LICENSING CONDITIONS IN ELLIPSIS

Transcription

LICENSING CONDITIONS IN ELLIPSIS
Jun Abe
Tohoku Gakuin University
February, 2006
Department of Literature
Tsuchitoi 1-3-1, Aoba-ku
Sendai-shi 980-8511
Japan
[email protected]
Abstract
In this paper, I argue that a licensing condition on ellipsis which is characterized in
terms of agreement in functional projections is not at work in such a language as
Japanese that lacks agreement.
Instead, apparent counterparts of such elliptic
constructions that are subject to Lobeck's licensing condition are licensed in terms of
what is called here lexical licensing in this language.
Lexical licensing is
characterized in terms of not only predicate-argument but also predicate-modifier
relationship.
After having demonstrated that apparent cases of Sluicing and VP
Ellipsis in Japanese differ from typical cases of these constructions, I claim that they
involve licensing of null arguments by predicates. Furthermore, I show that there are
cases of what is called here Predicate Ellipsis in Japanese, which involve null predicates
that are licensed by their arguments or modifiers. I also argue that what appears to be
a case of the N'-deletion construction in Japanese can be regarded as simply a special
case of Predicate Ellipsis.
All these arguments will lead to the conclusion that ellipsis
is among the many other phenomena that are affected by the presence of agreement in a
given language.
Licensing Conditions in Ellipsis
Jun Abe
1.
Introduction
This paper addresses the question of how to license ellipsis, based upon a series of
works done by Lobeck (1990, 1995, 1999).
Lobeck (1995) proposes what she calls
"Licensing and Identification of pro", which is a general condition not only on pro in its
usual sense but also on a subtype of ellipsis, exemplified in (1):
(1) a. John talked to Bill but Mary didn't [e].
(VP Ellipsis)
b.
We want to invite someone, but we don't know who [e].
(Sluicing)
c.
Although John's friends were late to the rally, Mary's [e] arrived on time.
(Ellipsis in NP)
Lobeck assumes that the elliptic sites indicated in each sentence of (1) are in fact pro of
various categories; namely, VP pro in (1a), TP pro in (1b), and NP pro in (1c).
Though Lobeck's condition works in a fairly complicated manner, it suffices, for the
purposes of this paper, to state the way this condition works for those ellipses given in
(1) as follows:
(2)
Pro must be the complement of a functional head that agrees with its specifier.
Thus, in (1a), the VP pro is licensed by the T which is in agreement with Mary, and in
(1b), the TP pro is licensed by the C which is in agreement with who, and in (1c), the
NP pro is licensed by the D which is in agreement with Mary's.
Lobeck (1995) also argues that not all kinds of ellipsis are subject to this
condition.
She argues that Gapping and Stripping, illustrated below, are of a different
type:
(3) a. Mary met Bill at Berkeley and Sue [e] at Harvard.
b.
Jane gave presents to John, but not [e] to Geoff.
(Gapping)
(Stripping)
That there are mainly two types of ellipsis constructions are already noted by
Jackendoff (1971) and Williams (1977), among others.
For instance, these two types
of ellipsis constructions differ in whether they can appear in subordination, as shown
below:
(4) a. Charlie will leave town if his mother-in-law doesn't [e]. (VP Ellipsis)
b.
John takes LSD, although I don't know why [e]. (Sluicing)
c.
Lincoln's portrait didn't please me as much as Wilson's [e].
(5) a. *Sam played tuba whenever Max sax.
b. *Felex sneezed since Max (too).
(Ellipsis in NP)
(Gapping)
(Stripping)
Furthermore, these two types of ellipsis differ in whether they are sensitive to Lobeck's
condition given in (2).
Thus, in Gapping and Stripping, there do not seem to be any
functional heads that could license the elliptic sites of these constructions.
Notice also
that in these constructions, the elliptic sites do not appear to make a constituent, as is
clear from the examples given in (3).
Based upon these observations, Abe (1996)
claims that this type of elliptic constructions does not involve a null category such as
pro but rather involves deletion.
Thus, the sentences in (3) have the underlying
structures given in (6):
(6) a. Mary met Bill at Berkeley and [Sue met Bill at Harvard]
b.
Jane gave presents to John, but not [Jane gave parents to Geoff]
Then, following Abe and Hoshi (1997), at Harvard in (6a) undergoes rightward
movement and is adjoined to T', as shown in (7a), and to Geoff in (6b) undergoes
leftward movement and is adjoined to TP as shown in (7b); see Abe and Hoshi (1997)
for the question why rightward movement is involved in (7a) and leftward movement in
(7b).
(7) a. Mary met Bill at Berkeley and [Sue [T' [T' Past [VP meet Bill ti]] at
Harvardi]]
b.
Jane gave presents to John, but not [TP to Geoffi [TP Jane gave parents ti]]
The surface structures of the sentences in (6) are derived by deleting the bold-faced
parts in (7) under identity with the corresponding parts of the first conjuncts if it is
assumed that identity should be defined in terms of non-distinctness.
With this much in background, this paper addresses the following question: does
the same picture emerge if we look at Japanese ellipsis constructions? In particular, is
Lobeck's licensing and identification condition on pro also applicable to such languages
as Japanese that appear to lack agreement? I claim that the answer to this question is
negative and that her condition should be parameterized in terms of functional licensing
vs. lexical licensing; that is, since Japanese does not have an agreement system, or only
has a defective system of it, as claimed by Fukui (1986) and Kuroda (1988), the
licensing of ellipsis by functional categories does not exist in this language and instead
the Japanese apparent counterparts of English ellipsis constructions that involve
licensing by functional categories involve licensing by lexical categories. It will be
claimed that lexical licensing should be characterized in terms of the relationship
between predicates on the one hand and arguments and modifiers on the other.
This hypothesis has some plausibility, to begin with, when we consider the
difference between Japanese, Korean and Chinese on the one hand and some Romance
languages such as Italian and Spanish on the other with respect to the distribution of pro
in its usual sense; that is, pro is largely restricted to the subject of a tensed clause in the
latter type of languages, which exhibit rich agreement systems to license it, whereas pro
appears fairly freely in argument positions in the former type of languages, which
appear to lack agreement systems.
From this point of view, it is natural to claim,
following Kim (1999) in essence, that in the Romance type of languages, pro is licensed
and identified by -features of T, hence its distribution being restricted to the subject of
a tensed clause, whereas in the Japanese type of languages, pro is licensed by virtue of
its argumenthood and its value is determined, according to Kim (1999), by way of
copying of its antecedent or reconstruction in the sense of Fiengo and May (1994); I
will return to this issue in Section 2.2.
This paper is organized as follows:
In Section 2, I demonstrate, following the
arguments given by Nishiyama et al. (1996) and Kuwabara (1996), that apparent cases
of Sluicing are in fact ones of Reduced Clefts and can be characterized as involving
licensing of null arguments by copulas, and also, following the arguments given by Kim
(1999) and Hoji (1998), that apparent cases of VP Ellipsis simply involve null
arguments that are licensed by predicates in general.
In Section 3, I demonstrate that
there are cases of what is called here Predicate Ellipsis in Japanese, which involve null
predicates that are licensed by their arguments or modifiers.
In Section 4, I argue that
what appears to be a case of Ellipsis in NP in Japanese can be regarded as simply a
special case of Predicate Ellipsis.
2. No licensing by functional categories: cases of Sluicing and VP Ellipsis
Suppose that Fukui (1986) is right in claiming that Japanese does not have any
functional category or, if any, only has a defective category in not inducing Spec/head
agreement.
Then, given Lobeck's licensing condition, we will predict that Japanese
does not have Sluicing, VP ellipsis and Ellipsis in NP in the sense that all these
constructions involve licensing by functional categories.
I would like to examine in
this section whether this prediction is borne out. I will first examine Sluicing in some
details, regarding which Takahashi (1994) claims that there is an instance of such a
construction in Japanese.
I will present objections to this claim by Nishiyama et al.
(1996) and Kuwabara (1996), who argue that an apparent instance of Sluicing is in fact
an instance of Clefting. As for VP ellipsis, Otani and Whitman (1991) claim that there
is such a construction in Japanese but I will present Kim's (1999) argument that such a
construction should be reanalyzed as NP ellipsis. As for Ellipsis in NP, Saito and
Murasugi (1990) establish that there is a case of such a construction in Japanese.
I will
claim in Section 4 that there is a plausible alternative analysis to such a construction that
involves licensing by lexical categories rather than by functional categories.
2.1.
Apparent cases of Sluicing
Takahashi (1994) provides an example such as (8) as an instance of Japanese
Sluicing:
(8)
Minna-wa [John-ga
dareka-o
aisiteiru to]
everyone-Top -Nom someone-Acc love
itta
ga,
Comp said but
boku-wa [dare-o [e] ka] wakaranai.
I
-Top who-Acc Q know-not
'Everyone said John loves someone, but I don't know who.'
Objecting to this claim, however, Nishiyama et al. (1996) observe that the copula da can
be inserted after the wh-phrase in (8), as shown below:
(9)
Minna-wa [John-ga dareka-o
aisiteiru to]
boku-wa [dare-o da ka] wakaranai.
I
-Top who-Acc be Q know-not
itta ga,
Comp said but
Notice that the copula da cannot be inserted in a normal question such as (10), which
corresponds to the second clause of (8) in which the content of the elliptic site is
spelled-out:
(10)
Boku-wa dare-o [John-ga aisiteiru] (*da) ka wakaranai.
I
-Top who-Acc
-Nom love
be Q know-not
'I don't know who John loves.'
Thus, it is doubtful, Nishiyama et al. claim, that (8) is an instance of Sluicing.
Rather,
based upon this observation, they claim that it is an instance of Clefting, so that the
underlying structure of the relevant part of (8) corresponds to the following sentence:
(11)
Boku-wa (John-ga aisiteiru no-wa)
I
-Top
-Nom love
dare-o
(da) ka wakaranai.
NO-Top who-Acc be Q know-not
'I don't know who it is that John loves.'
where NO in the gloss stands for a nominalizer. What appears to be an instance of
Sluicing in (8) is then derived from (11) by deleting the presuppositional part the one
who John loves and the copula da.
Further confirmation of this claim comes from the
fact that in (8) the accusative case marker -o can be dropped, as shown below:
(12)
Minna-wa [John-ga dareka-o
aisiteiru to]
itta ga,
Comp said but
boku-wa dare(-o) (da) ka] wakaranai.
I
-Top who(-Acc) be Q know-not
This fact is straightforwardly captured under the Cleft approach since it is well-known
that there are two types of Clefting in Japanese, one with a case marker attached to a
focused phrase and the other without such a case marker, as demonstrated by Hoji
(1987); a typical instance of Japanese Clefting is given below:
(13)
John-ga sita no-wa tennis(-o)
da.
-Nom did NO-Top tennis(-Acc) be
'It is tennis that John played.'
Kuwabara (1996) gives further evidence for the claim that a Sluicing-like
construction such as (8) is in fact a Reduced Cleft, that is, a Cleft with its
presuppositional part omitted.
This is concerned with examples of embedded elliptical
clauses that do not seem to be licensed by agreeing complementizers, as illustrated
below:
(14) a.
Taroo-wa [pro Naomi-ni
-Top
hanataba-o
ageta to]
itteita ga,
-Dat bouquet-Acc gave Comp said but
Ziroo-wa [daiamondo-no yubiwa-o
-Top diamond -Gen ring
(da) to]
itteita.
-Acc be Comp said
lit. 'Taro said that he gave a bouquet to Naomi, but Ziro said that [a diamond
ring].'
b.
Tuma-wa [watasi-ga itinen-mae
wife -Top I
to]
soko-de Suzuki-ni atteiru
-Nom one year-before there-at
-Dat saw
iu ga, watasi-wa [Suzuki-ni (da) kadooka] yoku oboeteinai.
Comp say but I
-Top
-Dat be whether well remember-not
lit. 'My wife says that I saw Suzuki there a year ago, but I don't really
remember whether [Suzuki].'
These examples look like cases of Stripping that occur in embedded clauses.
Thus, in
(14a), [he gave t to Naomi] appears to be elided and a diamond ring is left behind in the
complement clause of say.
Likewise, in (14b), [I saw t there a year ago] appears to be
elided and Suzuki is left behind in the complement clause of remember.
Recall,
however, that Stripping does not occur in the subordinate clause, as illustrated in (5b),
so it is unlikely that these examples are cases of Stripping.
Notice that in these
examples, copular insertion is possible after the remnant phrases, as shown in the same
examples above, which is reminiscent of a reduced Cleft analysis of Sluicing-like
examples, advocated by Nishiyama et al. (1996). Based upon these facts as well as
many others, Kuwabara (1996) claims that both Sluicing-like examples and those
examples in (14) should be given a unified analysis; that is, they should be treated as
cases of Reduced Clefts.
A further argument for the Reduced Cleft approach can be provided with island
sensitivity.
It has been widely observed that Sluicing show island insensitivity in
many cases (see Chung et al. (1995) and Merchant (2001), among others).
Chung et al.
(1995), for instance, provide the following data:
(15) a.
Sandy was trying to work out which students would be able to solve a certain
problem, but she wouldn't tell us which one.
b.
