Null Operator Movement in Japanese?
Emi Mukai (emukai@usc.edu)
It has been widely accepted that cleft constructions, comparative deletions, tough constructions,
purpose clauses, and relative clauses involve null OP movement in English. One piece of evidence for it
is that each construction exhibits island violations. It has been argued that what seem to correspond to
these constructions in Japanese also involve null OP movement. The goal of this paper is to reconsider
the necessity of null OP movement in those constructions as well as topic constructions in Japanese by
examining whether they show the effect of complex NP constraint, and capture the characteristics of null
OP movement. I first claim that there is no evidence that so-called purpose clauses in Japanese should be
analyzed as involving any movement operation, contra Nakayama & Tajima (1993). I then turn to the
question whether the other constructions in Japanese noted above should also be analyzed without null OP
movement, and conclude that a subset of cleft constructions, tough constructions, and topic constructions
require null OP movement, while the rest of the constructions do not.
Cleft sentences, tough constructions, and topic constructions in Japanese have case-marked (CM)
version as well as non case-marked (non-CM) version; the 'dislocated NP' can optionally have a
case-marker (see (1)). "Case-marker" here includes not only nominative/accusative/dative markers but
also so-called postposition such as kara 'from' and e 'to'. Hoji (1987), Saito (1985), and Takezawa (1987)
argue that the CM version should be differentiated from the non-CM version in part based on the
observation that the former shows subjacency effects while the latter does not. That is, it is the CM
version that has been discussed in the literature as being sensitive to syntactic islands. The discussion,
together with the conclusion in Fukaya & Hoji 1999 and Fukaya 2003, suggests that the existence of
case-markers may give us some hint that there is some formal operation involved. Ueyama (1998: 63)
suggests, on the basis of the discussion on the so-called scrambling construction in Japanese, that though
the Null OP movement in Japanese is optional (i.e., nothing triggers the movement), '[i]t is a case-marker
on the [dislocated noun] that requires the null OP movement.' (Notice that the dislocated noun in the
construction usually bears a case-marker as in (2); for so-called 'Case-marker drop' phenomenon, see Saito
1985: chap. 3, 207-210). Under Ueyama's analysis, the CM version of topic construction in (3a) (called
'PP topicalization' in Saito (1985)), for example, can have either the representation with the null element
staying in its base position as in (3b) or the one with the null element undergoing movement as in (3c).
But due to the licensing of the case-marker ni 'to' in the dislocated NP Mary-ni-wa 'apple-TO-TOP', only
the output representation with the movement in (3c) can be fed into Semantics. The non-CM version, on
the other hand, does not require any movement and thus either representation in (4b) or (4c) is possible.
If the output of the grammar is the no-movement version as in (4b), the licensing of the dislocated NP is
done by 'aboutness' relation.
When we consider comparative deletion, we notice that [the assumed trace of null OP movement in
English does not have to correspond to an NP; rather, the target of the movement must be a degree phrase
<==Is this obvious?]. To see if Japanese comparative deletion is obligatorily accompanied by the null
OP movement even if there is no case-marker requiring null OP movement (as claimed in Kikuchi (1987),
Ishii (1991) among others), we need to investigate whether the Japanese counterpart of the construction
exhibits island effects. The answer seems somewhat puzzling. Some seem to show island effects while
the others do not, as pointed out by Kikuchi (1987) (see the paradigm in (6a) and (6b)). To capture the
contrast, Ueyama (2004) suggests the possibility that there are two types of yori(mo) clauses in Japanese,
one of which corresponds to English comparative deletion and one of which is NP comparatives, and that
the former type (pure comparative deletion in Japanese) also involves null OP movement. The idea
comes from the observation that some sentences with a yori(mo) clause allow a 'functional noun' (keisiki
meisi (formal noun)) right before yori(mo) while the others do not, and those which seemingly exhibit
island effect such as in (6b) do not allow the 'functional noun' while those which do not exhibit the effect
such as in (6a) can have the functional noun (see (7a) and (7b)). In other words, Ueyama (2004) suggests
that yori(mo) which allows a functional noun should be preceded by a complex NP rather than an IP (see
(8)). If this were on the right track, we might reach the conclusion that there are two types of null OP
movement in Japanese; one of them is optional but motivated (in effect) by the licensing of a case-marker
as Ueyama (1998) suggests, while the other is something different.
