ R), the -RU and -TA forms are sufficient to express the order between S, R, and E. When E and R are distinct and do not overlap, however, as in (10) and (11), complex morphological forms such as -te-i(ru) and -(y)ō.to-su(ru) are required to distinguish those cases where R is ordered before E (R < E) from those where E is ordered before R (E < R).
These forms, however, do more than just order R and E with respect to each other. They also bind R and E together into a larger temporal structure of which the two are seen as subparts, and are in that sense aspectual forms. The -(y)ō.to-su(ru) form, for example, binds a future event (in the case of (11), Aki’s leaving home) into a larger process that originates at the time of reference and is seen to lead inevitably toward that event. Whether that process is seen as a naturally occurring one or one that results from human intention is reflected in the two meanings “about to happen” and “try to do” that are encompassed in this form. The -te-i(ru) form, similarly, functions in (10) to bind an earlier event (here again, Aki’s leaving home) to a later time of reference where a state resulting from the earlier event (here, Aki’s being away from home) is seen to hold.
As a consequence, in both of these cases the event in question cannot be segregated neatly from an overarching event that encompasses the time of reference, sometimes making it difficult to determine how much of a time span is actually covered by E. The relationship between E and R thus involves temporal structure as well as temporal ordering, intertwining elements of both tense and aspect and calling into question Reichenbach’s treatment of this relationship as straightforwardly a matter of tense. In his framework, Klein (Reference Klein1994) in fact departs from Reichenbach in treating ordering relationships between E and R as aspectual in nature, as opposed to ordering relationships between S and R, which he treats as belonging to the domain of tense.
It might appear that -RU and -TA on their own express purely tense relationships, since in all examples considered so far where -RU and -TA appear alone without aspectual forms attached (e.g. (9)) E and R are either identical or overlapping, and -RU and -TA seem to be concerned solely with differences in the ordering of R and S (S < R or S ⊂ R in the case of -RU and R < S in the case of -TA). But even -RU and -TA exhibit uses that at times cross over the boundary into aspectual meaning. In the uses of -TA in (12), for example, E is distinct from and ordered earlier than R (E < R), even without the aid of extra aspectual forms.
a.
Onaka ga sui-ta. E < R ⊃ S stomach nom become.empty-pst ‘I’m hungry.’ Lit. ‘My stomach has become empty.’ b.
Tadaima 6-ji ni nari-mashi-ta. just.now 6:00 dat become-pol-pst ‘It is now 6:00.’ Lit. ‘It has just now become 6:00.’ c.
Aki wa mō uchi o de-ta. top already home acc leave-pst ‘Aki has already left home.’
The -TA form in these cases expresses a situation holding at the time of speech, here overlapping with the time of reference, integrating a prior event into a larger structure that encompasses the time of speech in a way different from the simple past use of -TA seen earlier in (9b). Evidence for this can be seen in temporal adverbs such as tadaima ‘just now’ in (12b) and mō ‘already’ in (12c) that bind the time of reference R to the time of speech. Mō, in particular, does this by imposing on the meaning of the predicate a separation between R and an earlier E, causing R in (12c) to overlap with S rather than E.Footnote 3
Similar examples where R is disengaged from E can be seen with the -RU form as well, as in (13b), where the adverb ima ‘now’ binds R to S with the -RU form kaer-u ‘return home,’ as opposed to (13a), where ashita ‘tomorrow’ binds R to E in a standard future reading.
a.
Ashita uchi e kaer-u. S < R ⊃ E tomorrow home goal return-npst ‘I will return home tomorrow.’ b.
Ima uchi e kaer-u (tokoro da). S ⊂ R < E now home goal return-npst point cop-npst ‘I’m returning home (about to return home) now.’
While ordering relationships among all three temporal primitives S, E, and R play a role in temporal meaning in Japanese, then, the relationship between E and R is unique in involving not only an ordering relationship but also a structural framework that encompasses the two, especially when E and R are disengaged from one another, combining elements of both aspectual and tense meaning. The relationship between S and R, by contrast, involves a more distinct ordering relationship, not entailing an overarching temporal structure binding the two together, and belongs therefore more centrally to the domain of tense, as argued by Klein. Although -RU and -TA exhibit both tense-like uses where E and R overlap and aspect-like uses where E and R are distinct, the latter are clearly peripheral, both in terms of frequency and in terms of their reliance on special marking in the form of adverbs or aspectual morphological forms. Japanese -RU and -TA may therefore be considered to have the primary function of marking relationships of tense.
2.2 -RU and -TA in Subordinate Clauses
The examples of -RU and -TA considered so far have all been in main clause contexts, but when these appear in subordinate clauses, they appear to exhibit a different kind of behavior from that in main clauses (Kuno Reference Kuno1973; Soga Reference Soga1983; Ogihara Reference Ogihara and Tsujimura1999). In the subordinate toki ‘when’ clauses in (14), for example, -TA in (14a) marks an event that has yet to occur in the future and, conversely, -RU in (14b) marks an event that has already occurred in the past.
a.
Tanaka-kun ni at-TA toki ni kono shorui o dat meet-pst time tmp this document acc watashite-kudasai. hand.over-please ‘When you meet Tanaka (after meeting Tanaka), please give him these documents.’ b.
Kono sūtsukēsu wa konomae Rondon ni ik-U toki ni kat-ta. this suitcase top last.time London goal go-npst time tmp buy-pst ‘I bought this suitcase the last time I went to London (before going to London).’
Although this behavior of -RU and -TA has been used by some linguists in the native Japanese grammatical tradition to argue that -RU and -TA are not tense forms (see Teramura (Reference Teramura1984) for a discussion), -RU and -TA in subordinate contexts in fact express relationships of temporal order no less than they do in main clause contexts. The difference is one of how the relationships of ordering are anchored. In main clause contexts, it is the time of speech that acts as the anchor for such ordering, whereas in subordinate contexts this function is taken over by the reference time R of the main clause itself, which in examples such as (14) is identical to the event time E of the main clause. -TA in (14a), therefore, orders the event of meeting Tanaka as past relative to the future time of handing Tanaka the documents, and -RU in (14b) orders the event of going to London as future relative to the past event of buying the suitcase. This is merely another kind of tense, a “relative tense” as opposed to the “absolute tense” anchored in the time of speech in main clause contexts.
The examples in (14) involve eventive predicates, but stative predicates, interestingly, tend to allow either an absolute tense or a relative tense perspective when they occur in subordinate toki ‘when’ clauses.
(15)
Nihon ni i-RU/ i-TA toki ni Fujisan ni nobot-ta. Japan loc be-npst be-pst time tmp Mt.Fuji goal climb-pst ‘I climbed Mt. Fuji when I was in Japan.’
Either -RU or -TA is possible with the subordinate stative verb i-ru ‘be’ in (15), with no change in meaning, the former exemplifying relative present tense (the situation of being in Japan overlaps with the event of climbing Mt. Fuji) and the latter absolute past tense (the situation of being in Japan is ordered earlier than the time of speech).
While the meaning of the temporal conjunction toki ‘when’ is neutral to whether the subordinate event is ordered prior to or later than the main event, and thus allows either -RU or -TA on the subordinate verb, other temporal conjunctions have meanings that fix the relative order of the subordinate clause event and the main clause event. Examples are the temporal conjunctions mae ‘before,’ which orders the subordinate event later than the main event, ato ‘after,’ which orders the subordinate event prior to the main event, and aida ‘while,’ which puts the subordinate event in an overlapping relationship with the main event. Regardless of the absolute tense of the main predicate, therefore, mae is always preceded by a subordinate -RU form, ato by a subordinate -TA form, and aida by a subordinate -RU form with stative verbs and -te-i(RU) form with eventive verbs, exhibiting respectively a relative future, relative past, and relative present ordering relationship.
a.
Nihon ni ku-RU mae ni nihongo o benkyō-shi-ta. Japan goal come-npst before tmp Japanese acc study-pst ‘I studied Japanese before I came to Japan.’ b.
Yūgohan o tabe-TA ato de ofuro ni hair-ō. supper acc eat-pst after tmp bath goal enter-vol ‘Let’s take a bath after we eat supper.’ c.
Kodomo ga nete-i-RU aida ni ie no sōji o children nom sleep-prog-npst while tmp house gen cleaning acc shite-oi-ta. do-put-pst ‘I cleaned up the house while the children were sleeping.’
We saw in Section 2.1 that -TA in main clause contexts exhibits two possible orderings between E and R, either the normal simple past tense ordering where E = R (e.g. (9b)) or an aspectual-like ordering where E < R (e.g. (12)). A similar difference can be seen in subordinate uses of -TA as well, illustrated in (17).
a.
Konna-ni nure-TA kōto de tenisu o suru no? this.much get.wet-pst court loc tennis acc do-npst nmlz ‘We’re going to play tennis on courts this wet (in a state of having become this wet)?’ b.
Kinō no ame de nure-TA kōto wa kesa wa yesterday gen rain caus get.wet-pst court top this.morning ctr kanzen-ni kawaite-i-ta. completely get.dry-res-pst ‘The courts that got wet in yesterday’s rain were completely dry this morning.’
The situation referred to by subordinate nure-TA ‘get.wet-pst’ in (17a) is that of the courts being wet, which is later than the event of the courts getting wet, and is one that overlaps in time with the time of reference of the main clause event of playing tennis. In (17b), by contrast, the situation referred to by subordinate nure-TA is that of the event itself of the courts getting wet in yesterday’s rain, an event that is past relative to the time of reference of the main clause, namely kesa ‘this morning’ (see Kinsui Reference Kinsui and Takubo1994 for a fuller analysis of the behavior of -TA in subordinate contexts). Such examples provide evidence of a time of reference in the subordinate clause that is distinct from the time of the reference in the main clause, one that sometimes overlaps with the time of the subordinate event and at other times is distinct from the time of the subordinate event, overlapping instead with the time of reference of the main clause.
We have seen in this section that considerations of temporal order (tense) cannot be neatly divorced from considerations of temporal structure (aspect). The two are nevertheless independently defined concepts and it is not possible to fully reduce one kind of meaning to the other. In the next section we shift our focus to the temporal structure itself, the domain of aspect, in order to consider what kinds of temporal structure characterize the aspectual system of Japanese, and how unique or similar Japanese is with respect to other languages in how it expresses such temporal structure.
3 Aspect: Situation Aspect
Aspectual meaning – the temporal structure that situations take as they unfold in time – is sometimes expressed through grammatical forms such as -te-i(ru) and -(y)ō.to-su(ru) seen in Section 2, but is at other times inherent to the meaning of a predicate and not identifiable with any given grammatical form. Aspectual meaning of the first type, that expressed in grammatical forms, is what Smith (Reference Smith1997) calls “viewpoint aspect,” as these forms function to impose a particular temporal viewpoint on the events expressed by the predicates to which they are attached. Aspect of the second type, lexical aspect, corresponds to what Smith calls “situation aspect.” An example of situation aspect is the basic distinction existing between states and events, seen in Section 2 and illustrated in (18).
a.
Tēburu no ue ni hon ga ar-u. table gen top loc book nom exist-npst ‘There is a book on the table.’ b.
Akiko wa hoteru ni tomar-u. top hotel loc stop.over-npst ‘Akiko will stay in a hotel.’
There is nothing about the form of the verbs ar-u and tomar-u that tells us that the first expresses a state and the second an event, but the distinction shows up in numerous ways in which the two behave differently. Their tense behavior is one example: states received a literal present meaning in the non-past -RU form, as in (18a), whereas events receive a future interpretation in that form, as in (18b). Another is in the way they interact with grammatical aspectual forms. Stative predicates, for example, do not co-occur with -te-i(ru), but eventive predicates do, as seen in (19).
(19)
Akiko wa hoteru ni tomatte-i-ru. top hotel loc stop.over-res-npst ‘Akiko is staying in a hotel.’
The -te-i(ru) form is similar in this respect to the -ing form in English, which also cannot be used with stative verbs such as is in (18a), but can be used with eventive verbs like stay, as in the English gloss to (19).
Grammatical aspect forms such as -ing and -te-i(ru) turn out to be a useful diagnostic tool for categorizing predicates into various lexical aspectual categories, and play a central role in what are probably historically the two most influential studies of aspect in Japanese and English – Kindaichi (Reference Kindaichi1950b) and Vendler (Reference Vendler and Vendler1957). These two studies, conducted independently from one another, point to a group of four aspectual categories that are in essential respects common to both languages. Following for convenience the terms used by Vendler,Footnote 4 the four categories are given in (20) with examples of predicates falling under each category and their behavior with -te-i(ru) and -ing.
a. States: Do not accept -te-i(ru); do not accept -ing (see (18a))
ar-u ‘be, exist,’ i-ru ‘be, exist (of animate beings),’ deki-ru ‘be able to’
b. Activities: Take a progressive reading with -te-i(ru); accept -ing
hashir-u ‘run,’ oyog-u ‘swim,’ tabe-ru ‘eat,’ mi-ru ‘watch,’ hatarak-u ‘work’
Kakoi no naka de uma ga hashitte-i-ru. corral gen inside loc horse nom run-prog-npst ‘Horses are running (around) in the corral.’ c. Achievements: Take a resulting state reading with -te-i(ru); take a future (prospective) reading with -ing
tsuk-u ‘arrive,’ shin-u ‘die,’ kekkon su-ru ‘get married,’ (mado ga) ak-u ‘(window) opens,’ (denki ga) tsuk-u ‘(lights) go on’
Denki ga tsuite-i-ru. lights nom go.on-res-npst ‘The lights are on.’ Lit. ‘The lights are in a state of having gone on.’ Cf. The lights are going on. (future prospective) d. Accomplishments: Take either a progressive or resulting state reading with -te-i(ru); accept -ing
(shōsetsu o) kak-u ‘write (a novel),’ (fuku o) ki-ru ‘put on/wear (clothes),’ (ie o) tate-ru ‘build (a house),’ (mado o) ake-ru ‘open (a window)’
Hanako wa kimono o kite-i-ru. top kimono acc put.on-prog/res-npst ‘Hanako is putting on/is wearing (Lit. has put on) a kimono.’
Activities, achievements, and accomplishments are all subcategories of eventive predicates and as such receive a default future reading in their bare -RU form, in contrast to the literal present reading that form receives with stative predicates. In addition to differences in their behavior with -te-i(ru) and -ing, the four categories exhibit differences in the range of temporal adverbs they allow. Adverbs expressing an interval of time such as 10 nenkan ‘for 10 years’ are accepted by activities and states, but not by achievements and accomplishments. Adverbs expressing moments of time such as sono shunkan ni ‘at that instant’ are accepted by states and achievements, but not activities or accomplishments. Adverbs expressing culmination within an interval such as 3 jikan de ‘in 3 hours’ are accepted by achievements and accomplishments, but not states and activities.
These and numerous other tests that have been proposed for English, Japanese, and a wide range of other languages (see Dowty Reference Dowty1979) provide robust confirmation that these four categories are universally shared across all human languages and point to certain structural features uniquely distinguishing each category from the others, as schematized in (21).Footnote 5
(21)
States: ––––––––––––––––––––- (e.g. ar-u ‘exist’) Activities: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (e.g. hashir-u, ‘run’) Achievements: ––––––––(X)――――― (e.g. shin-u ‘die’) Accomplishments: ~~~~~~~(X)――――― (e.g. shōsetsu o kak-u ‘write a novel’)
States are, first of all, perfectly homogeneous in their meaning, in a way that can be represented as a continuous line. They occur over intervals in such a way that, for any interval over which a state is seen to hold, the same state is seen to hold over any subinterval, no matter how small, down to an instant in time. Stative verbs can therefore be used either with adverbs indicating intervals of time or instants of time.
(22)
Sono hon wa {2 ji kara 5 ji made no aida/ 3 ji ni} tēburu that book top {2:00 from 5:00 until gen interval/ 3:00 tmp} table no ue ni at-ta. gen top loc exist-pst ‘That book was on the table from 2:00 to 5:00/at 3:00.’
Since speech time is no more than a special case of an instant of time, this characteristic of stative verbs accounts for why it is possible for them to receive a literal present reading in their -RU form, as noted in Section 2.
Activities are also homogeneous, but not perfectly so. They are made up of atomic subcycles (Dowty Reference Dowty1979; Bohnemeyer and Swift Reference Bohnemeyer and Swift2004), represented in (21) by tildes (~), which, when repeated over and over and viewed as an aggregate, as if through a wide-angle camera lens, converge to give the impression of a continuous line. In the activity of running, for example, one atomic subcycle consists of a foot coming off the ground, into the air, and onto the ground again, alternating with the other foot in such a way that both feet are never on the ground at the same time. An activity that occurs over an interval is thus seen to occur over smaller subintervals of that interval, but not, as in the case of states, down to a single point. As the camera lens zooms in on intervals that become successively smaller, a limit is reached at the point the intervals approach the size of a subcycle, which is no longer itself internally homogeneous. Activities therefore may co-occur with temporal adverbs indicating intervals of sufficiently large size, but not ones expressing instants of time. To occur with instants requires the use of -te-i(ru), which imposes a more perfectly homogeneous character on the activity predicate, as in (23b).
a.
Yūji wa {8 ji kara 9 ji made/ 8 ji 15 fun kara 8ji han made/ top {8:00 from 9:00 until/ 8:15 from 8:30 until/ *8 ji 20 pun ni} hashit-ta. 8:20 tmp} run-pst ‘Yuji ran from 8:00 to 9:00/from 8:15 until 8:30/*at 8:20.’ b.
Yūji wa 8 ji 20 pun ni hashitte-i-ta. top 8:20 tmp run-prog-pst ‘Yuji was running at 8:20.’
Achievements and accomplishments are, by contrast, inherently non-homogeneous, having at the center of their temporal structure a boundary, represented by (X) in (21), that marks a change between an earlier state of affairs and a later, different, state of affairs. In the case of achievements, the transition is one between the presence and absence of a particular state specified in the meaning of the verb, such as between the state of being alive and not being alive in the case of shin-u ‘die.’ With accomplishments, the boundary is one between an activity that leads up to a culminating point (the (X) in (21)), at which point the activity ceases, and a new state comes into existence. In the case of shōsetsu o kak-u ‘write a novel,’ for example, the activity of writing is bounded by an endpoint that marks both the termination of the activity of writing and the coming into existence of the novel as a finished product. Accomplishments are in that sense a composite category, made up of an activity component with an achievement structure superimposed upon it.
The (X) that forms the boundary with achievements and accomplishments is typically an instant without extension in time, as with predicates like tsuk-u ‘arrive’ and shin-u ‘die,’ but may sometimes consist of an interval that has some extension in time, as with predicates like futor-u ‘become fat’ and tsukare-ru ‘become tired,’ where the transition from one state to its opposite does not occur instantaneously. While achievements in their bare form typically highlight the change (X) itself, allowing the states that precede and follow to be defocused, accomplishments do not so easily allow their activity component to be defocused. This can be seen in the fact that adverbs indicating instants may occur with achievements, but not accomplishments, although both allow adverbs that indicate culmination over an interval, as seen in (24).
a.
Densha wa {sono shunkan ni/ 2 jikan de} Kyōto ni tsui-ta. train top {that instant tmp 2.hours in} goal arrive-pst ‘The train arrived in Kyoto at that instant/in two hours.’ b.
Sono sakka wa {*sono shunkan ni/ 3 kagetsu de} sono that author top {that instant tmp 3.months in} that shōsetsu o kai-ta. novel acc write-pst ‘That author wrote the novel *at that instant/in three months.’
Still, the composite character of accomplishments is reflected in the fact that two different readings are possible when -te-i(ru) is attached, either a progressive reading, a feature typical of activities, or a resulting state reading, a feature typical of achievements.
Although the inherent meaning of the predicate is central to the structural distinctions we have seen among the four Kindaichi/Vendler classes in (20), important contributions to such meaning may also come from elements within a clause other than the predicate alone. The meaning of accomplishments, for example, does not arise solely from the verb, but typically from a verb in construction with a direct object. In the case of shōsetsu o kak-u ‘write a novel’ the activity expressed by kak-u ‘write’ has no inherent endpoint contributing the (X) required for the accomplishment structure in (20d), but such an endpoint is imposed on the activity by the direct object shōsetsu ‘novel’ so that the writing can continue only up to the point that the novel comes into being and then ceases – the direct object “delimits” the activity of writing in the sense of Tenny (Reference Tenny1994).
Temporal adverbs are another source of contributions to aspectual meaning from outside of the predicate. Ochir-u ‘fall’ is an achievement verb, and as such takes a resulting state reading with -te-i(ru) in default contexts such as (25a). But when the meaning of multiple occurrence is introduced by temporal adverbs, either by iteration of an event with the same subject, as in (25b), or with multiple subjects, as in (25c), the reading of -te-i(ru) shifts in the direction of the progressive meaning normally seen with activity verbs.
a.
Jimen ni saifu ga ochite-i-ru. ground goal wallet nom fall-res-npst ‘There’s a wallet lying (Lit. in the state of having fallen) on the ground.’ b.
Ano ko wa nandomo isu kara ochite-i-ru. that child top time.and.again chair from fall-prog-npst ‘That child has been falling time and again from his/her chair.’ c.
Happa ga tsugitsugi to ochite-i-r-u. leaf nom one.after.another fall-prog-npst ‘Leaves are falling one after another.’
In structural terms, these adverbs have the effect of converting the (X) central to achievement structure in (20c) into multiple (X)’s that aggregate together in a way similar to the subcycles (~) in (20b), thereby conferring on the aspectual structure as a whole an activity-like quality.
There is another class of predicates that behave in certain respects like achievements and in other respects like activities but which do not appear in the Kindaichi/Vendler categories and do not fit neatly into any of the structures in (21). These predicates, called “semelfactive,” allow a progressive reading with -te-i(ru), but express events that do not have the extension in time of activities and instead express short, sometimes instantaneous, “atomic” events.Footnote 6
e. Semelfactives: Take a progressive reading with -te-i(ru); accept -ing
tatak-u ‘knock,’ hiramek-u ‘flash,’ mabataki su-ru ‘blink,’ kushami o su-ru ‘sneeze,’ seki o su-ru ‘cough’
Dareka ga doa o tataite-i-ru. someone nom door acc knock-prog-npst ‘Someone is knocking on the door.’
Semelfactives are like achievements in being short in duration and self-contained, but, unlike achievements, do not form a boundary between two different states – there is no difference in the state of affairs following a semelfactive event from what precedes it. In other respects, the aspectual shape of semelfactives and achievements are the same, as schematized in (21′), where (X) represents an atomic event that may approach an instant in extent.
(21′)
Achievements: ––––(X)――――― (e.g. shin-u ‘die’) Semelfactives: ––––(X)–––––––– (e.g. tatak-u ‘knock’)
Because semelfactives involve no change in state, they do not receive the resulting state reading with -te-i(ru) that achievements do, but rather a progressive reading (see (20′e)) like activities or iterated achievements, where (X) is seen to occur multiple times.
