Japanese Numerals and Numeral Quantifiers

8/12/2019 Japanese Numerals and Numeral Quantifiers

1/30

1

Nicholas Primrose

Thesis Adviser: Jorge Hankamer

04/09/13

Japanese Numerals and Numeral Quantifiers

I. Introduction

In this paper, Japanese numerals and numeral quantifiers will be under investigation.Japanese numerals are a complex unit: a combination of a number and a classifier. These

classifiers are always attached to a number and the classifier specifies the type of noun being

modified by the number. In English, numbers and quantifiers can appear in a large variety of

positions that make it difficult to tell exactly where these elements go in the structure. In

Japanese, numbers and quantifiers can appear in an even greater number of positions. The mainpoint of this paper will be to discover the positions that the numerals and numeral quantifiers can

be in. Since it appears that the numerals and numeral quantifiers can appear in an incrediblenumber of positions, these facts have caused researchers to propose a wide variety of possible

structures for the nominal domain. Typically, these proposals have a large number of functional

projections and a wide variety of movements around the nominal domain. Certain things, likeJapanese not having an overt determiner, make figuring out the actual structure very difficult. I

seek to understand the nominal domain better in order to pinpoint the positions of these numerals

and numeral quantifiers. What I will end up doing is positing a few positions within this

structure where the numeral and numeral quantifier can appear.In the end, I will argue that there are three positions that numerals and numeral

quantifiers can appear. I will argue that numerals and numeral quantifiers participate in a wordformation process that superficially appears to be [#-GEN N]. Actually, the element thatsuperficially appears to be the GEN is actually a LINK that semantically relates any two

elements. Numerals and numeral quantifiers can also appear as an adjective, appearing as a right

modifier to NP. And finally, I will argue that these numerals and numeral quantifiers can be leftin interesting places resulting from their interesting interaction with the copy theory of

movement. These three positions will be argued mainly from properties of Japanese and the

syntax of Japanese, but at some points appeals will be made to other languages to helpunderstand the parts of the structure that are not easily defined, like the lack of an overt D in

Japanese.

The layout will be as follows:

Section 2 will explore the main data under investigation and the generalizations that needto be explained under any theory of the syntax of the Japanese nominal domain. Section 3 will

show a basic picture of the problem. Section 4 will explore some basic elements that are

involved in Japanese numerals and numeral quantifiers and explicate their basic properties.Section 5 will explore the morpheme nothat attaches to numerals and numeral quantifiers and


2/30

2

show that that morpheme is the LINK, which is used in a word formation process to create Ns.

Section 6 will explore the numeral exclusive position, the position that the numeral appears in

that the numeral quantifier does not, and argue, mainly through other languages, that thatexclusive position must be a right modifier to NP. Section 7 will attempt to understand how

floating quantifiers fit into this theory. And Section 8 will sum up whats been learned and pose

further questions.

II. The Basic Data

Its important to go slow through this data, as this pattern is the core of the problem and

its important to keep this data in mind while looking at the rest of this paper. To understand it

better, heres a chart of where these numerals and quantifiers are able to appear in this simpleexample.

(1) a. John-wa san-satu hon-o kat-ta.

John-TOP 3-CL book-ACC buy-PST

b. John-wa san-satu-no hon-o kat-ta.

John-TOP 3-CL-LINK book-ACC buy-PST

c. John-wa hon san-satu-o kat-ta.

John-TOP book 3-CL-ACC buy-PST

d. John-wa hon-o san-satu kat-ta.

John-TOP book-ACC 3-CL buy-PST

John bought three books. (Watanabe 2006: 3)12

1Abbreviations are as follows: +SUBJ, subject feature; +Q, question marker; +WH, Wh-feature; #, numeral; ACC,

accusative; CL, classifier; D, determiner; DAT, dative; DP, determiner phrase; EPP, extended projection principle;

Prenominal Prenominal

with no

N Between N

and K

K After K

san-satu

takusan


3/30

3

(2) a. John-wa takusan hon-o kat-ta.

John-TOP many book-ACC buy-PST

b. John-wa takusan-no hon-o kat-ta.

John-TOP many-LINK book-ACC buy-PST

c. *John-wa hon takusan-o kat-ta.

John-TOP book many-ACC buy-PST

d. John-wa hon-o takusan kat-ta.John-TOP book-ACC many buy-PST

John bought many books. (Watanabe 2006: 70)

In addition to appearing in those various positions, numerals and numeral quantifiers are

also able to float, and by that I mean they are able to appear in trace positions of things they canattach to. Notice (3) and (4):

(3) Yuube, kuruma-ga doroboo ni 2-dai nusum-are-ta.last.night cars-NOM thief by 2-CL steal-PASS-PST

Last night, two cars were stolen by a thief. (Miyagawa 1989: 38)

(4) Yuube, kuruma-ga doroboo ni takusan nusum-are-ta.

last.night cars-NOM thief by a.lot steal-PASS-PST

Last night, a lot of cars were stolen by a thief. (Miyagawa 1989: 21)

When kurumaraises up to specTP, the numerals and numeral quantifiers are able to be

left behind. These floaters can also appear when scrambling happens:

(5) Hon-o gakusei-ga san-satu kat-ta.

book-ACC student-NOM three-CL buy-PST

A/the student(s) bought three books. (Nakanishi 2b)

When honscrambles up to the front of the sentence, numerals and numeral quantifiers

can be left behind. These additional floating positions will be difficult to describe and will be the

subject of section 6.

