Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to consider the non-overt NP in the canonical subject position and the Topic node of sentences which contain some epistemic modal-like elements, i.e. no-da, yoo-da, hazu-da, etc. It is claimed that these elements are synthetic forms derived by Incorporation (Baker 1985, 1988), by assuming da either as a (unaccusative) verb or as the Present Tense marker. Besides the usual Topic, what I shall term SITUATIONAL TOPIC, Topics, is proposed. This Topic strongly depends on discourse and reflects the speaker's Modality. In this sense, Topics can be characterized as Topic of MODALITY. The co-occurence properties of epistemic modal-like elements with Topics, either overt or zero, and with sometimes overt epistemic adverbs are explained in terms of Spec-head agreement. It is claimed that Japanese is a Topic (of Modality)-agreement language, although there is no‘strong agreement’.