The five categories of situation aspect – states, activities, achievements, accomplishments, and semelfactives – are foundational categories of lexical aspectual meaning in both English and Japanese, and are likely universal to all human languages. But while the categories themselves may be universal, lexically similar counterpart predicates do not necessarily fall under the same categories. One example of this is the class of motion predicates, including ik-u ‘go,’ ku-ru ‘come,’ and kaer-u ‘return (home),’ of which the English counterparts are activities, as seen in the freedom with which -ing may be attached, but the Japanese counterparts are achievements, as seen in the fact that they receive a resulting state, not progressive, reading with -te-i(ru).
a.
Tanaka wa Tōkyō ni itte-i-ru. (< ik-u) top goal go-res-npst ‘Tanaka is in (Lit. has gone to) Tokyo.’ b.
Sobo wa fuyuyasumi no aida uchi ni grandmother top winter.holiday gen while home goal kite-i-ru. (< ku-ru) come-res-npst ‘My grandmother is at (Lit. has come to) our home for the winter holidays.’
The focus of meaning of such motion predicates in Japanese is actually the point of arrival forming a boundary between being and not being in a certain place, as opposed to the activity leading up to the arrival. What is expressed as a progressive activity with the -ing form of such motion predicates in English is thus expressed as a simple future with the bare -RU form of the predicate in Japanese.
(27)
Doko e ik-U no? where goal go-npst nmlz ‘Where are you going?’ Lit. ‘Where will you go?’
Another example of this kind of categorial mismatch is seen in verbs such as know and have, which are stative, but whose Japanese counterparts shir-u and mots-u are an achievement and accomplishment verb, respectively, expressing a change in state and meaning ‘come to know’ and ‘grasp, take possession of,’ as illustrated in (28).
(28)
Sakki terebi no nyūsu de sono jiken o just.now TV gen news caus that incident acc shit-ta. (< shir-u) come.to.know-pst ‘I just learned (Lit. came to know) about that incident on the TV news.’
To express the stative sense of the English counterparts to these verbs requires that they be converted into states through the attachment of -te-i(ru), yielding the resulting state meaning characteristic of achievements.
(29)
Tanaka sensei o shitte-i-mas-u ka. (< shir-u) professor acc come.to.know-res-pol-npst q ‘Do you know (Lit. are you in a state of having come to know) Professor Tanaka?’
The usefulness of the -te-i(ru) form as a diagnostic for determining the lexical aspectual category of a predicate has been amply demonstrated in this section. But what is the basic function of -te-i(ru) itself and how does it combine such apparently distinct meanings as progressive and resulting state? -Te-i(ru) is an example of a grammatical form whose function is to impose a particular aspectual meaning, or “viewpoint,” on the situational aspect structure already present in a predicate, and thus belongs to another kind of aspect called “viewpoint aspect.”
4 Viewpoint Aspect: -Te-i(ru)
Viewpoint aspect – aspectual meaning that is associated with a particular grammatical form – interacts in specific ways with the inherent aspectual meaning of a predicate, and for that reason may be limited in its occurrence to predicates expressing certain types of situation aspect. -Te-i(ru), in particular, interacts in one way with activity predicates and in another way with achievement predicates to produce what appear to be two different meanings, progressive with activities and resulting state with achievements.
a.
Kodomo wa pūru de oyoide-i-ru. (< oyog-u, progressive) children top pool loc swim-prog-npst ‘The children are swimming in the pool.’ b.
Mado ga aite-i-ru. (< ak-u, resulting state) window nom openin-res-npstFootnote 7 ‘The window is open.’ Lit. ‘The window is in a state of having become open.’
As (30) shows, regardless of which of these two meanings it takes, -te-i(ru) consistently exhibits a literal present reading in the -RU form, in contrast to the future reading that activities or achievements would receive in their bare form without -te-i(ru).
a.
Kodomo wa pūru de oyog-u. children top pool loc swim-npst ‘The children will swim in the pool.’ b.
Mado ga ak-u. window nom openin-npst ‘The window will open.’
As noted in Section 2, -te-i(ru) exhibits in this sense the character of a stative predicate and shares with states a basic homogeneous character, regardless of which of these two readings it receives. In (30), for example, oyoide-i-ru ‘be swimming’ and aite-i-ru ‘be open’ are each seen to hold over an interval of time surrounding the time of reference (here, the same as the time of speech), and these situations are also seen to hold at any subinterval of that interval, no matter how finely divided, even to an instant. The function of -te-i(ru) is thus to impose on the time of reference the viewpoint of being included within an aspectually homogeneous interval.
But the particular way in which this interval is positioned with respect to the event expressed by the predicate differs in the case of activities versus achievements. Since activities are structurally homogeneous to begin with (even if not perfectly so), the interval imposed by -te-i(ru) can subsume the activity within itself, as schematized in (32), where the interval imposed by -te-i(ru) is indicated by the square brackets [] and the time of reference by R, resulting in a progressive reading that views the activity as ongoing throughout the interval.
(32)
R | ~~~~~[~~~~~~]~~~~~ (e.g. Kodomo wa oyoide-i-ru ‘The children are swimming’)
But with achievements, the existence of the (X) boundary that divides two states (e.g. being not open and open with mado ga aku ‘window opens’) creates an obstacle to imposing this interval: any interval containing this (X) will include subintervals in which different situations hold and will therefore not be homogeneous. The only possibility for placement of the interval imposed by -te-i(ru) is therefore either prior to (X) or after (X), but in no case including the (X) itself. The first of these possibilities is excluded because the -te in -te-i(ru) requires the event expressed by the preceding predicate to be “realized” (Soga Reference Soga1983; McClure Reference McClure1995), a historical relic of an older “perfective” meaning in this form, so that the only possibility is for the interval in question to be placed after the (X), yielding the resulting state meaning schematized in (33).
(33)
R | –––(X)―[――]―― (e.g. Mado ga aite-i-ru ‘The window is open’)
Accomplishments, by contrast, having an aspectual structure composed both of an activity and an achievement component, provide two possible sites for the placement of the interval presented by -te-i(ru), resulting in either a progressive reading if the interval is positioned within the activity preceding (X) or a resulting state meaning if it is positioned within the state that follows (X), as schematized in (34) for the accomplishment mado o akeru ‘open the window.’
a.
R | ~~[~~~~]~~(X)―― (e.g. Mado o akete-i-ru ‘(S/he) is opening the window’) b.
R | ~~~(X)―[――]―― (e.g. Mado o akete-i-ru ‘(S/he) has opened his/her window; (s/he) has his/her window open’)
Note that even for the progressive reading, the onset of the activity precedes the time of reference, fulfilling the requirement that -te-i(ru) express a realized state of affairs. The two apparently different readings that -te-i(ru) receives are therefore the result of a singular viewpoint meaning in this form – imposing a homogeneous aspectual structure over an interval surrounding the time of reference – interacting with different types of situation aspect inherent to the predicate to which it attaches (see Jacobsen Reference Jacobsen, Kageyama and Kishimoto2016 for a fuller discussion).
Other uses of -te-i(ru) than the progressive and resulting state can for the most part be seen as variants of one or the other of these two basic meanings. Variants on the use of -te-i(ru) as a marker of resulting state are illustrated in (35). The standard use in (35a) carries the implication that the subject is at the time of reference in a state resulting from the event expressed by the predicate (here the state of being on the mountain resulting from noboru ‘climb, ascend’), an implication that is not present in the so-called “experiential” use in (35b) or the “historical record” use in (35c).
a.
Ken wa ima Fujisan ni nobotte-i-ru. top now Mt.Fuji goal climb-res-npst ‘Ken is now atop Mt. Fuji (having climbed it).’ b.
Ken wa nido Fujisan ni nobotte-i-ru. top two.times Mt.Fuji goal climb-res-npst ‘Ken has climbed Mt. Fuji twice.’ c.
Tabei Junko wa 1975 nen ni josei to shite hajimete top 1975 tmp woman as for.first.time Eberesutosan ni nobotte-i-ru. Mt.Everest goal climb-res-npst ‘Junko Tabei ascended Mt. Everest in 1975 for the first time as a woman.’
The use in (35c) is remarkable for allowing a temporal adverb that specifies the time of the past event itself, an apparent example of two times of reference – one tied to the event, one to the time of speech – being incorporated into a single clause.
As for progressive meaning, a variant on the standard progressive use of -te-i(ru) in (36a) is the present progressive use in (36b), where a time adverb specifying the onset of the interval defined by -te-i(ru) is present.
a.
Kyō wa yuki ga futte-i-ru. today top snow nom fall-prog-npst ‘Today it is snowing (Lit. snow is falling).’ b.
Asa kara yuki ga futte-i-ru. morning from snow nom fall-prog-npst ‘It has been snowing since morning.’
Other variants of the progressive include the various iterative uses of -te-i(ru) seen earlier in (25b, c). All variants on the progressive use have in common that the interval imposed by -te-i(ru) contains within it some portion of the activity or iterated event expressed by the predicate, as opposed to variants on the resulting state use, which are all characterized by the presence of the point or interval (X) defining achievement aspect positioned outside of and prior to the interval imposed by -te-i(ru).
4.1 Viewpoint Aspect: Other Grammatical Forms
Unlike situation aspect, where the basic categories of meaning are universally shared by Japanese, English, and, so far as current research shows, all human languages, viewpoint aspect exhibits a high degree of language-specific idiosyncrasy, both in terms of the kinds and combinations of meanings that are expressed in aspectual forms and in terms of the morphological and syntactic patterns that are deployed to express those meanings. Limitations of space prevent a detailed treatment of the full scope of viewpoint aspectual forms in Japanese, so a few representative examples must suffice for our purposes in this chapter.
The most common formal device for expressing viewpoint aspect in Japanese is by means of one of two verb-linking patterns, either the gerund pattern V1-te V2 or the verb compound pattern V1-i/e V2, where V1 is the main verb and V2 a verb expressing aspectual meaning. The -te-i(ru) form is one example of the gerund pattern, and we have seen in Section 3 how it combines the two meanings of progressive and resulting state as special cases of imposing the viewpoint of an aspectually homogeneous interval on the inherent aspectual meaning of the main verb. Another gerund pattern that expresses resulting state is -te-ar(u), differing from -te-i(ru) in that the state is one purposely brought about by intentional action, typically expressed by a transitive verb with an object that is promoted to subject position. In the case of verbs falling into intransitive/transitive pairs, the same state can therefore be expressed either in the form of Vin-te-i(ru) or Vtr-te-ar(u), the former neutral as to how the state arose, the latter carrying the implication that the state was brought about for some intentional purpose, as in (37).
a.
Mado ga aite-i-ru. window nom openin-res-npst ‘The window is open.’ b.
Mado ga akete-ar-u. window nom opentr-res-npst ‘The window is open (having been intentionally opened for a purpose).’
Interacting closely with the -te-ar(u) pattern is a third gerund pattern -te-ok(u) that presents an intentional action as one performed in preparation for some later purpose. Parallel to (37b), for example, is the construction with -te-ok(u) in (37c) that presents the situation expressed in (37b) from the standpoint of the action that brings about that situation as a result.
c.
Mado o akete-oi-ta. (< akete-ok-u) window acc opentr-put-pst ‘(I) opened the window (as preparation to some later purpose).’
In terms of the framework adopted in Section 2.1, (37c) and (37b) differ in whether the time of reference (R) overlaps with the time of the event (E) of opening the window, that is, E = R < S, as in (37c), or is separate from the time of the event and overlaps instead with the time of speech (S), that is, E < R ⊃ S, as in (37b).
Verbs appearing in the V2 position of these verb-linking patterns have independent meanings that are clearly related to the aspectual character expressed by these patterns. The stative character of -te-i(ru) and -te-ar(u), for example, is related to the lexical character of the independent stative verbs i-ru ‘be, exist (of animate beings)’ and ar-u ‘be, exist (of inanimate things),’ and the preparatory character of -te-ok(u) bears a close affinity to the lexical meaning of the independent verb ok-u ‘put, leave.’ But certain elements of the independent lexical meaning, or constraints on that meaning, are typically removed, or “bleached,” when these verbs are coopted as aspectual markers, as seen in the fact that -te-i(ru) and -te-ar(u) are not restricted to subjects that are animate or inanimate as are the corresponding independent verbs, or in the fact that -te-ok(u) is not limited to preparatory actions that involve physical positioning as does the independent verb ok-u, but is possible with a wider range of non-physical actions, such as yonde-ok(u) ‘read (in advance).’
The idiosyncratic nature of viewpoint aspect can furthermore be seen in shifts away from the lexical meaning of the corresponding predicate in directions that are not purely aspectual. For example, the gerund pattern -te-shimaw(u), derived from the independent verb shimaw(u) ‘put (something) away,’ functions to mark the aspectual meaning of completion of an event in its entirety, up through the concluding stage, but is also used to mark events that are beyond one’s control or undesirable, as illustrated in (38).
a.
Ashita no bun made shigoto o yatte-shimat-ta. (< shimaw-ta) tomorrow gen part up.to work acc do-put.away-pst ‘I’ve completely done my work, even for tomorrow.’ b.
Kare no henna hyōjō ni omowazu waratte-shimat-ta. he gen strange expression dat unintentionally laugh-put.away-pst ‘I couldn’t help laughing at the strange expression on his face.’ c.
Shigoto ni kakas-e-nai pasokon ga kowarete-shimat-ta. work purp do.without-pot-neg computer nom breakin-put.away-pst ‘The computer that I cannot do without for my work has broken down.’
Idiosyncratic as such collocations of meaning may appear to be, they are nevertheless driven by a logic of their own. In the case of -te-shimaw(u), the finality with which an event is completed leads to an implication that the event cannot be undone even if one willed it so, which in turn is a short step away from viewing the event as beyond the control of, and therefore contrary to the interests of, the speaker or someone the speaker identifies with.
A second verb-linking pattern commonly used in expressing viewpoint aspect is the compound pattern V1-i/e V2, V1 here occurring in the form of the infinitive verb stem. This pattern typically functions to present distinct stages of an event, as seen in (39), where hajime-ru ‘begintr,’ tsuzuke-ru ‘continuetr,’ and owar-u ‘end, finish’ appear as V2 expressing the initial, medial, and final stages, respectively, of the event expressed in V1.
(39)
Densha no hassha beru ga nari {hajime-ta/tsuzuke-ta/owat-ta}. train gen departure bell nom ring- {begin-pst/continue-pst/finish-pst} ‘The bell signaling departure of the train {began/continued/finished} ringing.’
Other compound-type aspectual patterns imposing a stage viewpoint in this way include V-das-u ‘burst out V-ing,’ V-kake-ru ‘begin doing V (with implication of discontinuance),’ and V-age-ru ‘do V completely,’ where a high degree of semantic bleaching can again be seen by comparison with the corresponding independent verbs das-u ‘put out,’ kake-ru ‘put in contact with,’ and age-ru ‘raise.’
Verb linking of the gerund and compound type is, however, only the most frequent but not the exclusive means for imposing viewpoint aspect in Japanese, which exploits linguistic devices of a wide and varied range. These include lexical means such as adverbs (e.g. mada ‘still,’ which presents a situation as unchanged from before, and mō ‘already,’ which presents a situation as preceded by a change in state, represented by (X) in (21)), morphological patterns other than verb linking such as V(y)ō.to.su-ru ‘try to V, be about to V’ seen in Section 2, and syntactic patterns such as V-ta koto ga ar-u ‘have the experience of (doing) V’ and V-ru koto ga ar-u ‘sometimes V.’
5 Conclusion
We have seen through the lens of Japanese how temporal meaning in language is concerned both with the positioning of events and situations in time with respect to other events and situations (the category of tense) and with the structure that events or situations describe as they unfold in time (the category of aspect), and how these two kinds of temporal meaning are closely interrelated. The description of tense requires reference to three primary elements – the time of speech (S), the time of the event expressed (E), and a time of reference (R), but ordering relationships among these, particularly between E and R, often have a structural component to them, so that tense shades into aspect. Temporal structure, conversely, as it unfolds along a one-dimensional timeline will contain within it constituent elements that are necessarily ordered in time, so that aspect shades into tense.
Relationships of order are particularly salient in the temporal structure defining achievement and accomplishment verbs, as the change in state (X) that centrally defines their structure inherently imposes a relationship of before and after between two states of affairs. Given such an interrelationship, it is not surprising that many temporal forms in Japanese exhibit both tense-like and aspect-like uses, such as -te-i(ru) which, while imposing an aspectually homogeneous interval on the meaning of predicate, also functions to order E prior to R with achievement verbs, or the -TA form, which exhibits both tense-like uses where R and E are ordered prior to S and aspect-like uses where R is disengaged from E and overlaps with S. Nevertheless, it is possible to distinguish among such forms those whose default function is to impose relationships of order, such as -RU and -TA, from those whose default function is to impose temporal structure, such as -te-i(ru), and on that basis to identify the existence of both tense forms and aspect forms in Japanese. The fact that -RU and -TA exhibit uses in subordinate contexts where the ordering relationships are anchored in points in time other than the time of speech does not call for an aspectual treatment of these forms, as they function to impose relationships of order equally in such contexts as they do in main clause contexts.
Finally, aspectual meaning itself can be distinguished into two types: one that is inherent to the lexical meaning of predicates (situation aspect) and another that is associated with grammatical forms that impose a particular aspectual character on other predicates (viewpoint aspect). The structural categories that comprise situation aspect include two that are internally homogeneous in meaning (states and activities), two that include heterogeneous elements in their meaning (achievements and semelfactives), and one that is a composite category (accomplishments, which contains both an activity and an achievement component), and these five categories exhibit a remarkable uniformity not only between Japanese and English but also universally across all languages. Grammatical forms that express viewpoint aspect in Japanese, by contrast, exhibit a high degree of language-specific idiosyncrasy, in terms of both the kinds and combinations of meaning they express and the variety of lexical, morphological, and syntactic devices deployed to express such meaning.
1 Modality and Related Categories in Japanese
This chapter provides a descriptive outline of modality in Modern Japanese, also suggesting areas for further study. The three main issues discussed are (i) definitions and subcategories of modality in Japanese (Sections 1 and 2), (ii) structural properties and interaction with other categories, especially negation and tense (Section 3), and (iii) history (Section 4).
1.1 Issues of DefinitionFootnote 1
As a category label, modality has been a litter bin for all sorts of speaker-related grammatical categories and lexical expressions in Japanese linguistics. In the scope of this term, we find categories as widely different as topic and focus marking (e.g. particles wa and mo), tense (e.g. past tense -ta), politeness (e.g. desu/-masu), sentence moods (e.g. imperative and declarative), illocutionary marking (e.g. particles yo and ne), evaluative adverbs (e.g. yappari ‘as expected’), and what I will call “modality proper,” namely, expressions of possibility and necessity (e.g. hazu, -(a)na-kereba naranai).
There is one obvious culprit for the bloating of the category, namely definitions of modality in terms of subjectivity. Subjectivity itself is a rather ambiguous concept. In this context it is usually understood in terms of either speaker-deixis (relation to the here and now of the speaker) or speakers’ attitudes and opinions. Speaker-deixis is a concept that can be fairly well delimited. Nevertheless, it is apparently not suitable to identify the intended forms and meanings, since tense, for example, is clearly speaker-deictic, as is spatial deixis, but nevertheless few scholars would like to say that tense is modality (although some actually do!). Instead, most scholars will want to treat tense as a category in its own right. On the other hand, the scope of the expression of “speakers’ attitudes and opinions” can indeed hardly be delimited, and thus inevitably leads to the “litter bin” of categories cited above.
A much better way to define modality is in terms of factuality (or reality). Such a definition may look as in (1):
(1) Modality is a linguistic category referring to the factual status of a proposition. A proposition is modalized if it is marked for being undetermined with respect to its factual status, that is, it is neither positively nor negatively factual. (Narrog Reference Narrog2012: 6)
The denotation of this definition overlaps with that of traditional definitions of modality in logic as the expression of possibility and necessity (cf., for example, Wright Reference Von Wright1951: 1). It has one disadvantage, though, namely, that there are many expressions of modality in natural language where it is difficult to decide whether they express possibility or necessity (e.g. the particle darō ‘may, will’ in Japanese).
Examples (2) and (3) indicate the scope of modality according to different definitions.
(2)
Kono mise wa yappari sugo.i ne. this shop top as.I.expected terrific.npst sfp ‘This shop IS terrific, isn’t it?’
(3)
Ore wa mata shippai shita ka mo shire-na.i I top again failure did int foc know-neg.npst ‘I may have failed again.’
According to the understanding of modality as the expression of subjectivity, each morpheme in sentence (2), except mise ‘shop,’ should be classified as modal. The adnominal demonstrative kono, the tense-ending of the adjective are speaker-deictic; topicalizing wa is an expression of the discourse-organization by the speaker (cf. Chapter 13, this volume); yappari and sugoi express the speaker’s evaluation; and ne expresses that the speaker believes that the evaluation is shared with (or should be shared by) the hearer. In contrast, based on a view of modality in terms of factuality, sentence (2) is not modalized at all. Grammatically speaking, it simply states a fact, even if it is a fact presented from the speaker’s perspective. But that is a property emanating from the basic speech setting in natural language that practically all sentences in natural discourse share.
In contrast, (3) does contain an expression of modality in terms of factuality, namely the periphrastic ka mo shirenai. Without ka mo shirenai, (3) would simply state a fact, “I have failed again.” With it, the sentence expresses a state-of-affairs whose factuality is uncertain. The rest of this chapter will be based on this definition of modality in terms of factuality.
1.2 Short History of the Study of Modality in Japan
The very broad understanding of modality in traditional Japanese linguistics introduced in the previous section has its roots in the quirky history of a basically unrelated concept, namely that of “predication” (chinjutsu). Predication is a function of predicates that is needed for words to combine and form clauses. Adopting the term from European linguistics, specifically Heyse (Reference Heyse1849), Yamada (Reference Yamada1908: 156–159, 260–263) established it as a key concept in Japanese traditional grammar. However, starting with the influential writings of Tokieda (Reference Tokieda1941), who advocated a subjectivist stance to both the study of language and the study of subjective elements in language, this term took on an entirely different meaning. Tokieda tried to mechanically identify the subjective elements in sentences, and simultaneously claimed that they were decisive for the formation of sentences. Chinjutsu thus became almost synonymous with subjective elements of language. The term underwent some modifications, but a major break came in the late 1970s with a new influx of foreign students and the resulting need for Japanese language education for them, and with a heightened influence of Western, especially English linguistics. The term chinjutsu ‘predication,’ which was meanwhile far removed from its original meaning, was seamlessly replaced by the English word modality, a term that was notoriously opaque in itself.
Tellingly, the first use of the term modality in Japanese grammar that I am aware of, by Uyeno (Reference Uyeno1971), was for sentence-final particles (cf. Chapter 25, this volume), that is, typical chinjutsu elements, which also happened to be difficult to label with the categories then available in Western linguistics. A flood of publications from the late 1980s on – especially influential were Masuoka (Reference Masuoka1991) and Nitta (Reference Nitta1991) – made modality a common staple of Japanese linguistic studies. This is in a nutshell how modality became a cover term for all kind of subjective elements in Japanese linguistics (see Kudo Reference Kudo and Kaneda1988, Narrog Reference Narrog, Pizziconi and Kizu2009b, and Onoe Reference Onoe and Gakkai2014a, Reference Onoe and Gakkai2014b for details of this history).
