Syntax-Semantics Interface

The original Japanese version was published as Takubo, Yukinori (2018) in Gengo Kenkyu. No. 154. 1-27. https://doi.org/10.11435/gengo.154.0_1

The volume on Semantics and Pragmatics presents a collection of studies on linguistic meaning in Japanese, either as conventionally encoded in linguistic form (the field of semantics) or as generated by the interaction of form with context (the field of pragmatics), representing a range of ideas and approaches that are currently most influentialin these fields. The studies are organized around a model that has long currency in traditional Japanese grammar, whereby the linguistic clause consists of a multiply nested structure centered in a propositional core of objective meaning around which forms are deployed that express progressively more subjective meaning as one moves away from the core toward the periphery of the clause. The volume seeks to achieve a balance in highlighting both insights that semantic and pragmatic theory has to offer to the study of Japanese as a particular language and, conversely, contributions that Japanese has to make to semantic and pragmatic theory in areas of meaning that are either uniquely encoded, or encoded to a higher degree of specificity, in Japanese by comparison to other languages, such as conditional forms, forms expressing varying types of speaker modality, and social deixis.

本章では, 現代日本語の時間に関する表現について考察し, そこに現れている構造を見て, 日本人にとって, ひいては人間にとって「時間」はどのようにとらえられているのかを考える。時間がどのようなものかに関する物理的, 哲学的考察はここでは問題にしない。我々が時間を言語でどのように表しているのかを観察し, その観察を通して我々の時間のとらえ方を考えるのが本章の目的である。

General Remarks: One of the major areas of research in generative grammar concerns the distribution and the interpretations of nominal expressions such as pronouns (it, him, them, etc.), and what grammatical (i.e., structural and lexical) knowledge underlies the relevant linguistic intuitions of the native speakers. When one tries to examine the validity of the relevant theoretical proposal and its applicability to Japanese, however, one immediately faces the problem that Japanese seems to lack "pronouns" of the sort observed in English. What is quite productively used in Japanese in place of English "pronouns" is an NP with a "demonstrative" prefix. What is of interest here is that two "demonstrative" prefixes a- and so- seem interchangeable in some cases. For example, it seems that "it" in "Toyota praised its subsidiaries in America" can be translated either into so-ko or a-soko in Japanese. ("So" in "a-soko" is unrelated to the prefix so-.) Yet, when used to point to a visible object, the uses of so-ko and a-soko are quite distinct from each other. We examine the properties of NPs with these prefixes so as to be able to develop a theory of the distribution and the interpretations of nominal expressions, mainly on the basis of the empirical materials in Japanese, with hopes that our theory will be applicable to other languages as well. --- Collins COBUILD E-Dictionary has: The words 'this', 'that', 'these', and 'those' are sometimes called demonstratives; a technical use in linguistics.

日本語研究において広く受け入れられている原則に次のものがある。 （1）文の成分の係りの深さと受けの広さには正の相関がある 主文の成分がこの原則に従うのは定義によるので南のA,B,C,D 類の成分がそれぞれ同じ類の述語にかかるのは当然である。係り受けの概念自体が原則（１）に合うように定義されているからである。しかし、従属節でこの原則が成り立つか否かは自明ではないし、実際引用節では明らかになりたたない。それを一つの根拠として中村（2001）は、（1）は従属節では成り立たないとする。しかし、野田（2002）は、（1）の原則が従属節にも成り立つという観察を行い。引用節を例外とする。ここではこの野田の観察に基づき、なぜこの原則が日本語の従属節に成り立つのかを考察する。 KLS Selected Papers 1. 220-225

近年, 現代日本語に対する関心が高まるなかで, 文法の問題がよく話題に取り上げられるようになってきました. 大学等で日本語文法を対象とした科目やコースを設置するところも増えてきています. ところ力, 初学者向けに日本語文法を組織的に概説した書物は, 意外に少ないようです. 文法研究が急速な進展を示しているのとは対照的に, その成果をわかりやすく解説する作業は, 今のところ, 十分には進んでいないのが実情のようです. 日本語文法の体系をわかりやすく概観した書物はないか, との初学者の要望に少しでも答えたいと思ったのが, 本書を執筆することになったそもそもの動機です. 本書は, 現代日本語の文法を概説したものです. 文法現象をわかりやすく整理したものです.「文法論」 の書物ではありませんので, 文法現象を支配する原理, 原則はどのようなものか, といった文法の根本にかかわる事柄は扱っていません. 執筆に当たって特に心がけたことは, 次の 3 点です, 第 1 に, 記述, 説明をわかりやすいものにするように努めました. 第 2 に. 基礎的な文法事項と考えられるものは, できる限り網羅するように配慮しました. 第 3 に, それらの事項をなるベく組織的. 体系的に記述することを目指しました. 少し欲張り過ぎたかもしれませんが, 言わば,「わかりやすく, 網羅的で, 体系的に」 を標語にしたわけです. 本書をまとめるために, これまでに公刊された数多くの文献, 学説のお世話になりました. 記述, 説明の仕方や術語の用い方においてこれらの説を直接取り入れた点も多数ありますが, 概説書としての性格上, これらの点を具体的に明示することは, 省かせていただきました. この点について, 関係の方々にお詫び申し上げます.

