This paper aims to provide a thorough description of the tense interpretation of the Japanese internally-headed relative clause construction. By closely examining the range of temporal order relationships that may hold among main-clause event time (MC), subordinate-clause event time (SC) and speech time (ST) in each of the combinations of the tense markers (–ru and –ta) taken by the main-clause verb and the subordinate-clause verb, we argue that internally-headed relative clauses can be grouped into three classes: Class A, where SC permits alternate tense markers according to the absolute/relative tense distinction, Class B, where SC receives absolute tense interpretation, and Class C, where SC appears ambiguous as to the absolute/relative tense distinction. As for Class C, an attempt is made to disambiguate its tense interpretation by testing collocation with time adverbials. Finally, we show that Mihara’s (1992) “tense perspective” proves valid only for Class A, claiming that this is because “tense perspective” can be regarded as a generalization for guaranteeing one-to-one correspondence between meaning (i.e. absolute vs. relative tense) and form (i.e. –ru vs. –ta) in subordinate clauses.

In generative grammar, inverse scope readings, for example the reading that each girl has a (different) boy loving her for the sentence some boy loves every girl, are generally treated as being on a par with surface scope readings, for example the reading that each boy has a (different) girl he loves for the sentence every boy loves some girl. According to the standard analysis, they are both generated through the compositional computation applied to an LF representation, and the quantity nominal expression taking wide scope is analyzed as a generalized quantifier. This paper argues that these assumptions are not suitable for inverse scope readings. It demonstrates that inverse scope readings are discourse phenomena: the emergence of inverse scope readings necessarily involves a discourse process. Furthermore, it maintains that when a given quantity nominal expression supports inverse-scope-taking, it is understood to be a sum of singular-individuals rather than a generalized quantifier. One crucial implication of the paper is that the study of sentence-level syntax through sentence interpretations involving quantity nominal expressions is not as straightforward as previously thought.

Wolaytta (Afroasiatic family, Omotic branch) is spoken in the southwestern part of Ethiopia. In addition to genuine direct quotation, it allows direct–indirect mixed quotation in which a finite verb at the end of the quotation (and the nominative noun phrase that agrees with it, if any) is reported from the viewpoint of the speaker of the original utterance and the rest of the quotation from the viewpoint of the reporter. Judging from the distribution of normal and reflexive third-person pronouns, a quotation in Wolaytta does not constitute a clause by itself.

Kaqchikel, one of the Mayan languages, is recognized as having the Verb-Object-Subject (VOS) order as its basic word order, similar to many of the other Mayan languages. In reality, however, the SVO word order is more frequently used than VOS, which comes in second by comparison. For this reason, Kaqchikel is often referred to as a language that is possibly shifting, or has already shifted, from a VOS to an SVO structure. We conducted a sentence processing experiment using Kaqchikel transitive sentences to verify whether the syntactically basic word order of Kaqchikel is VOS or SVO. The resulting data support a traditional analysis in which Kaqchikel’s syntactically basic word order is VOS, even for current native Kaqchikel speakers. That is, if indeed a part of the modern Kaqchikel community is currently shifting from VOS to SVO, this shift has not yet been reflected in the internal grammar of the majority of the native Kaqchikel speakers.