This thesis discusses Internally Headed Constructions in Japanese, specifically, the "Counter-Equi NP" (CENP) construction and the "Internally Headed Relative Clause" (MC) construction. In both of these constructions, an NP within the embedded clause is interpreted as an argument of the matrix clause. / There are two major goals in this thesis. The first goal is to provide a unified syntactic and semantic analysis of the CENP and IHRC constructions. I argue that the CENP construction is basically the same as the IHRC construction, even though some previous researchers have assumed the contrary (Kuroda 1992, 1999, Ohara 1996, Shimoyama 1999, among others). Furthermore, I argue that both the CENP NP and the MC NP are arguments of the matrix verbs. / The second goal is to closely examine the syntactic and semantic properties of the CENP construction and the IHRC construction. As discussed by Hoshi (1995) and Shimoyama (1999), the interpretation of the argument which is "modified by the IHRC" in these constructions is quite similar to that of E-type pronouns (Evans 1977a,b; 1980). In addition, there are some facts that show that the event of the embedded clause is linguistically connected to the event of the matrix clause. Regarding all these properties, the CENP construction behaves in the same manner as the IHRC construction. In this thesis, adapting the E-type pronoun analyses of the IHRC (Hoshi 1995 and Shimoyama 1999), I propose an alternative analysis of the CENP construction and the IHRC construction to capture those properties. / Moreover, even though the CENP construction and the IHRC construction share many properties with each other, there are some differences between them (Shimoyama 1999, among others). In particular, the CENP cannot appear as the subject of the matrix clause, whereas the IHRC can. However, we observe restrictions on possible internal heads with regard to the subject IHRC, in contrast to the CENP. This thesis tries to account for those differences under a unified analysis of the CENP construction and the IHRC construction, together with an analysis of the subject MC, which adapts Shimoyama's (1999) analysis of the IHRC.

No description available.

This thesis investigates the second language acquisition of Japanese relative clauses (RCs) by native speakers of English or Korean. Researchers have argued that Universal Grammar (UG) can be accessed in adult second language (L2) acquisition. The Full Transfer Full Access (FTFA) Hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse 1994, 1996) claims that after initial transfer from L1, learners reset their parameter values and are able to acquire L2 properties that are different from their L1. Japanese and English relativization: while Japanese relativization does not involve movement in the syntax (Kuno 1973, Saito 1985, etc.), English relativization involves obligatory operator movement and is subject to movement constraints like Subjacency. Because of Subjacency, certain RC structures are prohibited in English. In Japanese, on the other hand, a zero pronominal, pro, is base-generated in the gap position of an RC and coindexed with the relative head noun, and thus long distance relativization is possible. I argue that the presence or absence of pro is also a parametric difference between Japanese and English; pro is present in Japanese, but not in English. In order for English speakers to acquire Japanese RCs, they need to reset the values of these two parameters. / Experimental studies were conducted with high-intermediate and advanced learners of Japanese (15 English speakers and 18 Korean speakers). Tests examined the learners' knowledge of the two grammatical properties in Japanese---namely, the lack of wh-movement and the presence of pro. Korean is different from English but similar to Japanese with respect to the parameters in question. Following FTFA, it is hypothesized that English-speaking learners initially transfer their L1 values, and that eventually they are able to switch parameters to the L2 values by accessing UG. The results of several tasks (including interpretation tasks and judgment tasks) confirm this hypothesis; while Korean speakers generally performed well irrespective of proficiency levels, English-speaking intermediate learners transferred their L1 values, failing to accept grammatical Japanese sentences that are not possible in English. English-speaking advanced learners, on the other hand, performed better than intermediate learners, and exhibited evidence that they had acquired the two properties of Japanese, supporting FTFA.

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 179-190). / xvi, 190 leaves, bound 29 cm