Semantic Universality of Control Phenomena: A view from Japanese

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K13165
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Kyoto University (2020-2023); Seigakuin University (2019)
• Principal Investigator: Akuzawa Koyo 京都大学, 国際高等教育院, 講師 (30825162)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: コントロール / モダリティ / 定形節 / 時制 / 空範疇 / 文末名詞文 / 繰り上げ / 補文時制

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study attempted to analyze Japanese tense-marked clauses (where a morphological tense marker appears) from a lexical semantics perspective, addressing issues that standard theories of generative grammar have struggled to capture, such as control (and raising) in these clauses. Specifically, it rejected the traditional analysis that tense-marked clauses are syntactically and semantically vacuous, making them non-tensed clauses. Instead, by examining the lexical semantics of main clause predicates, the study argued that control (and raising) phenomena can be explained while maintaining the simplest hypothesis that these are indeed tensed clauses. This approach allows for a more simplified explanatory framework. Additionally, it argued that related facts, including the distribution of embedded tense, can naturally follow from the lexical semantics of main clause predicates.

Free Research Field

言語学　日本語学　日本語文法　語彙意味論　統語論　生成文法

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究が対象としたコントロール（や繰り上げ）構文は、言語形式上ゼロの要素、すなわち、目に見えない言語的要素の解釈を扱っている。コントロール（及び繰り上げ）は、人間言語の背後にある心的メカニズムを明らかにするという目標を掲げる生成文法理論において重要な被説明項の一つである。本研究では、こうした構文の成立に関与する主文述語の語彙的意味を整理・抽出したうえで形式化し、より記述的・概念的に妥当な説明を与えるとともに、当該構文への新たな理論的取り扱いの道筋を示した。