That certain countries would vote against the resolution has been widely
reported, but I'm not sure which ones.
c.
The administration has issued a statement that it is willing to meet with one of
the student groups, but I'm not sure which one.
These data show that Sluicing is insensitive to the wh-island (cf. (15a)), the subject
island (cf. (15b)) and the complex NP island (cf. (15c)).
Contrary to these facts,
Japanese Sluicing-like cases consistently show island sensitivity.
In fact, Takahashi
(1994) observes that what he takes as instances of Sluicing exhibits island effects, as
shown below (the data are slightly modified):
(16) a.??Mary-wa [John-ga nanika-o
-Top
uwasa-o kiita
-Nom something-Acc bought Comp-Gen rumor-Acc heard
sooda ga, boku-wa [nani-o
I-heard but I
katta to]-no
ka] siritai.
-Top what-Acc Q want-to-know
'I heard that Mary heard the rumor that John had bought something, and I want
to know what (Mary heard the rumor that John had bought t).'
b.?*Mary-wa [John-ni nanika-o
-Top
atta sooda ga,
-Dat something-Acc gave woman-Dat met I-heard but
boku-wa [nani-o
I
ageta] onna-ni
ka] siritai.
'I heard that Mary met a woman who had given something to John, and I want
to know who (Mary met a woman who had given t to John).'
c.?*Mary-wa [dareka-ga
kubi-ni natta kara]
okotteru sooda ga,
-Top someone-Nom was-fired because be-angry I-heard but
boku-wa [dare-ga ka] siritai.
I
-Top who-Nom Q want-to-know
'I heard that Mary is angry because someone was fired, and I want to know
who (Mary is angry because t was fired).'
These data show that what Takahashi takes as instances of Sluicing is sensitive to the
Complex NP island (cf. (16a,b)) and the adjunct island (cf. (16c)).1 I will not go into
details about the question why genuine cases of Sluicing are insensitive to such islands
as illustrated in (15), but if we take those Japanese constructions given in (16) to belong
to the same class of construction as those given in (15), the differences between (15)
and (16) with respect to island sensitivity are unexpected.
On the other hand, they are
compatible with what the Reduced Cleft analysis will predict, since Hoji (1987)
observes independently that Japanese Clefts show island sensitivity, as illustrated
below:
(17) a.??Mary-ga [John-ga t
-Nom
kono hon-o
katta to]-no
uwasa-o
kiita no-wa
-Nom bought Comp-Gen rumor-Acc heard NO-Top
da.
this book-Acc be
'It is this book that Mary heard the rumor that John had bought t.'
b.?*Mary-ga [John-ni t ageta] onna-ni
-Nom
atta no-wa kono hon-o
da.
-Dat gave woman-Dat met NO-Top this book-Acc be
'It is this book that Mary met a woman who had given t to John.'
c.?*Mary-ga [t kubi-ni natta kara]
-Nom was-fired
okotteru no-wa kono otoko-ga da.
because be-angry NO-Top this man-Nom be
'It is this man that Mary is angry because t was fired.'
(17a,b,c) correspond in relevant respects to (16a,b,c), respectively, and the
correspondence also seems to hold in their acceptability; that is, the pair of (16a) and
(17a) is not as degraded as those pairs of (16b)/(17b) and (16c)/(17c).
As noted with
the example given in (13), the case marker of a focused phrase can be omitted in
Japanese Cleft constructions, and Hoji (1987) observes that when it is, the island effects
go away.
Thus, when the case markers are omitted from the focused phrases in (17),
all the three examples show dramatic improvement in acceptability, though (17b,c) are
still slightly degraded. Interestingly, much the same situation emerges with the
examples given in (16); that is, when the case markers are omitted from the wh-phrases,
the resulting sentences show dramatic improvement and their acceptability seems to
correspond to that of those sentences in (17) that involve case drop.
These facts are
straightforwardly accommodated under the Reduced Cleft analysis for what Takahashi
regards as instances of Sluicing.
To conclude this section, I believe that the above arguments are so powerful that it
will be fair to reject the claim that such a Japanese example as given in (8) is a case of
Sluicing.
2.2
Apparent cases of VP Ellipsis
Otani and Whitman (1991) claim that such a construction as exemplified below
may involve VP Ellipsis:
(18)
John-wa [zibun-no tegami]-o
suteta. Mary-mo [e] suteta.
-Top self -Gen letter -Acc discarded
'John threw out his letter.
-also
discarded
Mary did too.'
At first sight, the second sentence of this example appears to involve a null object, but
according to Otani and Whitman's analysis, the second sentence of this example can
have roughly the following structure:
(19)
[IP NPsubj [I' [VP [NP e] tverb] V-Infl]]
Here, the verb is raised into Infl, so that the elliptic site can be the whole VP containing
the null object and the trace of the verb.
Given that the verb of the first conjunct is
also raised into the above Infl, then the VP of the first conjunct corresponds to zibun-no
tegami 'self's letter' and the trace of the verb.
And after this VP is copied onto that of
the second conjunct, we will successfully get the appropriate meaning. The strongest
motivation for this VP Ellipsis analysis, according to Otani and Whitman, is that it can
properly capture the availability of a sloppy reading in such a construction; to put it in
other words, the availability of a sloppy reading correlates with that of the VP Ellipsis
analysis in question.
Thus, the following example contrasts with (18) in that it does
not allow a sloppy reading:
(20)
Zibun-no hatake-no ninzin-ga McGregor ozisan-no daikoobutu desita.
self -Gen garden-Gen carrot-Nom
Peter-mo [e] daisuki
Mr. -Gen big-favorite was
desita.
-also very-fond-of was
'The carrots from self's garden were Mr. McGregor's big favorite.
Peter was
also fond of [e].'
The second sentence of this example can only mean that Peter was also very fond of the
carrots from McGregor's garden. This will follow straightforwardly from Otani and
Whitman's analysis, since there is no way of analyzing the second sentence of this
example as involving VP Ellipsis, lacking the antecedent VP to be copied.
Given this
argument, the validity of Otani and Whitman's claim that such an example as (18) may
involve VP Ellipsis should be examined on the basis of whether the correlation between
the availability of a sloppy reading and that of VP Ellipsis analysis is real.
Though it
is true that such an example as (20) lacks a sloppy reading, there is another account for
this fact that is no less plausible, as Otani and Whitman mention briefly; that is, the
availability of a sloppy reading requires "some type of parallelism constraint." It
would not be unreasonable to claim that unlike (18), (20) does not satisfy the
parallelism constraint in question.
Otani and Whitman would claim that their VP
Ellipsis analysis ensures how such a parallelism constraint is satisfied in order to get a
sloppy reading.
The question, then, comes down to whether the parallelism constraint
in question is exactly what the VP Ellipsis analysis demands.
A good case to examine
this question is one in which the coordinated sentences appear to meet such a
parallelism requirement and their corresponding subjects are involved in producing a
sloppy reading.
(21) a.
Relevant examples are such as the following:
Zibun-no hatake-no ninzin-ga McGregor ozisan-no daikoobutu desita.
self -Gen garden-Gen carrot-Nom
Mr. -Gen big-favorite was
[e] Peter-no daikoobutu de-mo arimasita.
-Gen big-favorite -also was
lit. 'The carrots from self's garden were Mr. McGregor's big favorite, and [e]
was Peter's big favorite, too.'
b.
John-wa zibun-no tuma-ga kiree
da to
omotteiru.
-Top self -Gen wife-Nom beautiful be Comp think
Bill-mo [e] kiree
-also
da to
omotteiru.
beautiful be Comp think
lit. 'John thinks self's wife is beautiful. Bill also thinks [e] is beautiful.'
It seems to me that in both these examples, the second sentences allow sloppy
readings.2
According to Otani and Whitman's analysis, they should not allow such
readings, since they do not involve configurations that can be analyzed as VP Ellipsis
constructions.
Thus, to the extent that the facts exemplified in (21) are real, they
undermine the validity of Otani and Whitman's analysis considerably.
Otani and Whitman (1991) give another piece of evidence to support their
analysis, which is concerned with what they call locality of the sloppy identity
interpretation.
(22)
As is well-known, in the following example:
Johni thinks that Bill likes himi.
(a) and Mary does too.
(b) and Mary thinks that Bill does too.
the continuation given in (22a) has the sloppy reading according to which Mary thinks
that Bill likes her, whereas the continuation given in (22b) does not have such an
interpretation.
Otani and Whitman, then, claim that "the same restriction applies to the
sloppy identity interpretation of null objects in Japanese examples like the following:"
(23) a.
John-wa [NY Times-ga zibun-no kizi-o
-Top
inyoositeiru to]
kiita.
-Nom self -Gen article-Acc be-quoting Comp heard
'Johni heard that the NY Times is quoting selfi's article.'
b.
Bill-mo [NY Times-ga [e] inyoositeiru to]
-also
kiita.
-Nom be-quoting Comp heard
lit. 'Bill also heard that the NY Times is quoting [e].'
Though Otani and Whitman claim that (23b) does not allow the sloppy interpretation
according to which Bill also heard that the NY Times is quoting Bill's article, it seems
to me that such an interpretation is not inconceivable with this sentence.
I believe that
we can get such an interpretation more clearly in such an example as the following, in
which the preference to the referential reading is suppressed (see note 2):
(24)
Hotondo subete-no hito-ga [NY Times-ga zibun-no kizi-o
almost
to
every -Gen person-Nom
-Nom self -Gen article-Acc be-quoting
kiita ga, Bill-wa [NY Times-ga [e] inyoositeiru to]
Comp heard but
-Top
inyoositeiru
kiiteinakatta.
-Nom be-quoting Comp didn't-hear
lit. 'While almost everyonei heard that the NY Times is quoting selfi's article, Bill
didn't hear that the NY Times is quoting [e].'
Thus, Otani and Whitman's argument for their VP analysis based upon locality of the
sloppy identity interpretation is not well-founded.3
Kim (1999) also argues against Otani and Whitman's (1991) VP Ellipsis analysis
for null object constructions, based upon a variety of facts, including those related to
locality of the sloppy identity interpretation, mentioned just above.
He proposes
instead that such null object constructions as considered by Otani and Whitman simply
constitute part of the more general phenomena of null arguments seen in such languages
as Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and that they all involve NP Ellipsis.
He shares with
Otani and Whitman the idea that null arguments of these languages are not simply
empty pronouns.
This point is most clearly illustrated by such a Japanese example as
the following, which is adapted from a Japanese translation of Xu's (1986) Chinese
example:
(25)
Hotondo subete-no hito-ga
almost
zibun-o hihansita ga, John-dake-wa [e]
every -Gen person-Nom self -Acc criticized but
only-Top
hihansinakatta.
didn't-criticize
lit. 'Almost everyone criticized self, but only John didn't criticize [e].'
The most natural interpretation of the second sentence of this example is the sloppy
reading according to which only John criticized himself.
If the null object of the
second sentence were simply an empty pronoun, then it would violate Condition B of
the binding theory.
(26)
Let us compare this example with the following:
John-wa [e] hihansita.
-Top
criticized
i) *John criticized himself.
ii)
John criticized someone else.
Interestingly, this sentence does not have the reading where John criticized himself
when uttered out of the blue. The contrast between (25) and (26) with respect to the
availability of the self reading suggests that only when zibun 'self' is supplied in a
context such as (25) is the self-reading available. Kim demonstrates that the NP
Ellipsis analysis gives a straightforward account to this contrast.
In (26), the only
antecedent for the null object is John and hence after it is copied onto the null object, it
induces a Condition C violation.4
On the other hand, in (25), zibun can be copied onto
the null object of the second sentence, thereby giving rise to the self reading.
This NP Ellipsis analysis should require the kind of special mechanism that is
independently needed in VP Ellipsis to accommodate a strict reading as well as a sloppy
reading.
(27)
Consider the following example:
Mike-ga zibun-no kodomo-o butta.
-Nom self -Gen child
-Acc hit
Sosite Jeanne-mo [e] butta.
then
-also
hit
lit. 'Mike hit his child, and then Jeanne also hit [e].'
The second sentence of this example allows the sloppy reading where Jeanne hit her
child and also allows the strict reading in which Jeanne hit Mike's child.
To
accommodate this fact, Kim basically follows Fiengo and May's (1994) mechanism of
copying or reconstruction.
According to this mechanism, the strict reading of the
second sentence in (27) is obtained when zibun 'self' is taken as an -occurrence of this
pronoun, that is, when it is taken in a sense as a referring expression, and his (=Mike's)
child is copied onto the null category of the second sentence.
On the other hand, the
sloppy reading of this sentence is obtained when zibun is taken as a -occurrence of this
pronoun, that is, when the literal content of self is copied.5
Alternatively, we may rely on the null topic analysis proposed by Huang (1982,
1984) to derive the strict reading of the second sentence in (27).
Suppose that the NP
Ellipsis analysis allows only literal copying of the material of the antecedent of a null
argument, so that copying of zibun-no kodomo 'self's child' onto the null object of the
second sentence in (27) induces only its sloppy reading.
Suppose further that a null
argument has another way of obtaining its semantic value; that is, acting as a free
variable and being bound by a null topic in order to obtain its value.
