563 LING/JAPN Structure of Japanese
Spring 2009
Discussion questions: Noguchi (1997)
Alternative for Assignment #5 Due Thursday, March 5 If you are a linguistics graduate student in your second year or higher, you must complete this alternative to Assignment #5 (or talk to me soon if you see a problem). Otherwise, if you have background in X' syntax and Binding Theory (LING 530 or possibly LING 201), you may choose to complete this alternative to Assignment #5.
Background information and terminology In GB syntax (1980s-1990s), the difference between A-movement (A-positions, A-binding) and A'-movement (A'-positions, A'-binding; pronounced A-bar) was important. A-movement is movement to an argument position (hence A), as in NP-movement (like Passive or Raising), and usually involves moving to get Case. A-binding is the binding relationship between a phrase that has undergone A-movement and its trace. A'-movement is movement to a non-argument position, like an adjunction site or Spec of CP; examples of this are WH-movement and operator movement (e.g., quantifier raising). A'-binding is the binding relationship between a phrase that has undergone A'-movement and its trace.
Null pronominals: Many languages, including Japanese, have null (empty, non-overt) subject and/ or object pronouns. These are represented in example sentences as pro, sometimes called little pro to distinguish it from big PRO (the null subject of an infinitive clause). Answer the following questions completely but concisely, based on the information in the reading (and any other relevant knowledge you might have). Please avoid using direct quotations unless absolutely necessary; you should be able to restate the points made in the reading, using your own words. (1) What is it that personal pronouns like he, she can do in English, but personal pronouns like kare, kanozyo cant do in Japanese? Try to explain the difference; go beyond simply repeating terminology from the article. Hint: The presence of the index i on certain words in examples (1a-b) is crucial. (2) Choose one of the two previous approaches to the problem that Noguchi reviews in section 2 (i.e., sec 2.1 or sec 2.2). Summarize the main point of the proposal as well as Noguchis grounds for rejecting that proposal. English personal pronouns (a) (b) What lexical category does Noguchi propose that English personal pronouns belong to? Note that as part of his discussion, Noguchi reviews earlier, related claims by various researchers, but he finds fault with certain aspects of proposals. their Summarize what Noguchi, himself, proposes to be true about the syntactic structure of English personal pronouns (in section 3.1). Draw the structures in (25) and (27a) as trees.
(3)
(c)
(4)
Japanese personal pronouns (a) (b) (c) What lexical category does Noguchi propose that Japanese personal pronouns belong to? What distributional evidence does he present for this claim? What additional evidence does he also present? Do you have any comment on these arguments? Draw the structures in (32) (pick one pronoun) and (33a) as trees.
(5)
Does Noguchis proposal about the syntactic-category difference between Japanese and English personal pronouns explain why only the Japanese ones can occur with adjectives (setting aside the special English pattern in 4.1)? If so, how? Choose one of the two potential problems for Noguchis analysis that he raises and dismisses in 4.1 and 4.2. Summarize the problem and Noguchis reason for dismissing it. Are you convinced? The meat of Noguchis proposal is summarized in 5. Explain how the proposal in Noguchis (51) leads to the difference between personal pronouns in English and Japanese that you discussed in reading guide question (1). (Background to the question:) One of the points discussed in 6 is this: At LF, the English determiners a, the can optionally be represented by a variable (which gets bound by a quantifier such as the universal quantifier introduced by an expression like always). Noguchis rule of variable substitution (VS) is a formalization of t...