Unlike English and other European languages, Japanese accords a special status of the notion II place". In Japanese place/ non-place distinction is treated on a par with e.g. human/ non-human distinction. This can be illustrated by the interrogative system. As compared with the two-way distinction of the English interrogative pronoun system, i.e., who vs. what, Japanese makes a three-way distinction, i.e., dare (who), nani (what), doko (wh-place). Doko, an interrogative pronoun for place nouns is nominal and refers to the inherent properties of nouns it is related to. In contrast, English where refers to the function of the nouns in a sentence, i.e. "locative". Thus Japanese must make place/non-place distinction in the choice of nouns in the manner count/mass distinction is made in English. This paper examines various ramifications of such a distinction in Japanese. First, some comparison is made between non-place-oriented languages like English and place-oriented languages like Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Then minor differences among place-oriented languages are also observed. With this preliminary analysis, attempts are made to analyze various roles that place/non-place distinction plays in Japanese in greater detail. It is observed: (1) Japanese makes a distinction between physical location and abstract location. In physical location, only place nouns are allowed as loci. (2) Physical movement and abstract movement are also distinguished. In physical movement, only place nouns are allowed as goals and sources. (3) The feature [± place] cross-classifies with other features, e.g. [± human] (4) Japanese has devices to change (-place] nouns into (+place) nouns. One such device is attaching tokoro to nouns. tokoro attaches only to [-p1ace] nouns and changes them into [+place] nouns, keeping other features of the nouns intact. (5) From (4) it can be said that tokoro is a localizing suffix. tokoro as a localizer can be extended in its function to mean "part", "point" etc. This latter meaning can be obtained by emphasizing "locating" function of tokoro.

「ところ」「って」「いまごろ」など、見逃してしまいがちな日常語のふるまいを通じて、日本語の言語としての本質に迫る。生成文法から語用論、日本語教育まで、幅広い研究領域を手掛ける著者による、日本語研究論考の著作集。

Tense and aspect in Japanese: tokoro-da as a reference time marker (476 words) In this paper, I will propose a compositional account of tense and aspect system in Japanese and show how the uses of the tense/aspect forms are constrained by the addition of ‘tokoro-da.’ Japanese non-past form /ru/, past form /ta/ and aspectual form /tei/ have a variety of usages. When attached to nonstatives, /ru/ basically expresses immediate or remote future, and /ta/ expresses immediate or remote past. The use of /te i/ is extremely varied and expresses progressives for activity and accomplishment verbs, resultative states for achievement, e.g. kekkonsi-tei-ru (be married), and accomplishment verbs, e.g. ki-tei-ru (wear)), and experiential perfect for all non-stative verbs. When /ru/ and /ta/ are attached to stative predicates, they order the reference time to be included within the trace of the event time: for /ru/, the reference time is equal to or later than the utterance time and for /ta/ the reference time is equal to or prior to the reference time. The use of /ru/ and /ta/ combined with statives can be captured by giving the temporal semantics of statives and tense separately. ‘Tokoro-da (location+copula), when attached to non-stative predicates, restricts the interpretive possibilities /ru/, /ta/ and /tei/ forms to immediate future, immediate past and progressive, respectively. If ‘tokoro-da’ is attached to stative predicates, the interpretation invariably involves counterfactuality, rather than immediacy. I will show that the meaning of immediacy imposed by 'tokoro-da' can be accounted for by a constraint that it introduces: the reference time be included in the interval denoted by the predicates, i.e., the same temporal interpretation for stative predicates. The interpretive possibilities of tense and aspect forms with ‘tokoro-da’ can, thus, be captured by taking the intersection of the denotation of tense/aspect forms and the denotation of ‘tokoro-da’. /Ru/ orders the reference time r prior to the initial phase of the initial phase of an event, so the intersection with the semantics of ‘tokoro-da’ gives only the initial phase. /Ta/ orders r prior to the final phase of an event, so the intersection with ‘tokoro-da’ gives only the final phase. ‘Te- i’ orders r later than the initial phase of an event, so the intersection with ‘tokoro-da’ places r between the initial and the final phase, giving only the progressive meaning. Our approach explains the fact that ‘tokoro-da’ cannot combine with statives without enforcing a counterfactual interpretation by the redundancy ‘tokoro-da’ introduces if added to a stative. Finally, I will show that the distribution of ‘tokoro-da’ can be explained by treating it as a lexical manifestation of the reference time, which is one of the functions of 'tokoro' as 'a reference point marker', i.e., basically the same function of 'tokoro' used as a locative noun, e.g., ‘John-no tokoro (John's place).’