Given this option,
the second sentence of (27) can have the following representation:
[Øtopic(i) [Jeanne-mo [e](i) butta]]
(28)
Given that a null topic picks up an entity as its value which is salient in the discourse, it
is natural to consider that the null topic in (28) refers to Mike's child, as is verified by
the naturalness of the following example, in which an overt topic phrase referring to
Mike's child is supplied to (27):6
(29)
Mike-ga zibun-no kodomo-o butta.
-Acc hit
Sosite Mike-no kodomo-wa
then
-Gen child
-Top
Jeanne-mo [e] butta.
-also
hit
'Mike hit his child, and then as for Mike's child, Jeanne also hit him/her.'
There is independent evidence for this null topic analysis to derive the strict
reading of the NP Ellipsis in question.
Discussing what he calls quantificational null
objects in Japanese, Takahashi (1995) provides the following examples:
(30) a.
Hitori-no zyosi-gakusei-ga taitei-no sensei-o
sonkei-siteiru.
one -Gen female student-Nom most-Gen teacher-Acc respect
‘One female student respects most teachers.’
b.
Hitori-no
dansi-gakusei-mo [e] sonkei-siteiru.
one -Gen male student -also
respect
lit. ‘One male student also respects [e].’
As is well-known, the scope interaction in Japanese respects the rigidity condition,
according to which a structurally higher QP necessarily takes scope over a lower QP.
Thus, in (30a), hitori-no zyosi-gakusei ‘one female student’ must take scope over taiteino sensei ‘most teachers’.
As for (30b), Takahashi (1995) observes that it can be
ambiguous depending upon what is supplied to the content of the null object.
According to the present analysis, one reading is derived from literal copying of taiteino sensei and the other is derived by means of a null topic, which amounts to the
reading in which the null topic functions as an E-type pronoun in the sense of Evans
(1980), referring to the set denoted by the domain of most teachers.
Takahashi further
observes that in (30b) the subject must take scope over the null object on either reading,
as is expected from the rigidity condition.
With this much in background, Takahashi
provides the following data, which contrast in an interesting way with those given in
(30):
(31) a.
Taitei-no
sensei-o
hitori-no zyosi-gakusei-ga
sonkei-siteiru.
most-Gen teacher-Acc one -Gen female student-Nom respect
‘One female student respects most teachers.’
b. Hitori-no
dansi-gakusei-mo [e] sonkei-siteiru.
one -Gen male student -also
respect
lit. ‘One male student also respects [e].’
These data minimally differ from those given in (30) in that (31a) involves scrambling
of the object to the top of the sentence.
As has been well-known since Kuroda (1971),
when the object QP is scrambled over the subject QP, it makes the sentence scopally
ambiguous.
Thus, (31a), unlike (30a), can have the reading in which the object taitei-
no sensei ‘most teachers’ takes scope over the subject hitori-no zyosi-gakusei ‘one
female student’.
As for (31b), Takahashi makes the interesting observation according
to which this sentence is also scopally ambiguous; that is, it allows the reading in which
the null object takes scope over the subject QP. This is unexpected if the null object
remains in its original position.
A further interesting fact about (31b), which seems
unnoticed by Takahashi (1995), is that when the null object takes scope over the subject,
it necessarily functions like an E-type pronoun. This follows immediately under the
present analysis: The reading derived from literal copying of taitei-no sensei has the LF
representation of S-O-V order, thereby giving rise to only the interpretation in which the
subject takes scope over the object.
The E-type reading, on the other hand, involves a
null topic in the top of the sentence, hence allowing this topic phrase taking scope over
the subject QP, just as in (31a). Thus, to the extent that we take the relevant facts
correctly, they lend strong support to the null topic analysis to derive the “strict” reading
of the NP Ellipsis in question.
Now turning back to cases that involve literally copying antecedent NPs onto null
arguments, Hoji (1998) makes interesting observations with respect to what portion of
the antecedent of an NP is in fact copied.
(32)
Consider one of his examples, given below:
A: John-ga zibun-no kuruma-o aratta.
-Nom self -Gen car
-Acc washed
'John washed his car.'
B: Bill-mo [e] aratta.
-also
washed
lit. 'Bill also washed [e].'
Hoji observes that in this dialogue, B's utterance can be interpreted in many ways, as
given below:
(33)
Bill also washed a car/John's car/Bill's car.
Based upon such facts, Hoji suggests that what is copied onto a null argument may be
simply the N head of its antecedent and that "a nominal projection whose sole content is
its head N can be interpreted in various ways as just indicated," (p. 142) for example in
(33). It seems, however, that these facts simply show the possibility of copying only
the N head of the antecedent of a null argument, but not the obligatoriness of such a
way of copying, since when only the head of zibun-no kuruma 'self's car' in (32A),
namely kuruma 'car' is supplied to the null object in (32B), the resulting sentence does
not have all the readings given in (33), as shown below:
(34)
A: John-ga zibun-no kuruma-o aratta.
-Nom self -Gen car
-Acc washed
'John washed his car.'
B: Bill-mo kuruma-o
-also car
aratta.
-Acc washed
'Bill also washed a car.'
(34B) allows only the indefinite reading of a car. Thus, the indefinite reading of a car
in (32B) is derived by copying the N head of the antecedent of the null object, but the
other two readings should be derived in other ways; the sloppy reading is derived by
copying the whole NP of the antecedent of the null object and the strict reading is
derived when the null object functions as a variable bound by a null topic operator and
this operator picks up John's car as its value.
To summarize, it should be clear from the above discussions that null arguments
in Japanese are not simply referring expressions such as pro used in Romance languages,
and that we need such a mechanism as provided by the NP Ellipsis analysis and
reinforced by the option of null topics binding null arguments, to capture their available
interpretations properly.
Accepting such a revised version of Kim's (1999) NP Ellipsis
analysis as a means of identifying the content of a null argument, we can then raise the
question what licenses a null argument in such a language as Japanese, Korean, and
Chinese.
It is standardly claimed that so-called pro-drop phenomena observed in
Romance languages involve agreement; that is, in such languages, pro is licensed by
way of Spec/head agreement between pro and Infl/Tense, which usually accompanies
an overt manifestation of it.
By contrast, in such languages as Japanese, Korean and
Chinese, null arguments do not seem to be licensed by way of Spec/head agreement and
their distribution is more liberal than that of pro observed in Romance languages.
Given that null arguments in these languages are identified in a way quite different from
the way pro is identified, it is natural to expect that the licensing of those null arguments
involve a different mechanism.
by way of lexical selection.
The most natural candidate would be to license them
Accordingly, I propose that in a language that lacks
agreement, Lobeck's licensing condition is off, and instead what we may call lexical
licensing is at work in such a language. Thus, the difference with respect to the
existence of agreement gives rise to such a parametric variation:
(35)
Functional vs. Lexical Licensing Parameter
If a language L exhibits agreement, then a null category is constrained by
Lobeck's (1995) licensing condition.
If L lacks agreement, then a null category
is licensed by selection of a lexical head.7
Now going back to Japanese Reduced Cleft constructions discussed in Section
2.1., they have the following schematic structure:
[CP e] XP-case (da)
(36)
Here, the empty CP corresponds to the presuppositional part of Clefting, including the
nominalizer -no plus the topic marker -wa.
We can claim that this empty CP is
licensed as the subject of the copular da. Therefore, we can reduce both apparent
cases of Sluicing and VP Ellipsis to those involving null arguments and the latter are
licensed by way of selection of lexical heads.
3.
Predicate Ellipsis
In the preceding section, I have argued that a language such as Japanese that lacks
agreement involves lexical licensing for a null category.
The cases illustrated there are
ones in which null arguments are licensed by their predicates.
In this section, I
demonstrate another type of ellipsis in Japanese that involves lexical licensing, namely
one in which a null predicate is licensed by its argument(s) or modifier(s), which I call
Predicate Ellipsis.
(37)
Cases in point are illustrated below:
Bill-ga Susan-o
-Nom
sikatta
ra, John-mo Mary-o [Pred e].
-Acc scolded and
-also
-Acc
'Bill scolded Susan and also John Mary.'
(38) a.
Bill-ga Susan-o
-Nom
b.
sikatta
ra, John-ga Mary-o [Pred e].
-Acc scolded and
-Nom
-Acc
John-ga Mary-o [Pred e].
-Nom
-Acc
(37) appears to be a case of Gapping in Japanese, where the missing predicate
corresponds to that of the first conjunct, hence interpreted as sikatta 'scolded'.
Interestingly, however, it is crucial in this sentence for the subject of the elided clause,
namely John, to bear the marker -mo, meaning 'also'.
If we change this marker into the
nominative marker -ga, as given in (38a), the interpretation available to (37) does not
obtain any more.
Rather, the elided clause is interpreted as an unidentified event or
state in which John and Mary both participate; hence it basically has the same meaning
as (38b), the difference being whether the unidentified event or state is qualified by the
preceding event expressed by the first conjunct of (38a).
Let us then call the type of
Predicate Ellipsis constructions that involves -mo in the elided clause the PEC(-mo) and
the type of PEC that involves -ga in the elided clause the PEC(-ga).
At first sight, it appears that the PEC(-ga), illustrated in (38), does not complete
sentences and hence might be regarded as ungrammatical as they stand.
Thus, the
grammatical status of these sentences might be said to correspond to that of an English
sentence like I saw, I kissed, etc. with missing objects.
Nonetheless, it is not so hard
for Japanese native speakers to imagine that these sentences are uttered out of the blue
in a situation where the speaker tried to say, for example, John killed Mary, but he/she
could not complete the sentences because he/she was so shocked or perplexed.
Since
these fragments describe events or states in which John and Mary are both involved, a
natural response to these fragments is, what happened to John and Mary or what did
John do to Mary, etc. Thus, sentence (38b), for instance, can be a fragment of any
sentence given in (39) below, but of no sentence given in (40).
(39) a.
John-ga Mary-o
-Nom
korositesimatta.
-Acc killed
'John killed Mary.'
b.
John-ga Mary-o
-Nom
aisiteiru.
-Acc love
'John loves Mary.'
c.
John-ga Mary-o
steru tumori-da.
-Nom -Acc dump intend
'John is going to dump Mary.'
(40) a.
John-ga [Mary-o Bill-ga
-Nom
korositesimatta to]
-Acc -Nom killed
omotta.
Comp thought
'John thought that Bill killed Mary.'
b.
John-ga [Mary-o aisiteiru] hito-o
-Nom
-Acc love
nikundeiru.
person-Acc hate
'John hates the person who loves Mary.'
c.
John-ga [Mary-o steta]
-Nom
koto-o kookai-siteiru.
-Acc dumped fact-Acc regret
'John regrets that he dumped Mary.'
In (39), John and Mary serve as arguments of the same predicates whereas in (40) they
belong to different predicates although they are linearly adjacent and hence what
follows could be a possible continuation of (38b). From these observations, it will not
be unreasonable to hypothesize that the PEC(-ga) involves a null category of a predicate
type and that there is a constraint at work between such a null predicate and the remnant
phrases.
Turning back to the PEC(-mo), illustrated in (37), this sentence, at first blush,
appears to be an instance of Gapping, but it turns out that it is simply a special case of
the PEC. The strongest reason for this is that the elliptic site in such a construction is
not forced to be strictly identical to the antecedent predicate.
Consider the following
examples:
(41) a.
Bill-ga Susan-ni 1000-en ageta ra, John-mo Mary-ni [Pred e].
-Nom
-Dat
-yen gave and
-also
-Dat
'Bill gave Susan 1000 yen and also John Mary.'
b.
Bill-ga Susan-o
-Nom
syokuzi-ni tureteitta ra, John-mo Mary-o [Pred e].
-Acc dinner-to took
and
-also
-Acc
'Bill took Susan for dinner and also John Mary.'
The most natural interpretations of the elided predicates in (41a) and (41b) are the ones
derived by copying the antecedent predicates; namely, "gave 1000 yen" in (41a) and
"took for dinner" in (41b).
Nonetheless, they are not the only interpretations available
to these sentences but rather a variety of interpretations seem to be available depending
upon the contexts.
Thus, the elided predicate in (41a) can mean, for instance, "gave
money" or "gave a present", etc. and that in (41b) can mean, for instance, "took to a bar
for drink" or "took to a nice place for walking", etc.
These facts indicate that the
PEC(-mo) is simply a special case of the PEC in general, hence involving a null
category of a predicate type and that the content of this null category is supplied by
whatever event or state is consistent with some sort of parallelism requirement imposed
by the lexical morpheme -mo 'also'.
This hypothesis is further motivated by the fact
that this type of construction also obeys the co-argumenthood constraint observed in the
PEC(-ga); that is, the remnant arguments of a null predicate must be ones of the same
predicate.
Thus, consider the following sentences:
(42) a.?*Bill-ga [Susan-o
-Nom
sono sensei-ga
sikatta to]
itta ra,
-Acc that teacher-Nom scolded Comp said and
John-mo Mary-o [Pred e].
-also
-Acc
'Bill said that that teacher scolded Susan, and also John Mary.'
b. *Bill-ga [Susan-ni attakoto-ga aru] hito-o
-Nom
-Dat have-seen
sikatta ra,
person-Acc scolded and
John-mo Mary-ni [Pred e].
