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Title:
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Japanese Union Constructions: A unified analysis of -sase and -rare
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Author:
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Stanley Dubinsky
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Degree Awarded:
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Cornell University
, Department of Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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1985
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Syntax
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Subject Language(s):
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Japanese
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Director(s):
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Carol Rosen
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Abstract:
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This dissertation investigates the structure of Japanese sentences inflected with the causative morpheme -sase and the passive morpheme -rare. Within the framework of Relational Grammar (where grammatical relations are taken to be primitives), it is demonstrated that both classes of constructions can be uniformly accounted for as union constructions, in which two distinct predicates bear a relation to a single clause. The syntactic differences between -sase and -rare constructions are shown to be attributable to the distinct valences of these two predicates. Universals of clause structure together with language specific well-formedness conditions predict the behavior of these constructions with respect to a number of syntactic phenomena, including case marking, reflexivization, quantifier floating, control, relativization and cleft formation, as well as subject and non-subject honorification. The analysis provides an explanation of several long- standing problems in Japanese grammar. Noteworthy among these are the distribution of ni-marked and o-marked causatives, the distinctions between direct and indirect passives, the 'unpassivizability' of unaccusatives and certain datives, and the constraints on double o-marked clauses. Finally, a unified treatment of all constructions exhibiting -rare morphology is proposed, accounting for -rare honorifics as well as direct and indirect passives.
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Page Updated: 29-Nov-2009
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