GEN, genitive case; HON, honorifics; K, case; KP, case phrase; LINK, linker; LOC, locative; N, noun; NMLZ,

nominalizer; NOM, nominative; NP, noun phrase; NPST, non-past; NQ, numeral quantifier; PASS, passive; POL,

polite element; POSS, possessive; PRG, progressive; PST, past; Q, quantifier; QP, quantifier phrase; T, tense; TOP,

topic; V, verb; VP, verb phrase.2I would like to thank Sakae Fujita and Mariko Tajima for their grammaticality judgments throughout this paper.

Examples from Turkish are from p.c. with Jorge Hankamer. I would like to thank Jorge Hankamer, Anie Thompson,

and Jim McCloskey for their helpful comments.


4/30

4

III. A Basic Picture of the Problem

Since this paper will be delving into the nominal domain, I will be assuming the

following for its structure:

There are three main positions to understand: the floated position, the numeral exclusive

position, and the #-noposition. First off, I will argue that the floated position for numerals and

numeral quantifiers is created from the numerals and numeral quantifiers having a special

property that allows them to be left behind whereas the rest of the copy they attach to must

delete.


5/30

5

Secondly, I argue that the numeral exclusive position is a right modifier to NP and thus

appears in the structure as the following:

Finally, I will argue that the #-noposition is created by a N word formation process using

the morpheme no, the LINK. Thus, the position in the structure would be:


6/30

6

IV. Some Basic Things

Before moving on to more interesting things, I want to take the time to define numerals

and numeral quantifiers.NQ

I will be defining numeral quantifiers (NQ) as subete (all) and takusan (many). Thesecan appear in all of the same positions as the numerals except for the position between N and K.

Some examples are below:

(6) takusan-no hito

a.lot-LINK people

a lot of people

(7) subete-no hon

all-LINK book

all books

(8) kyoukasyo-ga takusan

textbook-NOM a.lot

a lot of textbooks

(9) kokuban-o subete

blackboard-ACC all

all blackboards

#

I will also be investigating numerals. In Japanese, numerals come as a package deal withboth the number and a classifier that specifies the general kind of thing the object is being

counted as. Various classifiers followed by examples of each are shown below:

Hiki: used with small animals (mouse, squirrel, small dogs, etc.)

(10) san-biki-no risu

3-CL-LINK squirrel

3 squirrels


7/30

7

(11) go-hiki mausu

5-CL mouse

5 mice

Hon: used with long objects (bottles, etc.)

(12) biiru san-bon

Beer 3-CL

3 beers

(13) kyuu-hon-no tai

9-CL-LINK tie

9 ties

Mai: used with flat objects (sheets of paper, CDs, etc.)

(14) ichi-mai CD

1-CL CD

1 CD

(15) san-byaku-mai-no repooto

3-hundred-CL-LINK report

Three hundred page report

Satsu: used with bound volumes (books, magazines, comic books, etc.)

(16) juu-satu-no manga

10-CL-LINK comic.book

10 comic books

(17) san-satu zassi

3-CL magazine

3 magazines


8/30

8

Dai: used with electronics and large vehicles (computers, phones, cars, roller coasters, etc.)

(18) ni-dai-no compyuuta

2-CL-LINK computer

2 computers

(19) kuruma-ga hati-dai

car-NOM 8-CL

8 cars

There are many more classifiers.

V. NO

In this part, I will be dealing with the morpheme nothat can be attached to numerals andnumeral quantifiers. This is the linker. It is used in a word formation process that is pretty

extensive in the language. LINK combines two elements to form a noun and semantically relates

them. The exact nature of the relation is difficult to describe and will not be the focus here.

What the focus of this part will be carefully separating the LINK apart from the GEN andshowing that the morpheme nothat is attaching to numerals and numeral quantifiers has got to be

LINK. To do that, first, there will be some basic examples with noattaching to the numeral and

numeral quantifier. Then, the 4 morphemes homophonous with noin Japanese will be explored.Two of them will quickly be rejected based on those morphemes acting in very different

environments from the nothat attaches to numerals and numeral quantifiers. Then, the section

will narrow down to comparing the GEN and LINK. It will be shown that the morpheme inquestion is LINK through three main methods. One method will be showing that are some basic

syntactic reasons to suggest that LINK is in a different place than GEN. The second method will

be showing that the morpheme in question works in an unexpected way when stacked if itsassumed that its the GEN. The third method will be showing that GEN, unlike LINK, can

license NPE.


9/30

9

To start with, some basic examples of the noattaching to numerals and numeral

quantifiers.

(1b) John-wa san-satu-no hon-o kat-ta.

John-TOP 3-CL-LINK book-ACC buy-PSTJohn bought three books. (Watanabe 2006: 3b)

(2b) John-wa takusan-no hon-o kat-ta.

John-TOP many-LINK book-ACC buy-PSTJohn bought many books. (Watanabe 2006: 70b)

The four morphemes homophonous with noare +Q, NMLZ, GEN and LINK. First, the

+Q no. There is another +Q morpheme that is much more commonly used than this morpheme,ka. Kaand noboth appear in the same position and cannot co-occur. The difference between ka

and nois that the +Q nois said more often by women.

(20) toshokan-ni it-ta-no?

library-to go-PST-+Q

Did you go to the library?

(21) yuusyoku-o tabe-ta-no?

Dinner-ACC eat-PST-+Q

Did you eat dinner?