-also
-Dat
'Bill scolded a person who has seen Susan, and also John Mary.'
A parallelism requirement imposed by the morpheme -mo 'also' attached to John and the
case particles -o and -ni attached to Mary in the elided clauses in (42a,b) demands that
John function as something equivalent to Bill and Mary to Susan, which then
establishes that these two arguments do not belong to the same predicate.
Thus, the
unacceptability of the sentences given in (42) clearly indicates that the PEC(-mo) also
obeys the co-argumenthood constraint.
3.1 How to license null predicates
Having established that the PEC(-ga) and PEC(-mo) share the same syntactic
structure for the elided clauses in which a null predicate is involved, let us first consider
how this null predicate is licensed.
Notice that it is unlikely that this null predicate is
licensed by Lobeck's licensing condition, since it is fairly obvious that there is no
functional element that could enter into a Spec/head relation in order to license this null
predicate.
Rather, I propose that this null predicate is lexically licensed.
A natural
hypothesis in this case will be that a null predicate is licensed by the very existence of
its arguments.
Let us then hypothesize, as a first approximation, that lexical licensing
is modified as in (43):
(43)
A null category NC is lexically licensed by either (i) a predicate P if NC is P's
argument, or (ii) an argument A if NC is A's predicate.
There are a number of questions to raise here.
For one thing, one will raise
whether it is necessary that two arguments be involved in licensing a null predicate.
The answer is negative, as shown below:
(44) a.
Bill-ga Susan-o
-Nom
sikatta
ra, John-mo [Pred e].
-Acc scolded and
-also
'Bill scolded Susan and also John.'
b.
(Bill-ga Susan-o
-Nom
sikatta
ra,) John-ga [Pred e].
-Acc scolded and
-Nom
These sentences are just as good as those in (37) and (38).
One may also raise the
question whether it is really crucial for a null predicate to be licensed by its argument.
It would be predicted that if arguments are replaced by modifiers in those constructions
under consideration, the sentences will become unacceptable.
that things are more complicated to test this prediction.
It will turn out, however,
If we confine ourselves to
considering the PEC(-ga), it seems that a stronger restriction is operative.
Let us first
consider the following examples:
sikatta ra,) Mary-o [Pred e].
(45)?*(Susan-o Bill-ga
-Acc -Nom scolded and
(46) a.
(Bill-ga Susan-ni
-Nom
-Dat
atta ra,) John-ga Mary-ni [Pred e].
-Dat saw and
b.?*(Susan-ni Bill-ga
-Acc
-Nom -Dat
atta ra,) Mary-ni [Pred e].
-Nom saw and
-Dat
The generalization that will emerge from these observations is that when only one
argument appears in the construction in question, only a subject or a phrase marked with
the nominative case marker -ga is allowed.8
(47) illustrates cases in which only a
modifier appears in such a construction, and these sentences are as bad as (45) and
(46b).
(47) a.?*(Oka-no ue-de John-ga
asondeita
ra,) ki-no
sita-de [Pred e].
hill -Gen surface-on -Nom was-playing and tree-Gen under
'(John was playing on a hill and) under a tree ...'
b.?*(Katana-de John-ga asondeita ra,) hanmaa-de [Pred e].
sword-with
-Nom was-playing and hammer-with
'(John was playing with a sword and) with a hammer ...'
When two or more arguments appear, one of them must be a subject, so that the
examples given below are not as good as those given in (38):
(48) a.?*(Bill-ni Susan-o
-Dat
syookaisita ra,) John-ni Mary-o [Pred e].
sono sensei-ga
-Acc that
teacher-Nom introduced and
-Dat
-Acc
lit. '(That teacher introduced Susan to Bill and) John-Dat Mary-Acc ...'
b.?*(Bill-ni hon-o
sono sensei-ga
ageta ra,) John-ni zassi-o [Pred e].
-Dat book-Acc that teacher-Nom gave and
-Dat magazine-Acc
lit. '(That teacher gave a book to Bill and) John-Dat a magazine-Acc ...'
(49) a.?*(Susan-o
oka-no
ue-de Bill-ga mituketa ra,)
-Acc hill-Gen surface-on -Nom found
Mary-o
ki-no
and
sita-de [Pred e].
-Acc tree-Gen under
lit. '(Bill found Susan on a hill and) Mary-Acc under a tree ...'
b.?*(Susan-o
katana-de Bill-ga tataiteita
ra,) Mary-o
-Acc sword-with -Nom was-hitting and
hanmaa-de [Pred e].
-Acc hammer-with
lit. '(Bill was hitting Susan with a sword and) Mary-Acc with a hammer ...'
Furthermore, as long as one remnant is a subject, the other can be a modifier, as shown
below:
(50)
(Bill-ga oka-no ue-de/
katana-de asondeita ra,)
-Nom hill -Gen surface-on/sword-with was-playing and
John-ga ki-no
sita-de/hanmaa-de
-Nom tree-Gen under hammer-with
lit. '(Bill was playing on a hill/with a sword and) John-Nom under a tree/with a
hammer ...'
Thus, what we have found out so far about what licenses a null predicate seems to be
that a subject or a phrase marked with the nominative marker -ga licenses such a null
predicate.
Leaving aside the question why this is so for the moment, notice that the
lexical licensing given in (43) is not incompatible with the data we have so far observed,
since a subject is an argument of a null predicate.
To consider next the PEC(-mo), it turns out that all the instances considered above
become acceptable when -mo 'also' is attached to the remnant when there is one and to
any remnant when more than one exits, as shown below:9
(51) a.
Susan-o Bill-ga sikatta ra, Mary-mo [Pred e].
-Acc -Nom scolded and
-also
'Bill scolded Susan and also Mary (Bill scolded).'
b.
Susan-ni Bill-ga atta ra, Mary-ni-mo [Pred e].
-Dat
-Nom saw and
-Dat-also
'Bill saw Susan and also Mary (Bill saw).'
(52) a.
Oka-no ue-de
John-ga asondeita
ra,
ki-no
sita-de-mo [Pred e].
hill -Gen surface-on -Nom was-playing and tree-Gen under -also
'John was playing on a hill and also under a tree (someone was playing).'
b.
ra, hanmaa-de-mo [Pred e].
Katana-de John-ga asondeita
sword-with
-Nom was-playing and hammer-with-also
'John was playing with a sword and also with a hammer (someone was
playing.)'
(53) a.
Bill-ni Susan-o
-Dat
sono sensei-ga
syookaisita ra,
-Acc that teacher-Nom introduced and
John-ni-mo Mary-o [Pred e]/ John-ni Mary-mo [Pred e].
-Dat-also
-Acc
-Dat
-also
lit. 'That teacher introduced Susan to Bill and also Mary to John (that teacher
introduced).'
b.
Bill-ni hon-o
sono sensei-ga
ageta ra,
-Dat book-Acc that teacher-Nom gave and
John-ni-mo zassi-o [Pred e]/ John-ni zassi-mo [Pred e].
-Dat-also magazine-Acc
-Dat magazine-also
lit. 'That teacher gave a book to Bill and also a magazine to John (that teacher
gave).'
(54) a.
Susan-o
oka-no
ue-de Bill-ga mituketa ra,
-Acc hill-Gen surface-on -Nom found and
Mary-mo ki-no
sita-de [Pred e]/ Mary-o
-also tree-Gen under
ki-no
sita-de-mo [Pred e].
-Acc tree-Gen under-also
lit. 'Bill found Susan on a hill and also Mary under a tree (Bill found).'
b.
Susan-o
katana-de Bill-ga tataiteita
-Acc sword-with
ra,
-Nom was-hitting and
Mary-mo hanmaa-de [Pred e]/ Mary-o hanmaa-de-mo [Pred e].
-also hammer-with
-Acc hammer-with-also
lit. 'Bill was hitting Susan with a sword and also Mary with a hammer (Bill
was hitting).'
Notice that the acceptability of the sentences given in (52) indicate that a modifier can
license a null predicate in the PEC(-mo).
Given that this ellipsis construction belongs
to the same category as the PEC(-ga), we need to modify the licensing condition given
in (43) in such a way that not only an argument but also a modifier can serve as a
licenser for a null predicate, as given below:
(55)
argument, or (ii) an argument A or a modifier M if NC is A or M's predicate.
This characterization is less attractive than the original licensing condition given in (43)
in that it loses the symmetrical relation between a predicate and an argument, that is, the
relation in which one licenses the other, whichever occurs as a null category.
I will not
dwell on this point any further here, leaving the formulation of lexical licensing of null
categories in Japanese as in (55), but simply point out that the gist of lexical licensing of
a null category is maintained in that licensing of a null category in Japanese is not
mediated by agreement in functional categories, in accordance with the parametrization
given in (35).10
One may raise the question why tense is also suppressed in the PEC.
I have been
discussing this construction as if only a predicate were suppressed, but the fact is that a
predicate as well as a tense is suppressed.
Notice that it is impossible to suppress only
a predicate, leaving a tense, as shown below:
(56) *John-ga [V e]-ta.
-Nom
Past
This is because a tense morpheme in Japanese is an affix, so that it needs a predicate to
support it. Thus, in all instances of the PEC, what is missing should be a Tense
projection as well as a verb projection.
I have been discussing how a null predicate is
licensed by the lexical licensing in question, ignoring a tense projection. The question
to raise now is how a null category that includes a tense is licensed.
The lexical
licensing in question does not appear to give a sufficient answer, since a tense is usually
claimed to be not directly related to an argument or a modifier.
I suggest that Saito
and Hoshi's (2000) mechanism of -marking provides a way to solve this problem.
According to their mechanism, a subject can be base-generated in the Spec of TP and a
theta-role is assigned to it by a verb after this verb is raised to T, as schematized below:
(57)
TP
2
NP-Nom
T'
VP
2
V+T
1
tV
Given this, it will be reasonable to claim that T and V constitute a complex predicate in
a sense to be made precise and they as a whole participate in assigning their theta-roles
to their arguments.
Following this intuition, let us define a COMPLEX PREDICATE
as follows: 11
(58)
Given a sequence of X1+X2 ... Xn where Xi is either a predicate or a tense, the
whole sequence constitutes a COMPLEX PREDICATE iff X1 licenses an
argument or a modifier in the adjoined position of Xn.
Here, that a predicate licenses an argument means that the former assigns one of its
theta roles to the latter, and that a predicate licenses a modifier means that the two
phrases are in a predicate-modifier relationship. Further, let us define an argument or
a modifier of a COMPLEX PREDICATE as follows:
(59)
An XP is an argument or a modifier of a COMPLEX PREDICATE X1+X2 ... Xn
iff it is an argument or a modifier of any Xi and is within the projection of Xn.
Given Saito and Hoshi's mechanism of -marking, V+T in (57) constitutes a
COMPLEX PREDICATE, since V assigns its subject theta-role to NP-Nom in Spec of
TP after it raises to adjoin to T, and this subject is an argument of the COMPLEX
PREDICATE, according to (59).
We can now modify the licensing condition given in
(55) into the one given below:
(60)
argument, or (ii) an argument A or a modifier M if NC is A or M's COMPLEX
PREDICATE.
With this modified licensing condition in mind, let us first consider a case of the
PEC(-ga) in which a subject or a phrase with the nominative marker -ga licenses a null
predicate, as illustrated in (44b). Let us assume that this fragment has the following
underlying structure:
(61)
TP
2
NP-Nom
T'
!
Ø
According to (60), the null category that corresponds to T' in (61) must be taken as a
COMPLEX PREDICATE of the subject; otherwise, it will not be licensed by this
subject.
This in effect functions to restrict the set of possible interpretations that can
be given to this null COMPLEX PREDICATE.
In the present case, the null
COMPLEX PREDICATE will receive an appropriate interpretation as long as whatever
main verb is supplied to this null category takes the subject in Spec-TP as its argument,
since such a main verb and the tense above it can constitute a COMPLEX PREDICATE,
according to the above mechanism.
Thus, the sentences given in (62) are possible
continuations of (44b):
(62) a.
John-ga Mary-o
sikatta.
-Nom -Acc scolded
'John scolded Mary.'
b.
John-ga Bill-ni
[yameru yooni] itta.
-Nom -Dat stop
said
'John told Bill to stop it.'
Let us next consider a case of the PEC(-mo), as illustrated in (44a).
In this case,
it is first necessary to determine where the phrase accompanied by -mo is basegenerated.
There is a good reason to assume that such a phrase is base-generated in a
functional category above TP.
(63) a.
Consider the following examples:
Mary-moi John-ga kinoo ei sikatta.
-also
-Nom yesterday scolded
'Also Mary, John scolded yesterday.'
b.
Mary-moi John-ga [Bill-ga
-also
kinoo ei sikatta to]
omotteiru.
-Nom -Nom yesterday scolded Comp think
'Also Mary, John thinks that Bill scolded yesterday.'
c.
Mary-moi John-ga [Bill-ga ej ei syookaisita] hitoj-ni
-also
-Nom -Nom
atta.
introduced person-Dat saw
'Also Maryi, John saw a person whoj Bill introduced heri to ej.'
These examples show that non-subjects accompanied by -mo can appear to the left of
subjects.
