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Study of Japanese relativization

University of British Columbia

A Japanese relative construction is different in some respects from that of English. This thesis is an attempt to investigate the nature of Japanese relativization in contrast to that of English relativization. It deals with some hypotheses concerning Japanese relativization. and its related problems. Through the examination of those hypotheses, it is hoped that the nature of Japanese relativization will be clarified. The analysis in this thesis is within the framework of a transformational generative grammar, which can be considered as a modified version of the theory proposed in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, but which is not within the framework of so-called generateve semantics. It is assumed in this thesis that every acceptable sentence has its deep structure and its surface structure, which are related by some appropriate transformations. There are seven chapters in this thesis. Chapter I presents the characteristics of Japanese thematization discussing the hypotheses about the underlying structure of a thematized sentence. The reason for this chapter is to investigate the hypothesis that relativization is closely related to thematization. Chapter II presents a contrastive study of relativization between English and Japanese. It attempts to put the characteristics of Japanese relativization into relief. In this chapter, a claim is also examined that relativization is a movement transformation. Further, Ross's Complex NP Constraint and Coordinate Structure Constraint are investigated in connection with Japanese relativization. Chapter III is concerned with a copying relativization hypothesis. The underlying structure of a relative construction is also examined. Chapter IV examines the hypothesis that a relativized noun phrase in Japanese leaves its (reflexive) pronoun behind. In this chapter various conditions of Japanese relativization proposed so far are outlined in order to give an explanation to the source of the reflexive pronoun of the relative clause. Chapter V investigates the hypothesis that a noun phrase in an adverbial clause is relativizable. In Chapter VI, a hypothesis is examined that a relativizable noun phrase is a thematic noun phrase immediately followed by the particle wa. In this chapter, three types of examples are presented, which show that relativization applies to a non-thematized noun phrase as well as a thematized noun phrase. Chapter VII is the summary and conclusions of this thesis. It also presents unsolved problems. The Japanese examples are represented by using phonemic transcription.

Text

2010-01-22

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/18991

Linguistics

University of British Columbia

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