Japanese pronoun hon-nin

Yuji Hatakeyama; Kensuke Honda; Kosuke Tanaka

doi:10.1515/jjl-2018-0004

Article

Japanese pronoun hon-nin

Yuji Hatakeyama , Kensuke Honda and Kosuke Tanaka

Published/Copyright: April 13, 2018

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From the journal Journal of Japanese Linguistics Volume 34 Issue 1

Abstract

This paper investigates the Japanese pronoun hon-nin, which has so far been paid little attention to, and proposes the binding condition to the effect that hon-nin must not be bound by the subject NP. We further show that the Japanese reflexive zibun and the Japanese pronoun hon-nin show complementary distribution just as the English reflexive (himself, etc.) and the English pronoun (him, etc.) do so.

Keywords: the Japanese reflexive zibun; the Japanese pronoun hon-nin; subject/non-subject; binding; grammatical relation

Acknowledgements

We are thankful to anonymous JJL reviewers and the editor for their many constructive comments and suggestions. Their constructive criticism has been especially important in improving the quality of this paper. Remaining inadequacies are of course our own.

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Appendix: Subjectivity

Some data requires further explanation. Observe the following sentences:

(A1)

John_i-ga	hon-nin_i-no	ishi-de	kin’	enshi-ta.
John-nom	his	will-on	stop	smoke-pst

‘John himself decided to quit smoking.’

John_i-ga	hon-nin_i-no	kuti-kara	soo	hanashi-ta.
John-nom	his	mouth-from	so	say-pst

‘John himself said so.’

In (A1), hon-nin refers to the subject John, which c-commands it. Thus, both sentences in (A1), though acceptable, violate the binding condition (8). It should be noted, however, that zibun is also possible in (A1), as in (A2):

(A2)

John_i-ga zibun_i-no ishi-de kin’enshi-ta. [cf. (A1a)]
John_i-ga zibun_i-no kuti-kara soo hanashi-ta. [cf. (A1b)]

However, (A1) using hon-nin and (A2) using zibun seem to be different in terms of subjectivity: (A1) is less subjective than (A2). There are two pieces of supporting evidence. First, the antecedent of hon-nin is restricted to the third person, whereas that of zibun is not. Observe the following contrast (cf. (A1)):

(A3)

{*Watashi_i/	*Anata_i/	John_i}-ga	hon-nin_i-no	ishi-de
I	You	John-nom	my/your/his	will-on

kin’	enshi-ta.
stop	smoke-pst

{Watashi_i/	Anata_i/	John_i}-ga	zibun_i-no	ishi-de	kin’	enshi-ta.
I	You	John-nom	self’s	will-on	stop	smoke-pst

Hon-nin does not, in particular, take as its antecedent the first person (Watashi), which is the pronoun with the most subjective character. This fact thus shows that hon-nin is less subjective than zibun, which can take the first person as its antecedent. Second, sentences using hon-nin become more acceptable with the aid of the modal verbs like rasii/sooda ‘seem’.

(A4)

John_i-ga	hon-nin_i-no	ishi-de	kin’	enshi-ta	rasii/sooda.	[cf. (A1a)]
John-nom	his	will-on	stop	smoke-pst	seem

‘It seems that John himself decided to quit smoking.’

This can be also captured in terms of subjectivity. Rasii/Sooda in (A4) are the modal verbs which introduce another person’s opinion. In other words, sentences with them are uttered less subjectively (i.e., more objectively). Accordingly, hon-nin, which is also less subjective, is often used with them. ^[8]

Viewed in this light, it seems reasonable to suppose that sentences like (A1), though not allowed syntactically due to the binding condition (8), can be made acceptable by some pragmatic (or semantic) factor like subjectivity. If this is on the right track, some kind of “coercion” could occur in certain conditions, which could cancel the syntactic condition. We leave this issue to future research.

Published Online: 2018-04-13

Published in Print: 2018-04-25

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jjl-2018-0004

Keywords for this article

the Japanese reflexive zibun; the Japanese pronoun hon-nin; subject/non-subject; binding; grammatical relation