Home Syntactic and lexical -ase- are distinct suffixes
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Syntactic and lexical -ase- are distinct suffixes

  • Brent de Chene EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: September 21, 2022
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

In addition to the syntactic (inflectional) causative suffix -(s)ase-, Japanese displays a lexical (derivational) causative suffix -(a)se- (okur-ase- ‘delay’, no-se- ‘place on’) whose a-zero alternation is general in the stem-level phonology. Because the UR of syntactic -(s)ase- must include the s of its postvocalic alternant, the two suffixes necessarily have distinct phonological forms; there is thus no way to treat them as “high attachment” and “low attachment” versions of a single element. The division of labor between syntactic -(s)ase- and lexical -(a)se- invites the conclusion that no causative suffix is syntactic in some cases and lexical in others; if so, causatives pose no challenge to the position that while Japanese inflectional morphology is the phonological realization of syntactic representations, derivational morphology involves lexical listing of stems. The conclusion that there is no causative suffix that spans the syntactic/lexical boundary is validated by showing that forms that have been taken in the literature as exemplifying lexical -(s)ase- are in fact either lexical -(a)se- or syntactic -(s)ase-. As part of this demonstration, it is shown that, with minor exceptions, verb stems in -ase- have arisen as variants of pre-existing stems in -as-, and an explanation for this ongoing process of replacement is proposed.


Corresponding author: Brent de Chene, Waseda University (emeritus), Tokyo, Japan, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

For native speaker judgments, I am indebted to Sachiko Fujii, Takayuki Fujii, Yuji Nishiyama, Masanobu Sorida, Yoko Sugioka, and Hideaki Suzuki. I also thank Yoko Sugioka for discussion of some of the material of Section 4.2. Finally, I am indebted to two reviewers for comments that have led to many improvements; remaining errors are my responsibility.

References

Aronoff, Mark. 1976. Word formation in generative grammar (Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 1). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese: http://www.ninjal.ac.jp/corpus_center/bccwj/.Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program (Current Studies in Linguistics 28). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Chung, Sung-Yeo & Masayoshi Shibatani. 2018. Causative constructions in Japanese and Korean. In Prashant Pardeshi & Taro Kageyama (eds.), Handbook of Japanese contrastive linguistics (Handbooks of Japanese Language and Linguistics 6), 137–172. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9781614514077-005Search in Google Scholar

Deal, Amy Rose. 2017. External possession and possessor raising. In Martin Everaert & Henk van Riemsdijk (eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to syntax, 2nd edn., 1509–1540. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.10.1002/9781118358733.wbsyncom047Search in Google Scholar

de Chene, Brent. 2016. Description and explanation in morphophonology: The case of Japanese verb inflection. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 25. 37–80.10.1007/s10831-015-9137-ySearch in Google Scholar

de Chene, Brent. 2017. Root-based syntax and Japanese derivational morphology. In Claire Bowen, Laurence Horn & Raffaella Zanuttini (eds.), On looking into words (and beyond), 117–135. Berlin: Language Science Press.Search in Google Scholar

de Chene, Brent. 2019. r-Epenthesis and Ryukyuan. Gengo Kenkyu 155. 101–130.Search in Google Scholar

de Chene, Brent. 2020. r-Epenthesis and the bigrade alternation: The role of phonological distance in the regularization of Japanese verbal inflection. Diachronica 37. 178–214.10.1075/dia.18038.decSearch in Google Scholar

Embick, David & Alec Marantz. 2008. Architecture and blocking. Linguistic Inquiry 39. 1–53.10.1162/ling.2008.39.1.1Search in Google Scholar

Frellesvig, Bjarke. 2010. A history of the Japanese language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511778322Search in Google Scholar

Fujii, Nozomi. 2019. Kodomo no jikokenkōkanrinōryoku no kōjō o mezashite [Towards an increase in childrens’ health self-management abilities]. Kyōiku Kenkyū Ronbun [Papers in Educational Research] (Funabashi-si sōgō kyōiku sentā [Funabashi city integrated educational center]) 54. 14–20.Search in Google Scholar

Harley, Heidi. 1995. Subject, events and licensing. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Harley, Heidi. 2008. On the causative construction. In Shigeru Miyagawa & Mamoru Saito (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Japanese linguistics, 20–53. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195307344.013.0002Search in Google Scholar

Harley, Heidi. 2009. The morphology of nominalizations and the syntax of vP*. In Anastasia Giannakidou & Monika Rathert (eds.), Quantification, definiteness, and nominalization (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 24), 321–343. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780199541089.003.0013Search in Google Scholar

Harley, Heidi. 2012. Lexical decomposition in modern syntactic theory. In Markus Werning, Wolfram Hinzen & Edouard Machery (eds.), The Oxford handbook of compositionality, 328–350. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199541072.013.0015Search in Google Scholar

Hasegawa, Nobuko. 2007. The possessor raising construction and the interpretation of the subject. In Simin Karimi, Vida Samiian & Wendy K. Wilkins (eds.), Phrasal and clausal architecture: Syntactic derivation and interpretation, 66–92. Amsterdam: Benjamins.10.1075/la.101.05hasSearch in Google Scholar

