Double Subject, Double Nominative Object and Double Accusative Object Constructions in Japanese and Korean

Double Subject, Double Nominative Object and Double Accusative Object Constructions in Japanese and Korean Hiroaki NAKAMURA Department of Foreign Studies, Japan Coast Guard Academy 5-1, Walaba-Cho, Kure City Hiroshima, Japan nakamura@jcga.ac.jp Abstract This paper presents a unified account of three kinds of constructions in which more than one NP can show up with the same case in simple sentences in Japanese and Korean: double subject, double nominative object and double accusative constructions. Noting that the second NPs in these constructions are functional or relational, this paper proposes to assign them the category and type different from the first NPs. We show the derivations of these three constructions in a parallel manner, and explain the asymmetries in extractability between possessor and possessed NPs in relativization. 1 Introduction Much attention has centered on the so-called double (multiple) subject construction (hereafter, DSC) in Japanese and Korean,' as illustrated in (1) and (2), in the literature of empirical- and theoretical linguistics: (1) a. Syusyoo-no�byooki-ga� saikin� omo-i. Prime Minister-GEN illness-NOM recently serious-PRES 'The Prime Minister is seriously ill.' b. Syusyoo-ga�saikin� byooki-ga� omo-i. Prime Minister-NOM recently illness-NOM serious-PRES (2) a. Swunsang-uy� pyeng-i� choykun simha-ta. The Prime Minister-Gen illness-NOM recently serious-PRES b. Swunsang-i� choykun peyng-i� simha-ta. The Prime Minister-Nom recently illness-NOM serious-PRES In the (b) examples of (1) and (2), we insert the adverb saikin and choykun 'recently' between the two nominative NPs to show that these two nominative NPs do not form a constituent (if the 'possessor' NP shows up with genitive case, adverbs may not intervene between these NPs, as in *syusyoo-no saikin byoojoo 'lit. *Prime Minister's recently condition'). In the generative grammar framework, it has been argued that the sentence-initial nominative NP (hereafter, we refer to it as 'major subject') raises to a higher position (the targets vary depending on the movement theories the authors adopt) from the possessor position of the following subject by NP-movement in DSC. For example, Hasegawa (1999) proposes the derivation like (3): (3)� [1p Neko-ga; cat-NOMt [IP [NP j karada-ga body-NOM [AP ti yawaraka-i]. soft-PRES 1 It is well known that more than two NPs marked with nominative or accusative case can appear in simple sentences in Japanese and Korean, but we limit ourselves to those containing just two nominative NPs or accusative NPs in this paper. Our analysis can easily be extended to deal with multiple subject/object constructions in general. 358 DSC has an IP-adjunction structure generated by NP-movement in (3) 2. Notice here that the movement in (3) violates the limitation of 'one case per chain' since it involves two case (i.e., genitive and nominative case) positions in the chain formed by the movement of the possessor. Besides, this kind of explanation has ignored a lot of important characteristics of this construction, concentrating only on the multiple assignment/licensing of nominative case to the major and regular subjects. On the other hand, some Japanese traditional grammarians have proposed a kind of complex structure for DSC. (4) is cited from Sugimoto (1986): (4) [s2 Yamada-san-ga� Yamada-NOM�[si okusan-ga kirei-da]] wife-NOM …

Content truncated to 500 words