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Understanding narrow syntax as the core of the language organ: Toward its further minimization and simplification

Research Project

Project/Area Number 18K00592
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeMulti-year Fund
Section一般
Review Section Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
Research InstitutionChukyo University

Principal Investigator

Nomura Masashi  中京大学, 国際学部, 教授 (60410619)

Project Period (FY) 2018-04-01 – 2024-03-31
Project Status Completed (Fiscal Year 2023)
Budget Amount *help
¥3,380,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥780,000)
Fiscal Year 2020: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
Fiscal Year 2019: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
Fiscal Year 2018: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
Keywordspair-Merge / Labeling Algorithm / Internal / External / passives / MERGE / Head movement / Head Movement / Miracle Creed / Strong Minimalist Thesis / Chomsky / FORMSEQUENCE / Chomsky (2015) / Chomsky, et al. (2019) / Passives / Causatives / Japanese / 統語論 / 生成文法理論 / ミニマリスト・プログラム / 併合
Outline of Final Research Achievements

Under the framework of a minimalist program, this research project aims to further minimize and simplify the syntactic system that plays the core of the language organ and aims to construct a system in which the only structure building operation is simple Merge. First, we have examined whether pair-Merge, which is different from simple Merge, is available in the analysis of "head-movement," and by the application of the syntactic operation pair-Merge, we have shown that it can generate various types of verbs such as transitive verbs, unaccusative verbs, and unergative verbs from the same R and v just by changing the order of the application of pair-Merge. Furthermore, we have showed that Japanese passive morphemes, which have the same morphology but behave syntactically differently, can be explained by the difference in the order of pair-Merge. On the other hand, we concluded that a type of "head-movement," such as V(INFL)-to-C, can be explained by simple Merge rather than pair-Merge.

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の学術的意義は、言語器官の中核を担う統語システムの最小化・単純化を目指すことから人間言語の本質を解明することにある。人間言語の文法体系は表面的に複雑であり、言語間に違いが見られる。しかし人はどの言語を母語として獲得する場合でもおよそ3~4年という短い期間で大人と同じ文法を有することがこれまでの言語学研究により明らかとなっている。この事実は、人間言語の文法体系が短期間で獲得できるだけ単純であり、言語間に差がないということを示唆している。本研究で提示した提案が妥当であると示されれば、人間のあらゆる行動を支える言語の仕組みの解明に迫れるという点でその学術的意義は大きいと考える。

Report

(7 results)
  • 2023 Annual Research Report   Final Research Report ( PDF )
  • 2022 Research-status Report
  • 2021 Research-status Report
  • 2020 Research-status Report
  • 2019 Research-status Report
  • 2018 Research-status Report
  • Research Products

    (8 results)

All 2022 2020 2019 2018

All Journal Article (3 results) (of which Int'l Joint Research: 1 results,  Peer Reviewed: 1 results,  Open Access: 1 results) Presentation (5 results) (of which Int'l Joint Research: 3 results)

  • [Journal Article] Labeling and Pair-Merge of Heads2020

    • Author(s)
      Masashi Nomura
    • Journal Title

      Nanzan Linguistics

      Volume: 15 Pages: 1-23

    • Related Report
      2019 Research-status Report
  • [Journal Article] Remarks on the Case-licensing of nominative objects in Japanese2018

    • Author(s)
      Masashi Nomura
    • Journal Title

      Proceedings of the 10th Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics

      Volume: 10 Pages: 179-190

    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Journal Article] The nominative/accusative alternation in Japanese and information structure2018

    • Author(s)
      Satoshi Nambu, Hyun Kyung Hwang, David Y. Oshima, and Masashi Nomura
    • Journal Title

      Journal of East Asian Linguistics

      Volume: 27 Pages: 141-171

    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
    • Peer Reviewed / Open Access / Int'l Joint Research
  • [Presentation] SMT下における「主要部移動」2022

    • Author(s)
      野村 昌司
    • Organizer
      日本英文学会第94回大会
    • Related Report
      2022 Research-status Report 2021 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] Pair-Merge of Heads in the System of Chomsky (2015)2019

    • Author(s)
      Masashi Nomura
    • Organizer
      ELSJ 12th International Spring Forum 2019
    • Related Report
      2019 Research-status Report
    • Int'l Joint Research
  • [Presentation] External Pair-Merge of Heads as a Core Syntactic Operation2018

    • Author(s)
      Masashi Nomura
    • Organizer
      The 26th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
    • Int'l Joint Research
  • [Presentation] Labeling and Pair-Merge of Heads2018

    • Author(s)
      Masashi Nomura
    • Organizer
      50 Years of Linguistics at UCONN
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
    • Int'l Joint Research
  • [Presentation] External Pair-Merge of Heads: Evidence from Japanese2018

    • Author(s)
      Masashi Nomura
    • Organizer
      日本語から生成文法理論へ:統語理論と言語獲得(第4回ワークショップ)
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report

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Published: 2018-04-23   Modified: 2025-01-30  

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