Nominal predicate interrogatives in Korean originally had the structure of [nominal+ka/ko]. This paper argues for the analysis that verbal predicate interrogatives have also had a nominal structure before the question particles -ka/ko in Middle Korean and through Modern Korean. Elements playing the central role in this analysis are the nominalizers -m, -n, -l for verbal-based nominalizations and -s for nominal-based nominalizations, the latter of which is also used in polite interrogatives. In advancing our arguments, Shibatani’s (2009, 2017, 2018, 2019) new theory of nominalization proves particularly useful, according to which not only interrogative forms of Middle Korean, but also those varieties found in Gyengnam and Jeju dialects can be explained in a comprehensive and principled manner.

The present paper argues that the specificational sentence (SPC) and the concealed question (CQ) derive from what we call the Functional Noun Phrase (FuncNP) which has the specific structure in which the head FuncN denotes a relation between its two arguments, where the outer argument delimits the semantic domain (range) of FuncN R, and the inner argument exhaustively specifies the semantic domain of FuncN delimited by the outer argument. With the inner argument moved to SpecFocP, we obtain the SPC. The present paper derives the CQ in a way strikingly parallel with the derivation of the SPC: We posit Op as the inner argument of the FuncNP, which is moved to SpecCP. It is shown that the CQ ehibits the effect of the wh-island constraint both in English and Japanese. A syntactic analysis of the Englishman sentence is presented.

Plural forms of nouns and pronouns in Yuwan (Amami, Northern Ryukyuan) have several functions which are different from ordinary plurals. Those functions are compared with “special uses” of plural forms according to Corbett (2000: 234) in this paper. Briefly speaking, plural markers in Yuwan have the functions of tachi and nado in Standard Japanese. Crosslinguistic differences and commonalities of this kind of phenomena are analyzed by a methodology called “semantic map.” In this paper, “number values” (e.g., singular, dual, plural) are distinguished from “non-number values” (e.g., additive and associative), which makes it possible for the “special uses” of plural forms to be compared with one another on the same level. Among the special uses, “group exemplar” and “disjunctive exemplar” have not been distinguished in previous research (and both functions were sometimes called with the same label, “approximative”). In addition, plural forms in Yuwan can be used pragmatically to indicate a single referent (but they are different from so-called “polite plurals” because they do not express politeness). The function is called “negative exemplar” or “solo exemplar” in this paper, and it is also compared with other non-number values of plural forms by a semantic map.

This article proposes and argues for a new typology of Japanese passives, making the following seven claims. [I] Japanese passives are classified into [1] patient passives and [2] experiencer passives, each with several subtypes. [II] The passive morpheme rareru is an auxiliary verb that takes two obligatory arguments and one optional argument. At the levels of both syntax and semantics, passives of type [2] have hierarchically higher structures than passives of type [1]. Of the [2]-type passives, some subtypes ([A] direct and [B] possessive1) have more basic and less complex structures than others ([C] possessive2 and [D] indirect). [III] Semantic binding plays a crucial role in every (sub)type. [IV] Affectedness, an essential property of passives, is characterized jointly in terms of six licensing conditions and three hierarchies. [V] The prototype of Japanese passives is a set of sentences of the [2A] type, with subjective construal and an expressive function. [VI] Their prototypicality is derived as a theorem from the triple affectedness hierarchy. [VII] The non-prototypical (sub)types are also explained in a principled way, with the introduction of general criteria/procedures for measuring the degree of derivativeness of patients and complex event/predicate sentences.

Most baby diaper names sold in Japan contain at least one [p] or [m] (e.g., /meriizu/; /muunii/; /panpaasu/; /mamiipoko/). Building on this observation, this paper explores the hypothesis that labial consonants in general are associated with the images of babies in Japanese, as labial consonants frequently occur in babbling. To this end, the current paper reports two experiments which examined the abstractness and productivity of this labial-baby sound symbolic association. Experiment I was a forced-choice task using nonce words, which shows that all of the labial consonants in Japanese—[p, b, m, ɸ, w]—are associated with the images of baby diapers, despite the fact that the labial consonants that actually occur in the diaper names are only [p] and [m]. Experiment II was an elicitation task, which asked native speakers of Japanese to come up with new baby diaper names and cosmetics names for adults. The results show that all of the labial consonants appear in the baby diaper names more frequently than in the adult cosmetics names. Taken together, the current experiments demonstrate that Japanese speakers associate the phonological feature [labial] with the images of babies, implying that the sound symbolic association at issue may operate at the distinctive feature level rather than at the segmental level.