Furthermore, the grammaticality of (63c) shows that such a phrase can be
associated with a gap within an island, which then suggests that it is base-generated in
its surface position.
Let us call the functional category that accommodates such a
phrase Top(icalization)P.
(64)
The underlying structure of (44a) will then be as follows:
TopP
2
XP-also
Top'
!
Ø
Again, according to (60), the null category that corresponds to Top' in (64) must be
taken as a COMPLEX PREDICATE of the XP in its Spec; otherwise, it fails to satisfy
this lexical licensing condition.
Hence, the null predicate will receive an appropriate
interpretation as long as whatever main verb is supplied to this null category takes the
phrase in Spec-TopP as either its argument or its modifier. (44a) is an instance of the
PEC(-mo) in which a phrase accompanied by -mo is an argument of a null COMPLEX
PREDICATE, and the sentences given in (52) are instances in which such phrases are
modifiers of null COMPLEX PREDICATEs. Thus, the sentences given in (65) and
(66) are possible continuations of (44a) and those given in (52), respectively.
(65) a.
John-mo Mary-o
-also
sikatta.
-Acc scolded
'John also scolded Mary.'
b.
John-mo Bill-ga
-also
sikatta.
-Nom scolded
'Also John, Bill scolded.'
(66) a.
Ki-no
sita-de-mo dareka-ga
asondeita.
tree-Gen under-also someone-Nom was-playing
'Also under a tree, someone was playing.'
b.
Hanmaa-de-mo
dareka-ga
asondeita.
hammer -with-also someone-Nom was-playing
'Also with a hammer, someone was playing.'
However, there appear to be counterexamples to the present analysis of the PEC(mo).
(67) a.
John-moi Mary-ga [Bill-ga ei kinoo
-also
sikatta to]
itta.
-Nom -Nom yesterday scolded Comp said
'Also John, Mary said that Bill scolded yesterday.'
b.
Ki-no
sita-de-moi Mary-ga [John-ga ei asobu no]-o
tree-Gen under-also
-Nom
negatteita.
-Nom play NO-Acc was-hoping
'Also under a tree, Mary was hoping that John would play.'
c.
Hanmaa-de-moi Mary-ga [John-ga ei asob-eru yooni naru
hammer -with-also -Nom
no]-o
-Nom play-can toward become NO-Acc
negatteita.
was-hoping
'Also with a hammer, Mary was hoping that John would be able to play.'
It seems that these sentences are possible continuations of (44a), (52a) and (52b),
respectively.
Note that given the present analysis, these facts are unexpected, since the
phrases accompanied by -mo in sentence-initial position do not seem to serve as
arguments of COMPLEX PREDICATES which should be made out of the rest of the
sentences.
Note further that such exceptional behaviors do not extend to cases of the
PEC(-ga).
Let us consider the following examples:
(68) a.
[Bill-ga Susan-o
-Nom
sikatta to] Mary-ga itta ra, John-mo [Pred e].
-Acc scolded Comp -Nom said and
-also
lit. 'That Bill scolded Susan, Mary said and also John ...'
b.
[Bill-ga Susan-o
-Nom
sikatta
to] Mary-ga
-Acc scolded Comp
itta ra, John-ga [Pred e].
-Nom said and
-Nom
lit. 'That Bill scolded Susan, Mary said and John ...'
In accordance with the facts shown in (67), John-mo 'John-also' in (68a) can be taken to
be in a correspondent relation with the embedded subject of the first conjunct, namely
Bill. Thus, the following sentence can be a possible continuation of (68a).
(69)
John-mo Susan-o
-also
sikatta
to Mary-ga
itta.
-Acc scolded Comp -Nom said
lit. 'Also John, that he scolded Susan Mary said.'
In (68b), by contrast, the corresponding interpretation is impossible, and hence the
following sentence cannot be a possible continuation of (68b):
(70)
John-ga Lucy-o
sikatta to Nancy-ga itta.
-Nom -Acc scolded Comp
-Nom said
'That John scolded Lucy Nancy said.'
Rather, John-ga must be taken as the matrix subject of the null COMPLEX
PREDICATE, and hence the following sentence can be a possible continuation of
(68b):
(71)
John-ga [sore-wa uso da to]
itta.
-Nom that -Top lie be Comp said
'John said that that was a lie.'
Why is it the case, then, that only the PEC(-mo) allows a looser relationship between
the phrases marked with -mo and the rest of the sentences? There is a natural answer
to this question.
Saito (1985) suggests that in Japanese topic constructions, the topic
"is licensed by some sort of 'aboutness relation' holding between the topic and the rest
of the sentence." (p. 287) Typical examples that motivate this claim is ones in which
the topic is not associated with any argument position inside the rest of the sentence, as
observed by Kuno (1973) with such examples as the following:
(72) a.
Sakana-wa [tai-ga
fish
oisii].
-Top snapper-Nom tasty
'Speaking of fish, snapper is tasty.'
b.
Hana-wa [sakura-ga
ii].
flower-Top cherry-Nom good
'Speaking of flowers, cherry blossoms are good.'
Admitting that such an aboutness relation holds between the topic and the rest of the
sentence, it is possible to claim that this relation suffices to license a null COMPLEX
PREDICATE in the configuration given in (64), since a phrase accompanied by -mo can
also function in the same way as a topic, as witnessed by the following example:
(73)
Sake-wa [karakuti-ga
oisii] ga,
wain-mo [karakuti-ga
oisii].
alcohol-Top dry one-Nom tasty and wine-also dry one-Nom tasty
'Speaking of Japanese sake, dry sake is tasty, and as for wine as well, dry wine is
tasty.
Further evidence for the present claim comes from the fact that the topic phrase marked
with -wa can also participate in the PEC, as illustrated below:
(74)
[[Bill-ga Susan-o
-Nom
sikatta to] Mary-ga
itta] no-ni
taisite, John-wa [Pred e].
-Acc scolded Comp -Nom said NO-to contrary
-Top
lit. 'While that Bill scolded Susan, Mary said, John ...'
As expected under the present claim, not only a sentence such as (75) below in which
John-wa clearly functions as an argument of the main verb but also one such as (76) in
which an aboutness relation holds between John-wa and the rest of the sentence can be
possible continuations of (74).
(75)
John-wa [sore-wa uso da to]
itta.
-Top that -Top lie be Comp said
'John said that that was a lie.'
(76)
John-wa Lucy-o
-Top
sikatta to Nancy-ga
itta.
-Acc scolded Comp -Nom said
'As for John, that he scolded Lucy Nancy said.'
Thus all these facts lead to the conclusion that the licensing condition given in (60)
must be supplemented by the following statement:
(77)
An XP in Spec-TopP can license a null COMPLEX PREDICATE by way of an
aboutness relation.
Let us now consider such cases as given in (37) and (38) where more than one
argument is involved in licensing a null COMPLEX PREDICATE.
Recall that I have
shown above that there is some locality condition operative to such a construction, as
exemplified by the fact that the sentences in (39) are possible continuations of (38b),
but not those in (40) and also that the sentences given in (42) are unacceptable.
These
facts indicate that the two remnants in such constructions must be co-arguments of the
null predicates.
This will follow immediately under the present analysis.
Consider
the underlying structures of the elided parts in (37) and (38), which are shown below:
(78) a.
TopP
b.
2
John-also
2
Top'
2
Mary-Acc
TP
John-Nom
T'
2
Top'
Mary-Acc
!
T'
!
Ø
Ø
Here each occurrence of Mary-Acc is temporarily put in the adjoined positions of Top'
and T', respectively; the exact structures of (78a,b) will be presented in the next
subsection.
Notice that in these structures, the empty predicates are licensed by either
John-also/-Nom or Mary-Acc as their argument, according to the licensing condition
(60), but strictly we have not specified yet which phrase should serve as a licenser of the
null predicates.
Whichever serves as such, it establishes that it functions as an
argument of the null predicates.
This, in turn, establishes that the other argument also
functions as an argument of the same null predicates; otherwise, it will not be given any
appropriate interpretation.
Note that a unique property of the PEC is that the content
of the null predicate may remain unfilled even when it is interpreted in the semantic
component, and hence that the remnants of this construction are required to have some
semantically justifiable relationship with the null predicate in order to be properly
interpreted; a predicate-argument relationship in the cases under consideration.
The
same holds true for cases such as those given in (50) and (54), in which one of the
remnants is a modifier of some sort. Thus, such cases should also respect the same
locality condition as observed with cases such as those given in (37) and (38) in which
the remnants are both taken as arguments. That this is the case is shown below; (79a)
and (79b) are possible continuations of (50) and (54), respectively, whereas none of
those given in (80) and (81) can be:
(79) a.
John-ga
ki-no
sita-de/hanmaa-de
hito-o
korosita.
-Nom tree-Gen under hammer-with person-Acc killed
'John killed a person under a tree/with a hammer.'
b.
Mary-mo ki-no
sita-de/hanmaa-de dareka-ga
mituketa/tataiteita.
-also tree-Gen under hammer-with someone-Nom found /was-hitting
'Also Mary, someone found under a tree/was hitting with a hammer.'
(80) a.
John-ga [ki-no
sita-de/hanmaa-de Bill-ga hito-o
korosita to]
-Nom tree-Gen under hammer-with -Nom person-Acc killed
Comp
omotta.
thought
'John thought that Bill killed a person under a tree/with a hammer.'
b.
John-ga [ki-no
sita-de/hanmaa-de
hito-o
korosita] otoko-o
-Nom tree-Gen under hammer-with person-Acc killed
man -Acc
mokugekisita.
witnessed
'John witnessed the man who killed a person under a tree/with a hammer.'
(81) a.
Mary-mo [ki-no
sita-de asondeita]
hito-ga
mituketa.
-also tree-Gen under was-playing person-Nom found
'Also Mary, a person who is playing under a tree found.'
b.
Mary-mo [hanmaa-de asondeita]
hito-ga
tataita.
-also hammer-with was-playing person-Nom hit
'Also Mary, a person who is playing with a hammer hit.'
We have not considered those cases of the PEC which have the combination of
XP-also and NP-Nom; a relevant example is something like the following:
(82)
Bill-ga Susan-o
-Nom
sikatta ra, Mary-mo John-ga [Pred e].
-Acc scolded and
-also
-Nom
lit. 'Bill scolded Susan and also Mary, John-Nom ...'
The most natural interpretation of the second elided clause is that John also scolded
Mary, though other interpretations are possible if provided with appropriate contexts.
Under the present analysis, the elided clause in (82) has the following structure:
(83)
TopP
2
Mary -also
Top'
2
Top
TP
2
John-Nom
T'
!
Ø
Recall that it has been shown above that a phrase in Spec-TopP can be in an aboutness
relationship with the rest of the sentence.
Thus, in (83), Mary-also can be interpreted
as such and hence the null predicate can be solely licensed by John-Nom.
This leads to
the prediction that the combination of XP-also and NP-Nom does not require such a coargumenthood constraint as observed above as long as XP-also functions as the topic of
the whole sentence and NP-Nom functions as the subject of the null predicate.
This is
in fact borne out; consider the following examples:
(84) a.
Bill-ga
[sensei-ga Susan-o tataita to]
-Nom teacher-Nom -Acc hit
itta ra, Mary-mo John-ga [Pred e].
Comp said and
-also
-Nom
lit. 'Bill said that the teacher hit Susan and also Mary John-Nom ...'
b.
Bill-ga [Susan-o
-Nom
tataiteita]
hito-o
sikatta ra, Mary-mo
-Acc was-hitting person-Acc scolded and
-also
John-ga [Pred e].
-Nom
lit. 'Bill scolded a person who was hitting Susan and also Mary John-Nom ...'
The elided clause of (84a) can be interpreted as 'speaking of Mary, John said that the
teacher also hit her' and that of (84b) can be interpreted as 'speaking of Mary, John also
scolded a person who was hitting her.'
In contrast, John-Nom in the elided clause of
(84a) cannot be taken in such a way as to correspond to the embedded subject of the
first conjunct, namely, sensei-ga 'teacher-Nom', thereby the elided clause being
interpreted as 'speaking of Mary, Bill said that John also hit her.'
This is exactly what
we predict, since in this case, John-ga must license the null predicate as its subject.
The same holds true for (84b).
Finally, recall that the null category of the PEC is in fact a COMPLEX
PREDICATE that consists of V and T and that a licenser of this null predicate can be an
argument or a modifier of V according to the mechanism proposed by Saito and Hoshi
(2000).
Given this, it is predicted that a null predicate can be extended not only to a
V+T projection but also to what is standardly called a complex predicate+T projection.
Saito and Hoshi (2000) argue that a combination of more than one predicate can be
treated as what is called here a COMPLEX PREDICATE in the sense defined in (58).
Thus, in the trees given below:
(85) a.
XP
...
2
b.
A
X'
...
2
B
XP
2
X'
2
A
X'
2
YP
1
X'
2
X'
B
2
X
2
X
Y
X
2
tY
Y
X
suppose that Y is a two-place predicate and A and B are its arguments, and that X is a
higher predicate that has its own theta roles to assign.
According to Saito and Hoshi's
mechanism of -marking, Y in (85a) can raise to adjoin to X and in that position, Y can
assign its theta-roles to A and B, which are located in a X' projection.
