Interpretation of Adjuncts without Checking at LF : Evidence from Japanese

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One of the central issues in linguistic theorizing is whether advances in syntax and semantics go hand-in-hand, which typically means our grasp on the grammar of a construction goes forward with our grasp on its meaning. In what follows, we present an illustration of this point involving adjuncts. Current minimalist syntactic views of adjuncts have attempted to account for them by feature checking (or licensing) at LF, not surface syntax. In light of the distribution of English adverbs, we argue for a picture of the semantics of Japanese adverbs, one in which we show that these elements are frequently not adjuncts, but rather complements and/or parts of a complex predicate with the head verb. Examining in detail data involving adverb scope, we propose that its interpretation is in accord with surface structure, which enables us to provide a clearer picture of how the syntax and the semantics of adverbs fit together. It thus turns out that the LF-based analysis of adjuncts lacks empirical validity.

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  • 英米文化

    英米文化 39 (0), 143-158, 2009

    英米文化学会

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