(22) nani-o yom-u-no?

What-ACC read-NPST-+Q

What will you read?/ What are you reading?

As should seem pretty clear, this cant possibly be the morpheme attaching to numerals

and numeral quantifiers. It has a completely different meaning and appears in a very differentsyntactic location.

The second nothat I will investigate is the NMLZ no. This morpheme attaches to verbs

in their bare NPST form without any politeness and turns those verbs into related nouns. Thebasic examples are below:


10/30

10

(23) Watasi-wa hanasu no - ga suki.

I-TOP to.speak-NMLZ-NOM like

I like speaking.

(24) Mitiko-san-ga yakyuu-o suru-no-ga joozu-ni nari-tai.

Michiko-HON-NOM baseball-ACC do-NMLZ-NOM good-at become-want

Michiko wants to become good at playing baseball.

(25) Hikooki-no yoyaku suru-no-o si-tei-masu-ka?

Airport-LINK reservations do-NMLZ-ACC know-PRG-POL-+Q

Do you know how to make airplane reservations?

(Lit. Do you know doing airplane reservations)

One possible analysis of this morpheme is that it is really the LINK morpheme starting

out something like (26) and then undergoing NPE.

(26) suru-no-koto-o

do-NO-thing-ACC

If this analysis was true, then it would undergo NPE and result in (27):

(27) suru-no-o

do-NO-ACC

But this cant be right. As I will argue just a little bit later in this section, the LINK cant license

NPE but the GEN can. Which means the problem for this analysis is that if this use of nowas the LINK,then you would predict it to not license NPE in the way the analysis requires. And if this use of nowasthe GEN, then you would predict the verb to be related to the dropped object by means of possession.Since it makes no sense for verbs to possess anything, then this morpheme has got to be separate.Because of these reasons, this nois a NMLZ that is used in a word formation process taking a V and

turning it into a N. This is also why this verb has to appear in the bare form. If you notice (28a) and(28b), the verb cant take negation or tense:


11/30

11

(28) a. *Watasi-wa hanas-anai no - ga suki.

I-TOP speak-NEG-NMLZ-NOM like

I like not speaking.

b. *Watasi-wa hanasi-ta no - ga suki.

I-TOP speak-PST-NMLZ-NOM like

?I like spokening.

So this noattaches to Vs and makes Ns. This cant be the nothat attaches to numeralsand numeral quantifiers.

Here, I will try to understand the similarities and differences between GEN and LINK toprove that the morpheme nothat attaches to numerals and numeral quantifiers is the LINK and

not the GEN. There will be three main points that I will use to prove this. The first is that thesyntactic position of LINK and GEN must be different. The second is that the semantics of

LINK differs in an interesting way from the semantics of GEN when there are stacked elementsand semantics of the numeral/numeral quantifier nois like LINK and not GEN. The third is that

GEN can license NPE whereas LINK cant. In terms of how this section is ordered, first, the

basic differences that Im positing between the two morphemes will appear in a list. Then, therewill be some basic examples of the two morphemes. And then, the three main points will be

attacked one by one.

This section will conclude that the GEN works as following:

Relates a possessor and possessee

Appears in the structure before adjectives

When stacked in structures like [NP1-GEN NP2-GEN- NP3], NP1must be a possessor thatpossesses NP2and NP2must be a possessor that possesses NP3. This means the semanticstacking applies linearly left-to-right.

Can license NPE

This section will conclude that LINK works as following:

Relates two meaningful elements

Appears in the structure after adjectives

When stacked in structures like [NP1-LINK NP2-LINK- NP3], both NP1and NP2are

meaningfully related to NP3. It is not the case that NP1is related to NP2and NP2isrelated to NP3. This means the semantic stacking applies right-to-left

Cant license NPE


12/30

12

Basic examples of GEN look like the following:

(29) Mitiko-no tabemono

Michiko-GEN food

Michikos food

(30) Mitiko-nokaban

Michiko-GENbag

Michikos bag

(31) Siniti-san-no titi-no ie

Shinichi-HON-GEN father-GENhouse

Mr. Shinichis dads house

Basic examples of LINK look like the following:

(32) ame-no hi

rain-LINK day

rainy day (Saito & Murasugi 50a)

(33) san-satsu-no Chomsky-nitsuite-no hon

3-CL-LINK Chomsky-about-LINK book

three books about Chomsky (Watanabe 2006 22a)

(34) warui-no syuumatu

bad-LINK weekend

bad weekend

The syntactic position of GEN must be different than LINK because adjectives appear

before LINK but after GEN. First, here are some examples of adjectives appearing after GEN:

(35) a. Mitiko-no oisii tabemono

Michiko-GEN delicious food

Michikos delicious food


13/30

13

b. *oisii Mitiko-no tabemono

delicious Michiko-GEN food

Michikos delicious food

(36) a. Tanaka-san-no kibisi titi

Tanaka-HON-GEN strict father

Mr. Tanakas strict father

b. *kibisi Tanaka-san-no titi

strict Tanaka-HON-GEN father

Mr. Tanakas strict father

Without a doubt, adjectives must be after GEN. But also, without a doubt, adjectives

must be before LINK.

(37) a. oisii kankoku-no tabemono

delicious Korea-LINK food

delicious Korean food

b. *kankoku-no oisii tabemono

Korea-LINK delicious food


(38) a. kibisi bengosi-no otoko

strict lawyer-LINK man

strict lawyer man

b. *bengosi-no kibisi otoko

lawyer-LINK strict man

strict lawyer man

This means that LINK must be in a different syntactic position from GEN. In my story of

the nominal domain, this means GEN must be in spec DP and LINK must be within the NP.