There is another
derivation possible under their theory of -marking, as shown in (85b), in which Y is
directly merged with X, without having its own projection, and assigns its theta-roles to
A and B.
According to Hoshi (2001), this way of -marking is possible at least in
Japanese unless any functional category such as T or C intervenes between Y and X.
It does not matter for the present purpose which option of -marking is taken, but notice
that under the definitions given in (58) and (59), X and Y constitute a COMPLEX
PREDICATE and A and B are arguments of this complex predicate.
Given this, it is
predicted that any complex predicate that allows such -marking as given in (85) can
constitute the content of a null predicate of the PEC.
This is in fact borne out. Let us
again consider a fragment such as (38b).
The sentences given below can be possible
continuations of this fragment:
(86) a.
John-ga Mary-o
izime-hazimeta.
-Nom -Acc bully started
'John started to bully Mary.'
b.
John-ga Mary-o
-Nom
sin-aseta.
-Acc die-let
'John let Mary die.'
According to Saito and Hoshi's analysis, izime 'bully' in (86a) can raise and adjoin to
hazime 'start' and further the amalgamated predicate can further raise and adjoin to T.
Suppose that John-ga and Mary-o are located in the T projection. Then, they can
receive its -roles from start and bully, respectively, since the amalgamated predicate is
in the adjoined position of T.
In this case, izime-hazimeta 'started to bully' as a whole
constitutes a COMPLEX PREDICATE and hence can be the content of the null
category of (38b). Likewise, in (86b), sin 'die' can be raised to ase 'let' and the whole
V complex can then be raised to T. Suppose again that John-ga and Mary-o are
located in the T projection.
In that case, these arguments can receive their -roles
from the V complex in the adjoined position of T. Then, sin-aseta 'let die' as a whole
constitutes a COMPLEX PREDICATE and hence can be the content of the null
category of (38b). The following examples show that the same holds true for the
PEC(-mo):
(87) a.
Bill-ga Susan-o
-Nom
izime-hazimeta ra, John-mo Mary-o [Pred e].
-Acc bully started and
-also
-Acc
lit. 'Bill started to bully Susan and also John Mary-Acc ...'
b.
Bill-ga Susan-o sin-aseta ra, John-mo Mary-o [Pred e].
-Nom
-Acc die-let
and
-also
-Acc
lit. 'Bill let Susan die and also John Mary-Acc ...'
The elided clause of (87a) can be interpreted as 'John also started to bully Mary' and that
of (87b) as 'John also let Mary die.'
3.2.
How to license the remnants of null predicates
Let us now turn to the question why only a subject or a phrase marked with the
nominative marker -ga appears to be able to license a null predicate in the PEC(-ga).
claim that this question is directly related to how the remnants are licensed.
I
Recall
that those types of ellipsis that are subject to Lobeck's licensing condition, namely, VP
Ellipsis, Sluicing and Ellipsis in NP, illustrated in (1), all involve Spec/head agreement.
Hence, it is reasonable to assume that in these cases, the remnants are licensed precisely
because they enter into Spec/head agreement.
Further, in the cases of Gapping and
Stripping, I have been assuming that they do not involve a null category but rather
involve coordination of full-fledged clauses in their underlying structures with deletion
afterwards.
Hence, what appears to be remnants in these constructions are not really
remnants, so the issue in question will not arise in this type of construction.
What
about the Japanese constructions under consideration? Let us consider the structure
given in (78b) again. I have so far been discussing how the null predicate is licensed,
but I have so far mentioned nothing about how to license John-Nom and Mary-Acc, and
it is not obvious how they are licensed.
This might suggest that there is no licensing
condition on remnants of ellipsis, but we can find a variety of facts that suggest that the
remnants must be somehow licensed.
I will provide here a fact of Sluicing in Bavarian
German, reported by Lobeck (1995), which is a good case to suggest remnant licensing.
Lobeck reports that according to Bayer (1984), "in Bavarian German, COMP[+WH]
can realize agreement features of Person and Number, features which 'copy' those of
embedded INFL," (p. 58) as shown below (here only an English gloss of the original
sentence is provided):
(88)
you wanted come, but we know not when-2sg (you) come wanted-2sg
'You wanted to come, but we don't know when you wanted to come.'
In this sentence, when, which is in the embedded COMP, shows an agreement in 2sg
with the embedded INFL.
Lobeck further notes that "although Sluicing is generally
allowed in indirect questions in Bavarian German, the nominal agreement features in
COMP exemplified in [88] can never be overtly realized when IP is empty" (p. 59), as
shown below:
(89)
you wanted come, but we know not when(*-2sg) [e].
What she concludes from these facts as well as others is that "the appearance of
morphological agreement features in COMP in Bavarian appears to be contingent on the
occurrence of the same features in INFL." (p. 59) A natural explanation of this fact is
that in a Sluicing case such as (89), if the 2sg morpheme shows up in the wh-phrase
when, there is nothing that can license this morphology.
If this sort of account is on
the right track, then it suggests that a licensing condition is operative in ellipsis not only
to a null category but also to remnants.
Lobeck notes crucially that this account, if
correct, lends strong support to the type of analysis that assumes base-generated empty
categories in such a construction as Sluicing.
Assuming it to be true that remnants of an elliptic construction need to be licensed,
let us turn to the structure given in (78b) and raise the question how the subject and the
object are licensed.
I propose that argument remnants of the PEC are subject to the
following condition:
(90)
Licensing of Argument Remnants in the PEC
Argument remnants are licensed in terms of their case features.
Furthermore, I follow Saito (1982, 1985) in assuming that the accusative case -o and the
dative case -ni are assigned or checked by a lexical predicate whereas the nominative
case -ga is a default case and is assigned to or checked with a phrase that is located in a
T projection.
(91) a.
Thus, in the sentences given below,
John-ga Mary-o
-Nom
nagutta.
-Acc hit
'John hit Mary.'
b.
John-ga Mary-ni atta.
-Nom
-Dat saw
'John saw Mary.'
Mary-o and Mary-ni are licensed in the sense relevant to (90) by the verbs nagutta 'hit'
and atta 'saw', respectively, by receiving or checking an accusative case in the former
and a dative case in the latter.
On the other hand, John-ga is licensed when it is
located in the T projection and receives or checks a nominative case.
The claim that
the nominative case -ga is a default case is supported by so-called multiple subject
constructions such as given below:
(92) a.
Zoo-no
hana-ga
nagai.
elephant-Gen nose-Nom long
'Elephants' noses are long.'
b.
Zoo-ga
hana-ga
nagai.
elephant-Nom nose-Nom long
(93) a.
Bunmeekoku-no
dansee-no heekinzyumyoo-ga
mizikai.
civilized country-Gen man -Gen average life span-Nom short
'Civilized countries' men's average life spans are short.'
b.
Bunmeekoku-ga
dansee-ga
heekinzyumyoo-ga
mizikai.
civilized country-Nom man -Nom average life span-Nom short
In (92), zoo 'elephant' serves as the possessor of hana 'nose' and it is realized with the
genitive -no in (92a), as expected.
ga, as shown in (92b).
It can also be realized with the nominative marker -
In this case, it is very unlikely that ga-marking is done by a
particular lexical head but rather it is more reasonable to claim that elephant in (92b) is
located in the Spec-TP in surface structure and hence is marked with -ga. Likewise, in
(93), bunmeekoku 'civilized country' is the possessor of dansee 'man' and civilized
countries' men in turn is the possessor of heekinzyumyoo 'average life span'.
these possessors are marked with -no, as in (93a), as expected.
marked with -ga, as shown in (93b).
Hence,
They can also be
Again, this fact suggests that they can be marked
with -ga when they are located in the T-projection, irrespective of their lexical selection.
With this much in background, let us turn back to the structure given in (78b),
reproduced below:
(94)
TP
2
John-Nom
T'
2
Mary-Acc
T'
!
Ø
In this structure, John-ga is licensed according to (90) since it is located in the Spec-TP,
hence being able to receive a default nominative case, whereas Mary-o is not licensed
since there is no verb that could assign or check its accusative case.
Then, how is this
phrase licensed? I suggest that it is licensed by adjoining to a phrase that is
independently licensed, that is, adjoining to John-Nom in (94).
Thus, a more accurate
structure is something like the following:
(95)
TP
2
[[John-Nom] [Mary-Acc]]
T'
!
Ø
This way of licensing is modeled on the way of licensing a wh-adjunct, proposed by
Saito (1994), according to which a wh-adjunct can be licensed by way of adjoining to a
wh-phrase that is independently licensed.
He observes that in Japanese an adjunct wh-
phrase such as naze 'why' can be saved by a higher wh-argument when it appears in a
typical island violation configuration, as shown below:
(96) a. *John-wa [sono hon-o
naze katta] hito-o
sagasiteiru
no.
-Top that book-Acc why bought person-Acc be-looking-for Q
lit. 'Q John is looking for the person [that bought that book why]?'
b.??John-wa [nani-o
naze katta] hito-o
sagasiteiru
no.
-Top what-Acc why bought person-Acc be-looking-for Q
lit. 'Q John is looking for the person [that bought what why]?'
(96a) is a typical instance of island effects, because the adjunct wh-phrase naze appears
within a complex NP island. This is expected under the assumption, made by Abe
(1993) and Tsai (1994), that adjunct wh-phrases in situ must move to Spec-CP to be
licensed, unlike argument wh-phrases, which can be licensed by way of binding, hence
not exhibiting island effects.
In (96b), the object within the relative clause is changed
to a wh-phrase, and the sentence shows dramatic improvement.
To account for this
contrast, Saito gives the characterization given below for the way wh-adjuncts are
licensed:
(97)
A wh-adjunct is licensed by means of either (a) or (b):
a.
it moves to Spec-CP to agree with a [+WH] Comp
b.
it is adjoined to a higher wh-argument
According to this characterization, naze in (96b) can be licensed by way of adjoining to
nani-o 'what' and it does not have to move out of the complex NP island; hence this
sentence improves in its acceptability.
Notice that the saving effects of wh-adjuncts arise when they are adjoined to wharguments at LF; that is, the adjunction operation involved is a covert one.
Extending
Saito's idea, Sohn (1994) and Takano (2002) argue that such an adjunction operation
can take place overtly.
What I would like to suggest here is that such a saving effect
by way of one phrase adjoining to another can take place by Direct Merge, to use
Hoshi's (2001) terminology.
merged.
Notice that in (95), John-Nom and Mary-Acc are directly
This is because there is no other position for Mary-Acc that can be base-
generated and properly licensed; hence Mary-Acc is licensed by being directly merged
with John-Nom.12
It should be clear now why only a subject or a phrase marked with the nominative
marker -ga appears to be able to license a null predicate of the PEC(-ga), as far as
argument remnants are concerned.
The answer is that only a phrase marked with the
nominative marker -ga can license itself on its own in the construction in question; that
is, by being located in a T-projection. Thus, while (44b) is acceptable, (45) is not,
since Mary-o needs something it can adjoin to. The same explanation holds for the
contrast between (46a) and (46b), since not only a phrase with the accusative marker -o
but also one with the dative marker -ni is not licensed on its own and hence needs
something it can adjoin to.
Let us now turn to cases of the PEC(-ga) that involve modifiers. The most
natural assumption on the licensing of modifier remnants of this construction will be
something like the following:
(98)
Licensing of Modifier Remnants in the PEC
Modifier remnants are licensed by the presence of their modifiees.
Given this licensing condition, the fragments given in (47) are ungrammatical since
there is no lexical verb that could license the modifiers under a tree/with a hammer.13
The licensing condition in question is also needed to explain the ungrammaticality of
the fragments given in (49); otherwise, they would be grammatical in the configuration
in which Mary-o is left-adjoined to the modifiers. The grammaticality of (50)
indicates that a modifier can also be saved by adjoining to a phrase with the nominative
marker -ga.
It is predicted under the present analysis that a phrase that modifies TP can be an
independent remnant of the PEC.
This is in fact borne out with a tense modifier such
as kinoo 'yesterday', as illustrated below:
(99)
(Ototoi
Susan-o Bill-ga
sikatta
ra,) kinoo Mary-o/Mary-o
kinoo
before yesterday -Acc -Nom scolded and yesterday -Acc -Acc yesterday
lit. '(The day before yesterday, Bill scolded Susan and) yesterday Mary-Acc/
Mary-Acc yesterday ...'
It seems that this fragment is much better than those in (49). Thus, the following
sentence seems to be a possible continuation of this fragment:
(100)
Kinoo Mary-o/Mary-o kinoo John-ga sikatta.
yesterday -Acc
-Acc yesterday -Nom scolded
'Yesterday John scolded Mary.'
The reason why the fragment in (99) is grammatical is that kinoo 'yesterday', unlike
under a tree and with a hammer, is licensed in the same way as a phrase with the
nominative marker -ga; that is, by a T-projection. Given this, Mary-o in (99) is
licensed by either left- or right-adjoining to kinoo (see note 12).