While the above understanding of modality is shared by the large majority of Japanese linguists, there have been groups of scholars with a different view. Most notably, the Gengogaku ‘linguistic research’ group of scholars promoted Russian linguistics, linking the category with the concept of both reality and sentenced moods (e.g. Okuda Reference Okuda1986). Scholars following Onoe (Reference Onoe2001) combine a revival of Yamada’s linguistics with modern cognitive linguistics, espousing the concept of reality as key for the definition. Since their definition of modality practically coincides with the one espoused in this chapter, the scope of their research is also largely identical with “modality proper.”
1.3 Modality Proper
“Modality proper” refers to grammatical (i.e. grammaticalized) expressions that conform to the definition in (1). Adding these expressions to a clause will render an otherwise factual clause as undetermined with respect to its factual status. Epistemic expressions of possibility or necessity such as ka mo shirenai ‘may/might’ in (3) have this effect as their very meaning. In contrast, with non-epistemic expressions of possibilities or necessities, non-factuality is a side effect of a different intended meaning, such as a wish or an obligation. A constructed example is shown in (4).
(4)
Fusei wa yame.ru beki da. fraud top stop.npst deo cop ‘Fraud must be stopped.’
The suffix beki usually expresses a necessity based on moral evaluation. The primary meaning is to express the moral evaluation and the obligation for future action that emerges from the moral obligation in the speaker’s point of view. However, as an inevitable aspect of that meaning, the state-of-affairs, “stop the fraud” is non-factual.
Note that the fact that beki is a grammatical expression, that is, grammaticalized, is plainly visible from its status as a suffix, but there are other expressions where the degree of grammaticalization may be less clear. In any case, ka mo shirenai or beki are typical expressions of modality proper and since they will be the topic of the rest of the chapter from Section 2, I will not discuss them any further here.
1.4 Evidentiality
Evidentiality is a grammatical category defined as expressing source of information (cf. Aikhenvald Reference Aikhenvald2004: 3). It has been established only fairly recently in Western linguistics. In contrast, in Japanese linguistics, the category’s apparent exponents have been traditionally described and discussed in the same context as expressions of modality proper, namely as so-called jodōshi ‘auxiliaries’ with labels such as suiryō ‘inference’ or denbun ‘hearsay.’ Examples (5) and (6) list grammaticalized morphemes in Modern Japanese that fulfill the requirements for the definition of evidentiality in indicating a source of information.
(5)
yō inferential mitai inferential -sō inferential
(6)
rashii inferential and reportive sō reportive
Other morphemes that have been notably associated with evidentiality in Japanese are quotatives (e.g. -tte) and the de-subjectivizing morpheme -garu (cf. Aoki Reference Aoki, Chafe and Nichols1986: 223–225), which we do not consider as evidential. Evidential meaning is also variously attributed to the topic marker wa or the stativizing aspect -te iru, but this does not concern us here. Important are those expressions that are clearly evidential. Among them, we find at least four inferential evidentials (yō, mitai, -sō, rashii in (5) and (6)) that out of contexts can loosely be translated as ‘look(s) like.’ Thus, the question arises as to what the semantic differences among them are. This question is not so relevant at this point though.Footnote 2
What really matters here is the question whether these evidentials are part of the category of modality. The answer according to the definition in (1) is “yes”: Japanese evidentials render a proposition non-factual in the same way that expressions of epistemic modality, for example, do, even if this is only a side effect of providing a source of information. This is shown in the constructed example (7).
(7)
Ano hito wa i-na.i [yō da/rashi.i]. dem person top be-neg.npst evid cop/evid.npst ‘That person is apparently not here.’
The factuality of “not being here” is relativized to the source of information (visual impression) and thus left undetermined. The same can be said of the other evidentials listed in (5) and (6) as well. Note, though, that Japanese evidentials all belong to a specific type of evidentials, so-called indirect evidentials. Cross-linguistically, there are also direct evidentials, which state sources for facts, for example, denoting something like “I have seen that….” They would not fall under the category of modality as defined here.
1.5 Mood
Mood is a very ambiguous term in Western linguistics. One common use is a label for a morphological category, namely verb inflections that typically, but not always, are the expression of, or have the same effect as, modality proper, that is, rendering propositions as non-factual (the term irrealis for the same thing is also widespread). This is the use that I wish to adopt in this chapter as well.
Japanese verbs have only a limited number of inflections. The ones listed in (8) render the proposition as non-factual in the majority of contexts and are, therefore, considered as the mood inflections of Modern Japanese.
One could also make a case to add -(r)u as “declarative” here (e.g. Takahashi et al. Reference Takahashi, Kaneko, Kaneko, Sai, Suzuki, Suda and Matsumoto2005: 60, who also label -ta as declarative), but in my view this is a “Latin grammar” approach. The suffix -(r)u is used in so many contexts, most of them neutral with respect to mood (or to the factuality of the proposition), that it seems exaggerated to attribute a mood meaning to this morpheme. Also note that in certain contexts the past marker -ta has a counterfactual function that is mood-like, as in (9).
(9)
Sono toki damar.eba yo-kat.ta. dem time be silent.cond good.vbz-pst ‘I should have kept my mouth shut then.’
The counterfactual reading is typically triggered by a past conditional setting with -(r)eba, as in this example, but it is also possible to obtain counterfactual readings if the conditional clause is not expressed and merely implied.
Besides this use of the past tense, one could argue that conditional forms such as -(r)eba and -tara themselves express a “conditional mood.” Conversely, -(y)ō, which is often identified as a mood inflection, has some idiomatic uses in subordinate clauses that have no clear modal meaning.
1.6 Clausal Mood
The terms clausal mood or sentence mood or simply mood are occasionally used as an equivalent to the more common term in English linguistics, clause type. In Japanese, one can distinguish the following clausal moods (or clause types):
(10) Declaratives
Interrogatives
Directives
Declaratives as such are not modal in nature, since they are not intrinsically non-factual. But they are the clausal mood that contain the widest range of expressions of modality proper (cf. Section 3). They can also contain counterfactual predications. In contrast, directives are intrinsically modal, since they always render the proposition as non-factual. Subtypes of directives include imperatives, prohibitives, and hortatives. Finally, interrogatives are in between. Some of them, namely yes-/no-questions (e.g. Did you steal my cheese?) render the proposition as non-factual, while others, especially wh-questions, do not (in Who stole my cheese?, the factuality of someone having stolen cheese is presupposed).
Besides approaches to Japanese modality that categorically include clausal mood in modality (e.g. Masuoka Reference Masuoka1991; Nitta Reference Nitta1991), Japanese also has a number of specific interrogative constructions, for example, “doubts” expressed by no de wa nai ka ‘isn’t it that?,’ that have often been treated under the label of modality (see Narrog Reference Narrog2009a: ch. 11 for details on Japanese clausal moods).
1.7 Illocutionary Modulation
The term illocutionary modulation refers to grammatical marking that modifies illocutionary force, or contributes to relating an utterance to discourse. Japanese sentence-final particles or German so-called modal particles typically have such a function. The contrast between (11) and (12) illustrates this function in Modern Japanese.
(11)
Dōkyūsei ni Saitō-san te i.ta. classmate dat quot be.pst ‘We had a classmate called Saitō.’
(12)
Dōkyūsei ni Saitō-san te i.ta yo ne. classmate dat quot be.pst sfp sfp ‘We had a classmate called Saitō, didn’t we?’
While the sentence in (11) is a mere statement, the sequence of final particles in (12), yo ne, adds a request for confirmation in order to keep the hearer engaged and ensure that speaker and hearer share the same information. It does not fully convert the utterance into an interrogative and does not affect the factuality of the statement, but it adds an element of speaker–hearer interaction. From the perspective of modality in terms of factuality (or reality) taken here, illocutionary modulation has the least to do with modality among all the categories discussed in this chapter. Sentence-final particles are discussed separately in Chapter 25. However, in traditional subjectivity- or speaker-stance-based concepts of modality (chinjutsu), Japanese sentence-final particles are typically treated as a core modal category.
2 Subcategories of Modality Proper in Japanese
Subcategorizations or classifications of modality are legion, even if modality is defined more strictly by factuality. Here we adopt a subcategorization that seems to suit the actual expression of modality in Modern Japanese. According to this classification, we have three major non-volitive types of modality, namely epistemic (based on knowledge), evidential (based on indirect evidence), so-called “dynamic” or participant-internal (based on the properties or functions of a participant in an event), and one major volitive one, namely deontic (based on rules and values), which is usually combined with teleological modality (modality based on goals). These subtypes are briefly discussed in turn in the following subsections.
2.1 Epistemic Modality
An epistemic modal expression predicates a possibility or necessity based on someone’s world knowledge, typically the speaker’s. Example (13) is a list of the representative grammaticalized expressions of epistemic modality in Japanese, ordered by “strength” of modality, that is, from necessity to possibility. After the expression itself, a semantic label and a possible translation are provided (actual translations will vary in context).
(13)
hazu strong expectation ‘should’ ni chigai nai high certainty ‘there is no mistake that’ darō speculative ‘will’ ka mo shirenai possibility ‘may’
Like many languages, Japanese also has adverbs that express epistemic possibility such as tabun ‘probably’ or moshi ka shite ‘perhaps.’ The degree of likelihood they express and their correspondence to the grammaticalized markers and constructions in the verbal complex that are listed above has been the subject of some research (e.g. Kudo Reference Kudo and Moriyama2000; Sugimura Reference Sugimura2000).
2.2 Deontic Modality
Deontic modality expresses a necessity or possibility in view of social rules or values. It is often used as a cover term for related notions that are expressed by the same morphemes and constructions, especially teleological modality, that is, necessity or possibility with respect to someone’s goals. Example (14) is a list of representative expressions of deontic modality in Japanese.
(14)
-nakereba naranai general obligation ‘must’ -(r)eba ii advice ‘you’d better do’ -te wa naranai prohibition ‘must not’ -te mo ii permission ‘may’ hō ga ii preference ‘it’s better to do’ -zaru o enai inevitability ‘cannot help but’ shika nai singular choice ‘there is only’
Compared with other types of modality, the expression of deontic modality is doubtless the most variegated. The list is not even complete (cf. Narrog Reference Narrog2009a: 167 for a more exhaustive listing). Furthermore, all expressions are periphrastic, that is, go across word boundaries, except beki, which is a clitic. Such expressions as nakereba naranai and -te wa naranai are conditional constructions ending on a negative evaluation, naranai ‘Lit. does not become,’ which has variants such as ikenai ‘Lit. cannot go’ and dame ‘bad.’
2.3 Boulomaic Modality
Boulomaic modality expresses a necessity or possibility with respect to someone’s volition or intentions. The four most common markers and constructions of boulomaic modality in Modern Japanese are listed in (15):
(15)
-tai intention (1) ‘want to do’ tsumori intention (2) ‘want to, intend to’ -te hoshii desire (1) ‘want someone to do something’ -te moraitai desire (2) ‘want to get something done by someone’
A salient fact about boulomaic modal constructions is that they are typically bound to a certain person as subject. The two intention markers and constructions are basically bound to first person subjects in statements and second person subjects in questions. The desire constructions also typically express a speaker’s wish; however, the “target of modality,” that is, the person to implement the action, is a second or third person. There are various means to neutralize these person constraints, such as the de-subjectifying suffix -garu (cf. Makino and Tsutsui Reference Makino and Tsutsui1986: 443; Iori et al. Reference Iori, Matsuoka, Nakanishi, Yamada and Takanashi2000: 140–141).
2.4 Dynamic Modality
Like deontic modality, dynamic modality is also strictly speaking a cover term for a number of subtypes of modality, especially speaker-internal ability and possibility based on circumstances or the situation. Note that this kind of modality expresses only possibilities and not necessities. The main exponents are listed in (16).
(16)
koto ga dekiru circumstantial possibility ‘be possible, can’ -(r)areru potential ‘can’ -eru logical possibility ‘be possible’ -kaneru impossibility ‘be impossible’
Note that traditional Japanese linguistics will not include these morphemes and constructions in the study of modality, because they allegedly lack subjectivity, which is definitional for the Japanese concept of chinjutsu or modality (see Sections 1.1–1.2). However, they render the factuality of a proposition as undetermined, and are therefore clearly modal as defined in this chapter. Furthermore, the claim that these markers and constructions lack subjectivity is highly questionable as well if they are analyzed in actual discourse (cf. Narrog and Horie Reference Narrog, Horie and Minami2005: 106–109).
2.5 Indirect Evidentials
The relationship between modality and evidentiality in Japanese was already discussed in Section 1.4. Only indirect evidentials fall under my definition of modality but all Japanese evidentials are indirect, so they can be treated as modal. Example (17) repeats the list of morphemes already provided in Section 1.4:
(17)
-sō predictive appearance ‘looks like’ yō present/past-oriented appearance ‘looks like’ rashii distant appearance, reportive ‘seem’ sō reportive ‘it is said that, allegedly’ mitai (stylistic variant of yō)
3 Structural Properties and Interaction with Other Categories
3.1 Morphological Properties
In terms of their morphological properties, the modal markers of Modern Japanese can be classified into suffixes and periphrastic constructions. Suffixes in turn can be divided into particles, that is, clitic-like suffixes that follow fully inflected and morphologically independent word forms, and derivational suffixes, that is, suffixes that follow word stems. First, (18) is a list of particles expressing modality proper.
(18)
Particles with adjectival inflection beki, rashii Nominal adjectival particle mitai Uninflecting particles sō [reportive], darō
Example (19) is a list of derivational suffixes, that is, those that add to word stems.
(19)
Suffix with adjectival inflection -tai Suffix with nominal adjectival inflection -sō [inferential] Suffixes with verbal inflection -(r)areru, -(r)e-, -kaneru
Most expressions of modality in Modern Japanese are periphrastic. They can be subdivided into expressions that center on one-word or multi-word expressions. The one-word expressions, which, of course, also occur in constructions with their linguistic context, are nominals. These nominals are also known as “formal nouns” (keishiki meishi) in traditional Japanese linguistics. Example (20) gives a list of grammaticalized modal nominals.
(20) mono ‘thing,’ that is, ‘[it] is the common thing to do,’ koto ‘thing/matter,’ that is, ‘it is the thing to do’ [both deontic], hazu ‘expectation’ [epistemic], yō ‘appearance’ [evidential], tsumori ‘intention’ [boulomaic]
The multi-word periphrastic constructions are too large and numerous to list here. Especially famous, since Akatsuka (Reference Akatsuka and Brentari1992), are the conditional constructions ending on a negative evaluation (cf. Section 2.2 above). A list of the most important ones can be found in Narrog (Reference Narrog2009a: 73).
If we deal with periphrastic constructions rather than suffixes, the question may be raised as to whether they are actually grammaticalized. Here, one can refer to an excellent study by Hanazono (Reference Hanazono1999) that through syntactic tests demonstrates grammaticalization of some representative periphrastic modals of Modern Japanese.
3.2 Modality and Clausal Mood (Clause Type)
All expressions of modality proper are compatible with declaratives. Examples (3), (4), and (7) above are all declarative sentences.
Non-epistemic modalities are, as a rule, also compatible with interrogatives. With the epistemics and evidentials, the matter is more complicated. With the exception of the narrow scope inferential -sō (cf. Sections 3.5–3.6 below), epistemic and evidential modal markers should be infelicitous in questions.Footnote 3 After all, epistemics and evidentials basically represent judgments based on the direct or indirect knowledge of the speaker. How, then, can a speaker question her/his own judgment? However, as the examples with the reportive sō in (21) and the inferential evidential yō in (22) show, if appropriate contexts are given, practically all epistemic and evidential markers can also be used in questions.
(21)
Ōshima Yūko mo intai-s.uru sō des.u ka? foc retire-do.npst evid cop.npst int ‘Is it being said that Yuko Oshima also retires?’
(22)
Ikeda tōshu wa tukare.te i.ru yō des.u ka? pitcher top tire-ger be-npst evid cop.npst int ‘Does it look like Pitcher Ikeda is tired?’ (Miyake Reference Miyake and Masuoka2006: 129)
Standard grammars do not present such examples, but searches on the Internet will deliver them in natural contexts. It seems that in both (21) and (22), it is not the speaker’s judgment but the interlocutor’s judgment that is questioned, and this fact may be the decisive factor that enables such usage. However, this is a question that needs further investigation.
Lastly, with respect to directives, no expression of modality proper can be directly used with imperative forms. However, we do find dynamic modality occurring in a complement clause embedded in an imperative (or other directive), and thus still in the scope of the imperative. Compare (23) with the imperative directly added to the modal expression in (24), which would be infelicitous for most speakers.
(23)
50 mētoru o oyog-e.ru yō ni nari-nasa.i meter acc swim-pot.npst comp to become-do.imp ‘Become able to swim 50 meters!’
(24)
#50 mētoru o oyog-e-nasa.i meter acc swim-pot-do.imp ‘Become able to swim 50 meters!’
3.3 Interaction with Tense
Japanese has basically two tenses: non-past, marked by -(r)u with verbs and -i with adjectives, and past, marked by -ta with verbs and -kat.ta with adjectives. However, -(r)u is more a multifunctional default verb ending than purely tense and thus not a reliable indicator of tense. -Ta as past is a more reliable indicator and therefore commonly used to test for tense. This will also be the case in this section.
First of all, all markers of modality proper except the epistemic darō can be marked with past tense -ta, and in all cases the past tense follows the modal marker, that is, seems to have scope over modality. In the case of darō, the lack of co-occurrence is, before questioning semantic compatibility, primarily morphologically conditioned: darō is the combination of the copular particle da(r)- with the inflection -yō, and the latter stands in a paradigmatic (i.e. mutually exclusive) relationship with -ta in Modern Japanese.
Now, the interesting question concerning modal markers in combination with past tense is what the past tense signifies, since, as a default, we would expect a modal expression to convey a speaker’s judgment at the time of speech, and not in the past. So, the first question is whether the past actually scopes over the modal, as the order of morphemes indicates.
In most cases it clearly does, as the constructed example in (25) with deontic modality and that in (26) with epistemic modality illustrate:
(25)
Kinō kyū ni shukkin-shi-na.kereba nar-ana-kat.ta. yesterday suddenly come.to.work-do-neg.cond become-neg.pst ‘Yesterday I had to suddenly come to work.’
(26)
Kono toki mo watashi wa fui ni ut-are.ru ka mo this time foc I top suddenly shoot-pass.npst int foc shir-e-na-kat.ta. know-pot-neg.pst ‘This time too, I could have been suddenly shot.’ (Ōoka Shōhei: Nobi, 1952)
In (25) a deontic necessity that arose in the past is reported, and in (26) an epistemic possibility that existed in the past.
A second related issue that has been discussed in the literature, notably by Takanashi (Reference Takanashi2004, Reference Takanashi and Masuoka2006: 85–95) and Narrog (Reference Narrog2009a), is whether it is implied that the state of affairs was realized or not, if the modality is in the past tense. To put a complicated issue simply, practically all modal constructions are open with respect to this problem, that is, they both allow realization and non-realization. However, there is one group of modal constructions and markers across modal subcategories where non-realization is strongly implied. The constructed example with beki in (27) shows that this implication is difficult to cancel in many if not most contexts.
(27)
??Kinō wa, shigoto o suru beki dat.ta. Da kara, yesterday top work acc do deo cop.pst cop because shigoto-ba e it.ta. work-place all go.pst ‘I should have worked yesterday. Therefore, I went to my workplace.’
Nevertheless, this is an implication and not a meaning. Therefore, it is possible to find actual examples such as (28) where non-realization is in fact canceled in context.
(28)
Ōsaka wa, motomoto oashisu kokka to shi.te hatten su beki top originally oasis state as do.ger develop do deo mono de at.ta shi, jissai ni sō nat.te i.ta no thing ess be.pst and actually this.way become.ger be.pst nmlz des.u ga … cop.pol.npst but ‘Osaka was originally supposed to develop as an oasis state, and actually it became just that, but…’ (spoken, discussion)
Other modal markers and constructions that behave like beki are -tai, -te hoshii (boulomaic), -reba ii (deontic), and hazu (epistemic). They all have in common that in terms of strength of modality they are mid-scale (i.e. neither strong necessity nor mere possibility). Furthermore, they contain an evaluative element of desirability. With these modal constructions, the more common case is that the state-of-affairs is one of the past but the judgment of desirability of the present, as in (26). The contrast between past state-of-affairs and present desirability implies counterfactuality, that is, non-realization. However, infrequently, they can also be used to indicate a judgment in the past, as in (27), and then they are more likely to mark a state-of-affairs that was realized.
3.4 Interaction with Aspect
All Modern Japanese modal markers and constructions across subcategories investigated in Narrog (Reference Narrog2009a) were able to scope over the stative -te iru and the completive -te shimau. On the other hand, only a limited number of modal markers and constructions, namely the dynamic and boulomaic ones, plus the evidential -sō and the deontic nakereba naranai can take scope under these aspectual constructions.
There are a number of interesting issues that emerge from the study of interaction of modality with aspect. One is that, as a rule, modality as such is stative, that is, designates a state of ability, of obligation, or of probability, and not dynamic events. Why, then, are there so many modal markers and constructions in Japanese that can be additionally stativized? While the full answer to this question is probably a little more complex, there is an obvious reply when looking at actual examples of use like (29):
(29)
Sentakushi ga mata fue.te shimat.ta node, yokei choice nom again increase.ger cpv.pst because excessively sagas-ana.kucha ik-e-naku nat.te i.ru. search-neg.top go-pot-neg become.ger be.npst ‘As choices have increased, I now have to search around more.’ (spoken monologue)
In examples when a modal is further stativized, it is usually indicated that this state is only temporary or the result of some development (which also effectively means temporariness). Nevertheless, it seems that even this use of temporariness is ruled out with epistemic modal constructions. Thus, in contrast to (29), there is no *ka mo shirenaku natte iru or *hazu de iru. This may indicate that in contrast to dynamic, boulomaic, and some other narrow scope modal categories, epistemic modality does not have a temporality of its own at all.
Another issue of interest is the influence of stativity (or imperfectivity) in the proposition on the interpretation of modality. It has sometimes been claimed that stativity/imperfectivity of the proposition leads to an epistemic interpretation of modal markers, in contrast to a deontic or dynamic interpretation with a dynamic proposition (cf. Abraham and Leiss Reference Abraham and Leiss2008: xii–xiv). Similar claims have been made for Japanese. There are a few cases where constructions such as -te mo ii and nakereba naranai receive quasi-epistemic readings, presumably with stative propositions. In a large-scale corpus study of this phenomenon, Narrog (Reference Narrog, Abraham and Leiss2008: 295–303) showed that stative propositions are indeed conducive to quasi-epistemic interpretations but cannot force them. Example (30) shows a stative proposition embedded in the general deontic necessity construction receiving a quasi-epistemic interpretation. In contrast, (31) is an example of a stative proposition not evoking a quasi-epistemic interpretation.