Since I will argue that LINK is part of a N word formation process, this data makes perfect

sense.


14/30

14

Secondly, there are some interesting semantic affects that are impossible to capture if thenothat attaches to numerals and numeral quantifiers is really the GEN. When stacked, the GEN

looks like the following:

(31) Siniti-san-no titi-no ie

Shinichi-HON-GEN father-GENhouse

Mr. Shinichis dads house

(39) Mitiko-no inu-no kao

Michiko-GEN dog-GEN face

Michikos dogs face

In these constructions, the form is [NP1-GEN NP2-GEN- NP3]. NP1must be a possessor

that possesses NP2and NP2must be a possessor that possesses NP3. This means that (31) means

Mr. Shinichis dads house and it is not the case that that house is owned by Mr. Shinichi.Similarly, (39) means Michikos dogs face and not Michikos face with some additional

info about her dog. This seems obvious. But this is not how the LINK semantically builds

elements together. Notice:

(40) oisii-no kankoku-no tabemono

delicious-LINK Korea-LINK food


(33) san-satsu-no Chomsky-nitsuite-no hon

3-CL-LINK Chomsky-about-LINK book

three books about Chomsky (Watanabe 2006 22a)

In the form, [NP1-LINK NP2-LINK- NP3], both NP1and NP2are meaningfully related to

NP3. It is not the case that NP1is related to NP2and NP2is related to NP3. In (40), it means that

the food is both related to Korea and related to deliciousness. Crucially, it does not mean thatKorea is delicious and that delicious Korea is related to food. That is what one would expect if

one were to assume that the noin the above examples was the GEN. Also notice (33), in which


15/30

15

it means that books are related to being about Chomsky and related to 3-ness. It does not mean

that there are 3-Chomsky-abouts that are related to a book.

Its possible that this is just to do with semantic restrictions. Perhaps the reason theres

this switch where both elements refer to the main N rather than to each other in a chain isbecause of the examples being used. Perhaps the only reason theyre bad is because Korea cant

be delicious and you cant count abstract concepts like being about something. But if you notice

(41), its possible that crazy is linking with either rain or day. It could be a crazy day thats rainy

or crazy rain on this day. If this nowas the GEN, you would expect it to mean crazy rain on thatday. If this nowas working differently, you would expect it to mean a crazy day that was rainy.

And it means that theres a crazy day that was rainy.

(41) kureejii-no ame-no hi

crazy-LINK rain-LINK day

Crazy, rainy day

Therefore, when LINK stacks elements, all the stacked elements relate to the main N,

which seems to make sense for a N building process. For GEN, each element relates to the next

one in the chain, which seems to make sense for GEN based on the structure of how multipleGENs come about. This is another proof towards the fact that the nothat attaches to numerals

and numeral quantifiers is LINK and not GEN.

The final part of this section will be about NPE. This idea is based on Saito and

Murasugi (1990) and the appendix to Watanabe (2009). Saito and Murasugi argue that the GEN

allows for NP ellipsis whereas the LINK does not. Compare (42a) and (42b).

(42) a. [Rooma-no hakai1]-wa [Kyooto-noe1] -yorimo hisan datta.Rome-GEN destruction-TOP Kyoto-GEN than horrible was

Romes destruction was more horrible than Kyotos.

b. *Saikin-wa [hare-no hi1]-ga [ame-noe1] yorimo ooi.recently-TOP clear-LINKday-NOM rain-LINK than many

Recently, there have been more clear days than rainy days.

(Saito & Murasugi 49a and 51a)

In (42a), the GEN is able to license the NP ellipsis. In (42b), the LINK cant. Its clear

that Saito and Murasugis distinction between the two nohomophonous elements is true. But

can the nothat attaches to numeral quantifiers and numerals license NP ellipsis? For this, they

turn to (43):

(43) *[huka-kire-no hamu1]-wa yuusyoku-ni naru ga, [hito-kire-noe1]-wa nara-nai

Two-CL-LINK ham-TOP supper-to make but 1-CL-LINK -TOP make-NEG

Two slices of ham make up a supper, but one slice of ham does not.(Saito &Murasugi 52b)


16/30

16

This example, however, is faulty. In general, numbers cannot be in topics. See (44) and

(45). The only difference between (44) and (45) is TOP vs. NOM. The number being in thetopic makes the sentence fail.

(44) *gakusei san-nin-wa honya-de hon-o kat-ta.

student 3-CL-TOP bookstore-LOC book-ACC buy-PST

(45) gakusei san-nin-ga honya-de hon-o kat-ta

Student 3-CL-NOM bookstore-LOC book-ACC buy-PST

3 students bought books at a bookstore.

But this doesnt mean that Saito & Murasugi are wrong. The nothat attaches to numerals

and quantifiers still cant perform NP ellipsis.

(46) *Taroo-wa iti-niti-ni [san-satsu-no hon]-o yomu ga, Hanako-waTaroo-TOP 1-day-in three-CL-LINK book-ACC read but Hanako-TOP

go-satsu-no-o yomu

five-CL-LINK-ACC bought

Taroo reads 3 books in a day, but Hanako reads five. (Saito 2008: 22b)

This is another proof that the nothat attaches to numerals and quantifiers is the LINK andnot the GEN. Syntactic position, semantic stacking, and interaction with NPE all prove that the

nothat attaches to numerals and quantifiers must be LINK.

