Japanese passives and related constructions
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1992
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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In this dissertation four Japanese constructions-the passive, the spontaneous, the honorific, and the potential-are examined. My goal is to provide a unified account of the syntactic function of the suffixes used in these constructions, which have phonetically similar forms and which are said to have arisen from a common source. I argue that the suffixes in question all downgrade the external role of the base verb, i.e., they prevent its association with the syntactically prominent specifier of IP position. In the case of passives, the external role of the base verb remains within the verbal projection, where it is realized as a postpositional phrase and hence does not get associated with the specifier of IP. In the case of the spontaneous, the suffix simply deletes the external role, thereby preventing it being realized in the specifier position. In the case of the subject honorific, the suffix prevents the external role from moving into the syntactically prominent specifer of IP position, so that the argument remains within the verbal projection. Finally, 10 the case of the potential, the suffix suppresses the external role through coindexing with another coreferential argument of the base verb, thereby preventing its realization.
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Theses for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (University of Hawaii at Manoa). Linguistics; no. 2773
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