Simpler Syntax for Scope in Japanese: A Case Study with Obligatory Wide Scope Phenomena
Tomoya Tanabe, Ryoichiro Kobayashi, Yosuke Sato
April 2024 

This paper tackles the problem of puzzling wide scope phenomena in Japanese, which have been discussed in Goro (2007, 2024) and Shibata (2015a). We reexamine relevant data on the scope relations between disjunction/focus particles and negation in transitive sentences. A careful examination of the syntax-discourse-prosody interactions reveals that the wide scope reading of these scope elements is not obligatory. Hence, the syntactic analyses that have been proposed to account for the apparent wide scope phenomena are neither necessary nor correct. Instead, we propose a simpler syntax for scope possibilities, where the object NPs with the scope elements can either stay in-situ below negation or optionally undergo movement out of the negative scope. The proposed analysis needs no additional syntactic mechanisms or principles other than External and Internal Merge, which apply freely. Therefore, it is fully compatible with the Free-Merge Hypothesis (Chomsky 2004) in the minimalist model.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008102 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Submitted
keywords:	implicit prosody, default prosody, scope of negation, disjunction, focus particles, japanese, semantics, syntax, phonology
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