VI. Numeral Exclusive Position

This section seeks to understand where the position exclusive to the numeral is. The

relevant contrast is below:

(1c) John-wa hon san-satu-o kat-ta.

John-TOP book 3-CL-ACC buy-PSTJohn bought three books.

(2c) *John-wa hon takusan-o kat-ta.

John-TOP book many-ACC buy-PSTJohn bought many books.


17/30

17

This section will review the various possibilities and reject them one by one. First, this

section will consider the position being a right specifier for NP, but some reasonable previously

held assumptions and cross-linguistic facts make this option unlikely if not impossible. Second,this section will consider the # being the D head, which seems like a good spot when looking at

Japanese, but cross-linguistically, this seems unreasonable. And finally this section will consider

the # being a right modifier to NP. This proposal will be accepted as this seems best both forJapanese and cross-linguistically. Though it would be better to not have to rely on cross-

linguistic data to prove the points in this section, Japanese not having an overt D makes relying

on cross-linguistic data necessary.

First, I will consider the # as being the right specifier of NP. That would look like:

This is possible and would get the order of elements correctly, but there are a number of

problems with this hypothesis. This hypothesis goes against previously held assumptions. Thefirst assumption that this goes against is a very simple but important assumption. That

assumption is that the notion that the ordering of specifiers, heads, and complements is largely

consistent within a language. In general, we find all the heads to be right or left, we find thespecifiers to be right or left, and we find the complements to be right or left. There are

exceptions where this is not the case, for example heads in German, but it seems to be a good

overall trend for the direction of these elements to stay consistent. This assumption seems likeone that is easy to break, but only for good reason. Since there are no other specifier-like

elements that come to the right, its hard to say why this specifier would come to the right. And

since I dont have a great reason to break that assumption, why break it at all? The second

assumption that this goes against is a NP-internal genitive raising hypothesis. It is very likelythat one wants the genitive to begin in spec NP, then for D[POSS] to probe down to find that DP,

and raise it up to spec DP. That would be schematized as follows:


18/30

18

This movement seems good for a number of reasons. It gives a good place for that DP to

start in the structure. It makes the nominal and verbal domain look more parallel because then

the D probing down looks a lot like the T probing down. And it explains GEN-POSS agreementthat you find in many languages similar to phi-feature agreement in the verbal domain. If such a

movement existed, then the NP would already have a specifier. It seems outlandish to suppose

theres a right andleft specifier without some external evidence for this. The third problem with

this hypothesis is that this hypothesis seems bad cross-linguistically. Look at (47) and (48):

(47) a. The three big smelly pigs

b. *The big three smelly pigs

c. *The big smelly three pigs

(48) a. The seven squawking birds

b. *The squawking seven birds

Trying to take this result over to English gives a bad result. For English, it seems insanethat these number elements are in spec NP. Since there are multiple places for numbers in

Japanese, one might wonder if this is simply a different position. But notice (49):

(49) a. The three dogsb. *The many dogs

This appears to be the same position that is being investigated in Japanese. It seems

crazy to try to take this idea about # being specNP cross-linguistic. Since these two important

assumptions would be broken and there would be massive problems for trying to figure out the

English data, the # cant be in spec NP.


19/30

19

Second, I will consider this # as a D head. That would look like the following:

This seems like a rather natural place for the numeral to go if one looks at Japanese. Its

a really clear position and since there seems to be no overt D, this would be the only overt D and

nothing would conflict with it. But trying to make this cross-linguistic seems to fail horribly.

Look at English and Turkish:

(47) a. The three big smelly pigs

b. *The big three smelly pigs

c. *The big smelly three pigs

(48) a. The seven squawking birds

b. *The squawking seven birds

In English, it seems ridiculous for the # to be a D head. It can co-occur with D heads, so

why would it be a D head?

(50) bir maymun

a monkey

(51) mutlu bir maymunA happy monkey


20/30

20

(52) Cok mutlu bir maymun

A very happy monkey

(53) bir muz

A banana

(54) pek pahalI bir araba

too expensive a car

(55) biraz pahalI bir arabaa somewhat expensive car

(56) *bir mutlu maymuna happy monkey

(57) *bir Cok gUzel kIz

a very beautiful girl

(58) *u bir pahalI maymun

That one expensive monkey

Turkish has a very similar structure to Japanese. But this birelement, which means 1, is

quite elusive. This birelement is closer to the noun than demonstratives and adjectives, which

makes it seem like specNP. Since one would want NP internal GEN raising for Turkish,especially since one gets GEN-POSS agreement, the specNP position is taken. As I will argue

later, this means it is an adjective itself. But it definitely cant be a D.

Proving that # is not a D head seems very difficult within Japanese and requires one tolook outside of Japanese to other languages. In other languages, # being a D head is absolutely

ridiculous and for that reason, # is not a D head in Japanese.


21/30

21

Finally, I will consider the # as a right adjective. That would look like:

This would correctly get the order. One might wonder if this violates the general

direction of modifiers that one finds in Japanese. But modifiers seem different from heads,specifiers, and complements in that modifier order doesnt seem as strict as any of the other

elements orders. Its quite common to find modifiers appearing on both sides, where any of the

other elements appearing on both sides might be quite strange. So if there isnt a problem withsome modifiers in Japanese being on the right, one might wonder about cross-linguistic data.

