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" The nature of adjectival inflection in Japanese "
Hiroko Yamakido
R. K. Larson
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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55730
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| Doc. No
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TL25684
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| Call number
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3189386
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| Main Entry
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Hiroko Yamakido
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| Title & Author
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The nature of adjectival inflection in Japanese\ Hiroko Yamakido
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| College
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State University of New York at Stony Brook
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| Date
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2005
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| student score
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2005
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| Page No
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166
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| Abstract
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This thesis is a study of the inflection appearing on adjectives in Japanese. The goal of this work is to investigate the structure of adjectival constructions in Japanese and its relation to adjectival inflection. Chapter 1 reviews the general patterns of inflection appearing on attributive adjectives in world languages. Comparative study suggests that inflection on adjectives in their noun-modifying function typically falls into one of the following categories: (i) agreement, (ii) case-marking, (iii) definiteness marking, (iv) incorporated/reduced relative clause material, (v) long- and short-form morphology, and (vi) adverbial marking. A simple question is: which category does Japanese adjectival morphology belong to? Chapter 2 introduces data of adjectival forms in Japanese, with special attention to inflection. Japanese is unique in that it contains two morphologically distinct types of adjectives, which I call True Adjective and Nominal Adjective. I discuss the two types from morphological, syntactic and semantic perspectives, and review the main literature on the topic. Chapter 3 examines the nature of the attributive adjective inflection in Japanese, taking up the possibilities sketched out in chapter 1. Traditionally, linguists have assumed that Japanese attributive adjective inflection represents incorporated/reduced relative clause material ((iv) above). However, I show this idea is not sufficient to analyze all prenominal adjectives in Japanese with evidence from semantics and distributional patterns in Japanese dialects. Chapter 4 further explores the nature of the inflection on attributive adjectives in Japanese. I argue that the historical development of Japanese adjectival inflection, as well as the status of Japanese as a case-marking language, makes the case-marking analysis ((ii) above) plausible. I then discuss the remarkable similarity between Japanese adjectival inflection and the so-called Ezafe marking on adjectives and other nominal modifiers observed in Indo-Iranian languages. In the remainder of the chapter, I extend the case marking analysis of prenominal inflection to the other adjectival constructions in Japanese, including predicatives, adverbials, small clauses, and secondary predicatives. Finally, Chapter 5 constitutes a technical argument for the case-marking hypothesis, involving ellipsis with a small set of Japanese adjectives of space and time.
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| Subject
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Language, literature and linguistics; Adjectival inflection; Japanese; Syntax; Linguistics; 0290:Linguistics
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| Added Entry
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R. K. Larson
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State University of New York at Stony Brook
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