The physical attribute construction in Japanese and the cognate object construction in English
-
Yuji Hatakeyama
,
Kensuke Honda
Abstract
This paper deals with the physical attribute construction (PAC) in Japanese such as Cameron Diaz-wa kireina me-o siteiru ‘Cameron Diaz has beautiful eyes’. This paper points out that the PAC shares some properties with the cognate object construction (COC) in English such as The tree grew a century's growth within only ten years. The properties include: (i) the obligatory presence of the modifier, (ii) the semantic focus on the modifier, (iii) the inability to be passivized and (iv) the inability to be operator-moved. Based upon these properties, this paper reaches the conclusion that the English COC involving unaccusative verbs is the counterpart of the Japanese PAC. Furthermore some principled accounts are given to those properties.
© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Journal of Japanese Linguistics Vol. 27 (2011). Contents
- The physical attribute construction in Japanese and the cognate object construction in English
- From a manner adverb to a discourse particle: The case of yahari, yappari and yappa
- Marking or not marking? How is number construal understood in Japanese?
- Mora clipping of loanwords in Japanese
- Testing the validity of linguistic description against the intuition of native speakers: The case of Japanese conditionals
- The position of nominative NPs in Japanese: Evidence for nominative NPs in-situ
Articles in the same Issue
- Journal of Japanese Linguistics Vol. 27 (2011). Contents
- The physical attribute construction in Japanese and the cognate object construction in English
- From a manner adverb to a discourse particle: The case of yahari, yappari and yappa
- Marking or not marking? How is number construal understood in Japanese?
- Mora clipping of loanwords in Japanese
- Testing the validity of linguistic description against the intuition of native speakers: The case of Japanese conditionals
- The position of nominative NPs in Japanese: Evidence for nominative NPs in-situ