I claim in the paper, however, that there is only one type of null OP movement in Japanese, and all of
the apparent Japanese counterparts of English comparative deletion are actually the counterparts of NP
comparatives with the structure in (8a) with optional null OP movement. This means that the contrast
between (7a) and (7b) is not syntactic in nature. The evidence for this comes from relative clauses in
Japanese. It has been claimed in the literature (cf. Kuno (1973), Saito (1985)) that this construction does
not exhibit any island effects ((9a)), and hence under Ueyama's (1998) null OP movement analysis
pursued here, the construction need not (though can) involve null OP movement and a relative head can be
licensed through 'aboutness' relation, just like the non-CM topicalization in (4). To put it concretely, let
us see the possible representations for (9a). (9a) has either representation with or without movement just
like topic construction, but in the case of (9a), the representation with movement crashes due to island
violation, while the representation with pro is allowed. The interpretation is therefore based only on
'aboutness' relation. Given the claim, just like the case of so-called comparative deletion in Japanese, the
puzzle is that there are some degraded examples in the case of relative clauses, too (see (9b)). However,
I will show that the sentence is not ungrammatical but it is degraded because of the difficulty of
establishing the proper 'aboutness' relation (i.e., the reason of the marginality is pragmatic in nature). I
would like to claim that the same thing is happening in the case of the degraded sentence in (6b) and (7b).
To sum up, I claim that the CM version of cleft constructions, tough constructions and topic
constructions in Japanese involve null OP movement, while their non-CM version, purpose clauses,
relative clauses, and comparative deletion-like construction in Japanese do not. One may wonder why
null OP movement analyses for cleft constructions, tough constructions, and topic constructions are
pursued here instead of the actual movement of a 'dislocated noun' (cf. Saito (1985) for the case of topic
constructions). ...(ここはもう少し考えないとかけません。)
One another question I would like to address in the last part of my paper is why null OP
movement is optional in Japanese unless the dislocated noun has a case-marker, while such is not the case
in English. I will suggest that the distinction should follow from the absence of 'active functional
categories' in Japanese (in the terms of Fukui 1986), which is the thesis pursued by Fukui 1986, [Kuroda
1988 <==This is not quite right.] and Hoji 2003 (sec. 5). Ueyama's claim of null OP movement in
Japanese being optional in nature (while the movement in English is obligatory) also goes well with this
thesis. One might wonder if there is any empirical evidence supporting the different nature of null OP
movement in Japanese from that in English. One possible answer to it may come with the suggestion by
Ueyama (1998: 63) that "the relevant empty operator movement is clause-bounded." The movement
assumed in English is not said to be clause-bounded but can go further unless it violates subjacency. I
will investigate that the clause-boundedness is also detected in the case of the CM version of clef
constructions, tough constructions, and topic constructions. You might want to make a brief reference to
the Major object option in JP that makes it difficult to see a genuine instance of long-distance dependency
(i.e., across a CP complement of verbs like 'omow'. The reason for that is that some people must have
seen empirical paradigms in JP that show we allegedly observe long-distance dependency. Here too by
considering reconstruction effects, one might be able to obtain a clearer picture than before, I would
suspect. Furthermore, I will argue that the evidence from reconstruction effects also support the claim
that the null OP movement in Japanese is required (in effect) in the case of the CM version of the three
constructions.
Examples
(1)
a.
b.
c.
Cleft:
John-ga eci katta--no-wa [focus position ano hon]i(-o) da
John-NOM
bought-F.N.-TOP
that book-ACC COP
'What John bought is that book.'