With this tense
modifier, we can further demonstrate that not only arguments but also modifiers are
able to license a null predicate under consideration, since even if Mary-o is replaced by
a modifier of the main predicate in (99), the resulting sentence is still grammatical, as
shown below:
(101)
(Ototoi
oka-no ue-de
usi-o
mikaketa ra,)
before yesterday hill-Gen surface-on cow-Acc found and
kinoo
ki-no
sita-de kinoo [Pred e].
sita-de/ki-no
yesterday tree-Gen under tree-Gen under yesterday
lit. '(The day before yesterday, I found a cow on a hill and) yesterday under a
tree/under a tree yesterday ...'
Thus, the following sentence can be a possible continuation of this fragment:
(102)
Kinoo
ki-no
sita-de/Ki-no sita-de kinoo
uma-o
mikaketa.
yesterday tree-Gen under tree-Gen under yesterday horse-Acc found
'Yesterday, I found a horse under a tree.'
Let us now turn to cases of the PEC(-mo), dealing with the fact that all the cases
of the PEC that only involve non-subjects or modifiers of the main predicates become
grammatical when -mo is added to one of the remnants of this construction, as
illustrated in (51)-(54).
Recall that the underlying structure of a case of the PEC(-mo)
that involves one remnant is given in (64), repeated below:
(103)
TopP
2
XP-also
Top'
!
Ø
Given this structure, the fact mentioned above is accounted for rather straightforwardly
under the assumption that a phrase accompanied with -mo (or the topic marker -wa for
that matter) is licensed in the Spec-TopP in the sense relevant to the licensing condition
on remnants of the PEC.
Furthermore, in those cases of the PEC(-mo) involving a
remnant that lacks an independent licenser, we can simply follow the analysis of the
PEC(-ga) in claiming that such a remnant is licensed by adjoining to another remnant
which is independently licensed in the Spec-TopP. Thus, the underlying structure of
(37) is not that given in (78a) but rather the following:
(104)
TopP
2
[[John-also] [Mary-Acc]]
Top'
!
Ø
Here, Mary-Acc, which lacks its inherent licenser, namely its main predicate, is licensed
by way of adjoining to John-also, which is independently licensed in the Spec-TopP.14
Finally, let us briefly discuss some consequences of the present analysis of the
PEC concerning multiple subject constructions. Consider the following examples:
(105) a.
Zoo-ga [Pred e].
-Nom
'Elephants ...'
b.
Zoo-ga hana-ga mizikaku natteiru.
-Nom nose-Nom short
becoming
'As for elephants, their noses are becoming short.'
It is natural to take (105b) as a possible continuation of (105a).
arise as to how the null predicate in (105a) is licensed.
A question will, then,
Notice that in (105b), zoo-ga
'elephant-Nom' functions thematically as the possessor of hana 'nose' and the subject of
the predicate mizikaku natteiru 'becoming short' is noses, not elephants.
Thus, if the
speaker intended to say (105b) when he/she uttered (105a), the null predicate would not
be lexically licensed by zoo-ga 'elephant-Nom', since the latter does not serve as an
argument of the predicate becoming short, still less its modifier.
Nonetheless, the fact
that (105b) is a possible continuation of (105a) suggests that zoo-ga 'elephant-Nom'
does function as an argument of the rest of the sentence in an extended sense.
It is not
unreasonable to claim, following the Aristotelian idea that a proposition consists of a
subject and a predicate, zoo-ga 'elephant-Nom' in (105b) functions as the subject of
hana-ga mizikaku natteiru 'their noses are becoming short'; hence it can license the null
predicate that corresponds to their noses are becoming short.
Thus, this indicates that
the licensing condition given in (60) must be supplemented by way of predication in the
sense of Aristotle as well as by way of aboutness relation stated in (77).
There is a further piece of evidence that supports the claim just made above. Let
us consider the following examples:
(106) a.?*Zoo-ga
hana-ga [Pred e].
(cf. Zoo-no hana-ga [Pred e].)
elephant-Nom nose-Nom
b.?*Bunmeekoku-ga
-Gen nose-Nom
dansee-ga [Pred e].
civilized country-Nom man -Nom
(cf. Bunmeekoku-no
dansee-ga [Pred e].)
civilized country-Gen man -Nom
These examples do not sound good.
Notice that they should be legitimate in terms of
licensing of remnants, since the two phrases in each fragment are marked with the
nominative –ga.
Recall, however, that such remnants as in (106) need to be co-
arguments of a null predicate; otherwise, both remnants will not be given appropriate
interpretations.
Given this, the fragments in (106) cannot be properly interpreted.
Suppose that (105b) was what the speaker really wanted to say when he/she uttered
(106a).
Then, Zoo-ga is the subject of the rest of the sentence, i.e., hana-ga mizikaku
natteiru 'their noses are becoming short', whereas hana-ga 'nose-Nom' is the subject of
mizikaku natteiru 'becoming short'.
Hence, these two remnants are not co-arguments
of the same predicate, thereby (106a) being unable to receive any appropriate
interpretation. The same account also holds for (106b) (cf. (93b)).
As expected
under the present analysis of the PEC, if the first occurrence of the NP marked with -ga
is replaced by that with the topic marker -wa, then the resulting fragments are perfectly
acceptable, as shown below:
(106) a.
Zoo-wa
hana-ga [Pred e].
elephant-Top nose-Nom
b.
dansee-ga [Pred e].
Bunmeekoku-wa
civilized country-Nom man -Nom
This is because in these cases, the phrases zoo-wa 'elephant-Top' and bunmeekoku-wa
'civilized country-Top' are situated in the Spec-TopP and can have aboutness relations
with the following TPs.
This in turn makes it possible for the phrases hana-ga 'nose-
Nom' and dansee-ga 'man-Nom' to be the sole subjects of the null predicates, hence
making the co-argumenthood constraint irrelevant.
4.
Ellipsis in NP in Japanese
When I argued in Section 2 that Lobeck's licensing condition in terms of
Spec/head agreement is not at work for Japanese elliptic constructions, one question
was left unanswered, namely the question whether there is any Japanese counterpart of
Ellipsis in NP or to use a more familiar term the N'-deletion construction, exemplified
in (1c).
Saito and Murasugi (1990) do claim that there is such a construction in
Japanese, providing examples such as the following:
(107) a.
Gakusei-no sensei-e-no
izon-wa
yuruseru
ga,
student -Gen teacher-on-Gen reliance-Top can-tolerate but
insei-no
[e]-wa yurusenai.
grad. student-Gen -Top cannot-tolerate
'I can tolerate undergraduates' reliance on teachers, but I cannot tolerate grad.
students' [e].'
b.
Taroo-no
kenkyuu-ni taisuru taido-wa
-Gen research-toward
ii
ga,
attitude-Top good but
Hanako-no [e]-wa yokunai.
-Gen -Top not-good
'Taro's attitude toward research is good, but Hanako's [e] is not.'
If these sentences are real instances of the N'-deletion construction that is licensed by
way of Spec/head agreement in D projections, as Saito and Murasugi claim that they are,
then they will constitute strong counterexamples to the main claim of this paper.
Thus,
I would like to propose an alternative analysis of these constructions; that is, I claim that
the N'-deletion construction exemplified in these sentences is subject to the same way of
licensing as the PEC, namely, lexical licensing by arguments or modifiers.
An initial
motivation to regard these two constructions alike will obtain when we observe that it is
possible to utter only the second half of the sentences of (107) out of the blue, as shown
below:
(108) a.
Insei-no
[e]-wa yurusenai
nee.
grad. student-Gen -Top cannot-tolerate
'I cannot tolerate grad. students' [e], can I?'
b.
Hanako-no [e]-wa yokunai nee.
-Gen -Top not-good
'Hanako's [e] is not good, is it?'
In order to facilitate imaginable contexts in which these sentences may be uttered, the
ending morpheme nee is added to them, which corresponds most appropriately to a tag
question in its meaning.
When one hears these sentences, he/she will naturally
respond by saying what? or what can't you tolerate about graduate students and what is
not good about Hanako?, as expected.
Hence, it seems that these constructions do not
necessarily require antecedents, just as in cases of the PEC.
Secondly, this
construction allows not only one remnant, as exemplified above, but also allows two
remnants, as shown below:
(109) a. ?John-no Mary-e-no izon-wa
-Gen
yuruseru
ga,
-on-Gen reliance-Top can-tolerate but
Bill-no Susan-e-no [e]-wa yurusenai.
-Gen
-on-Gen -Top cannot-tolerate
'I can tolerate John's reliance on Mary, but I cannot tolerate Bill's [e] on
Susan.'
b. ?John-no Mary-e-no hihan-wa
-Gen
ii
ga,
-to-Gen criticism-Top good but
Bill-no Susan-e-no [e]-wa yokunai.
-Gen
-to-Gen -Top not-good
'John's criticism of Mary is good, but Bill's [e] of Susan is not good.'
In this respect too, this type of construction exhibits the same property as the PEC.
Suppose then that the same analysis is given to these cases as to those of the PEC in
terms of lexical licensing rather than Lobeck's functional licensing in terms of
agreement.
Then, from the licensing condition on the PEC given in (60), it is expected
that the null category of the construction under consideration also needs to be licensed
by either an argument or a modifier.
At first blush, this expectation does not seem to
be borne out, as Saito and Murasugi claim that while arguments can license the elliptic
site of this construction, as exemplified above and more below in (110), adjuncts cannot,
as shown in (111):
(110) a.
Taroo-no
kenkyuu-ni taisuru taido-wa Hanako-no [e] yorimo yoi.
-Gen research-toward
attitude-Top
-Gen than good
'Taro's attitude toward research is better than Hanako's [e].'
b.
Rooma-no hakai-wa Kyooto-no [e] yorimo hisan datta.
-Gen destruction-Top -Gen than horrible was
'Rome's destruction was more horrible than Kyoto's [e].'
(111) a. *Saikin-wa hare-no hi-ga
ame-no [e] yorimo ooi.
recent-Top clear-Gen day-Nom rain-Gen than plentiful
'Recently, there have been more clear days than rainy [days].'
b. *Hutakire-no
hamu-wa yuusyoku-ni naru
two slices-Gen ham -Top supper-to
ga,
make-up but
hitokire-no [e]-wa naranai.
one slice-Gen -Top not-make-up
'Two slices of ham make up a supper, but one slice [of ham] does not.'
In (110a), Hanako's serves as the subject of the null category corresponding to attitude
toward research and in (110b), Kyoto's serves as the object of the null category
corresponding to destruction; hence the grammaticality of these sentences.
The same
account will hold for the sentences in (107)-(109). On the other hand, in (111a), ame-
no 'rain-Gen' is not an argument of the null category corresponding to days nor in
(111b) is hitokire-no 'one slice-Gen' is an argument of the null category corresponding
to hams, and hence they are excluded, Saito and Murasugi claim.
However, further
examination of relevant data shows that modifiers can also license the elliptic site of the
N'-deletion construction.
(112) a.
Ano toozi-no Rooma-no hakai-wa
that time -Gen
hisan
konniti-no [e] yorimo
-Gen destruction-Top today -Gen than
datta.
horrible was
lit. 'That time's destruction of Rome was more horrible than today's
[destruction of Rome].'
b.
Sono basyo-de-no Yamada sensei-e-no
that place -in -Gen
hihan-wa
yuruseru ga,
teacher-to-Gen criticism-Top tolerable but
kono basyo-de-no [e]-wa yurusenai.
this place -in-Gen -Top intolerable
lit. 'I can tolerate in that place's criticism of Prof. Yamada, but not in this
place's [criticism of Prof. Yamada].'
The grammaticality of these sentences clearly demonstrates that not only arguments but
also modifiers can license the elliptic site of the N'-deletion construction.
We can
attribute the ungrammaticality of the sentences in (111) not to the fact that adjunct
genitive phrases do not license N'-deletion, as Saito and Murasugi claim, but to the fact
that they involve deletion of nominals that are not predicates and hence cannot be null
according to the licensing condition on null categories given in (60).
In this way, we
can maintain this licensing condition in explaining the grammaticality of all the data of
the N'-deletion construction we have considered so far.15
Let us now move on to the issue of licensing of remnants in this construction.
Recall that I claimed in the last section that the nominative case marker -ga is assigned
as a default case when a phrase is located in a T-projection, and hence such a phrase is
licensed on its own in the PEC.
How about a phrase bearing the genitive case marker -
no? Interestingly, this case marker also behaves as a default case, since, as Saito and
Murasugi note, any NP or PP must bear a genitive marker when it is located in an Nprojection, as shown below:
(113) a.
yuubokumin-no
nomad
tosi-no
hakai
-Gen city-Gen destruction
'the nomad's destruction of the city'
b.
Hanako-no Taroo-e-no hihan
-Gen
-to-Gen criticism
'Hanako's criticism of Taro'
c.
Taroo-no genzitu-kara-no toohi
-Gen reality -from-Gen escape
'Taro's escape from the reality'
d.
Taroo-no Hanako-e-no izon
-Gen
-on-Gen reliance
'Taro's reliance on Hanako'
Thus it is quite natural to regard the genitive marker -no as a default case, exactly like
the nominative marker -ga.
Hence, any phrase bearing the genitive marker is licensed
on its own by simply being located in a N-projection involving ellipsis.
Most of the
examples that we have seen so far which involve only one remnant are those in which
the remnant serves as the subject of the null category.