And here we return to English and Turkish.

In English, it seems quite good to have the # as an adjective. It appears between D and N

and before all the other adjectives.

(47) a. The threebig smelly pigs

b. *The big threesmelly pigs

c. *The big smelly threepigs

(59) The two large red brick houses

In English then, the # appears to be an adjective ordered before all other adjectives. Letsreturn to Turkish.


22/30

22

(52) Cok mutlu bir maymun

A very happy monkey

(53) birmuz

A banana

(54) pek pahalI bir araba

too expensive a car

In Turkish, the # appears to be an adjective that is ordered after all other adjectives. This

gives it the appearance of specNP, but its not. Since this proposal works for Japanese and gets

the cross-linguistic data best, the exclusive position for the # must be a right modifier of the NP.

VII. Floating

This section will turn now to understanding the two pairs of sentences below. These pairs

of sentences are instances of what has traditionally been called floating quantifiers/numerals.

They seem to appear in a wide range of positions, many of which one might not expect them in,making their distribution difficult to describe. There have been two main accounts to deal with

this data: a stranding and an adverbial analysis. These will both be shown to be inadequate to

deal with the data. The stranding analysis will be shown to be incorrect because of the difficultyin deriving examples in which the quantified expression moves multiple times. Additionally, the

stranding analysis seems to suppose a [+SUBJ] feature. The adverbial theory will be shown to

be faulty because of how late the process would need to apply and how difficult making sure thatthis late process actually gets the right form would be. Instead, a copy theory of movementanalysis will be shown to be superior in understanding the data under investigation. To start, the

data:

(1) c. John-wa hon-o san-satu kat-ta.


John bought three books.d. John-wa san-satu hon-o kat-ta.


John bought three books. (Watanabe 2006: 3c&d)

(2) c. John-wa hon-o takusan kat-ta.

John-TOP book-ACC many buy-PST

John bought many books.d. John-wa takusan hon-o kat-ta.


John bought many books. (Watanabe 2006: 70c&d)


23/30

23

The difficulty in describing these floaters is because they are able to be left behind by

movement operations. In (5), the numeral is left behind after scrambling moves hon-oto the

front and in (60), the numeral quantifier is left behind in the same manner.

(5) Hon-o gakusei-ga san-satu kat-ta.

book-ACC student-NOM three-CL buy-PASTA/the student(s) bought three books. (Nakanishi 2b)

(60) Hon-o gakusei-ga takusan kat-ta

Book-ACC student-NOM a.lot buy-PSTThe student bought a lot of books.

Numerals and quantifiers can also be floated in a sentence with passive:

(3) a. Yuube, kuruma-ga doroboo ni ni-dai nusum-are-ta.

last.night cars-NOM thief by 2-CL steal-PASS-PAST

Last night, two cars were stolen by a thief.

b. Kuruma-ga doroboo ni takusan nusum-are-ta.cars-NOM thief by a.lot steal-PASS-PST

'A lot of cars were stolen by a thief. (Miyagawa 1989: 21, 38)

The two main analyses for this data have traditionally been the stranding analysis

(Sportiche (88), Kawashima (98), Boskovic (2004), etc.) and the adverbial analysis (Miyagawa

(89), Bobaljik (95), etc.) The difference is whether the floated quantifier is left there when themovement operation happens, in the stranding analysis, or whether the floated quantifier is a

special adverb that can attach only to traces of the moved phrase, in the adverbial analysis. The

two possibilities are schematized below:

STRANDING:


24/30

24

ADVERBIAL:

In the stranding analysis, a subpart of the nominal domain (KP in the picture above)

moves out of the QP, leaving behind such information as quantifiers and numerals. This is

usually a product of feature percolation. Feature percolation either percolates the featuremaximally up to the QP, or stays down lower at the KP. Whichever phrase is highest and gets the

necessary feature is the one that moves on up.

In the adverbial analysis, the #P acts as an adverb for traces of QPs that it couldsemantically refer to. Bobaljik, in particular, has the process putting #P adverbs into the

structure very late in the syntax. Bobaljik needs the process to be so late in order to know where

all the traces are going to be.

I will take a detour to a variety of English to argue that these floating constructions

cannot possibly be derived via the stranding analysis. McCloskey (2000) argues that allcan be

left behind in WH trace locations in a dialect of English known as West Ulster English (WUE).The pertinent data is as follows:

(61) a. What alldid you get t for Christmas?

b. Who alldid you meet t when you were in Derry?c. Where alldid they go t for their holidays? (McCloskey 2000: 1)

(62) a. What did you get allfor Christmas?

b. Who did you meet allwhen you were in Derry?

c. Where did they go allfor their holidays? (McCloskey 2000: 3)

Allcan either move up with the WH-word, or it can stay behind. In fact, allcan get left

behind in-situ or in any of the CPs that the WH-word moves through. Notice (63):

(63) a. What alldo you think (that) hell say (that) we should buy t?

b. What do you think all(that) hell say (that) we should buy t?c. What do you think (that) hell say all(that) we should buy t?d. What do you think (that) hell say (that) we should buy all? (McCloskey 2000: 12)

3

3In case one is worried that this WUE data is faulty or is some small pocket of language, there is a remarkably

similar phenomenon that happens in Standard English (noticed by McCloskey (2000) on pg. 63 Ft. 8):

(i) What exactlydid he say that he wanted?