(30)
Dāwin shinka-ron ga zettai-teki ni tadashi.i to evolution-theory nom absolutely right-nps quot s.uru nara, shinka wa ima shinkō-chū de do cond evolution top now progress-during ess na.kereba nar-ana.i. not.be.cond become-neg.npst ‘If Darwin’s theory of evolution is absolutely right, then evolution must be in progress now.’ (Essay, 1991)
(31)
[…] shikkari to yūzā o mi.te i-na.i to ikena.i firmly user acc look.ger be-neg.npst cond go.neg.npst to omoi-mas.u. quot think-hon.npst ‘[In the mobile [communication] market as well, fierce competition is taking place, and everything is decided by the customers. In this sense,] I think we must be firmly looking at the customers.’ (Newspaper, 1998)
3.5 Interaction with Negation
Cross-linguistically, a distinction between internal and external negation (e.g. Van Valin and LaPolla Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997: 46) is often made. This distinction is reflected formally on Japanese predicates by the distinction between internal negation suffix -nai ‘not’ and the external negation construction no de wa nai ‘it is not [the case] that.’ We will limit the discussion here to internal negation. The result with respect to interaction with expressions of modality is as follows. Taking into account suppletive constructions and cases where morpheme order and scope diverge, all non-epistemic and non-evidential modality markers and constructions can take scope under negation. Among the epistemic and evidentials (in their epistemic and evidential meaning), only the inferentials yō, rashii, and -sō can do the same, albeit infrequently. Conversely, all modal markers and constructions except for the dynamic modal -eru can take negation in their scope, if periphrastic and suppletive constructions are also taken into account (cf. Narrog Reference Narrog2009a: 192–194).
Cross-linguistically, a lot of irregularities occur in the combination of modality and negation (cf. Palmer Reference Palmer, Bybee and Fleischman1995). In Japanese, as well, constructions of modality with negation are the biggest source of scope ambiguities in the verbal complex (cf. Narrog Reference Narrog2010: 226–229). One can logically distinguish the two cases in (32).
a. The morpheme order mod → neg stands for both neg[mod] and mod[neg]
b. The morpheme order neg → mod stands for both mod[neg] and neg[mod]
Example (32a) is illustrated with a sentence with the deontic particle adjective beki.Footnote 4
(33)
Shopan wa ama.i nante karugarushiku kuchi top sweet-npst exm lightly mouth ni s.u beki ja na.i to omo.u to do-npst deo ess.top not.be.npst quot think-npst no sa. emph sfp ‘[I] think that one shouldn’t say lightly that [the music of] Chopin is sweet’ (Fukunaga Takehiko: Kusa no hana, 1956)
Because of a morphological constraint, beki ‘should’ in standard grammar can only be added to verbs and not adjectives, beki does not allow negation to precede (*-(a)nai beki), but only to follow. However, the actual interpretation is practically indistinguishable between not [should] (modality in the scope of negation) and [not] should [not] (negation in the scope of modality). One more modal suffix, the boulomaic -tai ‘want to,’ behaves just like beki.
The same phenomenon, but with the reverse morpheme order, that is, Case (32b), holds for -(r)eba ii ‘you’d better.’ This construction can only be preceded by negation, but the actual interpretation is ambiguous, as the example in (34) shows.
(34)
Kurōn ga shinbun ya terebi bangumi o gyūjit.te clone nom newspaper and TV program acc control-ger i.ru nara, shinbun, terebi wa mi-na.kereba i.i. be-npst cond newspaper TV top see-neg-cond good.npst ‘If clones are [really] controlling newspapers and television, it’s better not to look at them.’ (Kuwahara Ichiyo: Ningen no kihon, 1998)
Here as well, both ‘it’s better not to,’ and ‘it’s not good to’ are perfectly meaningful interpretations.
Besides beki, -tai, and -(r)eba ii, there are a couple of morphemes and constructions that allow negation to both follow and precede modality, but the interpretation is practically indistinguishable. For these constructions, both (32a) and (32b) apply. These are epistemic hazu, boulomaic -te hoshii, and the evidentials yō and rashii. Example (35) is with evidential rashii followed by negation.
(35)
Hayakawa wa warai-nagara mi.te i.ta ga, sukoshi top laugh-while see.ger be-pst but a.little mo keibetu-shi.te i.ru rashi.ku wa na.kat.ta. foc contempt-do.ger be evid top not.be-npst ‘Hayakawa laughed while watching but he didn’t seem to look down on [him]’ (Mushanokōji Saneatsu: Yūjō, 1920)
As in the case of modality and tense, all the constructions that display ambiguity are mid-scale in terms of strength of modality.
3.6 Modality Interacting with Modality
In English, there is the phenomenon of “double modality” in dialects (cf. Nagle Reference Nagle and Facchinetti2003) and very regular co-occurrence of modals with semi-modals, as in you may want to… or you will have to…. In Japanese, the same phenomenon is rather common. The following tendencies can be observed (cf. Narrog Reference Narrog2009a: 177–189).
a. Participant-internal (traditional ‘dynamic’) modality does not embed other modality with the exception of dynamic modal markers embedding other dynamic modal markers as an apparent reinforcement of the same meaning.
b. Boulomaic modality can only embed dynamic modality and the inferential -sō.
c. Deontic modality can embed dynamic and boulomaic modality, and the inferential -sō.
d. Epistemic modality and evidentiality can in principle embed everything except for a few markers that resist embedding, especially the epistemic darō and the hearsay evidential sō.
Overall, nothing is really unexpected here. However, the behavior of -sō is striking: It can be embedded under a lot of other modal markers and constructions, thus indicating relatively narrow scope. On the other hand, it can also embed many other markers and constructions, thus indicating wide scope. Example (37) shows -sō from a recurring headline on a publisher’s webpage, in which -sō embeds epistemic modal ka mo shirenai. Not all speakers of Japanese may be equally comfortable with this construction but it can be found fairly frequently on the Internet.
(37)
Ronguserā ni nar.u ka mo shire-na-sa-sō-na hon. longseller dat become.npst int foc know-neg-nmlz-evid book ‘Books that look like they might become longsellers.’
Without going into further detail, if one privileges the passive scope properties (i.e. the possibility of being embedded) over the active ones in case of contradiction, the following layers of scope of modal markers and constructions in Modern Japanese can be identified (Table 16.1).
Table 16.1 Layers of modal markers, as measured by their interaction
| Layer 1 | darō (EPI), sō (EVID) |
| Layer 2 | ka mo sirenai, hazu (EPI), yō, rashii (EVID) |
| Layer 3a | beki (DEO), -(r)eba ii (DEO) |
| Layer 3b | -sō (EVID), nakereba naranai (DEO), -te hoshii (BOU), -tai (BOU) |
| Layer 4 | -eru, -(r)areru, koto ga dekiru (DYN) |
Table 16.1 shows that the epistemic darō and the hearsay evidential sō have the broadest scope, and the dynamic modal markers and constructions in general the narrowest scope when interacting with other modal categories. The next section will provide some insight about scope properties in interaction with other (non-modal) categories.
3.7 Layering
When modal markers and constructions of various categories are tested for their combination not only with other modal markers but also with other categories – for example, tense, aspect, negation, benefactive, voice, illocutionary modification, and behavior in subordinate clause constructions – it is possible to arrive at a more accurate scope hierarchy of modal markers and constructions that reflects hierarchical clause structure beyond modality in Japanese, as in Table 16.2.
Table 16.2 Combined hierarchies
| Non-modal categories | Modal-related categories |
|---|---|
| Illocutionary modification | |
| Moods (imperative, hortative) | |
| Epistemic modality (darō), (epistemic –(y)ō) | |
| Tense | Evidentiality (sō) |
| Epistemic modality (ka mo shirenai) | |
| Deontic modality (beki, -(r)eba ii) | |
| (Internal) Negation | Evidentiality (yō, rashii) |
| Epistemic modality (hazu) | |
| Perfective/Imperfective aspect | Deontic modality (nakereba naranai) |
| Evidentiality (-sō) | |
| Phasal aspecta | Boulomaic modality (-tai, -te hoshii) |
| Dynamic modality (-eru, -(r)areru, koto ga dekiru) | |
| Benefactives voice |
a For phasal aspect, cf. for example, Dik (Reference Dik1997: 225) and Plungian (Reference Plungian, Abraham and Kulikov1999: 313).
As indicated in Section 3.5, this hierarchy is necessarily a simplification from more complex behavior of individual markers and constructions that is sometimes contradictory. Besides apparent mismatch between “active” (embedding) and “passive” (embedded) scope properties, we also find individual mismatches, such as epistemic darō being more amenable to embedding in subordinate clauses than the hearsay evidential sō, while, on the other hand, it is only sō that can be marked with the past tense (cf. Narrog Reference Narrog2009a: 227–228).
4 Modality in Japanese Language History
Students of the history of Japanese know that the expression of modality in Modern Japanese is quite different from the expression of modality in, say, Classical Japanese. There has been almost a complete turnover in means of expression. This is shown in Table 16.3, which displays the means of expression of epistemic and evidential modal categories, which have been core modal categories in Japanese.
Table 16.3 Epistemic, epistemic-evidential (inferential), and evidential markers through Japanese language history
| Late Old Japanese (10th century) | Late Middle Japanese (late 16th century) | Modern Japanese (late 20th century) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Epistemic | -(a)m- ‘future’** | -(y)ō/-(y)ōz- ‘speculative’** | (-(y)ō ‘speculative’)** |
| ram- ‘speculative’ | rō ‘speculative’ | darō ‘speculative’ | |
| -(a)ji ‘negated future’** | hazu ‘epistemic necessity/expectation’ | ||
| be- ‘inevitability’* | ni chigai na- ‘epistemic necessity/conclusion’ | ||
| maji ‘negated inevitability’* | maji(i)/mai ‘negated speculative’* | (mai ‘negated speculative’ )** | |
| ka mo shire-na- ‘epistemic possibility’ | |||
| Inferential- Evidential | meri ‘(visual) appearance’ | rashi- ‘distant appearance’ | |
| rashi ‘certain appearance’ | yō/mitai ‘present- and past-oriented appearance’ | ||
| (bera ‘appearance’ ) | sō ‘appearance’ | sō ‘predictive appearance’ | |
| (ge ‘appearance of state’) | ge ‘appearance of state’ | ||
| Hearsay-Evidential | nari ‘reportive’ | rashi- ‘reportive’ | |
| tef- ‘reportive’ | sō ‘reportive’ |
* Also has deontic use.
** Also has boulomaic use.
The only direct remnants of historical forms in Modern Japanese are the inflection -(y)ō, which is derived from the inflecting modal suffix -(a)m-, and the negative speculative particle mai, but since both of them are better categorized as mood than as modality proper in Modern Japanese, they are put into brackets in Table 16.3.
There are at least two further points of interest that emerge from the data displayed in the table. First, while practically all expressions of modality in Old and Late Old Japanese were “synthetic,” that is, realized as suffixes on word stems and words as a whole, many Modern Japanese expressions are periphrastic. The Modern Japanese periphrastic expressions in Table 16.3 include the multi-word expressions ni chigai nai and ka mo shirenai as well as the nouns hazu and yō. Of course, there are many more periphrastic expressions in other areas of modality (cf. Section 2). Late Old Japanese had neither the periphrastic modal expressions in general nor those nouns to express core modality.
Second, it appears that there was a bottleneck in terms of expression in Middle Japanese. Most of the semantically finely differentiated modal endings that were characteristic for Old and Late Old Japanese became obsolete from the twelfth century on. One might expect that immediately new morphemes were grammaticalized with the same function, but that did not happen. Instead, a few morphemes, especially -(y)ō, with the Middle Japanese variant -(y)ōz-, and maji(i)/mai took on a high “functional load,” that is, covered a large variety of meanings and functions. Most modern periphrastic expressions developed later, from the seventeenth century on.
The only modality and mood morphemes that have been present in the spoken language throughout history are Old Japanese -(a)mu, Modern -(y)ō, and its negative counterpart ma(si)zi, Modern -mai. The latter is much less prominent in Modern Japanese than the former, so I will focus on -(y)ō here. Formally, as indicated above, -(a)mu/-(y)oo has undergone salient changes. Morphologically, through loss of its own inflections, it has become an inflection itself, and phonologically, its sounds have changed considerably through the centuries, including condensation of sounds. These are typical grammaticalization changes.
But I want to draw attention here to the overall functional and semantic change of this morpheme, which is just as impressive. I will not try to give a full diachronic account here but instead contrast the meanings and functions of -(a)mu and Modern -(y)ō at two points in time, namely Old Japanese (Nara period) and Modern Japanese. The basis for the analysis of -(a)mu in Old Japanese is provided by Koji (Reference Koji1980), which is a very detailed corpus study of the suffixed inflected morphemes (so-called jodōshi) of the period. The analysis of -(y)ō in Modern Japanese is based on my own corpus data.
In Old Japanese, -(a)mu had basically two meanings, intention and prediction, and all other uses could be rather transparently derived from them in context. There are only relatively few examples where -(a)mu is used in fixed constructions. Example (38) shows a common collocation with the adjective posi or the verb pori, both meaning ‘want.’ In this construction, -(a)mu always indicates a wish.
(38)
Eample (39) shows -(a)mu in its conditional form -(a)me at the sentence end. Here it always indicates a prediction of a possibility.
(39)
ter.u pi no mo wa ga sode pi-m.e ya … shine-anp sun gen foc I gen sleeve dry-fut-cond q ‘Would my sleeves dry even in the bright sun [if I cannot meet you]?’ (MYS 1995)
In my count, there are only three such fixed constructions in Old Japanese.
In spoken Modern Japanese, -(y)ō is primarily a mood marker indicating hortative (ikō! ‘Let’s go!’). This alone is a remarkable change which I have described elsewhere in terms of subjectification or speech-act orientation (Narrog Reference Narrog2012: 130–132). But I want to draw attention to another fact here. Especially if we also include written language, there is a stunning number of fixed constructions involving -(y)ō in Modern Japanese. I will give just a few here. The examples are constructed unless otherwise noted.
Example (40) shows -(y)ō with the interrogative particle directed toward the hearer indicating a proposal, (41) in a construction with the complementizer to and certain mental verbs, indicating an intention, and (42) in a construction with the noun yō ‘way,’ in which the individual semantic contribution of -(y)ō is very vague and hard to pin down.
(40)
Odor.ō ka? dance-hort q ‘Shall we dance?’
(41)
Mōshikom.ō to kime.ta. apply-hort comp decide-pst ‘I decided to apply’
(42)
i.ō yō na.i … say-hort way not.be-npst ‘there is no way to say it’
I have counted twenty-four such “special” constructions, many more than there are in Old Japanese. They are the result of very complex historical forces at work. Due to the fact that it was used so widely in premodern Japanese, -(a)mu/-(y)ō appeared in many syntactic and pragmatic contexts. Some of them may have gained a life of their own, so to speak, through particularly frequent use in specific situations, like (40), for example. Others, that became uncommon in spoken language, survived in written language contexts, where they are not clearly connected anymore to productive usage, like (42).
This kind of development can be described in terms of “constructionalization,” that is, the historical development of constructions (i.e. specific form–meaning mappings). In this sense, the development of -(a)mu/-(y)ō can be considered as an example of almost rampant constructionalization.
5 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have given an overview of the expression of modal categories in Japanese. Inevitably, the chapter had to start out with issues of definition and subcategorization, which are a notorious problem in this field, and which deserve considerable attention by themselves. I then concentrated on structural properties of modal expressions before giving a glimpse of their history. At some points throughout the chapter I have indicated areas of study that are still underdeveloped. Naturally, these also include topics that I have not been able to treat in any detail in the framework of this chapter, such as discourse properties of modality, or the role of adverbs in the expression of modality, or the relationship to the category of person. Despite having been a popular research topic in the past twenty or so years, there is still a lot to explore about modality in Japanese.
1 Introduction
This chapter is concerned with the polysemous nature of the so-called reflexive pronoun jibun ‘self’ and related phenomena in Japanese. The word jibun may only be a simple lexical item, but a linguistic study of its use provides us with an important insight into how the self is conceptualized and expressed in Japanese. Drawing on pioneering works such as Kuno (Reference Kuno1972a, Reference Kuno1978a), Kuroda (Reference Kuroda, Anderson and Kiparsky1973a, Reference Kuroda1973b), Kuno and Kaburaki (Reference Kuno and Kaburaki1977), and Sells (Reference Sells1987) and more recent works such as Hirose (Reference Hirose2000, Reference Hirose2002) and Oshima (Reference Oshima2004, Reference Oshima2007), the present chapter argues that the use of jibun can be largely divided into three types: logophoric, viewpoint, and reflexive.
The logophoric use,Footnote 1 which is the most basic of the three, is the one in which jibun typically occurs in the indirect-discourse complement of a saying or thinking verb and refers to the original speaker of indirect discourse, as in (1), where jibun is coreferential with the matrix subject Ken.
(1)
Ken wa jibun wa ganko da to {itteiru/omotteiru}. top self top stubborn cop quot {say/think} ‘Ken {says/thinks} that he [= jibun] is stubborn.’
The viewpoint and reflexive uses concern jibun as it appears outside the indirect-discourse context. Viewpoint jibun signals that the speaker is taking the perspective of its referent; thus in an example like (2), the book Ken lost is described from Ken’s point of view, rather than from the speaker’s own. Reflexive jibun serves as a reflexive marker to indicate coreference between the subject and object of a predicate, as in (3), just like the typical use of English reflexive pronouns.
(2)
Ken wa jibun ga tomodachi kara karita hon o nakushita. top self nom friend from borrowed book acc lost ‘Ken lost a book that he [= jibun] borrowed from a friend.’
(3)
Ken wa jibun o hihanshita. top self acc criticized ‘Ken criticized himself [= jibun].’
I am not concerned here with how to describe syntactically the so-called binding relation between jibun and its antecedent, a question which has been tackled by numerous studies mainly in the tradition of generative grammar (for a useful survey, see Aikawa Reference Aikawa and Tsujimura1999).
In what follows, based primarily on my previous work on jibun, I examine each of the three uses from a cognitive semantic perspective and discuss the kind of self encoded in each use and its characteristics in relation to other subjectivity-related phenomena in Japanese.Footnote 2 The main points of this chapter are as follows. First, logophoric jibun represents the private self, that is, the speaker as the subject of thinking or consciousness, distinguished from the public self as the subject of communicating (see Section 2). Second, the meaning of jibun extends from logophoric to viewpoint to reflexive through the cognitive process of objectification of self, which is a metonymic conceptual shift from the self as the subject of consciousness to the self as the object of consciousness (see Sections 3 and 4). Third, viewpoint jibun represents the speaker’s objective self, that is, the self that the speaker dissociates from his/her consciousness and projects onto another person (see Section 3). Fourth, reflexive jibun represents the objective self of the agent of an action, that is, the self that the agent (not the speaker) dissociates from his/her consciousness and treats like another person (see Section 4).
2 The Logophoric Use
The logophoric nature of jibun was first noted by Kuno (Reference Kuno1972a), who proposed a theory called Direct Discourse Analysis in which jibun is assumed to be transformationally derived from first person pronominals like boku ‘I (male)’ and watashi ‘I (formal or female).’ Thus, according to this theory, the indirect-discourse sentence in (4) has an underlying structure like the direct-discourse sentence in (5).Footnote 3
(4)
Ken wa jibun wa oyoge-nai to itta. top self top can.swim-neg quot said Lit. ‘Ken said that self can’t swim.’
(5)
Ken wa “Boku wa oyoge-nai” to itta. top I top can.swim-neg quot said ‘Ken said, “I can’t swim.”’
Technical details aside, the Direct Discourse Analysis provides a way of capturing Japanese speakers’ intuition that jibun, as well as boku/watashi, means a kind of “I.” But what kind of “I” or self does jibun represent, compared to boku/watashi? This section deals with this and related questions.
2.1 Public versus Private Expression
It is argued in Hirose (Reference Hirose2000) that the speaker has two different aspects called public and private self. The public self is the speaker as the subject of communicating, that is, the speaker who faces an addressee or has one in mind, while the private self is the speaker as the subject of thinking or consciousness, that is, the speaker who has no addressee in mind. The public and private self are the subjects of two different levels of linguistic expression called public and private expression. Public expression corresponds to the communicative function of language and private expression to the non-communicative, thought-expressing function of language. Thus public expression requires the presence of an addressee, whereas private expression does not.
There are linguistic expressions that inherently presuppose the existence of an addressee. Among such expressions in Japanese are: (a) certain sentence-final particles (e.g. yo ‘I tell you,’ ne ‘you know’), (b) directives such as orders and requests (e.g. tomare ‘Stop!,’ tomatte-kudasai ‘Please stop’), (c) vocatives (e.g. ōi/oi ‘hey’), (d) responses (e.g. hai/īe ‘yes/no’), (e) interactive adverbial phrases of various sorts (e.g. sumimasen ga ‘Excuse me, but,’ kokodake no hanashi dakedo ‘between you and me’), (f) polite verb forms (e.g. desu/masu), (g) hearsay expressions (e.g. (da)sōda/(da)tte ‘I hear’), and so on. These “addressee-oriented” expressions are themselves public expressions, and they also serve to make phrases and sentences containing them public expressions. On the other hand, phrases and sentences without addressee-oriented expressions are private expressions unless they are used by the speaker with the intention of communicating with another person (see Hirose Reference Hirose1995 for detailed discussion).
While public expressions involve communicative attitudes, private expressions correspond to mental states. Languages have many so-called modal expressions that represent mental states. In Japanese, for example, the copula da, as in Ame da ‘It is raining,’ indicates unmarked assertion; the modal expression ni chigainai, as in Ame ni chigainai ‘It must be raining,’ represents certainty; the modal darō, as in Ame darō ‘It will be raining,’ indicates conjecture; the interrogative particle ka, as in Ame darō ka ‘Will it be raining?,’ expresses uncertainty or doubt. All these expressions, unlike addressee-oriented expressions, are, by default, private expressions that characterize mental states.
Mental states are typically described in Japanese by verbs like omou ‘think’ followed by the stative aspectual verb te-iru. Omou and other mental-state verbs can take as a complement a reported clause marked by the quotative particle to. Because the level of linguistic expression that describes what one thinks, believes, doubts, or wishes must be private, a mental-state verb allows only a private expression as its reported-clause complement. Thus, consider the following examples, where angle brackets labeled Priv represent a private expression and square brackets labeled Pub represent a public expression.
a.
Masao wa <Priv soto wa ame da> to omotteiru. top outside top rain cop quot think ‘Masao thinks it is raining outside.’ b.
Masao wa <Priv soto wa ame ni chigainai> to omotteiru. top outside top rain must quot think ‘Masao thinks it must be raining outside.’ c.
Masao wa <Priv soto wa ame darō ka> to omotteiru. top outside top rain will int quot think ‘Masao wonders whether it will be raining outside.’
a.
*Masao wa [Pub soto wa ame da yo] to omotteiru. top outside top rain cop sfp quot think ‘Masao thinks “It is raining outside, I tell you.”’ b.
*Masao wa [Pub soto wa ame desu] to omotteiru. top outside top rain cop.pol quot think ‘Masao thinks politely “It is raining outside.”’ c.
*Masao wa [Pub soto wa ame da tte] to omotteiru. top outside top rain cop evid quot think ‘Masao thinks “I hear it is raining outside.”’
