Redefining Verbal Nouns in Japanese: From the Perspective of Polycategoriality

Redefining Verbal Nouns in Japanese: From the Perspective of Polycategoriality David Y. Oshima Nagoya University Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku Nagoya, Japan 464-8601 davidyo@nagoya-u.jp Midori Hayashi Chukyo University 101 Tokodachi, Kaizu-cho Toyota, Japan 470-0393 mhayashi@lets.chukyo-u.ac.jp Abstract Japanese has a grammatical class commonly referred to as “verbal nouns (VN)”, whose members form a phrasal verb in combination with the light verb SURU. While most VNs can be used as the head of a complement nominal (subject, object, etc.) of a predicate, some lack this use and are used only as part of a phrasal verb. Also, some lexemes that may function as a VN also may function as an adjectival noun, an adverb, etc. We report the results of a corpus-based survey on what patterns of polycategoriality are exhibited by those high- frequency lexemes that may function as a VN, and put forth some proposals as to how to clas- sify and taxonomize “noun-like” categories in Japanese. 1 Introduction In studies on the Japanese grammar, those lexemes (words) that form a phrasal verb in combination with the light verb SURU1 ‘do’ have been referred to as verbal nouns (VNs) (Martin 1988, Kageyama 1993, Uchida and Nakayama 1993). (Lexemes that may function as) a VN typically may function as a regular noun and serve as a com- plement nominal, but there are some exceptional items, which may be called “pure” or monocatego- rial VNs. Also, some VNs allow a use as an adjec- tival noun, an adnominal (nominal modifier), or an adverb. This work reports the results of a corpus- based survey inquiring the patterns of (mono- and) polycategoriality exhibited by high-frequency VNs, 1Expressions in small capitals refer to lexemes. and puts forth some proposals as to how to classify and taxonomize “noun-like” categories in Japanese. 2 What are verbal nouns? Lexemes like CHOOSA (調査)2 ‘investigation’, JANPU (< jump) ‘jump’, and UKETSUKE ‘accep- tance’, can be used either as a component of a phrasal verb with SURU, as in (1a), or as the head of a complement nominal (often accompanied by a case particle such as nominative GA and accusative O), as in (1b,c).3 (1) a. Iseki ruins o Acc choosa investigation shita. do.Pst ‘(They) investigated the ruins.’ b. Iseki ruins no Gen choosa investigation ga Nom hajimatta. begin.Pst ‘The investigation of the ruins began.’ c. Iseki ruins no Gen choosa investigation o Acc yameta. stop.Pst ‘(They) canceled the investigation of the ru- ins.’ There are, on the other hand, lexemes that form a phrasal verb with SURU but are not used—or are used only marginally—as the head of a comple- ment nominal.4 Such words include: KYOOTSUU 2Japanese scripts are provided for Sino-Japanese lexical items (but not for native and Western ones). 3The abbreviations in glosses are: Acc = accusative, Attr = attributive, Cop = copula, Dat = dative, Neg = negation, Nom = nominative, Prs = present, Pst = past, Th = thematic wa (topic/ground-marker) 4To our knowledge, this type of lexemes has attracted rather scarce attention in the literature. Mizutani and Hoshino (1994), …

Content truncated to 500 words