(ii) What did he say exactlythat he wanted?

(iii)

What did he say that he wanted exactly?


25/30

25

To account for this data, McCloskey proposes that the structure for who allis as follows:

Therefore, either the [+WH] KP or the [+WH] QP moves up by WH movement. But thisruns straight into a number of problems. The first problem would be how to deal with a similar

issue. Consider not the WUE data, but the normal English float data:

(64) a. *The carpets all will have been being dusted for two hours.

b. The carpets will all have been being dusted for two hours.

c. The carpets will have allbeen being dusted for two hours.d. The carpets will have been allbeing dusted for two hours.

e. *The carpets will have been beingall dusted for two hours. (Sportiche 24)4

The correlate structure of the phrase [all the carpets] would look like this before

movement:

I do not want to concern myself at this moment whether that KP moves up to spec QP or

not. McCloskey (2000)s story about WUE makes sense. The [+WH] feature either remains on

the KP or pied-pipes to the QP. Whichever one is highest and gets the [+WH] feature is the one

that raises. But what about all the carpets? What feature is raising to give optionality in this

situation? To get the data correctly, you would need the following:

4I disagree with Sportiches grammaticality judgments. Sportiche marked (e) as good.


26/30

26

Under McCloskeys story, you need a [+SUBJ] feature to get the normal floating data.Either the [+SUBJ] feature would percolate up to the QP or not. This would give you the

optionality. This seems far from plausible. For WH movement, it makes sense why that [+WH]

feature is there; it has a WH word. But why is the [+SUBJ] feature there? What motivates an

actual feature for [+SUBJ] rather than subject being defined by position? Is this [+SUBJ] featuredifferent from TP EPP in any meaningful way? What gives the [+SUBJ] feature in the deep

structure? This cant be right.The second problem with McCloskeys story is how allgets left behind in the middletrace positions. It makes perfect sense in the in-situ position. Lets run through the story and try

to derive (65):

(65) What do you think (that) hell say all(that) we should buy t? (McCloskey 12c)

So in the base position we have the following structure:

(66)

What matters is that the feature, at this point, will have the option to pied-pipe up. If the

feature does not pied-pipe, then we get the structure in (66). This will give up the in-situ all. Ifthe WH feature does pied-pipe, it gives:


27/30

27

(67)

If you get the structure (67), then this QP will have raised successfully to the nextposition. Now that it has arrived at the next trace position, can it optionally pied-pipe again?

The structure at this point looks like (67), but somehow, it needs to be able to pied-pipe or not.

How is this possible? Its already pied-piped! McCloskeys story cant be correct.Trying to avoid some sort of [+SUBJ] feature and some sort of re-pied-piping process

leads me to reject the stranding hypothesis. So what about the adverbial hypothesis? As I

mentioned earlier, Bobaljik requires the placement of the adverbs to come in at a later time. Itmust either be extremely late in the syntax or post-syntactic. But how is this late syntax/post-syntactic operation able to correctly match up these numeral adverbials with the proper host? To

see that, lets take an example:

(3) Yuube, kuruma-ga doroboo ni ni-dai nusum-are-ta.

last.night cars-NOM thief by 2-CL steal-PASS-PAST

Last night, two cars were stolen by a thief. (Miyagawa 1989: 21)

You somehow need the CL to match up properly to the trace thats been left behind. The

difficulty of this is partially based upon what you think traces contain. If they are nothing other

than a marker that something has moved out, then it seems very difficult to properly match upnumerals with the proper host. If you think that, then there seems to be no explanation as to why

(68) is bad:

(68) *Yuube, kuruma-ga doroboo ni futari nusum-are-ta.

last.night cars-NOM thief by 2-CL steal-PASS-PASTLast night, two cars were stolen by a thief.

In (68), instead of the proper classifier (dai), the classifier for people is put in its place.

And this results in ungrammaticality. If traces were just markers that something moved, this

would be unexplained. There needs to be at least some information so the floated numeralknows that its cars and not people its attaching to. And that information cant be present

because traces are simply markers that things have moved.So, the stranding analysis doesnt work because it needs a [+SUBJ] feature and the ability

to repied-pipe. The adverbial analysis doesnt work because the insertion of the adverbial

quantifier/numeral has to be extremely late syntactically to know where the traces are going to beand by that point in the syntax the trace will be nothing more than a marker. What one needs to

solve this problem is a theory thats not the feature percolation story and that is similar to the


28/30

28

adverbial theory, but where the traces have more inside them. If traces had more internal

structure, then the numeral/numeral quantifier could be properly linked to them. The solution to

this is a copy theory of movement.In a copy theory of movement, nothing really moves. Everywhere where one would posit

a movement would instead be a copy process, taking the element that would have moved, and

copying to the place it would have moved to. Under this story, subject raising would instead besubject copying, copying the highest DP into spec TP. Then, there would be some general

principle that if there were multiple copies of the same element, only the highest one would be

pronounced. So, why does this theory fix the problem? Lets see a derivation:

(3a) Yuube, kuruma-ga doroboo ni ni-dai nusum-are-ta.

last.night cars-NOM thief by 2-CL steal-PASS-PASTLast night, two cars were stolen by a thief.

