An Analysis of ii hito soo da ‘seem to be a nice person’

From Syntactic and Semantic Perspectives

Abstract

In the Japanese language, it is said that the auxiliary verb soo da ‘it looks like’ connects to three types of elements: verbs, i-adjectives and na-adjectives. However, a close look at the actual use of soo da makes it clear that it may also connect to another type of element, which is seemingly a ‘noun phrase’, as seen in the following example:

ano hito wa ii hito soo da

that person TOP good person it-looks-like

‘That person seems to be a nice person.’

Although this type of expression is commonly used among native speakers of Japanese, it does not seem possible to explain under the present framework, if we regard ii hito ‘nice person’ simply as a noun phrase. Through syntactic and semantic analyses, in the present paper we attempt to explain this phenomenon by making the following arguments:

1. Nouns and noun phrases with a gradable concept involve some properties of na-adjectives.

2. Soo da ‘it looks like’ tends to follow a noun phrase that involves a gradable concept, an idiomatic element and a meaning related to the evaluation of a person.