Tough (Takezawa 1987: ch. 6, (52a)):
[Sono dai-(kara)]i-ga
(John-nitotte) eci tobikomi-yasu-i
that board-FROM-NOM
John-for
jump-easy-PRES
(Lit.) '[From that board]i is easy (for John) to jump eci'
Topic
[Tokyo-(e)]-wa John-ga eci itta
Tokyo-TO-TOP
John-NOM
went
(Lit.) 'To Tokyo, John went eci'
Ringo-o John-ga Mary-ni ageta. (Scrambling)
apple-ACC John-NOM Mary-DAT gave.
(2)
(3)
a.
(Lit.) 'Apple, John gave to Mary.'
Mary-ni-wa John-ga Ringo-o ageta
Mary-TO-TOP John-NOM Ringo-ACC gave
(4)
b.
c.
a.
(Lit.) 'As for to Mary, John gave an apple.'
Mary-ni-wa [John-ga ec Ringo-o ageta]
Mary-ni-wa [OPi [John-ga ti Ringo-o ageta] ]
Mary-wa John-ga Ringo-o ageta
(Non-CM version of topic construction)
Mary- TOP John-NOM Ringo-ACC gave
(5)
b.
c.
a.
(Lit.) 'As for to Mary, John gave an apple.'
Mary-wa [John-ga ec Ringo-o ageta]
Mary- wa [OPi [John-ga ti Ringo-o ageta] ]
ano sakka-ga ano hon-o kaita (koto)
'that writer wrote that book.'
that writer-NOM that book-ACC wrote thing
(6)
(CM version of topic construction)
b.
[[ano sakka-ga eci kaita] ano hon]-o/ga/ni/kara ... 'that book which that write wrote ...'
that writer-NOM
wrote that book-ACC/NOM/FROM
a.
[than minna-ga [NP [S Paul-ga eci yonda]-toiu uwasa]-o sinjiteiru yori (mo)],
everyvody-NOM Paul-NOM
readrumor-ACC believe-PRES than
John-wa takusan hon-o yonde-ita.
(Kikuchi 1987: 4 (13))
John-TOP more book-ACC read-PASTPERFECT
b.
'John read more books than everybody believed the rumor that Paul read ec.' (ec = books)
*[than John-ga [NP [S sono tukue-de ec yonde-ita] hito]-o nagutta yori(mo)],
John-NOM
that desk-in
read-PASTPROG peson-ACC hit
than
Paul-wa takusan hon-o yonde-ita.
(Kikuchi 1987: 4 (15))
Paul-TOP more book-ACC read-PASTPERFECT
(7)
a.
'Paul read more books than John hit the person who read ec in that desk.' (ec = book(s))
[than minna-ga [NP [S Paul-ga eci yonda]-toiu uwasa]-o sinjiteiru sassuu
yori (mo)],
everyvody-NOM Paul-NOM
readrumor-ACC believe-PRES number(of the book)
than
John-wa takusan hon-o yonde-ita.
(Ueyama 2004: (22a))
John-TOP more
book-ACC read-PASTPERFECT
b.
'John read more books than everybody believed the rumor that Paul read ec.' (ec = books)
*[than John-ga [NP [S sono tukue-de ec yonde-ita] hito]-o nagutta sassuu
yori(mo)],
John-NOM
that desk-in
read-PASTPROG peson-ACC hit
number (of the
book) than
Paul-wa takusan hon-o yonde-ita.
(Ueyama 2004: (23a))
Paul-TOP more book-ACC read-PASTPERFECT
(8)
(9)
a.
b.
a.
'Paul read more books than John hit the person who read ec in that desk.' (ec = book(s))
[than [NP [IP ... ec ... ] functional-noun]-yori(mo)] ... (The movement of ec is optional.)
[than [OPi [IP ... ti ...]-yori(mo)]
[NP [S minna-ga [NP [S Paul-ga eci yonda]-toiu uwasa]-o sinjiteiru] hon]
everybody-NOM
Paul-NOM
read-being:said rumor-ACC believe-PRES book
'The book that everybody believes the rumor that Paul read ec.'
b.
??/?*[NP [S John-ga [NP [S sono tukue-de
John-NOM
that-desk-IN
ec
yonde-ita]
hito]-o
nagutta] hon]
read-PASTPROG person-ACC hit
book
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