| ROA: | 1156 |
|---|---|
| Title: | The visibility of syntactic movement to phonological component in Japanese |
| Authors: | Shingo Sugiyama |
| Comment: | |
| Length: | 295 |
| Abstract: | This study aims at clarifying the interaction between argument structure and prosody in Japanese in connection with movement operation in general through the observation of various sorts of F0 boosting operations. We found that the adjunct-argument-head sequences (the normal word order) were pronounced in such a way that the structures yielded a gradually descending F0 contour, while the argument-adjunct-head sequences (the scrambled word order) were pronounced with higher F0 values in the adjunct positions than those in the preceding argument positions in both of the NP and the VP cases. In other words, F0 booting effect was observed on the adjunct positions in the scrambled word order cases. We might interpret this result as argument-adjunct asymmetry on the realization of prosody to the effect that adjuncts consistently induce F0 booting in Japanese. However, we found that adjuncts did not induce higher F0 values in the simple adjunct-head sequences than arguments did in the simple argument-head sequences in either NP or VP cases, which implies that the F0 boosting effect observed in adjunct positions in the scrambled word order may in fact be caused by the leftward movement operation of the arguments. This interpretation was supported by the behaviors of F0 contours of double object constructions with and without scrambling such that the structures without scrambling yielded the normal downstepping pattern, whereas those with short scrambling showed the F0 boosting effect immediately after the scrambled object. The generalization from these observations is that leftward movement operation, scrambling, (or traces left behind by the operation) must be visible to phonological component in Japanese in order to produce surface F0 contours. Similar observation was found in uniformly left-branching structures consisting of four accented Prosodic Words which involve relative clause structure. When the antecedent stood in the third position, where the effect of what Kubozono (1989, 1993) calls the Principle of Rhythmic Alternation is expected, it was subject to the principle as expected, or even more than expected, which might cause intonational neutralization between uniformly left-branching structures and symmetrically branching structures as Kubozono (1989, 1993) reports. On the other hand, when the antecedent stood in the fourth position, where the effect of the principle is not expected, F0 boosting was observed in the antecedent position depending on speakers. Likewise, in uniformly left-branching structures consisting of four unaccented Prosodic Words which involve relative clause structure, when the antecedent stood in the third position, it was highly likely that a Minor Phrase boundary was inserted before the antecedent, resulting in the eurhythmic 2-2 pattern. On the other hand, when the antecedent stood in the fourth position, a Minor Phrase boundary was or was not inserted before the antecedent. However, a Minor Phrase boundary was quite hardly inserted between the second and the third Prosodic Words in that case. Throughout the observation, we concluded that Phonological Phrasing may be sensitive to the internal structure of relative clause construction. In other words, empty category of some sort (empty operator, pro or something) in relative clause construction must be visible to phonological component in Japanese on a given condition in order to generate surface pitch contours. After those discussions, I tried to derive prosodic representations in Japanese in terms of Optimality Theory, following Ito and Mester’s (2007) ‘prosodic adjunction’, which could produce surface F0 contours in Japanese. Finally, the main theme of this paper, that is, the visibility of syntactic movement operation to phonological component in Japanese may lead to the reconsideration of whole architecture of grammar. The reason is that since the advent of Generative Grammar, it has been basically regarded as a matter of course that phonological component cannot refer to core syntactic operation, movement, for autonomy of components in the model. |
| Type: | Dissertation |
| Area/Keywords: | Syntax-Phonology interface, visibility of syntactic movement, scrambling, relative clause, Major Phrase, Minor Phrase |
| Article: | Version 1 |