In (6) the reported clauses are private expressions because the underlined parts are modal expressions that represent mental states. In (7), on the other hand, the underlined parts are addressee-oriented expressions that mark the whole reported clauses as public expressions. Hence the unacceptability of the sentences in (7).
Unlike mental-state verbs, utterance verbs such as iu ‘say’ allow both public and private expressions as their reported clauses. For example, the reported clauses in (8) are public expressions, regarded generally as cases of direct discourse.
a.
Masao wa Keiko ni [Pub soto wa ame da yo] to itta. top dat outside top rain cop sfp quot said ‘Masao said to Keiko, “It is raining outside, I tell you.”’ b.
Masao wa Keiko ni [Pub soto wa ame desu] to itta. top dat outside top rain cop.pol quot said ‘Masao said to Keiko politely, “It is raining outside.”’ c.
Masao wa Keiko ni [Pub soto wa ame da tte] to itta. top dat outside top rain cop evid quot said ‘Masao said to Keiko, “I hear it is raining outside.”’
Here the reported clauses convey not only Masao’s communicative attitude toward Keiko but also his belief that it is raining outside. Focusing on the latter, we can report Masao’s utterance as private expression, using so-called indirect discourse, as in (9).
(9)
Masao wa Keiko ni <Priv soto wa ame da> to itta. top dat outside top rain cop quot said ‘Masao said to Keiko that it was raining outside.’
These observations lead to the following hypothesis, first developed in detail in Hirose (Reference Hirose1995) (cf. also Hirose Reference Hirose2000; Wada Reference Wada2001).
(10) Direct discourse is a quotation of public expression, whereas indirect discourse is a quotation of private expression.
This means that while direct discourse can represent communicative attitudes of the original speaker, indirect discourse can represent only mental states of the original speaker. We will return to this hypothesis shortly.
2.2 Logophoric Jibun as a Word for Private Self
We should now notice that Japanese has separate words for public and private self. The private self is expressed by the word jibun. The public self, on the other hand, is referred to by a variety of words of self-reference such as boku ‘I (male-casual),’ atashi ‘I (female-casual),’ watashi ‘I (male-formal, female-formal/informal),’ watakushi ‘I (very formal),’ ore ‘I (male-casual/vulgar),’ atai ‘I (female-vulgar),’ and oira/ora ‘I (male-vulgar)’; moreover, kinship terms like otōsan/okāsan ‘father/mother’ and the occupational title sensei ‘teacher’ are also used for the purpose of self-reference. Which word to use in a given situation depends on who the speaker is and whom he/she is talking to.
It must be emphasized here that jibun is a private expression, whereas first person pronominals like boku/watashi are public expressions. As argued in Hirose (Reference Hirose2000) and Hasegawa and Hirose (Reference Hasegawa and Hirose2005), this point is confirmed by the acceptability contrast between examples like (11) and (12), which are meant to describe one’s inner consciousness about oneself.
(11)
jibun wa ongaku ga sukida to iu ishiki self top music nom like quot say consciousness Lit. ‘the consciousness that self likes music’
(12)
??{boku/watashi} wa ongaku ga sukida to iu ishiki {I/I} top music nom like quot say consciousness ‘the consciousness that I like music’
While (11) is perfectly acceptable by itself, (12) sounds unnatural as it stands. This fact indicates that words like boku/watashi do not appear in inner or private description of consciousness, which in turn suggests that it is only when we communicate our thoughts to others that we can use these words to refer to ourselves. Thus, if (12) is used in a communicative situation in which the speaker reports his/her own consciousness to another person, it will become acceptable, as in (13).
(13)
{Boku/Watashi} ga {boku/watashi} wa ongaku ga {I/I} nom {I/I} top music nom sukida to iu ishiki o tsuyoku motsu-yōni natta like quot say consciousness acc strongly have-to became no wa chōdo sono koro deshita. nmlz top just that time cop.pol.pst ‘It was just then that I became strongly conscious that I liked music.’
Compare this with the following, where (11) is embedded.
(14)
{Boku/Watashi} ga jibun wa ongaku ga sukida to iu {I/I} nom self top music nom like quot say ishiki o tsuyoku motsu-yōni natta no wa chōdo consciousness acc strongly have-to became nmlz top just sono koro deshita. that time cop.pol.pst Lit. ‘It was just then that I became strongly conscious that self likes music.’
Objectively, both (13) and (14) describe the same situation: at a certain point in the past, the speaker became strongly conscious that he/she liked music. The difference, however, is that this consciousness is represented directly within the inner, private domain in (14), but indirectly from the outer, public domain in (13). In other words, what makes it possible for boku/watashi to refer to the subject of consciousness in (13) is the speaker’s external perspective as a reporter (i.e. public self). Example (12) above sounds odd as it stands because no such external perspective is explicitly given there.
It is worth considering here the ambiguous interpretation of boku in examples such as (15).
(15)
Yasuo wa boku ni jiko no sekinin ga aru to top I dat accident gen responsibility nom exist quot itta. said (a) ‘Yasuo said, “I am responsible for the accident.”’
(b) ‘Yasuo said that I was responsible for the accident.’
In (15) boku can refer either to Yasuo, the referent of the matrix subject, or to the reporter, that is, the speaker of the whole sentence. In the former interpretation, the reported clause is direct discourse, as indicated by the English translation in (15a), while in the latter interpretation it is indirect discourse, as shown in (15b). Since the quotative particle to, unlike the English complementizer that, can freely introduce both direct and indirect discourse, it is much more difficult in Japanese than in English to distinguish syntactically between direct and indirect discourse (cf. Coulmas Reference Coulmas1985). Herein lies the significance of the hypothesis, stated in (10), that direct discourse is a quotation of public expression, whereas indirect discourse is a quotation of private expression.
In terms of this hypothesis, we can say that since boku is a public expression, the ambiguity of (15) depends on whether it is the whole of the reported clause or just part of it that is a public expression. If so, the reported clause in (15) can be given the following two different representations.
a. Yasuo wa [Pub boku ni jiko no sekinin ga aru] to itta.
b. Yasuo wa <Priv [Pub boku] ni jiko no sekinin ga aru> to itta.
In (16a) the whole reported clause is a public expression whose subject is Yasuo; that is, Yasuo is depicted in the role of the public self. In (16a), therefore, boku, representing the public self, must be associated with Yasuo. In (16b), on the other hand, since the reported clause is a private expression, Yasuo is depicted in the role of the private self. Hence boku cannot be associated with Yasuo; as a result, it is associated with the reporter, who depicts himself not in Yasuo’s words but in his own words, based on his role as the public self.
By contrast, in (17) with the mental-state verb shinjiteiru ‘believe,’ boku is unambiguous, referring only to the reporter.
(17)
Yasuo wa boku ni jiko no sekinin ga aru to top I dat accident gen responsibility nom exist quot shinjiteiru. believe ‘Yasuo believes I am responsible for the accident.’
As seen in Section 2.1, mental-state verbs, unlike utterance verbs, do not allow public expressions as their reported-clause complements. This means that sentence (17) can have only one representation shown in (18), where the public expression boku is associated with the reporter for the same reason as in the case of (16b).
(18) Yasuo wa <Priv [Pub boku] ni jiko no sekinin ga aru> to shinjiteiru.
In order to say that Yasuo believes that he himself is responsible for the accident, we have to use the private expression jibun, as in (19).
(19)
Yasuo wa <Priv jibun ni jiko no sekinin ga aru> top self dat accident gen responsibility nom exist to shinjiteiru. quot believe ‘Yasuo believes he is responsible for the accident.’
Here jibun refers unequivocally to Yasuo. This fact is explained by saying that since jibun represents the private self and Yasuo in (19) is the subject of private expression, jibun must be associated with Yasuo.
It is such a use of jibun as in (19) that is termed logophoric. As should be clear by now, the present analysis enables us to account for this use without recourse to Kuno’s Direct Discourse Analysis, mentioned at the beginning of this section; that is, the logophoric character of jibun follows naturally from the fact that it is a special word that represents the private self as distinguished from the public self.
Note in passing that in contrast to Japanese, English has a special word for public self, I, but no special word for private self, so that in English, personal pronouns are employed to represent the private self, depending on its grammatical person (and gender in the case of third persons). Japanese jibun can be used invariably to refer to any person’s private self, as indicated in (20), whose English counterpart is (21).
(20)
{Boku/Kimi/Kare/Kanojo} wa jibun wa oyoge-nai to itta. {I/you/he/she} top self top can.swim-neg quot said Lit. ‘{I/You/He/She} said that self can’t swim.’
(21) {I/You/He/She} said that {I/you/he/she} can’t swim.
In (21) the private self is encoded differently as either I or you or he/she, depending on its grammatical person and gender, as seen from the public self (for a more detailed comparative analysis, see Hirose Reference Hirose2000).
2.3 The Public Use of Private Jibun
We might say, metaphorically, that the private self represented by jibun is the “naked” self, and it has a variety of formal and informal “clothes” to wear in public, including boku, watashi, otōsan ‘father,’ sensei ‘teacher,’ and so on. It is worth pointing out, however, that the word jibun could also be used to refer to the public self, as in (22).
(22)
Jibun wa sore ni-tsuite nanimo shiri-mase-n. self top it about anything know-pol-neg ‘I don’t know anything about it.’
Because the polite auxiliary masu is employed here, this sentence is a public expression that requires the presence of an addressee. But such a public use of jibun has an unusual connotation: it is as if the speaker appeared in public without wearing any clothes. Thus, just as it is considered weird to be naked in public, so the use of jibun in reference to the public self sounds peculiar in ordinary conversation.
In fact, examples like (22) remind many Japanese of special situations such as those in the military where soldiers are talking to their superiors or those in sports clubs where junior male members (called kōhai) are talking to their seniors (called senpai). Probably in these situations it is tacitly assumed that one has to show one’s real self to one’s superior or senior, to whom one is expected to be loyal. Conversely, in ordinary situations there is a different tacit assumption related to politeness, namely, that one should not show one’s real self in public; to use our metaphor again, one is supposed to wear some clothes in public. In effect, such a public use of jibun as that in (22) can be characterized as a special use showing one’s loyalty which is motivated by its inheriting the naked-self character of private jibun.
It is interesting to note further that in contrast to (22), the following example sounds quite normal.
(23)
Jibun wa sore ni-tsuite nanimo shira-nai. self top it about anything know-neg.npst ‘I don’t know anything about it.’
This sentence is different from (22) only in that it does not contain the polite auxiliary masu. Because it has no addressee-oriented expressions in it, it is understood to be a private expression representing the inner consciousness of a private self. It is precisely for this reason that jibun sounds very natural in (23). Sentences of this kind can be used in the Japanese counterpart of so-called free indirect discourse,Footnote 4 as illustrated by examples such as (24).
(24)
Kazuo wa, sono jiken ni-tsuite kikare-ta toki, sukkari top the incident about be.asked-pst when quite tōwakushi-ta. Jibun wa sore ni-tsuite nanimo shira-nai. be.perplexed-pst self top it about anything know-neg.npst Dakara nanimo ie-nai no da. so anything can.say-neg.npst nmlz cop.npst Lit. ‘When asked about the incident, Kazuo was quite perplexed. Self does not know anything about it. So (self) cannot say anything.’
The underlined sentences depict what the character Kazuo thought in his mind; thus, jibun refers to Kazuo’s private self, and the non-past tense of the sentences reflects the “now” of his consciousness. In English, the underlined parts of (24) would be translated in free indirect style as in (25), where Kazuo’s consciousness is expressed in the third person past tense.
(25) When asked about the incident, Kazuo was quite perplexed. He didn’t know anything about it, so he couldn’t say anything.
(For a more elaborate examination of free indirect discourse in Japanese and English, see Hirose Reference Hirose2000: 1650–1652 and Hirose and Hasegawa Reference Hirose and Yoko2010: 25–29, 160–192.)
3 The Viewpoint Use
We now turn to the viewpoint use of jibun, which, as well as the reflexive use, appears outside the indirect-discourse context, as we saw in Section 1. But viewpoint jibun, unlike reflexive jibun, allows replacement with a pronominal like kare ‘he,’ as shown by the contrast between (26) and (27), where subscripts are used to indicate intended coreference between kare and Ken.
(26)
Keni wa {jibun/karei} ga tomodachi kara karita hon o top {self/he} nom friend from borrowed book acc nakushita. lost ‘Ken lost a book that he borrowed from a friend.’
(27)
Keni wa {jibun/*karei} o hihanshita. Ken top {self/him} acc criticized ‘Ken criticized himself.’
The use of kare in (26), however, does not guarantee that the speaker takes Ken’s point of view.Footnote 5
There is also a certain criterion for distinguishing the viewpoint use from the logophoric use: in the former use, unlike in the latter, the referent of jibun is not necessarily “aware” of the propositional content of the clause containing jibun (cf. Kuroda Reference Kuroda1973b; Kuno Reference Kuno1978a; Sells Reference Sells1987). Thus, in the logophoric example (1) in Section 1, the referent of jibun, Ken, is obviously aware that he is stubborn, because he himself says (or thinks) so, a fact deduced from the contradictoriness of such a sentence as (28). On the other hand, in the viewpoint example (2), Ken does not have to be aware that the book he lost is the one he borrowed from his friend, which we can see from the non-contradictoriness of (29).
(28)
*Ken wa jibun wa ganko da to itteiru ga, sore ga top self top stubborn cop quot say but it nom jibun no koto da to wa kizuitei-nai. self gen thing cop quot top realize-neg ‘Ken says that he is stubborn, but he does not realize that it is about himself.’
(29)
Ken wa jibun ga tomodachi kara karita hon o nakushita top self nom friend from borrowed book acc lost ga, sono hon ga tomodachi kara karita mono da to wa but the book nom friend from borrowed thing cop quot top kizuitei-nai. realize-neg ‘Ken lost a book that he borrowed from a friend, but he has not realized that the book is the one he borrowed from the friend.’
This contrast reveals that viewpoint jibun cannot mean the private self as the subject of thinking or consciousness. Then what self does it represent?
As argued in Hirose (Reference Hirose2002), viewpoint jibun represents the speaker’s objective self, the self that the speaker dissociates from his/her consciousness and projects onto another person. To illustrate the notion of objective self, let us first consider the interpretation of the following English sentence.
(30) I dreamed that I was lonely.
As was first pointed out by Lakoff (Reference Lakoff1968), this kind of sentence with the verb dream has two different readings which I refer to here as subjective and objective. In the subjective reading, the speaker experienced loneliness directly in the dream. In the objective reading, the speaker saw his/her alter ego being lonely in the dream. In Japanese, these two readings correspond to the two different sentences in (31), both of which involve the reflexive jibun.
a.
Boku wa jibun ga sabishi-katta yume o mita. I top self nom lonely-pst dream acc saw Lit. ‘I had a dream that self was lonely.’ b.
Boku wa jibun ga sabishi-gatteiru yume o mita. I top self nom lonely-be.showing.signs dream acc saw Lit. ‘I had a dream of self showing signs of being lonely.’
In (31a), which is a subjective version, the predicate sabishi-katta ‘was lonely’ asserts the subject’s direct experience of loneliness in the past; so jibun refers to the speaker as the subject of dreaming, which is itself an aspect of the speaker’s private self. On the other hand, in (31b), which is an objective version, the emotive predicate sabishi ‘lonely’ is followed by the evidential expression -gatteiru ‘be showing signs,’ which normally indicates observable behavior on the part of someone other than the speaker. We can then say that jibun in (31b) refers to the self of the speaker that is objectified in the sense that it is placed on a level with (or on an equality with) others. This is what I call the speaker’s objective self. In English, the use of the reflexive myself as in the following example permits only the objective reading; so it refers unambiguously to the speaker’s objective self.
(32) I dreamed of myself being lonely.
The typical viewpoint use of jibun emerges when the speaker projects his/her objective self onto another person as a situational subject, that is, the most prominent participant in the situation involved.Footnote 6 Thus, consider an example like (33) (cf. Iida Reference Iida1996; Oshima Reference Oshima2007).
(33)
Ken wa hon o jibun no migi-gawa ni oita. top book acc self gen right-side loc put Lit. ‘Ken put the book on the right of self.’
Here Ken is the situational subject, and jibun, which is construed with Ken, represents the objective self the speaker has projected onto him. So the speaker is describing the situation from Ken’s viewpoint, and not from his/her own viewpoint. This is why (33) means that the book was placed “on the right of Ken” from Ken’s viewpoint. If kare ‘he’ is substituted for jibun, the location of the book can be interpreted from the speaker’s viewpoint.
In what follows, I first outline Kuno’s well-known analysis of viewpoint jibun in terms of his notion of empathy (Kuno Reference Kuno1978a, Reference Kuno1987; Kuno and Kaburaki Reference Kuno and Kaburaki1977); I then show that the empathy phenomena involving jibun can be better accounted for by the notion of the speaker’s objective self, which has both the “self as other” aspect and the “other as self” aspect.
3.1 Kuno’s Empathy Theory
According to Kuno, empathy is the “camera angle” that the speaker takes to observe and describe a situation; more precisely, it is defined as “the speaker’s identification, which may vary in degree, with a person/thing that participates in the event or state that he describes in a sentence” (Kuno Reference Kuno1987: 206). To illustrate, let us take as examples empathy phenomena observed in the use of (informal) verbs of giving in Japanese, yaru versus kureru.
(34)
Tarō ga Hanako ni okane o yat-ta. nom dat money acc give-pst ‘Taro gave money to Hanako.’
(35)
Tarō ga Hanako ni okane o kure-ta. nom dat money acc give-pst ‘Taro gave money to Hanako.’
Although these sentences would be translated into English in the same way, they are different with respect to the point of view of the speaker describing the situation in question (or, with whom the speaker is empathizing in describing the situation). In (34) the speaker is taking Taro’s point of view, while in (35) he/she is taking Hanako’s point of view. That is, when yaru is used, the speaker must empathize with the giver (subject) rather than the beneficiary (dative); when kureru is used, the speaker must empathize with the beneficiary rather than with the giver. In Kuno’s theory this contrast is generally accounted for by assuming that yaru and kureru are subject to opposite conditions which are stated in terms of empathy hierarchy. Thus, yaru requires that the giver be placed higher than the beneficiary (giver > beneficiary), whereas kureru requires that the beneficiary be placed higher than the giver (beneficiary > giver).
Note in this connection that the giving verbs also mean “doing someone a favor” when they are immediately preceded by the (non-finite) te-form of another verb.
(36)
Tarō ga Hanako ni yubiwa o katte {yatta/kureta}. nom dat ring acc buying {gave/gave} Lit. ‘Taro gave (the favor of) buying a ring to Hanako.’ ‘Taro bought Hanako a ring.’
In this case, too, the speaker’s empathy must be with the giver, Taro, in the yatta-sentence and with the beneficiary, Hanako, in the kureta-sentence.
One interesting part of Kuno’s theory is that just as we cannot see a scene from two or more different angles at the same time, so we cannot have more than one empathy focus in a single sentence; more precisely, “a single sentence cannot contain logical conflicts in empathy relationships” (Kuno Reference Kuno1987: 207). Bearing this in mind, let us look at the following examples with the first person pronominal boku ‘I (male)’ as subject or dative.
(37)
Boku ga Tarō ni tokei o katte {yatta/*kureta}. I nom dat watch acc buying {gave/gave} ‘I bought Taro a watch.’
(38)
Hanako ga boku ni tokei o katte {*yatta/kureta}. nom me dat watch acc buying {gave/gave} ‘Hanako bought me a watch.’
When boku appears as subject, as in (37), the giving verb must be yaru; by contrast, it must be kureru when boku appears as dative, as in (38). This is because another constraint is operative there to the effect that the speaker must place him/herself higher than others in the empathy hierarchy (speaker > others), a constraint called the Speech Act Empathy Hierarchy: “The speaker cannot empathize with someone else more than with himself” (Kuno Reference Kuno1987: 212). For instance, the choice of yatta in (37) and that of kureta in (38) place the speaker higher than Taro and Hanako, which is consistent with the Speech Act Empathy Hierarchy. On the other hand, the choice of kureta in (37) and that of yatta in (38) place Taro and Hanako higher than the speaker, but this is a violation of the Speech Act Empathy Hierarchy. Hence the unacceptability of kureta in (37) and yatta in (38).
By the same token, Kuno characterizes the reflexive jibun as an empathy expression on the basis of examples like (39).
(39)
Hanakoi wa Tarō ga jibuni ni katte {kureta/*yatta} yubiwa o top nom self dat buying {gave/gave} ring acc nakushita. lost ‘Hanako lost the ring that Taro bought her.’
Here jibun is coreferential with the matrix subject Hanako, and appears in the same relative clause as kureta and yatta. While kureta is acceptable, yatta is not. Kuno accounts for this contrast by assuming in general that jibun is subject to the following “empathy constraint” (first proposed in Kuno and Kaburaki (Reference Kuno and Kaburaki1977: 636)): the speaker must empathize with the referent of jibun rather than other referents in the same clause. Given this constraint, jibun in (39) requires that the speaker empathize with its referent Hanako. But the verb yatta marks Taro (giver), not Hanako (beneficiary), as the target of empathy; hence its use results in a conflict of empathy foci. On the other hand, there is no contradiction between the empathy relationships required by kureta and jibun. I mention in passing that if jibun in (39) is replaced with the pronominal kanojo ‘she,’ both kureta and yatta are allowed; this is because third person pronominals like kare/kanojo ‘he/she’ are neutral with respect to the speaker’s empathy.
3.2 Between the Speaker and Others
With Kuno’s empathy theory in mind, let us come back to our hypothesis that viewpoint jibun represents the objective self of the speaker projected onto a situational subject. It is important to note that the objective self designated by jibun has intermediate characteristics between the speaker and others because from the perspective of the speaker it is placed on a level with others, but is nevertheless closer to the speaker.
We can then postulate a general empathy principle like (40) concerning a ranking of participants in a situation (cf. Hirose Reference Hirose2002).
(40) Participant Empathy Hierarchy (tentative)
When the speaker describes a situation, the participant to empathize with follows the hierarchy: speaker > objective self > others.
What this means is that if the speaker is a participant in the situation being described, he/she must empathize with him/herself more than any other participant; if not, he/she must empathize with the objective self (designated by jibun) more than any other participant. One advantage of this principle is that it unifies Kuno’s Speech Act Empathy Hierarchy and empathy constraint on jibun in that it includes both the ranking of the speaker over others and the ranking of the objective self (designated by jibun) over others.
Another advantage of the Participant Empathy Hierarchy is that it can account for the acceptability contrast between kureta and yatta in sentences like (41), which poses a problem for Kuno’s theory.
(41)
Akioi wa jibuni ga boku ni kashite {kureta/*yatta} hon o top self nom me dat lending {gave/gave} book acc nani yorimo taisetsuni-shiteita. anything more.than treasured ‘Akio treasured the book he lent me more than anything else.’
