This research examines the interaction among internal and external factors in light of the interaction hypothesis, which assumes that, in language variation and change, internal factors are mutually independent, internal factors and external factors are also mutually independent, while external factors are interrelated. Thus far, there has been no exhaustive examination of the hypothesis based on the enormous amount of spontaneous speech in large-scale corpora, and interactions in the initial phases of language change have been underresearched. I therefore conducted a multivariate statistical examination of interactions of this kind focusing on recent language changes in Japanese verb forms (sa-Insertion, ra-Deletion, and re-Insertion) by making complementary use of two large-scale corpora: the on-line full-text database of the minutes of the Diet and the Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese. The results partially support the interaction hypothesis in the sense that the independence between internal and external factors is maintained consistently. On the other hand, some interactions between factors are observed, and the predicted interaction between external factors is not observed in one case. The fact that interactions between internal and external factors is never attested is indicative of a clear-cut division between the two in their roles governing language variation and change. Based on the results, I propose a revised interaction hypothesis, which assumes the existence of intra-categorial interaction and the nonexistence of inter-categorial interaction among internal and external factors.

The present study explored transitive and intransitive usages of Japanese “-ka suru” verbs, based on multivariate analyses of examples from a newspaper corpus. Study 1 investigated ratios of transitive usage, intransitive usage, causative “-saseru” and passive “-sareru” in 24 “-ka suru” verbs, suggesting that a majority of “-ka suru” verbs were likely to be either predominantly transitive or predominantly intransitive. Furthermore, predominantly intransitive usage seemed to have a stronger effect than predominantly transitive usage. Study 2 examined how the two factors of positive/negative antecedent meaning and transitive/intransitive usages influence positive/negative meaning at the sentence level with the use of “-ka suru” verbs. Results revealed that positive/negative antecedent meaning had the strongest influence in determining positive/negative meaning at the sentence level. At the same time, transitive/intransitive usage had strong effect on positive/negative meaning at the sentence level when a “-ka suru” verb was predominantly transitive with its neutral antecedent meaning.

In order to investigate diversity versus uniformity in collocations of Japanese sound-symbolic words (i.e., onomatopoeia and mimesis) with verbs, the present study examined three hypotheses regarding the usage of 28 sound-symbolic words taken from large corpora. First, differences in register were analyzed by comparing a newspaper corpus with a corpus of novels. Collocation patterns of sound-symbolic words with verbs showed a greater diversity in novels than in the newspaper. Second, polysemic effects of sound-symbolic words were examined by looking at the extent of diversity and uniformity in their collocations with verbs. The results of a comparative analysis between 14 monosemic and 14 polysemic sound-symbolic words indicated that polysemy affected the diversity of collocation patterns in the newspaper corpus, but not those of the novel corpus. Considering the tendency for sound-symbolic words to show greater diversity in novels than in the newspaper, writers of novels appear more likely to combine a sound-symbolic word with a variety of verbs, with the result that the collocations of sound-symbolic words are not restricted by the number of meanings as defined by a dictionary. Third, 28 sound-symbolic words were clustered according to the diversity versus uniformity of their word collocation patterns with verbs. The results for these clusters suggested the possibility that sound-symbolic words related to human emotions have strong ties with specific verbs.

The aim of this paper is to provide a principled account of Case assignment to lexical subjects in participial constructions and their historical changes within the Minimalist framework advocated by Chomsky (2004, 2007, 2008), where the C-T configuration is a requisite for nominative Case assignment. Nominative absolutes, which first appeared in the 15th century and increased during EModE, but they have been decreasing since LModE. It is argued that this historical change is closely related to the fact that participial constructions began to lose the C-T configuration necessary for nominative Case assignment by analogy with verbal gerunds. On the other hand, accusative absolutes were observed during ME and have been attested from the late 19th century onward. It is claimed that they were actually dative absolutes in ME and decreased due to the reanalysis of dative subjects as nominative subjects in participial constructions. Their reappearance in the late 19th century was triggered by the decline of the C-T configuration in participial constructions and analogy with verbal gerunds with accusative pronominal subjects. Furthermore, it is shown that lexical subjects are licensed by default Case in accusative absolutes after the late 19th century.

Based on Welsh, a language which has separated stress (intensity/amplitude) and pitch onto different syllables in polysyllabic words, Griffen (1998) argues that vowel reduction correlates with pitch, not stress. He also notes that aspiration correlates with stress. This note takes issue with both of these points. The Ryukyuan language of Taketomi, a pitch language with no phonemic stress, has historical vowel reduction which does not correlate with pitch. An explanation is proposed for this vowel reduction, and it is suggested that this explanation may also apply in the case of Welsh. In the Ryukyuan language of Nakijin, a pitch accent language with no phonemic stress, aspiration correlates with foot structure, not stress. Indications are that Welsh aspiration may be similarly distributed.

This paper discusses the marking of Sentence-Focus (SF) in Chinese within the framework of Lambrecht (2000), on the assumption that Predicate-Focus (PF) sentences are unmarked. In Chinese, morphosyntactic means cannot ordinarily be employed for SF marking when the referent of the subject is identifiable to the addressee. This study acoustically analyzed PF and SF sentences with identifiable subjects and compared them. The findings are as follows: (a) the duration of the subject relative to that of the entire sentence is longer in SF sentences than in PF sentences, regardless of the lexical tone; and (b) in most cases, either the f₀ range expansion of the subject or the f₀ range compression of the predicate, or both, occur in SF sentences. These findings indicate that when morphosyntactic means cannot be employed, SF marking is implemented by making the subject constituent prosodically prominent in Chinese, and that the principle of detopicalization—a hypothesis proposed by Lambrecht—holds for this language.

Clahsen and Felser (2006) analyze previous second language (L2) processing studies and propose the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (SSH), which claims that L2 learners can make use of lexical information such as thematic relations in the same way as native speakers of the target language, but that they cannot use structural information such as syntax.

  This study investigates how Japanese learners of English (JLEs) at the beginner and intermediate levels process active/passive/cleft sentences, and discusses the validity of SSH. The results show that in processing these sentences (1) JLEs at the beginner level use lexical information, and (2) JLEs at the intermediate level depend on structural information. We propose, therefore, that L2 learners can process sentences using structural information as their proficiency levels develop, and suggest that the SSH cannot explain all L2 learners’ processing strategies.