Meaning and grammar seminar

Speaker: Hideki Kishimoto (Kobe University)

Title: On the Structural Position of ECM Subjects in Japanese

Abstract: In English, ECM (Exceptional Case-Marking) constructions, where the embedded subjects are marked with accusative rather than nominative case, cannot include complementizers, and hence are often analyzed as having less than full clausal projections lacking CP. In Japanese, by contrast, ECM constructions do include a complementizer, suggesting that a CP projection is present in the embedded clause, and that the clause whose subject is exceptionally case-marked has the status of a full clause in syntactic terms. In this presentation, on the basis of new data drawn from clausal pronominalization, focus association with dake ‘only’, etc. I argue that the ECM subject appears in a structural position higher than its nominative subject counterpart in the embedded clause, i.e. in a position sufficiently high to be accusatively case-marked by the matrix predicate.

Contact

If you'd like more information on dates and venues this semester, or if you'd like to present, please email Tom Stephen, or subscribe to our mailing list.

Tom Stephen

Mailing lists service