This article sets out to show how to contextualize CEFR descriptors to fit remedial English reading courses at Japanese tertiary institutions. The courses target incoming students who are typically accepted in the fall of their final high school year, and are offered between the time of acceptance and enrolment in the following April. The paper details steps for contextualizing CEFR descriptors and explains how we specify the descriptors for the remedial course. The adaptation of the CEFR comprises two steps. The first is to select CEFR descriptors relevant to the course. The selection is based on the purposes of the course and the proficiency level of the target learners. The second step is to expand on the selected descriptors in terms of reading tasks, text types, and text features. Text types associated with the reading tasks defined in the selected descriptors are identified, and text features are specified based on a close examination of the target level. Reading tasks are particularized according to text types and the actual texts assigned in each lesson. The resultant contextualization, varying in degree of specification, supports the different purposes of the course.

The principal goal of this paper is to show that spatial PPs in English and Dutch have a layered internal structure. In these languages, we find PP constructions containing multiple Ps, which can be analyzed as having a layered PP structure. That is, [+locational] PP headed by lexical P is embedded in [±directional] pP headed by functional p. Following van Riemsdijk (1990) and Emonds (2001), I further propose that in English, both [+locational] P and [±directional] p are head-initial, while in Dutch, the former is head-initial and the latter, head-final. This layered PP analysis has two desirable consequences for Dutch spatial PPs. First, it can account for the preposition-postposition alternation. This alternation is explained when we assume that an unambiguously [+directional] postpositional phrase is derived by the head-initial [+locational] P moving to adjoin to the morphologically covert [+directional] p which is head-final. Second, given this internal structure of Dutch spatial PPs and the Head Movement Constraint (Travis 1984), a contrast between the availability and unavailability of P-to-V incorporation can be readily accounted for. In [-directional] phrases, the preposition cannot undergo movement to adjoin to V since it cannot adjoin to the intermediate head, i.e., the morphologically covert [-directional] p. In contrast, the [+locational] P within a [+directional] pP can undergo incorporation into V because it can adjoin to the morphologically covert [+directional] p on its way to V.

Japanese is a free word-order language, and allows both subject-object-verb (SOV) and object-subject-verb (OSV) orders. Our previous study using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) imaging revealed that OSV sentences induce more activation in the left frontal lobe than SOV sentences. The present study develops our previous experiment: (1) by adopting an event-related design, and (2) by using sentences involving the adverb naze 'why', which plays a prominent role in recent linguistic studies. The results of our new experiment indicated that the cerebral activation in O why SV sentences was significantly larger than that in S why OV sentences, in the right anterior prefrontal region, which is consistent with the assumption that O why SV order is derived from S why OV order. We speculate that the activation observed in the anterior prefrontal cortex during the processing of the sentences involving 'why' might be due to the processing of higher-order function in the cerebral cortex.

This paper shows that there is a subclass of adjectives in Japanese called adjectival nouns, which consists of adjectives mostly of foreign origin, and this subset of the adjectives is required to undergo nominalization by the merger of a null nominalizing suffix. This process of nominalization takes place either prior to the PF interface or at PF, depending on the types of null nominalizing suffixes that merge with adjectival nouns. The proposed multilevel nominalization analysis has desirable consequences for adjectival nouns, and can also be extended to a subclass of verbs in Japanese, which likewise are typically of foreign origin.

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source• a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses• the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. This thesis examines the properties of spatial (i.e., locational and directional) Ps within the minimalist framework (Chomsky 1995(Chomsky ,1998(Chomsky ,1999, which has put an ultimate emphasis on economy in terms of derivation and representation. The Provided that an EPP-feature of T is category-specific, a contrast between PPs that can undergo movement to [Spec, T] and those that cannot stems from their respective internal structures. To Mari and Fumi