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On the variability of negative scope in Japanese1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2008

HIDEKI KISHIMOTO
HIDEKI KISHIMOTO
Affiliation:
Kobe University
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Abstract

This article shows how the Japanese negative expression nai ‘not’ changes its scope depending on whether it is overtly head-raised to T or not. In Japanese, overt Neg-head raising takes place when a negative head acts as a functional predicate, devoid of its lexical (i.e. adjectival) properties in an analogous way to the aspectual verbs have and be in English. When the negative head nai undergoes overt head raising, it takes scope over TP. In some cases, however, the scope of negation becomes narrower due to the absence of overt Neg-head raising. The data provide us with empirical evidence showing that overt head raising – the kind of functional predicate raising observed in English and elsewhere in Japanese – is instantiated at the level of syntax, rather than at PF.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , July 2008 , pp. 379 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

[1]

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Fukuoka Gengogakkai (December 2005), the Morphology and Lexicon Forum 2006 (May 2006), and the Sendai Area Circle of Linguistics (June 2006). I am grateful to John Whitman, Masaki Sano, Yo Matsumoto, Taro Kageyama, Yoko Yumoto, Hiroaki Tada, Saeko Urushibara, Tadashi Eguchi, Yoko Sugioka, Nobuhiro Kaga, Hiroto Hoshi, Jun Abe, Nobuko Hasegawa, Yoshie Yamamori, Miho Mano, Kiyoko Eguchi, Takayuki Tono, and the audiences of the meetings for their comments and suggestions. I am indebted to Mark Campana for his suggestions on the style as well as the content of the present paper. I am also thankful to anonymous JL reviewers for providing detailed comments on the earlier versions of the paper. The author is solely responsible for any remaining inadequacies and errors in the article.

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