A Comparative Syntactic Study of So Anaphora: A View from Extraction Possibilities

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K13064
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02080:English linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Meiji University
• Principal Investigator: Sakamoto Yuta 明治大学, 情報コミュニケーション学部, 専任准教授 (40802872)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 生成文法 / 統語論 / 照応 / 移動

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research, I investigated what has been called so anaphora in natural languages, especially in English and Japanese, aiming at resolving why anaphora involves phonological incompleteness on the one hand but it provides us with uniform interpretations and syntactic properties on the other hand. To be more specific, I tried to cross-linguistically describe extraction possibilities out of a so anaphora site, aiming at creating a theoretical apparatus that can account for the extraction possibilities in question within the framework of generative syntax, and also tried to contribute to understanding our knowledge of language, one of the important issues in theoretical linguistics.

Free Research Field

言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

日本語のso照応が示す抜き出しの可能性に関するパターンは、一般的な省略（例えば英語の動詞句省略）や代用形（例えば英語のdo so照応）には観察されず、移動の種類を考慮に入れた上で省略と代用形の違いをより経験的に精緻化する必要性及び当該のパターンを説明する理論構築の必要性が浮き彫りとなっていた。そこで、本研究では、自然言語に観察されるso照応を言語横断的に記述し、比較統語論の手法を用いながらその抜き出しに関するパターンを比較検討し、ヒトの言語知識（普遍文法）の内実に迫ることを目標とした。