Comparative Syntax of Japanese, Korean, Chinese and English

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The main objective of the project has been to uncover the nature of the language faculty through comparative syntactic analysis of Japanese, Korean, Chinese and English. Our ultimate goal is to tease out that part of language faculty which is conditioned by purely structural factors as distinct from those that are lexically or pragmatically conditioned. The regularities involved in the former should be basically invariant among languages and among individuals, while those involved in the latter tend to admit language variations as well as individual fluctuation. The constructions or phenomena treated in the past three years include pluralities, comparative ellipsis, comparative deletion, anaphoric binding, zero anaphora. tense, demonstratives, quantifier scope, just to name a few. We have tried to separate out the structural factors permeating these constructions and to develop the relevant generalizations into a hypothesis that is verifiable or testable by controlling lexical and pragmatic factors involved.During the three years of the project, the members have kept in close contact with one another. We held two meetings in the U.S., five meetings in Japan, three at Kobe University and two at Kyushu University as well as two subsessions at Kochi. Discussion session via e-mail preceded each meeting, so as to ensure some substantive and productive discussion during these meetings. Research results have been presented at various conferences. Special workshops related to the project were held at J/K conference held at UCLA in 1996 and also at a Symposium on Diachronic and Synchronic Studies of Syntax of East Asian Languages held at USC in 1998.