We have seen one example in
which the remnant serves as the object of the null category, namely (110b), and also
examples in which modifiers license N' elliptic sites, namely a NP modifier in (112a)
and a PP modifier in (112b).
It is also predicted that an argument PP bearing the
genitive marker can also be a remnant of the elliptic construction in question. This is
also borne out, as shown below:
(114) a.
John-no Mary-e-no
-Gen
Susan-e-no
izon-wa
yuruseru
ga,
-on-Gen reliance-Top can-tolerate but
[e]-wa yurusenai.
-on-Gen -Top cannot-tolerate
lit. 'I can tolerate John's reliance on Mary, but I cannot tolerate [e] on Susan.'
b.
John-no Mary-e-no hihan-wa
-Gen
ii
ga,
-to-Gen criticism-Top good but
Susan-e-no [e]-wa yokunai.
-to-Gen -Top not-good
lit. 'John's criticism of Mary is good, but [e] of Susan is not good.'
Further, we have seen that the Japanese N'-deletion construction can involve more than
one remnant, as illustrated in (109), in which one remnant serves as subject and the
other serves as PP argument.
In fact, other combinations of remnants are possible, as
illustrated below in (115), where (115a) involves a modifier and an object NP as
remnants of the N' elliptic site and (115b) involves a modifier and a PP argument.
(115) a.
Ano toozi-no Rooma-no hakai-wa
that time -Gen
yorimo hisan
than
konniti-no Kyooto-no [e]
-Gen destruction-Top today -Gen
-Gen
datta.
horrible was
lit. 'That time's destruction of Rome was more horrible than today's
[destruction] of Kyoto.'
b.
Sono basyo-de-no Yamada sensei-e-no
that
place-in-Gen
hihan-wa
yuruseru ga,
teacher-to-Gen criticism-Top tolerable but
kono basyo-de-no insei-e-no
[e]-wa yurusenai.
this place-in-Gen grad. student-to-Gen -Top intolerable
lit. 'I can tolerate in that place's criticism of Prof. Yamada, but not in this
place's [criticism] of a grad student.'
All these data are exactly what we predict under the present assumptions about the way
remnants of ellipsis are licensed, since a phrase bearing the genitive case marker -no can
be licensed on its own by being located in a N-projection.
To sum up, I have demonstrated a plausible new analysis of what Saito and
Murasugi (1990) take as an instance of the N'-deletion construction, in terms of
Predicate Ellipsis and lexical licensing.
Granted that I have not given a more thorough
outline of Saito and Murasugi's analysis of the N'-deletion construction along the way of
Lobeck's licensing condition, the above arguments should not be taken to be enough for
refutation of their analysis.
However, to the extent that independent motivations are
provided for lexical licensing of ellipsis in Japanese, the analysis of the Japanese N'deletion construction in terms of lexical licensing is more likely to be on the right track.
5.
Concluding remarks
I have argued in this paper that a licensing condition on ellipsis such as Lobeck's
(1995) which is characterized in terms of agreement in functional projections is not at
work in such a language as Japanese which lacks agreement.
Instead, apparent
counterparts of such elliptic constructions that are subject to Lobeck's licensing
condition are licensed in terms of what is called lexical licensing in this language.
Lexical licensing is characterized in terms of not only predicate-argument but also
predicate-modifier relationship.
In Section 2, I demonstrated, following the arguments
given by Nishiyama et al. (1996) and Kuwabara (1996), that apparent cases of Sluicing
are in fact ones of Reduced Clefts and can be characterized as involving licensing of
null arguments by copulas, and also, following the arguments given by Kim (1999) and
Hoji (1998), that apparent cases of VP Ellipsis simply involve null arguments that are
licensed by predicates in general.
In Section 3, I demonstrated that there are cases of
what is called here Predicate Ellipsis in Japanese, which involve null predicates that are
licensed by their arguments or modifiers.
In Section 4, I argued that what appears to
be a case of the N'-deletion construction in Japanese can be regarded as simply a special
case of Predicate Ellipsis.
All these arguments lead to the conclusion that ellipsis is
among the many other phenomena that are affected by the presence of agreement in a
given language and that parametrization is involved accordingly in terms of functional
vs. lexical licensing.
Notes
1
It has been well-known since Lasnik and Saito (1992) that Japanese does not
exhibit subject island sensitivity, so it is generally the case that the subject island is not
exploited to test whether a particular Japanese construction exhibits island sensitivity.
Takahashi (1994) provides an example that he claims to show that Japanese Sluicing is
sensitive to the wh-island, as given below (again, the example is slightly modified):
(i)
Mary-wa Bill-ni [John-ga aru mono-o
-Top -Dat
boku-wa [nani-o
I
katta kadooka] kiita sooda ga,
-Nom one thing-Acc bought whether asked I-heard but
ka] siritai.
'I heard that Mary asked Bill whether John bought a certain thing and I want to
know what (Mary asked Bill whether John bought t).'
Takahashi gives ?? to such an example as (i), that is, judges it just as degraded as the
pure complex NP case given in (16a). It seems to me that (i) is better than (16a),
though it is not crystal clear how significant the difference is.
See Abe (2005) for the
claim that those Japanese constructions which are claimed to involve overt operator
movement are not sensitive to the wh-island.
2
The judgments of the sentences in (21) regarding the availability of sloppy
readings may be somewhat insecure, but I believe that it is because the referential
readings of the null subjects involved are somehow preferred.
Thus, if we control the
relevant examples in such a way as to suppress such a factor, then it seems that sloppy
readings are more easily available, as shown below:
(i)
Zibun-no hatake-no
ninzin-ga hotondo subete-no hito-no
self -Gen garden-Gen carrot-Nom almost
every -Gen person-Gen
daikoobutu desita ga, [e] Peter-no daikoobutu de-wa arimasen desita.
big-favoritewas but
-Gen big-favorite
not
was
lit. 'The carrots from self's garden were almost everyone's big favorite, but [e]
wasn't Peter's big favorite.'
(ii)
Hotondo subete-no hito-ga
almost
da to
every -Gen person-Nom self -Gen wife-Nom beautiful be Comp
omotteiru ga, Bill-wa [e] kiree
think
zibun-no tuma-ga kiree
but
-Top
da to
omotteinai.
beautiful be Comp think-not
'Almost everyone thinks self's wife is beautiful, but Bill doesn't think [e] is
beautiful.'
3
See Hoji (1998) and Kim (1999) for further counterevidence to Otani and
Whitman's claim that null objects exhibit the same locality effects as VP Ellipsis in the
availability of sloppy identity interpretation.
4
This account raises the question why the full sentence which results from
copying John onto the null object in (26) is almost perfect in its acceptability, as shown
below:
(i)
John-wa John-o
-Top
hihansita.
-Acc criticized
'John criticized John.'
Here we may assume Tancredi's (1994) version of binding theory, in which focus plays
a crucial role in regulating the distribution of NPs. Following his theory, we can claim
that (i) is void of a "Condition C" violation, since the second occurrence of John is
focused.
On the other hand, (26) cannot escape from a violation of this condition,
since the element copied from the subject is in no way regarded as focused.
See Abe
(2002) for relevant discussion.
5
The second sentence of (27) in fact allows the third reading according to which
Jeanne hit Mike.
Kim (1999) says that "this third reading obtains naturally when
Jeanne became angry at Mike because she saw him hit her son." (p. 265)
This reading
obtains by simply copying Mike onto the null object in question.
6
One may wonder if the null topic analysis can be extended to derive such a
sloppy reading as is available to (27).
In that case, Kim's (1999) NP Ellipsis analysis
could be replaced by this null topic analysis.
This move seems doubtful, however,
since when an overt topic referring to self's child is supplied to (27), the resulting
sentence does not sound very good, as shown below:
(i)??Mike-ga zibun-no kodomo-o butta.
-Acc hit
Sosite zibun-no kodomo-wa
then self
-Gen child
-Top
Jeanne-mo [e] butta.
-also
hit
To the extent that the contrast between this example and (29) in their acceptability is
significant, it is reasonable to confine the option of a null topic to deriving the
coreferential reading of a null argument.
7
This does not mean that selection by a lexical head is a sufficient condition for
licensing a null category, but rather it should be taken as a necessary condition.
See
Saito (1985) and Hoji (1985) for the claim that the distribution of so-called pro is
restricted in category and the status of its antecedent.
8
There is one reading where (45) and (46b) can be uttered out of the blue, that is,
when watasi-wa 'I-Top' is suppressed; otherwise, they do not sound very good.
same qualification also holds true for the examples given in (47)-(49).
The
This point will
be briefly addressed in footnote 14.
9
When mo- 'also' is attached to an NP with either the nominative marker -ga or
the accusative marker -o, the latter marker must be dropped for an unknown reason.
That is why the accusative marker -o is suppressed in examples (51a), (53a,b) and
(54a,b).
Note further that the most natural interpretations of (52a,b) are the ones indicated
in the translations, in which the elliptic sites are not identical to the corresponding parts
in the first conjuncts.
Thus, these examples also show that the PEC(-mo) does not
require strict identity for the elliptic site.
10
One might wonder if there is any possibility of restoring the symmetrical
relation in question by admitting the existence of null modifiers.
On this point, I am
simply following, without any argument, the standard claim that "pro" is allowed only
in argument positions in Japanese (see Murasugi and Saito (1992), among others).
It
was pointed out to me by an unidentified person that a sentence such as the following
may be relevant for the issue at stake:
(i)
John-ga
zibun-no kuruma-de kita ra, Bill-mo kita.
-Nom self -Gen car
-by came and
-also came
lit. 'John came by his own car and Bill came, too.'
If the second clause of this sentence has the sloppy reading on which Bill came by Bill's
own car, then this will indicate the existence of a null modifier, in this case, one that
means "by his own car".
I am not sure if (i) has this sloppy reading; it is true that this
sentence can be uttered to describe the situation intended by this sloppy reading, but it
seems that there is a possibility of explaining that the second clause simply expresses
Bill's coming and the way Bill came is inferred by the context.
I will leave this matter
open here.
11
According to the definition given in (58), a COMPLEX PREDICATE is
strictly a sequence of verbs and tenses, but I will also use this term to mean any
projection of it containing its arguments and modifiers.
12
Here I am tacitly assuming that when a phrase XP precedes another phrase YP,
then YP is right-adjoined to XP, and hence that in (95) Mary-Acc is right-adjoined to
John-Nom.
(i)
Notice, however, that the opposite order is also allowed, as shown below:
Mary-o John-ga ...
-Acc -Nom
In this case, it might be claimed that Mary-Acc is left-adjoined to John-Nom.
But, if
one considers it odd to claim that both left- and right-adjunction are allowed, then we
can claim that in (i), John-Nom is right-adjoined to Mary-Acc, and that even in this case,
the former can license the latter.
Alternatively, considering the fact that Japanese is a
head-final language and hence usually only left-adjunction is permitted, then it would
be more reasonable to claim that in (i), Mary-Acc is left-adjoined to John-Nom, and in
(95), John-Nom is left-adjoined to Mary-Acc. For only an expository purpose, I
assume that adjunction in both directions is allowed, so that (95) involves rightadjunction and (i) involves left-adjunction. See Sohn (1994) for relevant discussion.
13
One might wonder whether null COMPLEX PREDICATES cannot serve as
licensers of such modifier remnants as under a tree/with a hammer.
Notice that they
are labeled as a projection of T and as such include tense, so what is implicitly assumed
here is that a part of a null COMPLEX PREDICATE does not serve as a licenser of a
modifier remnant.
See below in the text those cases in which null COMPLEX
PREDICATES do act as such licensers.
14
It was noted in note 8 that the unacceptable examples in (45)-(49) become
acceptable when they are interpreted in such a way that watasi-wa 'I-Top' is suppressed.
This fact immediately follows under the assumption that in such an interpretation, a
zero topic referring the speaker exists in the Spec-TopP, hence licensing other remnants.
15
Saito and Murasugi (1990) take the following example as ungrammatical:
(i)(*)Taroo-ga Hanako-ni yoseru sinrai-wa Ziroo-ga Akiko-ni yoseru-no [e]
-Nom
-Dat have trust -Top
-Nom
-Dat have -Gen
yorimo atui.
than
deep
'The trust that Taro has in Hanako is deeper than [the trust] that Ziro has in Akiko.'
They attribute the ungrammaticality of this sentence ultimately to the status as a
modifier of the relative clause that appears to license the N' elliptic site of this sentence.
It does not seem to me, however, that this sentence is unacceptable.
Saito and
Murasugi show further that (i) contrasts with the following sentence in its
grammaticality:
(ii)
Taroo-ga Hanako-ni yoseru sinrai-wa Ziroo-no [e] yorimo atui.
-Nom
-Dat have trust -Top
-Gen than
deep
'The trust that Taro has in Hanako is deeper than Ziro's [e].'
(ii) differs from (i) in that the N' elliptic site of this sentence is supported by a genitive
NP, namely, Ziroo-no, which serves as its subject rather than its modifier.
Saito and
Murasugi note that the contrast in grammaticality between (i) and (ii) is problematic to
their analysis, but it seems to me that (i) is just as acceptable as (ii).
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LICENSING CONDITIONS IN ELLIPSIS

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