Tense Alternation Generalization Revisited: A Reply to Akuzawa and Kubota

Abstract

Tense Alternation Generalization (TAG) has been used in previous studies to account for some distinctive features of the constructions that are conceived as raising and control across tensed CP in Japanese (Uchibori 2000, Fujii 2006). Akuzawa and Kubota (2021), as well as Akuzawa and Kubota (2020) and Kubota and Akuzawa (2020), critically assessed the generalization, arguing that it is problematic. The current study attempts to respond to two of their criticisms: (i) the data used in Fujii (2006) to support the TAG-based argument for the raising analysis of the yooni naru construction are uncompelling; and (ii) the TAG approach suffers from the generalization being unexplained and stipulated, unlike the semantic approach that the two-author team proposes. To settle the first issue, we conducted an acceptability judgment experiment, whose results revealed that our participants’ judgments were in line with those reported in Fujii. As for the second criticism, the current study holds that while the criticism is right in that TAG is stipulated, their semantic analysis of control does not achieve what the TAG approach achieves by relying on the stipulation.