2006 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Theoretical Study of Grammar in Terms of Syntactic Structures of Negative Sentences
| Project/Area Number |
16520300
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
English linguistics
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| Research Institution | Kyushu University |
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Principal Investigator |
NISHIOKA Nobuaki Kyushu University, Faculty of Humanities, Associate Professor, 大学院人文科学研究院, 助教授 (80198431)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2006
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| Keywords | generative grammar / Minimalist Program / negative sentences / Agree / PolP / intervention constraint |
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| Research Abstract |
The aim of this study is to promote theoretical studies of grammar through investigation of negative phenomena in terms of the Minimalist Program of the generative grammar.
The supposition of NegP between VP and TP has been widely assumed as a clause structure of negative sentences. This study has revealed the problems of NegP analyses from both theoretical and empirical viewpoints and demonstrated the adequacies of supposing PolP above TP. The analysis has proposed to apply `Agree', which was originally proposed as a feature checking mechanism by Chomsky (2000,2001), to the licensing of negative sentences in English. The mechanism with a constraint on it can account for the scope of negation, the licensing of negative polarity items, the differences between sentential negation and constituent negation, and the phenomena of partial negation. Moreover, I have extended the analysis to explain the distribution of discontinuous 'wh...-mo' (e.g.nani(-o)...mo) in Japanese and multiple wh-questions in English and argued for the generality of the analysis.
The results of this study are summarized as :
1. The analyses of negative sentences based on NegP in English are inadequate.
2. The PolP analysis, which argues that sentential negation is licensed through the application of Agree between Pol and negative elements, is valid for English.
3. The mechanism based on Agree and an intervention constraint has a wide applicability and validity for the analysis of varieties of negative phenomena and multiple wir questions.
4. The development of the Minimalist Program along this line is basically correct.
5. No reconstruction is necessary for A-movement.
6. Quantifier Raising as an economy-based operation is necessary in grammar.
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