Alignment and word order in Old Japanese

Abstract

This paper argues that Old Japanese (eighth century) had split alignment, with nominative-accusative alignment in main clauses and active alignment in nominalized clauses. The main arguments for active alignment in nominalized clause come from ga-marking of active subjects and the distribution of two verbal prefixes: i-for active predicates and sa-for inactive predicates (cf. Yanagida, In: Hasegawa (ed.) Nihongo no shubun genshô [Main clause phenomena in Japanese], 2007b). We review the treatment of non-accusative alignment and argue that active alignment should be analyzed as as a distinct type. We propose a formal analysis of active alignment in nominalized clauses in Old Japanese. The external argument is assigned inherent case, spelled out as ga, in situ in Spec, v. Object arguments are licensed by several distinct mechanisms, including incorporation (Yanagida, In: Miyamoto (ed.) MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 2007a) and case assignment by a functional head above vP. The latter accounts for the distinctive O wo S ga V word order of OJ nominalized clauses noted by Yanagida (J. of East Asian Linguistics, 2006). Inability to assign object case is a property of [nominal] v, as proposed by Miyagawa (Structure and case marking in Japanese. Syntax and Semantics, vol. 22, 1989). We discuss the diachronic origins of the OJ active alignment system and point out that it exemplifies a cross-linguistically attested pattern of non-accusative alignment in clauses that originate from nominalizations.

C-T Inheritance and the left periphery in Old Japanese

“…Internal argument subjects are also often found with genitive case, as in (42b). Note that this genitive is no and not ga. Yanagida and Whitman (2009) show that ga-marked subjects are always external arguments. Internal argument subjects must be bare or take no genitive case.…”

“…(7) Whitman (2009), andYanagida (2012) in treating this as inherent case assigned within the nominalized vP. Part of the evidence that the genitive subject remains in the vP comes from the fact that it follows an accusative marked object.…”

“…I also refer to objects that lack overt marking as "bare objects". Yanagida and Whitman (2009) propose that nonspecific objects undergo incorporation to the verb in nominalized clauses. However, these objects can also be phrasal, as even they point out.…”

“…(35) repeats (33a) from section 3. Assuming with Yanagida (2006), Whitman (2009), andYanagida (2012) that these subjects receive inherent genitive case in their base positions in [Spec, vP], there is no need for them to move to [Spec, CP].…”

“…As in (27), the subject moves to [Spec, CP], because its movement is not driven by an unvalued probe at the landing site, so it can move to the edge of the CP phase rather than a position in the domain. Let me note at this point, however, that movement to [Spec, CP] above the focus position does not entail that the subject in OJ KM constructions should be analyzed as a topic, as has been assumed by Kuroda (2007) and Yanagida and Whitman (2009). There is a growing body of literature taking the C-T Inheritance model to its logical conclusion that if subject licensing features enter the derivation on C, then it is possible that under certain circumstances they may remain there, with the consequence that [Spec, CP] can be the licensing position for the subject (Ouali 2006;Gallego 2014;Legate 2014;Martinović 2015;van Urk 2015;Erlewine 2016;and Aldridge 2017).…”