Negation scope and phrase structure in Japanese
Dennis Ryan Storoshenko · Summit (Simon Fraser University) · 2004
The position of negation in the phrase structure of Japanese remains a contentious question in the literature.Where a particular position is adopted, it is not always done so consistently with other works, and specific choices are not always justified.Judgments regarding the scope of negation would be very valuable to reaching a final principled account of negation's place in the phrase structure, but unfortunately the literature on that matter is not clear either.The data regarding Japanese negation scope is so contradictory and lacking in an empirical base that some researchers have declared it to be useless for syntactic analysis (Fukui & Sakai 2003).Seeking solid scope data upon which to base a conclusion about the structure of negation, we use a Truth Value Judgement Task (Crain & Thornton 1998) experiment to elicit scope judgements from 48 native speakers of Japanese.Participants were shown scenarios designed to elicit judgements on Q>Neg or Neg>Q readings, using two different forms of negation.Based on the results of the experiment, we reach a conclusion placing NegP relatively low in the phrase structure, within the vP domain.Furthermore, similarity between the results of this study and a similar study on Korean ( Han et a1 2003), implies that overt verb raising exists for half of native Japanese speakers, and leads to further questions in the larger domain of head-final languages, and language acquisition."What is required now is a feat o f linguistic legerdemain and a degree o f intrepidity."-Captain Spock, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country This section, like another great literary work, grew in the writing.First and foremost, thanks must go to my senior supervisor, Dr. Chung-hye Han for invaluable advice, inexhaustible patience, the occasional inspirational drink, and for making me believe in LaTeX.Yasuko Sakurai, without your patience in providing native speaker judgements and hard work during the entire experiment process, this thesis would have suffered greatly.My other committee members: Nancy Hedberg for frequent chats while commuting, Yue Wang for introducing the us to inferential statistics, and Martina Wiltschko, whose input has led to a much stronger final product.And of course, the rest of the faculty and grad students that have been so amazingly supportive over the six years since I first stumbled into this department as a lowly undergrad.But being such an all-consuming task, a thesis quickly spreads beyond the walls of the university, taking over other parts of the author's life.Mike, all the late night-coffee runs have been invaluable to my sanity.Will, as you have reminded me, yes there is a world out there.James, if I ever get too full of myself, I know who to call.To the staff and regulars at Blenz on Davie and Melriches, thank you for tolerating me and my laptop all these days and nights.