Long-Distance Case-Assignment in Japanese andIts Dialectal Variation

Abstract

In this paper it is demonstrated, through an empirically close scrutiny, that it should be appropriate to recognize that a certain vernacular of Kansai Japanese (what we call Dialect-A) allows a true instance of long-distance ECM (LD-ECM), in which neither the Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC) effect nor the Defective Intervention Condition (DIC) effect is observable when the matrix verb assigns/values the Case of a DP within the embedded finite clause beyond another structurally intervening DP or beyond the finite clause boundary. Two theoretically significant problems are implicated in this construction: (I) Why is it that LD-ECM is allowed only in Dialect-A, whereas it is not allowed in the other dialects of Kansai Japanese nor in Standard Japanese? And (II) What syntactic mechanism enables the LD-ECM construction in Dialect-A to evade the PIC and the DIC? For the sake of explanation, it is stipulated that there should be two interrelated grounds for the above problems: (A) Due to the special property of the complementizer in Dialect-A, the PIC is voided in the well-formed examples of the LD-ECM in Dialect-A; and (B) The definition of the DIC should be mildly diminished so as to incorporate Collins and Ura’s (2001) concept of Accessibility. Then, it is shown, with the aid of these stipulations, that the well-formedness of the LD-ECM in Dialect-A and its ill-formedness in Standard Japanese and in the other dialects of Kansai Japanese can be accounted for altogether in a coherent fashion under the current theory of Phase/Agree. Besides, a brief comment on the recent work concerning the phenomenon involving long-distance agreement is given at the end of the paper.