The Syntax of Possession in Japanese

This dissertation investigates the syntax of possession in Japanese within the framework of the Minimalist Program. A primary focus is on the question of how possessive semantics is represented in syntax at the sentential level when there seems to be no designated verb of possession - specifically, in possessives with verbs aru 'be.inanimate', iru 'be.animate' and suru 'do'. Takae Tsujioka seeks the source of possessive semantics in the nominal domain. Adapting Szabolcsi's (1994) analysis of Hungarian possessives, the author proposes that possessive sentences with aru and iru are derived from existential sentences via possessor extraction (= E-Possessive). The possessor DP is base-generated within the possessee DP, and later raises to [Spec, TP] to check EPP feature of T. It is shown that unavailability of scrambling as opposed to topicalization follows from the general constraint on remnant movement. The analysis of the possessives with aru and iru departs from the previous studies that view them as transitive, and the existential/locative as intransitive. Based on the restricted distributions of the possessor and the locational phrase (LP), the author claims that the possessor and the LP are both eligible for T's attraction. The claim that either the LP or the possessor could occupy [Spec, TP] appears to run counter to traditional 'subjecthood' tests that suggest only the possessor counts as a 'subject'. The author offers a minimalist account capitalising on the difference in the categorical status of the possessor and LP. Tsujioka also observes curious interactions between inalienable possession and adjectival modification in possessives with aru , iru , and suru . She argues that the structures of alienable and inalienable possessors differ in such a way that extraction of inalienable possessors, but not alienable possessors, is obstructed by the presence of modification. Finally, the book addresses various peculiar properties of the possessive with suru . It is claimed that this type of possessive does not involve possessor-raising. The author argues that suru is not a lexical verb, but a spell-out of a functional category whose main function is to introduce an external possessor. The author also shows that a similar construction can be found in Yaqui bahuvrihi possessives and English possessional adjectives, albeit in slightly different forms.