Abstract
Japanese V-V compounds have two structures of head-head and complement-head, and both types show atransitivity, where the internal argument(s) of a transitive or ditransitive verb are not realized. There are two independent reasons for atransitivity. One is the clause structure where the internal argument is not licensed by a verb but by a functional head, in accordance with the recent constructionist hypothesis. The other is auxiliation, a process in which a lexical verb is reanalyzed as an auxiliary. This insight roots in traditional grammar of Japanese, and we translate the insight in current theoretical terms. Depending on the subtype of compound, head-head compounds do or do not show the harmony of transitivity between the two items of the compound, and we offer an analysis of it in terms of the auxiliation of the second verb of the compound.