Jackendoff, Ray. 1975. Morphological and semantic regularities in the lexicon. Language 51. 639–671.10.2307/412891Search in Google Scholar

Jacobsen, Wesley. 2017. Transitivity. In Masayoshi Shibatani, Shigeru Miyagawa & Hisashi Noda (eds.), Handbook of Japanese syntax (Handbooks of Japanese Language and Linguistics 4), 55–95. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9781614516613-003Search in Google Scholar

Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyūjo [National Language Research Institute]. 1989–2006. Hōgen bunpō zenkoku chizu [Grammar atlas of Japanese dialects], 6 vols. Tōkyō: Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyūjo.Search in Google Scholar

Kubo, Miori. 1992. Japanese passives. Hokkaidō Daigaku Gengobunkabu Kiyō [Bulletin of the Institute of Languages and Cultures, Hokkaidō University] 23. 231–302.Search in Google Scholar

Kuroda, S.-Y. 1993. Lexical and productive causatives in Japanese: An examination of the theory of paradigmatic structure. Journal of Japanese Linguistics 15. 1–81.10.1515/jjl-1993-0102Search in Google Scholar

Lichtenberk, Frantisek, Jyotsna Vaid & Hsin-Chin Chen. 2011. On the interpretation of alienable vs. inalienable possession: A psycholinguistic investigation. Cognitive Linguistics 22. 659–689.10.1515/cogl.2011.025Search in Google Scholar

Marantz, Alec. 2013. Locality domains for contextual allomorphy across the interfaces. In Ora Matushansky & Alec Marantz (eds.), Distributed morphology today, 95–115. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/9780262019675.003.0006Search in Google Scholar

Martin, Samuel. 1975. A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar

McCawley, James. 1968. The phonological component of a grammar of Japanese. The Hague: Mouton.Search in Google Scholar

Miyagawa, Shigeru. 1984. Blocking and Japanese causatives. Lingua 64. 177–207. Reprinted in Miyagawa, Shigeru. 2012. Case, argument structure, and word order (Routledge Leading Linguists), 169–194, 292 (notes). New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203126844-11Search in Google Scholar

Miyagawa, Shigeru. 1989. Structure and case marking in Japanese (Syntax and Semantics 22). San Diego: Academic Press.10.1163/9789004373259Search in Google Scholar

Miyagawa, Shigeru. 1998. (s)ase as an elsewhere causative and the syntactic nature of words. Journal of Japanese Linguistics 16. 67–110.10.1515/jjl-1998-0105Search in Google Scholar

Miyagawa, Shigeru. 2012. Blocking and causatives revisited. In Shigeru Miyagawa, Case, argument structure, and word order (Routledge Leading Linguists), 195–216. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203126844Search in Google Scholar

Miyaji, Yutaka. 1969. seru/saseru (gendaigo) [seru/saseru (modern language)]. In Akira Matsumoto (ed.), Kotengo/gendaigo joshi jodōshi shōsetsu [Detailed exposition of the particles and auxiliary verbs of the classical and modern language], 89–96. Tōkyō: Gakutōsha.Search in Google Scholar

Nihon kokugo daijiten dainihan henshū iinkai/Shōgakukan kokugo jiten henshūbu [Great dictionary of the Japanese language second edition editorial committee/Shōgakukan Japanese dictionary editorial division] (eds.). 2000–2002. Nihon kokugo daijiten [Great dictionary of the Japanese language], 2nd edn. Tōkyō: Shōgakukan.Search in Google Scholar

Oehrle, Richard & Hiroko Nishio. 1981. Adversity. In Ann Farmer & Chisato Kitagawa (eds.), Proceedings of the Arizona conference on Japanese linguistics (Coyote Papers 2), 163–187. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Linguistics Circle.Search in Google Scholar

Parsons, Terence. 1990. Events in the semantics of English: A study in subatomic semantics (Current Studies in Linguistics 19). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Payne, Doris & Immanuel Barshi (eds.). 1999. External possession. Amsterdam: Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.39Search in Google Scholar

Pylkkänen, Liina. 2008. Introducing arguments (Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 49). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/9780262162548.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Sakakura, Atsuyoshi. 1975. Bunshō to hyōgen [Text and expression]. Tōkyō: Kadokawa shoten.Search in Google Scholar

Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1973. Semantics of Japanese causativization. Foundations of Language 9. 317–373.Search in Google Scholar

Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1976. The grammar of causative constructions: A conspectus. In Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), The grammar of causative constructions (Syntax and Semantics 6), 1–40. San Diego: Academic Press.10.1163/9789004368842_002Search in Google Scholar

Yamaguchi, Akiho & Morihide Akimoto (eds.). 2001. Nihongo bunpō daijiten [Great dictionary of Japanese grammar]. Tōkyō: Meiji Shoin.Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2021-02-08
Accepted: 2021-09-09
Published Online: 2022-09-21
Published in Print: 2022-11-25

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 28.11.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/jjl-2022-2058/pdf
Scroll to top button