A Contrastive Study of the Relationships Between Part-Whole Relations and Their Syntactic Forms in English and Japanese

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K00658
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02080:English linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Yokohama National University
• Principal Investigator: Tanaka Hideki 横浜国立大学, 教育学部, 教授 (50341186)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 部分構造 / 部分関係 / タイプ・トークン / 酢量詞遊離文

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study investigates the relationships between part-whole relations and their syntactic forms in English and Japanese. The major results of this study have converged on the following three points. (i) A partitive whose of-NP is indefinite (e.g., one of many applicants) expresses a proportion in a parallel manner to that of the A out of B construction (e.g., one out of many applicants). (ii) When its antecedent is an NP that includes subjective evaluation such as a cute cat, "one of them" may express a type that abstracts the subjective property, e.g., cats of the same breed. (iii) A quantifier-floating sentence in Japanese may have a proportional interpretation between the floating quantifier (FQ) and its antecedent. Since proportional interpretations are obtained by means of the comparison between a set expressed by the antecedent of the FQ and its subset expressed by the FQ, a number conflict is avoidable, which would occur when those sets are interpreted individually.

Free Research Field

英語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

これまでの研究では、英語と日本語において表される部分関係は主に部分構造と数量詞遊離文によるものが取り上げられてきた。それぞれの構文は個別に扱われることが多く、構文間の意味的な類似点や相違点に注目されることはほとんどなかった。本研究は、英語の部分構造（A of B）、A out of B, one of them，日本語のAノウチノB形式や数量詞遊離文を取り上げ、それぞれの形式によって表されうる部分関係の類似点と相違点を明らかにした。構文間の関係が明確になったことにより、個別に分析することでは解明できなかった各構文の特徴が明らかになった。