Scope of Negation and Clause Structure in Japanese

Abstract

0.Introduction Japanese has two ways of forming sentential negation: regular negation with -na inÁected on the main verb, as in (1a), and wa-negation with the so-called topic marker -wa on the main verb followed by auxiliary suru inÁected with -na, as in (1b). The purpose of this paper is to provide a uniÀed syntactic analysis of the two types of negation based on data concerning the scope of negation and a quantiÀed object NP (object QNP), extracted through psycholinguistic experimentation using a technique known as the Truth Value Judgment Task (TVJT) (Crain and Thornton, 1998). We will argue that the Àndings of our experiment support a view that the negation projection is placed low in the clause structure, within the lexical vP domain. This paper is organized as follows. In section 1, we consider lexical and syntactic approaches to Japanese negation and conclude that the data calls for the syntactic approach with a negation projection (NegP) in the clause structure. We then present an argument that the scope interaction between negation and the object QNP makes a great test for the position of NegP in Japanese. We point out, however, that the data cannot be used as it is presented in the literature on this topic because the scope judgments reported there conÁict with each other, making it impossible for us to make any coherent conclusions. This raises a question as to the validity of the methodology employed in extracting these scope judgments. In section 2, we present the TVJT experiment that we conducted in order to extract more reliable scope judgments. After a discussion of the particulars of our experiment, we present our Àndings followed by their implications for the syntax of negation in Japanese.

Negative structure and object movement in Japanese

“…This means that subject QPs in principle can be the focus of the negation. This observation is problematic for the structure proposed by Han et al (2004) since their structure in (12) predicts that subject QPs are never inside the scope of the negation. 12 Thus, the scope interaction between negation and subject QPs tells us that at least subjects need to be base-generated below negation, which automatically excludes the structure (12) by Han et al (2004).…”

“…12 Of course, this is also problematic for Kuno (1980Kuno ( , 1983 and Takubo (1985). 13 The narrow scope of subjects under negation would still be captured by the additional assumption in Han et al (2004) that some speakers allow optional verb raising to T, picking up negation on the way to T, which allows negation to take scope over vP, and thus a copy of the subject is now under the c-command domain of the negation. However, this predicts that there exists a strict correlation between the availability of the object narrow scope and that of the subject narrow scope and that there are in fact two grammars among speakers: one allows optional verb raising and the other disallows it.…”

“…However, it has often been observed (e.g., Kato 1985 andKataoka 2006 as in Sect. 1.1.4) that an object in simple transitive sentences can be within the scope of negation though such a reading is not prominent in many cases (see Han et al 2004):…”

“…3 Han, Storoshenko, and Sakurai (2004) Assuming that VP is dominated by vP, where the external argument is merged, Han et al (2004) argue that Japanese NegP dominates only VP and is dominated by vP. Their conclusion is based on an experimental study, using the Truth Value Judgment Task.…”

“…One puzzle regarding this issue is that it seems that the scope of Japanese negation can be relatively narrow, compared to other languages such as English. Thus, many authors (Kuno 1980(Kuno , 1983Takubo 1985;Han et al 2004;Kataoka 2006;Kishimoto 2007Kishimoto , 2008among others) argue that negation in Japanese is different from negation in, e.g., English, where NegP is assumed to be located between vP and TP. Furthermore, it has been claimed that there are several possible positions for negation in Japanese, which contributes to the seemingly peculiar scopal property of negation in this language.…”