Because of VP internal subject raising hypothesis, kurumawould start down below:

(3a) Yuube, doroboo ni ni-dai-no kuruma nusum-are-ta.

last.night thief by 2-CL-LINK car steal-PASS-PAST


Then, kurumawould be copied into spec TP:

(3a) Yuube, ni-dai-no kuruma-ga doroboo ni ni-dai-no kuruma nusum-are-ta.

last.night 2-CL-LINK cars-NOM thief by 2-CL-LINK car steal-PASS-PST


Then something interesting happens. Unlike normal copy theory, the entirety of the

lower copy doesnt have to be deleted. It could all get deleted. But theres another possibility inwhich the numeral and numeral quantifier gets pronounced at the lower copy and is, thus, forced

to not be pronounced at the upper copy. This would result in the final result:

(3a) Yuube, kuruma-ga doroboo ni ni-dai nusum-are-ta.last.night cars-NOM thief by 2-CL steal-PASS-PAST


Why numerals and numeral quantifiers are marked specially to undergo this is still

strange, but this story makes a lot more sense than positing a [+SUBJ] feature, a repied-piping

option, or an adverbial story in which the numerals and numeral quantifiers know more about thesemantics of the moved thing than should be possible with traces. Though this seems like a nice

way to solve the problem, it still doesnt escape the fact that this story doesnt explain the basic

data still. Lets return to (1) and (2):


29/30

29

(1) c. John-wa hon-o san-satu kat-ta.


John bought three books.d. John-wa san-satu hon-o kat-ta.


John bought three books. (Watanabe 2006: 3c&d)

(2) c. John-wa hon-o takusan kat-ta.

John-TOP book-ACC many buy-PST

John bought many books.d. John-wa takusan hon-o kat-ta.


John bought many books. (Watanabe 2006: 70c&d)

The problem that still remains is why can the numeral/numeral quantifier show up in two

different positions. The solution to this is that theres copying, even in this simple case. There is

independent evidence for an object movement in Japanese that takes the ACC marked DP andmoves it higher. The evidence comes from the following:

(69) a. Sensei-ga Mitiko-san-ni Maeda-san-o syoukai-si-taSensei-NOM Michiko-HON-DAT Maeda-HON-ACC introduce-do-PST

b. Sensei-ga Maeda-san-o Mitiko-san-ni syoukai-si-ta

Sensei-NOM Maeda-HON-ACC Michiko-HON-DAT introduce-do-PSTSensei introduced Maeda to Michiko.

This shows that there can be object movement even in simple cases like (1) and (2),which means that there are two positions for the numeral/numeral quantifier to attach to.

If you follow the stranding story, you need some sort of [+SUBJ] feature and you needsome sort of re-pied piping ability, both of which seem outlandish. If you follow the adverbial

story, you need late insertion attaching these elements onto traces, but that seems ridiculous

considering how difficult properly matching the semantics of these numerals/numeral quantifiers

to their traces is. Instead, the copy theory of movement has been shown to be superior andderives all the data.

VIII. Conclusion:

In this paper, I have investigated numerals and numeral quantifiers in Japanese. I haveconcluded that there are three positions that numerals and numeral quantifiers can appear in: they

can be left behind in trace positions by acting special with regard to copy theory, they can appearas right modifiers to NP, and they can appear as a subpart of N as part of a N word building

process. The biggest question that remains is why. Why is the numeral able to appear as a right

modifier to NP but not the numeral quantifier? Why are numerals and numeral quantifiers sospecial when it comes to copy theory? Why numerals and numeral quantifiers are able to appear

in this noun formation process seems easy enough. This word formation process is extremely


30/30

30

extensive in the language and semantically-meaningful elements can be built with other such

elements and create nouns. Areas for further research include how to better understand those

questions of why and to try to see how extensive this three-way distinction in numeral/numeralquantifier positions is cross-linguistically.

References:

Bobaljik, Jonathan. 1995.Morphosyntax: The Syntax of Verb Inflection, Doctoral dissertation,MIT.

Boskovic, Zeljko. 2004. Be Careful When You Float Your Quantifiers,Natural Language andLinguistics Theory 22, 453-480.

Kawashima, Ruriko. 1998. The Structure of Extended Nominal Phrases: The Scrambling of

Numerals, Approximate Numerals, and Quantifiers in Japanese.Journal of East AsianLinguistics7, 126.

McCloskey, James. 2000. Quantifier float and wh-movement in an Irish English.LinguisticInquiry 31: 5784.

Miyagawa, Shigeru. 1989. Light Verbs and the Ergative Hypothesis.Linguistic Inquiry20:659-668.

Nakanishi, Kimiko. 2008. The syntax and semantics of floating numeral quantifiers. In TheOxford handbook of Japanese linguistics, ed. Shigeru Miyagawa and Mamoru Saito, 287319.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Saito, Mamoru, T.-H. Jonah Lin, and Keiko Murasugi. 2008. N'-Ellipsis and the structure of

noun phrases in Chinese and Japanese,Journal of East Asian Linguistics17.247-271.

Saito, M. & K. Murasugi. 1990. N-deletion in Japanese: A preliminary study. InJapanese/Korean linguistics 1, ed. H. Hoji, 285301. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

Sportiche, D. 1988. A theory of floating quantifiers and its corollaries for constituent structure.Linguistic Inquiry 19:425-449.

Watanabe, Akira. 2006. Functional Projections of Nominals in Japanese: Syntax of Classifiers.Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 24: 241-306.

Watanabe, A. 2009. Vague quantity, numerals, and natural numbers. Syntax 13:3777.

Japanese Numerals and Numeral Quantifiers

Documents

Transcript of Japanese Numerals and Numeral Quantifiers