While yatta is completely unacceptable, kureta is quite acceptable. What is interesting about (41) is that jibun, which refers to Akio, occurs in the same relative clause as boku, which refers to the speaker. In Kuno’s analysis, the Speech Act Empathy Hierarchy marks “boku” (the speaker) as the target of empathy, while the empathy constraint on jibun marks its referent (Akio) as the target; if so, there should arise a conflict of empathy foci. That is, Kuno’s analysis incorrectly predicts that (41) should be unacceptable irrespective of kureta or yatta.Footnote 7 In the present analysis, on the other hand, the Participant Empathy Hierarchy requires that the speaker empathize with him/herself more than the objective self designated by jibun. This means that the relative-clause situation of (41) must be described from the viewpoint of the beneficiary (“boku”) rather than the giver (Akio), which is compatible with the empathy requirement of kureta, but not with that of yatta. Thus, examples like (41) provide empirical evidence that Kuno’s two principles should be integrated into the Participant Empathy Hierarchy.
3.3 Empathy and Deconstruction of the Speaker
We have just seen that in the Participant Empathy Hierarchy the pronominal boku, which refers to the speaker, is higher than jibun, which refers to the objective self. However, this ranking of boku and jibun appears to be reversed in indirect discourse, as suggested by such sentences as (42).
(42)
Haruo wa jibun ga boku ni okane o kashite {yatta/*kureta} top self nom me dat money acc lending {gave/gave} to itteiru. quot say ‘Haruo says that he lent me money.’
Here jibun refers to Haruo, while boku refers to the speaker as reporter. The unacceptability of kureta in contrast to the acceptability of yatta means that in indirect discourse, jibun must be placed higher than boku in the relevant empathy hierarchy.
This kind of phenomenon was first observed by Kuno (Reference Kuno1978a), who attempts to account for it in terms of the Direct Discourse Analysis, mentioned in Section 2; according to this analysis, jibun as it appears in indirect discourse (i.e. logophoric jibun) is derived from a first person pronominal like boku or watashi as used in direct discourse. Thus, (42) can be given a direct-discourse representation like (43), where boku refers to Haruo and Akio is assumed to refer to the speaker of (42).
(43)
Haruo: Boku ga Akio ni okane o kashite {yatta/*kureta}. I nom dat money acc lending {gave/gave} ‘I lent Akio money.’
This sentence is subject to the Speech Act Empathy Hierarchy, making “boku” (Haruo) the target of empathy. Since the acceptability judgment of (43) is exactly the same as that of (42), Kuno claims that it is at the level of direct-discourse representation that his empathy principles apply.
But the question remains of why boku should not be subject to the Speech Act Empathy Hierarchy when it appears in indirect discourse, as in (42); after all, if jibun in indirect discourse represents a speaker, so does boku in indirect discourse.
Our framework, on the other hand, allows us to account for such examples as (42) without recourse to the Direct Discourse Analysis. Recall from Section 2.2 that the speaker has two different aspects, public and private self, and that the reported speaker involved in indirect discourse is a private self, expressed in Japanese as jibun, whereas the reporting speaker is a public self, expressed as, say, boku or watashi. In this light, what (42) shows is that when a private and a public self compete with respect to empathy, the private self is given priority over the public self. In order to account for such examples, therefore, we have only to revise the Participant Empathy Hierarchy (40) in such a way that the notion of speaker is deconstructed into private and public self (Hirose Reference Hirose2002):
(44) Participant Empathy Hierarchy
When the speaker describes a situation, the participant to empathize with follows the hierarchy: private self > public self > objective self > others.
Given this revised version, we can say that the reason why logophoric jibun is higher than boku in the empathy hierarchy whereas viewpoint jibun is not is because the former represents the private self, whereas the latter represents the objective self. That is, the Participant Empathy Hierarchy (44) not only dispenses with the Direct Discourse Analysis, but also enables us to give a unified account of empathy phenomena concerning the logophoric and viewpoint uses of jibun.
3.4 The Duality of the Speaker’s Objective Self
Kuno points out the unacceptability of jibun in sentences like (45) where it refers to a dead person (cf. Kuno Reference Kuno1972a).
(45)
*Akioi wa, jibuni ga shinda toki, issen mo motte inakatta. top self nom died when penny even having was.not ‘Akio didn’t have a penny when he died.’
In his empathy analysis, Kuno (Reference Kuno1987: 256) accounts for this fact by proposing what he calls the Aliveness Requirement: “It is possible to describe an action or state with the camera angle only of a living person. (In other words, it is not possible to empathize with a dead person.)” In this connection, Whitman (Reference Whitman, Kamio and Takami1999) observes that the Aliveness Requirement applies also to the viewpoint use of picture noun reflexives in English, as witnessed by the contrast between (46a) and (46b).
a. The wind opened the album. Mary looked up from the floor. There on the first page was a picture of herself.
b. #The wind opened the album. Mary lay dead on the floor. There on the first page was a picture of herself.
As pointed out in Hirose (Reference Hirose2002), however, it is not necessarily correct to say that jibun cannot refer to a dead person. For example, if Akio in (45) is replaced with the first person pronominal boku, we get the following sentence, which sounds quite acceptable.
(47)
Bokui wa, jibuni ga shinda toki, issen mo motte inakatta. I top self nom died when penny even having was.not ‘I didn’t have a penny when I died.’
Here jibun refers to the speaker, who is depicted as dead in the real world like Akio in (45). Of course, we are assuming that this “dead” speaker is alive in a fictitious world. But what matters to the Aliveness Requirement is not whether the speaker as locutionary agent is alive but whether the one talked about is dead, and this applies not only to (45) but to (47), where the speaker is talking about his dead counterpart in the real world. Thus, the Aliveness Requirement does not account for the acceptability difference between third person cases like (45) and first person cases like (47). Interestingly, a similar contrast is found with viewpoint uses of English reflexives: compare the third person discourse in (46b) with the following first person discourse, which is acceptable.
(48) The wind opened the album. I lay dead on the floor. There on the first page was a picture of myself.
What we need, therefore, is a more general principle or principles about the nature of viewpoint phenomena.
Recall here that the objective self designated by viewpoint jibun is the self that the speaker dissociates from his/her consciousness and projects onto another person. If so, it can be said to have both the “self as other” aspect and the “other as self” aspect. This duality leads to the following two principles, which are essential to objective-self projection by the speaker.
(49) Principle of self-dissociation
In order to dissociate themselves from their consciousness, speakers must get far enough away from themselves.
(50) Principle of self-association
In order to associate themselves with another person, speakers must get close enough to that person.
These two principles are motivated by our everyday experience that in order to see ourselves well, we need to keep ourselves at a distance, whereas in order to see others well, we need to get close to them.
With these principles in mind, let us now consider the acceptability contrast between (45) and (47). We will begin with the first person case of (47). Suppose, for the sake of argument, that there is a world after death, apart from the real world. It is then guaranteed by the principle of self-dissociation that the speaker in the world after death can observe him/herself in the real world, because he/she is far enough away from the objective self in the real world. That is why the speaker can talk about his/her dead counterpart in the real world, as in (47).
On the other hand, it follows from the principle of self-association that the speaker living in the real world cannot project his/her objective self onto a dead person, because the world after death is so far away from the real world that he/she cannot get close enough to that person. That is why the third person sentence (45) is unacceptable.
When we judge sentences like (45) to be unacceptable, we are tacitly assuming that the speaker is alive and talking in the real world. But if the speaker is a “dead” person who is talking about another dead person, or if the speaker is an omniscient narrator in a novel, then he/she can get close enough to the dead person, in which case the principle of self-association should be satisfiable. This is corroborated by the acceptability of the following sentence.
(51)
Akioi wa, jibuni ga shinde tengoku ni kuru toki, issen mo top self nom dying heaven loc come when penny even motte inakatta. having was.not ‘Akio didn’t have a penny when he died and came to heaven.’
As we can see from the use of the deictic verb kuru ‘come,’ the speaker of this sentence is in heaven, and is projecting his/her objective self onto the Akio who died and came to heaven. Unsurprisingly, the same also applies to viewpoint uses of English reflexives, as in (52).
(52) John died and came to heaven the other day. When he got to the entrance, he was surprised. There on the wall was a large picture of himself.
It is clear that the Aliveness Requirement is not adequate to capture the asymmetry in viewpoint between first person and third person cases, which is attributed to the duality of the speaker’s objective self, that is, the “self as other” and “other as self” aspects.
Before concluding this section, it is worth noting that, as discussed in Hirose (Reference Hirose2002), the notion of viewpoint is divided into two kinds, personal and situational: the former is the viewpoint from which to see persons (including oneself); the latter is the viewpoint from which to describe a situation. The principles of self-dissociation and self-association are concerned with personal viewpoint, the way speakers see themselves and others. On the other hand, the Participant Empathy Hierarchy, given in (44), is a general principle of situational viewpoint, dealing with which participant’s viewpoint speakers take in describing the situation in question. The fact that the two different kinds of viewpoint are involved in the viewpoint use of jibun makes its behavior complicated.
4 The Reflexive Use
We now proceed to discuss the reflexive use of jibun, which serves to mark the reflexivity of one’s action. Reflexive jibun must appear as the object of a predicate whose subject is its antecedent, as exemplified by (53).
(53)
Masao wa jibun o {semeta/hometa}. top self acc {blamed/praised} ‘Masao {blamed/praised} himself.’
In this section, we will see that the reflexive use is related to the viewpoint use in that it involves the process of objectification of self; that is, just as viewpoint jibun represents “the self that the speaker dissociates from his/her consciousness and projects onto another person,” so reflexive jibun represents “the self that the agent of an action dissociates from his/her consciousness and treats like another person.”
4.1 The “Subject–Self” Metaphor and the Objective Self
To begin with, notice that while the reflexive use is the primary function of English reflexive pronouns, it is just a derivative function for jibun (cf. Uehara Reference Uehara, Casad and Palmer2003). The derivativeness of reflexive jibun is reflected in the fact that when jibun can be interpreted either logophorically or reflexively, as in (54), the logophoric interpretation (i.e. coreference with Masao) is preferred to the reflexive interpretation (i.e. coreference with Ken) without further contextual information.Footnote 8
(54)
Masaoi wa Kenj ga jibuni/j o semeta to omotteiru. top nom self acc blamed quot think ‘Masaoi thinks that Kenj blamed {himi/himselfj}.’
The derivative nature of the reflexive use also manifests itself in the fact that English reflexives cannot always be translated as jibun. Thus, for example, physical actions such as hitting oneself and kicking oneself and psychological processes such as troubling oneself and bracing oneself cannot be naturally expressed in Japanese with jibun, as shown in the (b) examples of (55–57).
a. Ken {hit/kicked} himself.
b.
??Ken wa jibun o {nagutta/tataita/ketta}. top self acc {struck/hit/kicked}
a. Don’t trouble yourself about that man.
b.
??Anna otoko no koto-de jibun o nayamaseru na. that man gen about self acc trouble neg.imp
a. Ken braced himself.
b.
??Ken wa jibun o hikishimeta. top self acc braced
The following questions immediately arise. First, how is reflexive marking by jibun in Japanese different from that by English -self forms? Second, why is it that jibun can be used with non-physical action verbs like those in (53), but not with physical and non-physical action verbs like those in (55–57)?
As argued in Hirose (Reference Hirose2014), these questions can be answered by invoking what Lakoff calls the Subject–Self metaphor, according to which a person is divided into a Subject and one or more Selves (Lakoff Reference Lakoff, Fauconnier and Sweetser1996; Lakoff and Johnson Reference Lakoff and Johnson1999). The Subject is defined as the locus of consciousness, and the Self as the rest of the person, including the body, social roles, memories, past actions, and so on.Footnote 9 In this metaphorical model, the Subject is normally assumed to be inside the Self, in which case the Self physically corresponds to the body and psychologically to the mind; that is, one’s consciousness is normally in one’s body and mind. Now compare Lakoff’s notion of Self with what I call the objective self. The Self in Lakoff’s sense can refer to an objective aspect of a person,Footnote 10 whether it is located with or separated from the Subject. On the other hand, the objective self refers exclusively to that objective aspect of a person that is separated from the Subject and placed on a level with others.
Given this, the Subject–Self distinction can be largely divided into two conceptual models (Hirose Reference Hirose2014). One is the Subject-in-Self model, in which the Subject is located in the Self as a physical or psychological container, that is, the body or mind; the Self here is called the container self. The type of reflexive event depicted by this model is one in which the agent as Subject acts on his/her body or mind. The other conceptual model is the Self-as-Other model, in which the Self is separated from the Subject and placed on a level with others; the Self here is exactly what I call the objective self. This model covers those reflexive events in which the agent as Subject acts on his/her Self as if it were someone else. When we say the reflexive use of jibun represents the objective self of an agent, that means it agrees with the Self-as-Other model, but not with the Subject-in-Self model.
Let us now return to the examples in (55–57) and consider why jibun is unacceptable there. Beginning with (55), we note that when one hits or kicks oneself, one’s Subject is usually considered to be inside one’s Self, that is, one’s body. This situation matches the Subject-in-Self model, but not the Self-as-Other model; thus the Self in this case cannot be expressed by jibun. The same explanation applies to sentences such as (58) and (59).
a. Ken washed himself.
b.
*Ken wa jibun o aratta. top self acc washed
a. Ken stretched himself out on the bed.
b.
*Ken wa beddo no ue-de jibun o nobashita. top bed gen on self acc stretched.out
As discussed by Haiman (Reference Haiman1983) and Kemmer (Reference Kemmer1993), in body actions like washing oneself and stretching oneself out, the agent and the object acted on are viewed as conceptually inseparable. This is because, in terms of the Subject–Self metaphor, when these actions are carried out, one’s Subject is normally taken to be inside one’s Self. Hence the unacceptability of (58b) and (59b).Footnote 11 Similarly, in psychological processes such as troubling oneself and bracing oneself, one’s Subject can be said to be inside one’s Self in the sense that in these cases one’s consciousness is usually in one’s mind. This does not fit in with the Self-as-Other model, so jibun is not allowed in (56) and (57). In Japanese, the container self is generally denoted by words for body or body parts or words related to mind, as illustrated by the following examples.
a.
Ken wa karada o aratta. top body acc washed Lit. ‘Ken washed body.’ b.
Ken wa beddo no ue-de karada o nobashita. top bed gen on body acc stretched.out Lit. ‘Ken stretched body out on the bed.’
a.
Anna otoko no koto-de {atama/kokoro} o nayamaseru na. that man gen about {head/mind} acc trouble neg.imp Lit. ‘Don’t trouble {head/mind} about that man.’ b.
Ken wa {kimochi/ki} o hikishimeta. top {feelings/spirits} acc braced Lit. ‘Ken braced {feelings/spirits}.’
On the other hand, in non-physical domains involving mental abilities such as perception, memory, imagination, and cognition, we can get outside ourselves and look at ourselves as if we were someone else; namely, the Subject can easily detach the Self and put it on a level with others. This is the kind of situation depicted by the Self-as-Other model, and the Self in question is precisely the objective self. The objective self is no longer a physical or psychological container for the Subject, but corresponds to abstract entities such as a mental image of oneself, social roles, memories, beliefs, past actions, values, day-to-day behavior, and so on, which the Subject can treat as external objects. Thus, when one blames or praises oneself, one’s Self is construed to be separated from one’s Subject and placed on a level with others. This is why jibun can be used reflexively in examples like (53). By the same token, jibun is acceptable in the following sentences, which all describe “self-conscious” actions in which we treat ourselves as if we were someone else.
(62)
Masao wa jibun o top self acc {keibetsushita/osaeta/hagemashita/sonchōshita/nagusameta}. {despised/suppressed/encouraged/respected/comforted} ‘Masao {despised/suppressed/encouraged/respected/comforted} himself.’
Unlike jibun in Japanese, English -self forms can represent both the container self and the objective self. This is because they are general terms for objective aspects of a person, so it does not matter to them whether the Self is located with or separated from the Subject.
4.2 The Double-Jibun Reflexive Construction
It is interesting here to compare the unacceptable sentences in (55b) with the acceptable ones in (63), which have the additional phrase jibun de ‘by self.’
(63)
Ken wa jibun de jibun o {nagutta/tataita/ketta}. top self by self acc {struck/hit/kicked} ‘Ken {hit/kicked} himself by himself.’
As observed by McCawley (Reference McCawley1972) and Aikawa (Reference Aikawa1998), verbs of hitting and kicking do not allow jibun as such, but do allow it when it co-occurs with jibun de, as in (63). We will see below that this jibun de jibun construction – call it the double-jibun reflexive construction – serves to reinforce the Self-as-Other model.
Generally, jibun de means “by one’s own agency” and implies “without the help of others,” as illustrated by an example like (64a). Its function is to emphasize the agent’s independence and separation from others, so it may be referred to as an “emphatic agentive marker.” When jibun de highlights the agent’s separation from others, it also has a meaning close to “alone,” which itself is expressed in Japanese by hitori de, as in (64b). Interestingly, by oneself in English has both senses of jibun de and hitori de, as shown in (65).
a.
Ken wa jibun de kita. top self by came Lit. ‘Ken came by self (= by his own agency, without the help of others).’ b.
Ken wa hitori de kita. top one.person by came ‘Ken came alone.’
Now, what happens when jibun de occurs with reflexive jibun? To answer this question, we need to consider again the Self-as-Other model. A moment’s reflection reveals that jibun de, when applied to this model, emphasizes the Subject’s separation from the Self, which is placed on an equality with others. Thus, the double-jibun reflexive construction creates more distance between Subject and Self than the unmarked, single-jibun reflexive construction; in this sense, it serves to reinforce the Self-as-Other model.
By employing the double-jibun reflexive construction, we can construe actions normally incompatible with the Self-as-Other model in such a way that they agree with the model; this is possible, of course, due to the above-mentioned function of jibun de. Thus, sentences like (63) evoke images in which one hits or kicks oneself as if one were someone else. Similarly, the unacceptable examples in (56b) and (57b) become acceptable when jibun-de is added, as in (66).Footnote 12
a.
Anna otoko no koto-de jibun de jibun o nayamaseru na. that man gen about self by self acc trouble neg.imp ‘Don’t trouble yourself by yourself about that man.’ b.
Ken wa jibun de jibun o hikishimeta. top self by self acc braced ‘Ken braced himself by himself.’
When we trouble ourselves or when we brace ourselves, we are not normally viewing ourselves as if we were someone else, which means that the Self is co-located with the Subject. In this case, as can be seen from the oddity of (56b) and (57b), jibun is not appropriate to use to describe the situation, since it represents the “self as other.” But on the other hand, it is also possible in some cases to treat ourselves as another (even if unconsciously) in troubling ourselves or bracing ourselves. This situation can be described by using the double-jibun reflexive construction, where jibun de serves to distance the Self from the Subject, thereby placing it on a level with others. Thus, (66a) and (66b) imply, respectively, “Don’t trouble yourself as if you were troubling someone else” and “Ken braced himself as if he were bracing someone else.” Generally in these cases, as compared with cases of Subject-in-Self such as (61a) and (61b), one’s worry or one’s feelings are much harder to control, just as it is harder to control others.
In contrast to (63) and (66), double-jibun reflexive sentences like the following are odd.
a.
??Ken wa jibun de jibun o aratta. top self by self acc washed ‘Ken washed himself by himself.’ b.
*Ken wa beddo no ue-de jibun de jibun o nobashita. top bed gen on self by self acc stretched.out ‘Ken stretched himself out by himself on the bed.’
This is because it is rather difficult to conceive of a situation in which one washes oneself as if one were washing someone else, or stretches oneself as if one were stretching someone else.
To recapitulate, the double-jibun reflexive construction is an emphatic version of the single-jibun reflexive construction, reinforcing the Self-as-Other model.Footnote 13
5 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued from a cognitive semantic perspective that jibun has three distinct but related uses – logophoric, viewpoint, and reflexive – which encode different selves. The logophoric use is the most basic of the three and represents the private self, that is, the speaker as the subject of thinking or consciousness, distinguished from the public self as the subject of communicating. The logophoric use semantically extends to the viewpoint use through the cognitive processes of objectification of self and its projection onto another. As a result, viewpoint jibun represents the speaker’s objective self, that is, the self that the speaker dissociates from his/her consciousness and projects onto another person. The speaker’s objective self has both the “self as other” aspect and the “other as self” aspect, and this duality is the very essence of viewpoint jibun. The reflexive use emerges when objectification of self applies not to the speaker but to the agent of an action. Thus reflexive jibun represents the agent’s objective self, that is, the self that the agent dissociates from his/her consciousness and treats like another person. This is why reflexive constructions with jibun are semantically constrained by the conceptual model of “self as other.”
It has been noted in typological studies that reflexives in many languages can be used not only as reflexive markers but also as viewpoint and/or logophoric expressions (see, among others, Culy Reference Culy1997; Huang Reference Huang2000; Oshima Reference Oshima2007). Japanese jibun is one such typical example. I therefore hope that this chapter not only advances our understanding of the polysemous nature of jibun, but also contributes from a cognitive semantic perspective to typological research into how logophoricity, viewpoint, and reflexivity are distinct but related to one another. In particular, it remains to be investigated whether reflexives in other languages that are polysemous like jibun have the same directionality of semantic extension, and if so, whether the same cognitive processes are involved there.
1 Introduction
Japanese is known for its structural flexibility, best exemplified by flexible word order, in spite of the canonical ordering of SOV, and by a high degree of extractability in complex sentences. Yet this does not mean that these syntactic phenomena are unconstrained. This chapter examines both flexibility and constraints and surveys functional approaches to word order variations involving pre-predicative and post-predicative (postposed) elements, and extends the discussion to constraints on relativization, topicalization, and wh-question formation.
Constraints can be observed at different levels. Some are observable in terms of whether a given sentence or phrase is grammatical or acceptable for speakers. Extraction constraints discussed in this chapter are typically of this type, as the acceptability can be evaluated relatively easily even when given without a particular context. Other constraints are better described as discourse preferences. A sentence may be grammatical or acceptable when it is given by itself; however, it may not be preferred or it may even be unacceptable in particular contexts. These constraints may be observable in a minimal discourse, such as question–answer pairs. However, such constraints are often operative only when they are examined in extended discourse. Word order variations in Japanese span this type of constraint when acceptable variations are differentiated in discourse and certain word orders are preferred in a given context.
Within generative grammar, constraints on word ordering and extraction are described by the theory of movement such that movement is disallowed under certain conditions. In functional approaches, on the other hand, these phenomena are related to the focus structure of sentences. The distribution of information in sentences such as pragmatic presupposition and assertion (Lambrecht Reference Lambrecht1994: 52) is closely connected with constraints on these phenomena, and, in particular, the placement of focus, which is the asserted part of the sentence, affects acceptability in word ordering and extraction. Furthermore, unlike languages such as English, Japanese allows extraction in a broad range of complex sentences, and the range of extractability correlates with flexible placement of focus in such sentences. At the same time, construction-specific functional properties are essential for proper description of extractability. Topicalization, for example, must hold a topic–comment relationship such that the sentence represents a comment about the topic.
The functional characterization as described above is essentially related to the way language is used in discourse because the focus structure of a sentence is based on context. Assuming that a sentence serves a communicative purpose in a given discourse, the assertion part of the sentence plays an important role in the purpose because it represents important information “which the hearer is expected to know or believe or take for granted as a result of hearing the sentence uttered” (Lambrecht Reference Lambrecht1994: 52). With the above premise in mind, the first half of this chapter discusses constraints on non-canonical word order, followed by discussions on extraction constraints in complex sentences.