In this paper we review some basic facts of negation in Mandarin Chinese as determined by syntax. A negative morpheme generally has its sister position, i.e., its complement, as its scope. The basic semantic function of a negative morpheme is to give a complement set of the set denoted by the predicate in its scope. In the case of phrasal or sentential negation, the complement set can be given by associating negation with one of onstituents in the scope, thereby giving the focus of negation. Given the head first and right branching structure of the predicate phrase in Chinese, it is expected that a phrasal negative element, such as bu and mei(you) has the VP, i.e., its right sister, as its scope and that the constituents in its left are to be outside its scope. Constituents to the left of negative morphemes cannot be negated, i.e. cannot be the focus of negation, while those in the right can. There are some cases, however, in which constituents to the left of the negative morphemes appear to be in the scope of negation. In sentences such as ‘Shenme ye mei shuo.’ ((I ) have not said anything.), the phrase 'shenme ye' appears to be in the scope of negation 'mei' in that it is interpreted as a negative polarity item, which is generally required to be in the scope of negation to be interpretable. We will show that phrases like these are not in the scope of negation, and that they are not negative polarity items and that the relevant interpretation can be obtained by treating them as universal quantifiers. We will demonstrate that in Mandarin Chinese, and probably in other dialects of Chinese, the following holds, as are the case with other languages: A. Negation scope is the sister constituent of the negative morphemes. B. The focus of negation must be in the scope of negation.

In this paper I examine the aspectual and counterfactual interpretation of the construction' VP tokoro-da' in Japanese. 'Tokoro' is a formal noun whose literal meaning is 'location,' and da is the present form of a copula. When attached to the inflectional forms of verbs, 'tokoro-da' affects their temporal interpretation. The non-past form 'VP-ru' of non-stative verbs can be interpreted as immediate or remote future and the past form 'VP-ta' as immediate or remote past. Their interpretation is restricted to immediate future and immediate past, respectively, when 'tokoro-da' is attached to them. When 'tokoro-da' is attached to the aspectual form' -te i-{ru/ta}', which generally has progressive and perfect interpretations, the progressive interpretation is forced on activity verbs, excluding the perfect interpretations, giving 'vividness' or 'eyewitness' flavor. If 'tokoro-da' is attached to stative verbs or achievement verbs, only counterfactual interpretation becomes possible. Perfect use of the aspectual form 'VP-te i-' is compatible with 'tokoro-da' only as the consequent of counterfactual conditionals. To account for these observations, I claim that the complement of tokoro-da must express a d-proposition in the sense of Takubo (2006): A proposition is a d-proposition if the truth value of it is directly (i.e., not by inference or hearsay) accessible to the speaker, i.e. the speaker must know either that the proposition is true or false. I show how this characterization of 'tokoro-da' accounts for the implication of 'vividness' or 'eyewitness' flavor associated with the veridical 'tokoro-da.'

In this paper I give a semantic characterization of the Japanese non-past suffix /ru/~/u/ and past suffix /ta/~/da/, (hereafter RU and TA, respectively) and the aspectual form /-te i-/~/-de i-/(TE I) . I demonstrate that, when attached to a non-stative verb phrase, RU and TA serve to take an event and a reference time and give a temporal order between them, a function similar to the formal relational nouns, mae (before) and ato (after), respectively. The characterization nicely accounts for the co-occurrence restriction such that -RU only combines with mae and -TA only with ato. The constraint can be explained by assuming that RU and TA on the one hand, and mae and ato on the other, expresses the same ordering function and that while mae and ato im-pose total order, RU and TA impose a partial function that allows overlap. It is also shown that RU and TA function as tense when attached to non-stative predicates.

統語論の自律性仮説と機能主義的なアプローチとはアプリオリには背反するものではなく，両立することも可能である．しかし，統語論の自律性仮説を仮定する理論的アプローチでは，ある形の機能論的言明は述べることができない．ここでは，統語論の自律性仮説をある程度明示的に述べることにより，機能主義的アプローチと自律性仮説に基づく統語論とがどのような形で両立可能かを探る.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate an approach to language as it relates to cognition and thought processes by looking into the mapping relation among spatial, temporal, and modal domains. I will take up the problem of polysemy involving tokoro, a formal noun meaning ‘location’ in Japanese, to discuss such problems as the relation between language and inferential mechanisms, the interfaces between syntax and semantics, and those between semantics and pragmatics. I will first discuss various spatial usages of tokoro expressing place or location to characterize its core meaning as ‘identifying a reference point,’ which is crucially used in relative nouns expressing space orientation. Secondly, I will examine how the core meaning thus characterized can be extended to the temporal domain. In the temporal domain, tokoro identifies a part of the temporal trace of an event as a reference point, and orders the event to be located with respect to the reference point identified by tokoro, thereby accounting for how the addition of tokoro to a predicate restricts the interpretive possibilities for expressions of tense and aspect, specifically -ru, -teiru and -ta. In the modal domain, tokoro, when attached to a predicate, requires the sentence to be a counterfactual conditional: Both the premise and the consequent must be interpreted to be counterfactual. I demonstrate how the characterization of tokoro as ‘identifying a reference point,’ and the mechanisms underlying said characterization as argued for in this paper can account for the counterfactuality of tokoro conditionals in the modal domain.