英語と日本語における動詞句等位接続と時制素性の照合について

概要

論文の詳細を見る
In VP coordination structures of Japanese, the verbs in the conjoined VPs are all tenseless except for the final verb. In English VP coordination structures, all the verbs in the conjoined VPs can be tensed. This paper aims to provide a principled explanation for this curious difference between English and Japanese. Our account crucially utilizes the notion of feature checking within the framework of Chomsky's (1995) Minimalist Program. I suggest that tense features are not chosen when Japanese verbs enter the numeration, whereas they are optionally chosen when English verbs enter the numeration. In a nutshell, our claim is that the difference we are interested in stems from the absence of tense feature checking in Japanese, and the presence thereof in English. During the course of our discussion, I will also offer a piece of evidence that subjects in Japanese must be within VP, at least in certain sentences.
琉球大学法文学部の論文