2 Non-canonical Word Ordering
Japanese is canonically verb-final, and SOV is the unmarked order for a transitive sentence. It is in this basic order that a native speaker would find a sentence most natural without particular contexts. However, non-canonical word ordering is possible. This section presents descriptions of word order variations known as scrambling (Saito Reference Saito1985) and right dislocation (Tanaka Reference Tanaka2001).
2.1 Pre-predicative Ordering
With respect to scrambling, which involves pre-predicative word ordering, Japanese exhibits considerable flexibility. Shibatani (Reference Shibatani1990: 260) gives the range of variations for a ditransitive sentence as shown in (1).
a.
Tarō ga Hanako ni sono hon o yatta. (basic order) nom to that book acc gave ‘Taro gave the book to Hanako.’ b.
Hanako ni Tarō ga sono hon o yatta. (fronting of the indirect object) c.
Sono hon o Tarō ga Hanako ni yatta. (fronting of the direct object) d.
?Hanako ni sono hon o Tarō ga yatta. (fronting of both indirect and direct object) e.
?Sono hon o Hanako ni Tarō ga yatta. (fronting of both indirect and direct object) f.
Tarō ga sono hon o Hanako ni yatta. (fronting of the direct object)
Shibatani suggests that the awkwardness in examples (1d–e) is caused by more than one constituent being fronted. It should be noted that, while they may be awkward if given by themselves, these sentences are not ungrammatical and acceptability improves in appropriate contexts. In other words, non-canonical orderings are possible but restricted in the sense that they require specialized contexts.Footnote 1
2.1.1 Non-canonical Word Order and Flow of Information
In general, pre-predicative non-canonical ordering in Japanese observes the principle that given information precedes new information (Kuno Reference Kuno1978a: 54). The principle is given in (2).
(2)
Elements in a sentence that does not contain emphatic stress or morphologically marked focus elements are ordinarily arranged in the order “less important information first and more important information last.”
(Kuno Reference Kuno, Mazuka and Nagai1995: 222)Footnote 2
Since Japanese is a verb-final language, this principle implies that most important or focal information appears in the position immediately preceding the verb. This is demonstrated by the examples in (3–4), assuming that no intonational prominence is placed on any phrase of the question.
a:
Jirō wa Hanako to Bosuton ni itta? top with to went ‘Did Jiro go to Boston with Hanako?’ b:
Un, Bosuton ni itta yo. yeah to went sfp ‘Yeah, (he) went to Boston.’ b′:
*Un, Hanako to itta yo. yeah with went sfp ‘Yeah, (he) went with Hanako.’ (Kuno Reference Kuno1978a: 52)
a:
Jirō wa Bosuton ni Hanako to itta? top to with went ‘Did Jiro go to Boston with Hanako?’ b:
*Un, Bosuton ni itta yo. yeah to went sfp ‘Yeah, (he) went to Boston.’ b′:
Un, Hanako to itta yo. yeah with went sfp ‘Yeah, (he) went with Hanako.’ (Takami Reference Takami1995: 222)
The difference in acceptability between the two answers in (3–4) relates to what information is meant to be focal in the question, that is, important for questioning. The unacceptable answer in (3b′) suggests that in (3a) Bosuton ni ‘to Boston,’ which is in the immediately pre-verbal position, represents the focus of the question. On the other hand, the unacceptability of (4b) suggests that Hanako to ‘with Hanako’ in the question is meant to be more important, that is, the focus.
In addition, the examples above suggest a basic principle with respect to omission, given in (5).
(5)
Pecking order of reduction principle
Reduce less important information first, and more important information last.
(Kuno Reference Kuno, Mazuka and Nagai1995: 219)
Example (3b) is acceptable despite the omission of Hanako to and (4b′) is acceptable despite the omission of Bosuton ni because these are not the foci of the questions. In contrast, the unacceptability of (3b′) and (4b) results from reduction of more important information instead of less important information. Also, (3–4) show that importance of information correlates with word ordering.
Given the discussions above, it is important to consider the difference between canonical and non-canonical ordering with respect to the functional characterization. In (3–4), although both (3b′) and (4b) are marked as unacceptable by the respective authors, (3b′) is more acceptable, at least for some speakers. In other words, for (3a) even without intonational prominence, it is easier to interpret Hanako to than Bosuton ni as the focus for (4a). Essentially, this contrast relates to the difference between the canonical word order in (3) and the non-canonical order in (4). Consider examples in (6–7) from Kuno (Reference Kuno, Mazuka and Nagai1995: 224–225). Both are meant to carry no intonational prominence.
a:
Tarō wa yoru Naomi ni denwasuru. top night to call ‘Taro calls up Naomi at night.’ b:
?Ken wa asa denwasuru. top morning call ‘Ken calls up (Naomi) in the morning.’
a:
Tarō wa Naomi ni yoru denwasuru. top to night call ‘Taro calls up Naomi at night.’ b:
*Ken wa Erika ni denwasuru. top to call ‘Ken calls up Erika (at night).’
Kuno indicates that (6b) is noticeably more acceptable than (7b) despite the omission of the entity which corresponds to the immediate pre-verbal element in (a) in both cases, and this contrast is due to the canonical word order in (6a). In (6a), Naomi ni in the immediately pre-verbal position is in the unmarked (i.e. canonical) position; thus, it is not required to be focal, and (6b) is rendered acceptable if the non-focal reading of (6a) is obtained. In (7a), on the other hand, yoru ‘night’ is in the marked (i.e. non-canonical) position which is immediately pre-verbal and therefore required to be focal. The relevant principle is given in (8):
(8)
Markedness principle for discourse rule violations
Sentences that involve marked (or intentional) violations of discourse principles are unacceptable. On the other hand, sentences that involve unmarked (or unintentional) violations of discourse principles go unpenalized and are acceptable.
(Kuno Reference Kuno, Mazuka and Nagai1995: 211)
The “unmarked violation” is exemplified by (6a). For (6b) to be acceptable, the immediate pre-verbal element Naomi ni in (6a) must be non-focal, which violates the Flow of Information principle in (2). However, this violation is acceptable because (6a) represents the canonical order. In other words, the immediately pre-verbal position is the default position for a focal element in the canonical order and the other positions in the sentence may be focal, as in the case of yoru ‘night’ in (6a). In (7a), on the other hand, yoru ‘night’ is non-canonically in the immediately pre-verbal position; therefore, violation of the Flow of Information Principle is not acceptable, hence the unacceptability of (7b).
The Markedness Principle in (8) also predicts the observation in (1). Perceived unnaturalness in those cases in which two arguments are fronted is expected because those sentences represent greater degree of markedness and therefore require more specialized contexts to meet the flow of the information principle.
2.1.2 Preposing of Argument: OSV
The preceding section gave an overview of pragmatic properties related to non-canonical word order. This section focuses on preposed arguments with particular reference to objects in the OSV order.
It is common in discourse-configurational languages (Kiss Reference Kiss and Kiss1995: 6) that preposed elements of a sentence exhibit pragmatic prominence such as topic or focus. Word order is often restricted by the position of topic or focus, hence, rigid focus structure, as in French, Italian, Sesotho, and Toba Batak (Van Valin Reference Van Valin, Raxilina and Testelec1999: 514). However, as shown in (9), the pragmatically specialized nature of a left-detached element (yesterday) and a preposed element (what) is observed even in English, which is considered to be a language of rigid syntax and flexible focus structure.
(9) Yesterday, what did John give to Mary in the library?
The critical property of the left periphery is that the left edge of a sentence is commonly ambiguous in terms of topic and focus, not only because both topic and focus may be placed in the left periphery of the same sentence, but also because the same phrase may have both topic- and focus-like properties. It is common across languages for a topic to represent a contrastive or switched topic, which has focus-like properties, and for a focus to represent a contrastive or restrictive focus, a specific type of focus that has some topic properties (Erteschik-Shir Reference Erteschik-Shir2007: 48–51). Not all languages require a preposed topic or focus; however, in Japanese, a topicalized argument or adjunct is usually placed in the sentence-initial position, detached from the clause.Footnote 3
Given the cross-linguistic observation outlined above, a question arises with respect to pragmatic properties of preposed (non-topicalized) arguments in Japanese. Such arguments are formally distinguished from topicalization of an object since preposing maintains the case marker, as exemplified by (10):
a.
Tarō ga hon o katta. (basic order) nom book acc bought ‘Taro bought a book.’ b.
Hon o Tarō ga katta. (preposing of the object) c.
Hon wa Tarō ga katta. (topicalization of the object)
Ishii (Reference Ishii2001: 97) shows that a subject wh-question is awkward if the object is preposed as shown in (11b), but if the object is referential with a demonstrative pronoun, as in (11c), the OSV ordering with a subject wh-phrase is noticeably more acceptable. This observation is expected if the object of OSV represents information which is less important for the purpose of the utterance than the wh-phrase, which is the focus of the question.
a.
Dare ga okane o nusunda no? who nom money acc stole int ‘Who stole (some) money?’ b. #Okane o dare ga nusunda no.
c.
Sono okane o dare ga nusunda no? that money acc who nom stole int ‘Who stole that money?’
Ishii’s observation is consistent with Imamura’s (Reference Imamura2014: 229) findings in his analysis of the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese.Footnote 4 Imamura measured referential distance (Givón Reference Givόn and Givón1983: 13–14) for objects in 3,273 cases of O[accusative]-S[nominative] sequence in the corpus and found the following: objects in 2,676 cases (81.8%) represent information given in the preceding discourse, that is, discourse-old information (Prince Reference Prince, Mann and Thompson1992: 303–304). Among those, 2,600 objects (79.4%) are coreferential with entities within ten preceding clauses, and 2,449 objects (74.8%) are coreferential with entities within five preceding clauses. Furthermore, objects in 1,724 cases (52.7%) are coreferential with entities in the immediately preceding clause. Overall, these findings suggest the pragmatic prominence of these objects; preposed (non-topic) objects tend to represent continuing information from the preceding discourse.Footnote 5 This further suggests that preposed (non-topic) objects are functionally similar to a topic because the topic of a sentence normally represents presupposition, not part of assertion, and continuing information typically relates to the presupposition which is relevant to the utterance in question.
2.2 Post-predicative Ordering (Postposing)
While the basic word order in Japanese is verb-final, postposing of an element is allowed in spoken Japanese, particularly in informal speech. In general, post-predicative elements (which are structurally part of the preceding unit) consist of two types: those considered to be a speaker’s afterthought (“pause type”) and those considered to be part of a planned utterance, produced within a single intonation contour, typically without a noticeable pause after the predicate (“no-pause type”). It is reasonable to assume that the pause type is used for confirmation (Kuno Reference Kuno1978a: 68), resolution of ambiguity (Hinds Reference Hinds1982: 197), or a remedy for an incomplete utterance caused by the speaker’s memory or production difficulties (Maynard Reference Maynard1989: 37). In these cases, the speaker realizes during production of the utterance that the hearer may not be able to comprehend the intended message without the added information. K. Matsumoto (Reference Matsumoto1995: 244) reports that given information tends to constitute the final part of an intonation unit (which includes the preceding part of the utterance) and new information is placed in a separate intonation unit.
Our concern here is the planned postposing as it raises a question as to the functions of such postposing. A prevailing view is the principle of “important information first.” Postposing is used to give recoverable or supplementary information (Kuno Reference Kuno1978a: 68), defocus familiar or easily deducible information (Clancy Reference Clancy and Tannen1982: 69), and convey important or urgent information first (Simon Reference Simon1989: 189). It should be noted that this principle of more important information first does not contradict Kuno’s (Reference Kuno, Mazuka and Nagai1995: 222) Flow of Information Principle (more important information last), which was discussed earlier. The former states that less important information is placed after the predicate and the latter states that more important information is placed immediately before the predicate. Therefore, the two principles complement each other and capture the flow of information for a whole sentence including the postposed element.
Given the range of characterizations above, relative importance of information claimed by Takami (Reference Takami1995: 228) best captures the basic property of postposing.
(12) Functional constraints on postposing in Japanese
The elements placed after the main verb are limited to those other than the elements which represent the most important information in the sentence. (translation mine)
First, Takami’s principle predicts the unacceptability of (13b, 14b). The focus of the wh-question dare o cannot be postposed. Likewise, in an answer to the question, the element which represents the focus Tarō o cannot be postposed.
a.
Hanako wa dare o mita no? top who acc saw int ‘Who did Hanako see?’ b. *Hanako wa mita no, dare o?
a.
Tarō o mita yo. acc saw sfp ‘(Hanako) saw Taro.’ b. *Mita yo, Tarō o.
In (15), the postposing is acceptable if the post-predicative element is the topic. The predication is more important than the topic itself for the purpose of the utterance. However, with the nominative marking (i.e. exhaustive listing ga (Kuno Reference Kuno1973: 38) in this case; cf. Chapter 13, this volume), the postposing of the narrow-focus subject is not acceptable.
(15)
Sekaiichi no daitokai da yo, Tōkyō wa/*ga. best.in.the.world gen metropolis cop sfp top/*nom ‘Tokyo is the best metropolis in the world.’ (Kuno Reference Kuno1978a: 70)
In all unacceptable cases above, the information expressed by the post-predicative elements is not recoverable, supplementary, or familiar; thus, the unacceptability is expected. However, as Takami (Reference Takami1995: 231) points out, postposing is often possible with the broad focus, where postposed elements are not recoverable, supplementary, or familiar, hence, encode important information.
a.
Akegata yatto umaremashita, otokonoko ga. dawn finally was.born boy nom ‘A boy was born finally at dawn.’ (p. 219)b.
Watashi itta no, kekkonshitai tte. I said sfp want.to.marry quot ‘I said “(I) want to marry (you)”.’ (p. 232)
Takami’s principle in (12) predicts the acceptable postposing in (16) because it is reasonably assumed in these cases that the pre-verbal elements express more important information than the post-verbal elements. It is natural to interpret that the baby’s long-awaited birth is more important and newsworthy than the baby’s gender, and likewise, the speaker’s action of saying is more important than what was said. Notice that in these cases, information expressed post-verbally is not recoverable, supplementary, or familiar; therefore, the acceptable postposing is not predicted on these terms.Footnote 6
The properties of postposing summarized thus far have empirical support as follows. In Japanese conversation examined by Shimojo (Reference Shimojo2005, Section 3), post-predicative elements were commonly subjects (83 out of 110 cases; 75%) and only eighteen cases (16%) were objects. Because subjects are more likely to represent continuing information than objects (Walker, Cote, and Iida Reference Walker, Cote and Iida1994: 6–7), postposed elements tend to represent more continuing, that is, given, information. Also, for post-predicative elements, the average referential distance was shorter, that is, more recently given, and cataphoric continuity was lower than for overtly expressed pre-predicative elements (pp. 83, 105–114). In addition, in 70% of the cases, there was no post-nominal marking for the post-predicative elements. Wa (topic) and ga (nominative) were used much less frequently (19% and 11%, respectively), and there was no case of o (accusative) (p. 203).
These findings together point to both anaphoric continuity and cataphoric discontinuity of post-predicative elements. In other words, information expressed post-predicatively tends to be accessible by the preceding discourse or possibly in the speech situation (hence in line with the recoverability/familiarity accounts), but simultaneously, tends to be discontinued in the subsequent discourse; that is, the information is relatively unimportant in the given discourse. Furthermore, the co-occurrence with omission of post-nominal marking supports Takami’s principle. In the same conversation data, omission of post-nominal marking itself was associated with cataphoric discontinuity; therefore, the functional compatibility accounts for frequent absence of post-nominal marking for postposed elements (ibid.: Section 6.4).
3 Extraction and Subjacency
Non-canonical word ordering discussed in the preceding sections has commonly been described in the theory of movement in syntactic analyses. Extraction such as wh-question formation is a related phenomenon which has also been discussed in terms of movement.
Since Ross’s (Reference Ross1967) discovery of the so-called island constraints, constraints on extraction as shown in (17) have drawn much attention.
a.
John believes [NP the rumor [S that Mary lost her cell phone]]. *What does John believe [NP the rumor [S that Mary lost __]? (complex NP) b.
John talked to [NP the neighbor [S who bought the house recently]]. *What did John talk to [NP the neighbor [S who bought __ recently]]? (complex NP) c.
John ate a sandwich after [S Mary made an omelet]. *What did [S John eat a sandwich after [S Mary made __]]? (adjunct) d.
[S That John ate the sandwich] was obvious. *What was [S [S that John ate __] obvious]? (subject)
Beginning with Chomsky (Reference Chomsky, Anderson and Kiparski1973: 247), there have been further reformulations of the original proposal and the constraints have been subsumed under the general structural principle of Subjacency given in (18).
(18) Extraction cannot cross more than two bounding nodes (NP, S) in a single movement.
While there has been much theory-internal debate with respect to the status of the subjacency condition (see Yoshimura Reference Yoshimura1992 and references cited therein), there have also been proposals external to the formalist’s theories, such as semantic and pragmatic approaches (Erteschik-Shir Reference Erteschik-Shir1973; Erteschik-Shir and Lappin Reference Erteschik-Shir and Lappin1979; Haig Reference Haig1996; Kuno Reference Kuno1987; Kuno and Takami Reference Kuno and Takami1993; Shimojo Reference Shimojo2002; Van Valin Reference Van Valin and Devriendt1996; Van Valin and LaPolla Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997), cognitive and performance-based proposals (Deane Reference Deane1992; Hofmeister Reference Hofmeister2007; Kluender Reference Kluender1990; Kluender and Kutas Reference Kluender and Kutas1993), and parsing and expectation-based claims (Chaves Reference Chaves2013).
These studies claim that the constraints are sensitive to a range of factors beyond pure structural grounds. While the subjacency account is incompatible with theories that do not posit movement, there are languages without overt movement that display constraints similar or identical to those of subjacency. For example, Lakhota blocks wh-questions formed within a complex NP despite its wh-in-situ characteristics (Van Valin Reference Van Valin and Devriendt1996: 36–37). The movement-based account requires covert movement in wh-in-situ languages (Chomsky Reference Chomsky1986a: 152–155) so that subjacency applies in languages such as Lakhota. Wh-in-situ in Japanese has also been analyzed in terms of covert movement (Lasnik and Saito Reference Lasnik and Saito1984). Unlike Lakhota, on the other hand, Japanese allows a wh-question in complex NPs and subjacency does not apply.Footnote 7
4 Focus-structure-based Approach
For the discussion of functional approaches to extraction constraints, this chapter uses the focus-structure-based principle claimed in Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) (Van Valin and LaPolla Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997; Van Valin Reference Van Valin2005), which is a monostratal theory and does not posit any movement operation.Footnote 8
RRG combines structural and pragmatic grounds to capture both language-internal and cross-linguistic variations in extraction restrictions. The relevant pragmatic property is represented in the focus structure projection of a sentence, which indicates the domain of the sentence that actually represents or may represent the focus or pragmatic assertion (Lambrecht Reference Lambrecht1994: 52). The principle given in (19) states that an extracted element or a wh-phrase in-situ must function within the domain of a sentence which may represent a focus.
(19)
General restriction on extraction constructions
The displaced element (or the in-situ question word in a language like Lakhota) must be linked to an argument position in the semantic representation of a clause within the PFD [potential focus domain] of the IF [illocutionary force] operator.
(Van Valin Reference Van Valin and Devriendt1996: 54)
With respect to focus structure for complex sentences, the cross-linguistic concern is to what extent the focus domain is extended into subordinate clauses. Languages such as Polish restrict the focus domain to matrix clauses only, and in other languages such as English, the focus domain includes certain types of subordinate clauses (Van Valin Reference Van Valin and Devriendt1996: 49). In RRG, language-internal variation in terms of the focus domain is described structurally as in (20).
(20)
The potential focus domain in complex sentences
The potential focus domain extends into a subordinate clause if and only if the subordinate clause is a direct daughter of the clause node which is modified by the illocutionary force operator.
(Van Valin Reference Van Valin2005: 275)
For example, an object complement clause, which is a direct daughter of a clause node, is within the potential focus domain (PFD), where a focal element may appear. In contrast, an adverbial subordinate clause, which is in the periphery to the core, is excluded from the PFD. Figure 18.1 shows the contrast between the two types of subordination with respect to the scope of the PFD, which is represented by the dotted line.
The cross-linguistic and language-internal observations in terms of focus domains correlate with extraction restrictions. First, languages such as Polish, which restrict the focus domain to matrix clauses and prohibit extraction out of tensed subordinate clauses, are the most inflexible type. Languages like English and Lakhota are more flexible, allowing extraction out of a subordinate clause within the PFD. Thus, extraction is possible out of an object complement clause (e.g. Where did John tell Mary that he will arrive __?), but not out of an adverbial subordinate clause (e.g. *Where did John see Mary after he arrived __?). Languages such as Danish, Japanese, and Swedish represent the other extreme of the scale because they allow extraction out of a greater range of subordinate clauses. The scale of cross-linguistic variations is illustrated in (21).
(21)
Range of extractability: Cross-linguistic variations Matrix clause only: Polish Subordinate clauses: direct daughter of clause only: English, Lakhota More subordinate clauses: Danish, Japanese, Swedish
5 Extraction in Japanese
This section employs the focus-structure-based approach outlined above to discuss three types of extraction in complex sentences in Japanese: wh-question formation, relativization, and topicalization. While wh-questions have traditionally been associated with movement, there are varied analyses for topicalization. Hoji (Reference Hoji1985: ch. 3) and Saito (Reference Saito1985: ch. 4) claim that a topic may be base-generated in the topic position (hence, no movement) but there is also topicalization by movement. The base-generation analyses follow Kuno’s (Reference Kuno1973: 254) proposal for base-generated topic constructions. Kuno relates topicalization to relativization, arguing that relative clauses are derived from a deep structure containing a topic sentence by deletion of the coreferential topic.
In the functional analyses, these three types of extraction share the focus-structure-based property as stated in the principle in (19). Topicalization and relativization are discussed together for their relevance to the aboutness condition, and wh-question formation is discussed separately due to the focus property of wh-phrases.
5.1 Possible Extraction in Complex Sentences
First, extraction which is unacceptable in English but possible in Japanese is exemplified by the following:
(22) Wh-question formation in a relative clause
Seifu wa [dare ga sekkeishita] dorōn o kōhyōshimashita ka? government top who nom designed drone acc announced int ‘The government announced the drone who designed?’
(23) Relativization out of a relative clause
[seifu ga [__ sekkeishita] dorōn o kōhyōshita] enjinia government nom designed drone acc announced engineer ‘the engineer who the government announced (s/he) designed the drone’
(24) Topicalization out of a relative clause
Sono enjinia wa [seifu ga [__ sekkeishita] dorōn o that engineer top government nom designed drone acc kōhyōshita] hito da. Announced person cop ‘The engineer is the person who the government announced (s/he) designed the drone.’
Furthermore, the extensive range of possible extraction is exemplified by the following wh-questions formed in different types of subordinate clause: a noun complement, a sentential subject, and an adjunct clause (relativization and topicalization out of these subordinate clauses are also possible; see Shimojo (Reference Shimojo2002: 70–71) for noun complements and sentential subjects).Footnote 9
(25) Wh-question formation in a noun complement
Jon wa [dare ga dorōn o sekkeishita] to iu jōhō o top who nom drone acc designed comp information acc utagatteimasu ka? doubt int ‘John doubts the information that who designed the drone?’
(26) Wh-question formation in a sentential subject
[Dare ga dorōn o sekkeishita koto] ga yosōgai deshita ka? who nom drone acc designed nmlz nom unexpected was int ‘It was unexpected that who designed the drone?’
(27) Wh-question formation in an adjunct clause
[Pātī ni dare ga kita toki] Jon ga deteikimashita ka? party to who nom came when nom left int ‘John left when who came to the party?’.
5.2 Focus Domain in Complex Sentences
The focus-based principle outlined earlier predicts the relationship between the focus domain and a possible extraction site. This prediction is borne out in Japanese because the potential focus domain includes subordinate clauses. This is demonstrated by the following tests.
Only the asserted part of an utterance can be negated. If the constituent can be negated in a conversational exchange, then it is in the potential focus domain. Example (28) shows the negation test applied to a relative clause. The possibility of negation shows that the information expressed by the relative clause may be interpreted as part of the assertion.
(28) The negation test
A: Seifu ga [dorōn o sekkeishita] enjinia o kōhyōshita. government nom drone acc designed engineer acc announced ‘The government announced the engineer who designed the drone.’ B: Iya, misairu da. no missile cop ‘No, a missile.
In English, an adjunct wh-question is ambiguous in a complex sentence in which the PFD extends over the subordinate clause (Van Valin and LaPolla Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997: 626). In (29a), when can be interpreted as modifying either the matrix clause or the object complement. However, ambiguity is not the case with a subordinate clause which is outside a PFD, as in (29b).
a. Wheni/j did Skinner say __i that Krycek would be at the missile silo __j?
b. Wheni/*j did Skully interview the witness __i who saw the alien spacecraft in the silo __j?
In contrast, the corresponding Japanese sentences are both ambiguous as shown in (30), which indicates that both the object complement and the relative clause may be within a PFD.Footnote 10
a.
Itsu Kuroichekku ga kakunōko ni iru to Sukinā ga itta? when nom silo in exist quot nom said ‘Wheni/j did Skinner say __i that Krycek would be at the missile silo __j?’ b.
Itsu kakunōko de uchūsen o mita mokugekisha to when silo in spacecraft acc saw witness with Sukarī ga menkaishita? nom intervewed ‘Wheni/j did Skully interview the witness __i who saw the alien spacecraft in the silo __j?’
On the other hand, the PFD excludes the left-detached position (LDP) and the right-detached position (RDP), which contain a sentence-initial topic and a sentence-final (postposed) topic respectively. The focus domain includes the precore slot (PrCS), which contains a sentence-initial narrow-focus (such as an exhaustive-listing ga phrase), and the postcore slot (PoCS), which contains a postposed focus. (Examples of postposed topic and focus were given earlier in (15) and (16), respectively.) Figure 18.2 shows the layered structure of the clause with respect to the PFD.
Figure 18.2 Layered structure of the clause and PFD
Japanese uses post-nominal markings that correlate with the information structuring of the sentence. A topic marked with wa is outside the PFD. If a subject is not topicalized, hence within the PFD, it is marked with ga, whether it is a narrow focus (PrCS) or part of a broad focus (referential phrase (RP)). The direct evidence of a detached position being outside of the PFD comes from the observation that a wh-question word cannot be topicalized, as shown in (31).Footnote 11
(31)
Dare ga/*wa sono uchūsen o mimashita ka? who nom/*top that spacecraft acc saw int ‘Who saw the spacecraft?’
Also, as shown in (32), it is slightly more awkward to negate information expressed by an element which is part of the topic than to negate information expressed by non-topic, which was given earlier in (28).Footnote 12
(32)
A: [Dorōn o sekkeishita] sono enjinia wa seifu ni drone acc designed that engineer top government by kōhyōsareta. was.announced ‘The engineer who designed the drone was publicized by the government.’ B: ?Iya, misairu da. no missile cop ‘No, a missile.’
The functional principle given in (19) predicts that an extraction site is not permitted within a topic phrase, which is outside the PFD, and this is shown by (33–35). These topicalized complex NPs are not felicitous when no particular presupposition for the sentence is present (e.g. when the sentence is given out of the blue).
(33)
[Dare ga shuppanshita] hon ga/*wa yoku ureru? who nom published book nom/*top well sell ‘Do books that who published sell well?’
(34)
[[__ shuppanshita] hon ga/*wa yoku ureru] joyū published book nom/*top well sell actress ‘the actress who books that (she) publishes sell well’
(35)
Sono joyū wa [__ shuppanshita] hon ga/*wa yoku ureru. that actress top published book nom/*top well sell ‘The actress, books that (she) publishes sell well.’
However, the extraction in these examples is possible if the topic is intended to be overtly contrastive. In (33), the topicalized books may be contrasted with books published by others. The topicalization in (34–35) may be interpreted as contrastive with other merchandise or other activities of the actress. The required contrast for possible extraction further supports the principle in (19) because contrast inherently contains focus. Erteschik-Shir (Reference Erteschik-Shir2007: 48–51) states that contrast is contextually constrained to occur only if a contrast set is available. Contrast is represented by singling out a subset of a whole and separating it from the remaining subset; therefore, the singled out subset represents a subordinate focus. In RRG terms, a topic which allows an extraction site within cannot be in the detached position outside the PFD; it must be a topicalized focus since it is within the PFD of the sentence.Footnote 13
5.3 Extraction Restrictions in Complex Sentences
5.3.1 Relativization and Topicalization
Despite the high degree of extractability, extraction in Japanese is not free from restrictions. Examples of unacceptable topicalization and relativization are given in (36) and (37), respectively.
(36)
*Sono kuruma wa keisatsu ga [__ nusunda] otoko o taihoshita. that car top police nom stole man acc arrested ‘The car, the police arrested the man who stole (it).’
(37)
*[keisatsu ga [__ nusunda] otoko o taihoshita] kuruma police nom stole man acc arrested car ‘a car which the police arrested the man who stole (it)’
These cases of unacceptable extraction are not predictable by the focus-based principle in (19) since relative clauses in Japanese are within a PFD as discussed earlier. What is relevant here is the aboutness condition, (38):
(38)
Pragmatic-aboutness condition on topicalization and relativization
The sentence fragment following a topical element in the precore slot or a restrictive relative clause must be pragmatically interpretable as being about the precore slot element or the head noun.
(Van Valin and LaPolla Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997: 627)
The constraints are observed when it is difficult to obtain the interpretation that the sentence or the relative clause is about the displaced entity. In other words, when a subordinate element is relativized or topicalized, the intervening matrix clause as well as the subordinate clause (the extraction site) must be relevant to the displaced topic or the relative clause head. This general principle which relates to the notion of relevance is valid for extraction from a NP in English (Kuno Reference Kuno1987: 23).
a. Who did John write a book about?
b. ?Who did John destroy a book about?
c. ?Who did John lose a book about?
Examples (39b–c) show degraded extractability. In these cases, it is difficult to interpret that the sentence is about the displaced element. As Chaves (Reference Chaves2013: 308) puts it, while the action of writing is immediately relevant to the book’s topic, destroying or losing the book is not. In RRG, this aboutness principle relates to the principle of focus domain in (19) because the verbs in (39b–c) are informationally distinctive, not being directly relevant to the book’s topic, and therefore draw the focus to be the actual focus domain, preventing the object NP from being the actual focus (Van Valin Reference Van Valin2005: 288–289).
The aboutness condition is further evidenced by the contrast in (40).
a.
*[keisatsu ga [__ nusunda] otoko o taihoshita] kuruma (cf. (36)) police nom stole man acc arrested car ‘a car which the police arrested the man who stole (it)’ b.
[[__ kiteiru] yōfuku ga yogoreteiru] shinshi wearing clothes nom dirty gentleman ‘a gentleman who the clothes that (he) is wearing are dirty’ (Kuno Reference Kuno1973: 239)
Example (40a) is unacceptable because the car is not immediately relevant to the action of arresting; a car would be directly relevant if it was the cause of the arrest. In (40b), on the other hand, the state of being dirty is immediately relevant to the person, who is in fact dirty. Put differently, “the clothes are dirty” may be taken as a statement about the gentleman, but “the police arrested the man” is not a statement about the car (Kuno Reference Kuno1973: 250). The corresponding topicalization of (40a–b) shows the same contrast in acceptability.
Because Japanese allows so-called gapless relative clauses, in which the head noun is relatable to the relative clause only semantically or pragmatically (Y. Matsumoto Reference Matsumoto1997), the truncation diagnostic in (41) serves as a useful means to see how relatable a head noun is to the matrix clause.
(41)
The truncation test for aboutness
Relativization and topicalization out of embedded clauses are possible if the relative or topic construction is acceptable even without the embedded clause in which the extracted NP functions.
(Shimojo Reference Shimojo2002: 77)
In essence, if the displaced NP is relevant to the matrix clause, the intended relevance should be inferable or at least not contradictory even if the clause containing the extraction site is omitted. The truncated versions of (40a–b) are given in (42a–b).
a.
#[keisatsu ga otoko o taihoshita] kuruma police nom man acc arrested car ‘a car which the police arrested the man (who stole (it))’ b.
[yōfuku ga yogoreteiru] shinshi clothes nom dirty gentleman ‘a gentleman who the clothes (that (he) is wearing) are dirty’
The possible interpretation of the truncated version in (42a) is the stolen car as the cause of the arrest, which is not the intended meaning of the original (cf. 40). On the other hand, the possible reading of (42b) is consistent with the meaning of the original version.
Inoue (Reference Inoue1976) claimed a subject bias in extraction, and N. Hasegawa (Reference Hasegawa1985: 292) proposed as a structural principle that the relativization or topicalization out of a relative clause is allowed if the displaced phrase is the subject of the (lower) relativized clause and the head of the relative clause is the subject of the embedding clause. Although it has since been shown that this is problematic as a principle (see Shimojo Reference Shimojo2002: 74–75 and the references cited therein), the said subject bias, if taken as a tendency, is not so inconsistent with what the pragmatic-aboutness condition predicts. Assuming a subject represents the target of predication, the displaced element functions as (part of) the target of predication if the displaced element is the subject of the embedded relative clause which is in turn the subject of the embedding clause. The example of an acceptable extraction in (40b) represents this structure.
However, it should be noted that the subjecthood does not automatically satisfy the required aboutness because aboutness is also affected by lexical choice. This point is demonstrated by the relativization in (43). While this example represents the optimal structure per N. Hasegawa (Reference Hasegawa1985), the verb choice for the inner relative clause affects the extractability.
(43)
[[__ kaita/*yonda] hon ga eigaka sareta] Jon wrote/*read book nom into.a.movie was.made ‘John who a book which (he) wrote/*read was made into a movie’
Truncation of this example results in [hon ga eigakasareta] Jon. Possible readings of this truncation are John as the author/editor/translator, etc. of the book (as translated as ‘John whose book was made into a movie’), not a mere reader, and this does not include the reading of [[__ *yonda] hon ga eigaka sareta] Jon.
5.3.2 Wh-questions
Unlike relativization and topicalization, wh-questions in complex sentences in Japanese are generally acceptable; yet restrictions have been observed in particular types of relative clauses.
a.
?*[Dare ga Hanako ni kureta] inu ga shindeshimatta? who nom to gave dog nom ended.up.dying ‘The dog that who gave to Hanako died?’ (Haig Reference Haig1979a: 90–91)b.
?*kono ko wa [__ Hanako ni __ kureta] inu ga shindeshimatta. this child top to gave dog nom ended.up.dying ‘This child, the dog which (he) gave Hanako died.’
Given the unacceptability of the corresponding topicalization, Haig claimed that a question must be about the questioned NPs, which essentially relates restrictions on wh-questions to the aboutness condition discussed earlier. In fact, Kuno (Reference Kuno1987: 23) has proposed the topichood condition for extraction, which subsumes wh-questions in English such as (39b–c). However, restrictions observed in Japanese wh-questions are of a different nature from those in relativization and topicalization, which are conditioned on aboutness. Consider (45):
a.
*Sono yōfuku wa [__ kiteita] shinshi ga yukuehumei da. that clothes top was.wearing gentleman nom missing cop ‘The clothes, the gentleman who was wearing (them) is missing.’ (N. Hasegawa Reference Hasegawa1981: 281)b.
[__ Nani o kiteita] shinshi ga yukuefumei na no? what acc was.wearing gentleman nom missing cop int ‘The gentleman who was wearing what is missing?’
The unacceptable extraction in (45a), and unacceptable truncation *yōfuku wa shinshi ga yukuehumei da ‘the clothes, the gentleman (who was wearing (them)) is missing,’ show that the topicalized element yōfuku is not immediately relevant to the gentleman’s missing. Despite this, the corresponding wh-question is acceptable, and this undermines the claim which relates wh-words to aboutness. In this regard, Van Valin and LaPolla (Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997: 627–629) argue that the function of a displaced wh-word is focus, and therefore, it must function in the PFD. This claim is valid for wh-questions in Japanese despite the wh-in-situ characteristics. What influences extractability in Japanese wh-questions is lexical semantic factors which interact with the PFD.
As discussed thus far, the default range of PFD is language-specific. The structural constraint in (20) represents the default range of PFD in languages like English, while in Japanese, the PFD excludes only detached positions. Yet in both languages, the PFD interacts with lexical semantic factors, as Van Valin and LaPolla (Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997: 630) state “lexical semantic factors may also influence the potential focus domain, both in terms of preventing a position in the potential focus domain from being the actual focus domain and of overriding the principle [in (20)] and permitting the actual focus domain to be in structural configurations where it would otherwise be impossible.”
An object complement is part of the PFD by default since it is a direct daughter of the clause node. However, as shown in (46a), extraction is blocked by the so-called non-bridge verbs, which denote a particular manner, such as murmur, whisper, and shout, unlike bridge verbs such as say, think, and believe (Erteschik-Shir Reference Erteschik-Shir1973: 84; Takami Reference Takami1992: 47). In RRG terms, these semantically highlighted verbs shift the focus and reduce the PFD away from the complement clause, hence blocking the wh-question (Van Valin Reference Van Valin and Devriendt1996: 50). The same argument applies to an unacceptable extraction when a bridge verb is used with a manner adverb, as shown in (46b). The manner adverb causes the same focus shifting, preventing the object complement from being the actual focus domain.
a. What did John say/*murmur/*whisper that Mary had bought?
b. *What did John say angrily that Mary had bought?
Analogous lexical semantic factors are responsible for restrictions on wh-questions in Japanese. However, wh-question formation is affected only in a certain type of relative clause. First, consider Y. Hasegawa’s (Reference Hasegawa1989) proposal cited in (47), with respect to different readings of a wh-question formed in a relative clause.
(47) Two possible readings of a wh-question formed in a relative clause
(i) Narrow reading: what is questioned, that is, the wh-phrase, is what is to be identified by the question.
(ii) Broad reading: what is questioned is NOT what is to be identified by the question. What is to be identified is represented by the relative clause head noun.
According to Y. Hasegawa, the interpretation depends on two separate factors: referability of the head noun and inherent topic-worthiness of the wh-expression. The former bears immediate relevance on the present discussion. Now consider the contrast between (48) and (49).
(48)
Q: [Dare ga kaita] shōsetsu ga yoku uremasu ka? who nom wrote novel nom well sell int ‘Novels that who writes sell well?’ A: Murakami Haruki desu. cop ‘(It’s) Haruki Murakami.’ A′: [Murakami Haruki ga kaita] shōsetsu desu. nom wrote novel cop ‘(It’s) the novel which Haruki Murakami writes.’
(49)
Q: [Dono kyōju ga suisenshiteiru] hito ga saiyōsaresō which prof. nom recommending person nom likely.to.be.hired desu ka? cop int ‘A person that which professor has recommended is likely to be hired?’ A: *Suzuki-kyōju desu. Suzuki-prof. cop ‘(It’s) Prof. Suzuki.’ A′: [Suzuki-kyōju ga suisenshiteiru] hito desu. Suzuki-prof. nom recommending person cop ‘(It’s) the person that Prof. Suzuki has recommended.’ (Nishigauchi Reference Nishigauchi1986: 74)
Wh-questions as in (48) have a narrow-reading, because the relative head shōsetsu is non-referential, and therefore, what is to be identified by the question is who it is that sells his/her novels, rather than particular novels which the writer publishes. On the other hand, wh-questions as in (49) have a broad-reading, because the head noun hito is referential, that is, what is to be identified by the question is who the candidate is, and this identification of the person is done by way of identifying the recommender of the candidate. Thus, the short answer, which supplies just the value for the wh-word, is awkward, as in (49). As expected, for wh-questions such as (49) to be felicitous, there must be a shared assumption in the context that there is a set of candidates and each of them is recommended by a professor. The purpose of the wh-question is to identify a particular candidate via identifying a particular candidate-recommender pair; therefore, the question is synonymous with which-questions such as “which candidate is most likely to get the position?”
The distinction between narrow reading and broad reading sheds light on why constraints are observed in some wh-questions. A narrow reading contains a single focus, since what is questioned, that is, the wh-phrase, is what is to be identified. On the other hand, a broad reading represents two foci because what is to be identified by the question, that is, the relative clause head noun, represents a focus of the question, and this focus element is additional to the canonical focus of the question. In other words, wh-questions which represent a broad-reading are functionally complex, and it is this type of wh-questions that are subject to restrictions.
Haig’s example given earlier in (44a) is a broad-reading question with the referential head noun inu, which represents what is to be identified by the question; thus, this question is synonymous with which dog died? In this particular wh-question, there is an additional referential noun Hanako in the relative clause that makes the relative clause focused and prevents the head noun, one of the foci of the question, in the PFD from being the actual focus domain. Therefore, this case is analogous to the English examples in (46), where the default range of PFD is reduced away from the extraction site and the actual focus is shifted to a semantically highlighted element. This argument is supported by the fact that the wh-question in (44a) becomes perfectly acceptable if Hanako ni is not overtly expressed, as shown in (50).
(50)
[Dare ga kureta] inu ga shindeshimatta? who nom gave dog nom ended.up.dying ‘The dog that who gave (Hanako, you, etc.) died?’
As we observe in (51), broad-reading wh-questions become increasingly awkward, if there is gradient acceptability for a speaker, as more referential expressions intervene with the foci of the questions. The gradient acceptability correlates with the degree of lexical semantic highlighting.
a.
[Dare ga okutta] hon ga nakunatta no? who nom sent book nom lost int ‘The book that who sent had been lost?’ b.
??[Dare ga Tarō ni okutta] hon ga nakunatta no? who nom to sent book nom lost int ‘The book that who sent to Taro had been lost?’ c.
*[Dare ga sono yūbinkyoku de Tarō ni okutta] hon ga who nom that post.office at to sent book nom nakunatta no? lost int ‘The book that who sent to Taro at the post office had been lost?’
Furthermore, if the wh-expression is kept adjacent to the relative head NP, the restriction is ameliorated even if there are other referential expressions in the relative clause. In (52b–c), the double foci of the question are adjacent, and therefore, the foci are contiguous as the actual focus domain and the preceding referential phrases in the relative clause are readily interpreted as presupposition, that is, non-focus within the PFD, and therefore, do not influence the PFD with respect to the actual focus.
a.
[Dare ga okutta] hon ga nakunatta no? who nom sent book nom lost int ‘The book that who sent had been lost?’ b.
[Jon ga dare ni okutta] hon ga nakunatta no? nom who to sent book nom lost int ‘The book that John sent to whom had been lost?’ c.
[Jon ga sono yūbinkyoku de dare ni okutta] hon ga nom that post.office at who to sent book nom nakunatta no? lost int ‘The book that John sent to whom at the post office had been lost?’
On the other hand, the acceptability of a narrow-reading of the wh-question is not affected by additional referential phrases in the relative clause, as in (53b–c). The wh-question is not blocked in these cases because the relative head noun does not represent a focus of the question; hence, the additional referential phrase in the relative clause does not influence the PFD with respect to a focus of the question.
a.
[Dare ga dasu] shōsetsu ga yoku uremasu ka? who nom publish novel nom well sell int ‘Novels that who publishes sell well?’ b.
[Dare ga Amerika de dasu] shōsetsu ga yoku uremasu ka? who nom America in publish novel nom well sell int ‘Novels that who publishes in America sell well?’ c.
[Dare ga Amerika de Jerī Pāneru to dasu] shōsetsu ga who nom in with publish novel nom yoku uremasu ka? well sell int ‘Novels that who publishes with Jerry Pournelle in America sell well?’
6 Conclusion
This chapter has provided an overview of functional approaches to constraints on non-canonical word order and extraction in Japanese. These phenomena share the focus structure as the basis of functional characterization. The use of non-canonical word ordering is associated with particular contexts such that most important information is presented in the position which immediately precedes the predicate and a post-predicative entity represents less important information. Given the verb final property of Japanese, postposing is particularly a marked option and it not only follows the principle of information flow above but also tends to be used under the very specific discourse conditions of anaphoric continuity (i.e. high topicality) and cataphoric discontinuity (i.e. low importance).
Extraction restrictions have commonly been studied with the assumption that such restrictions are structurally definable, as in the case of subjacency-based accounts. From the functional viewpoint, although the three extraction constructions discussed in this chapter represent different functions, there is a common property that the displaced element or the wh-in-situ must function in the assertion part of a sentence. While there is an obvious connection between a wh-element (which is focal) and assertion, relativization and topicalization share the property that “the clause in which the displaced NP functions is always about the referent of the NP” (Van Valin and LaPolla Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997: 627). In other words, such a clause functions as predication about the displaced element, and “predication and ‘assertion about’ are fundamentally related notions” (Reference Van Valin and LaPolla1997: 629). This functional principle is valid for Japanese, despite its radical difference from other languages with respect to possible range of focus domain. This offers an important implication for the universality of the principle, particularly because it is assumed (Van Valin Reference Van Valin and Devriendt1996: 55) that the constraints are ultimately derivable from Grice’s (Reference Grice, Cole and Morgan1975) cooperative principle and the maxim of quantity.
The cross-linguistic variations in extraction are captured in terms of how deep into the sentence structure assertion may be represented. By default, a matrix clause is always within the potential focus domain; thus, it is a possible extraction site across languages. Some languages (e.g. English) extend the potential focus domain to those subordinate clauses that are tightly connected to the matrix clause, as a direct daughter of a clause. In Japanese, the potential focus domain is extended further to include other subordinate clauses; yet, even in Japanese, detached topic positions are excluded. This exclusion is an important corroboration of the functional principle since a topic does not represent assertion. In Kempson’s (Reference Kempson1975: 190) terms, a topic represents part of the pragmatic universe of discourse which is neither assertible, deniable, nor queriable without violating the quantity maxim. Extraction is allowed in a topic only if the topic is focal (i.e. overtly contrastive), and this conforms to the Gricean explanation.
