An Semantical and Syntactic Approach to Degree Modification in Japanese

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In Japanese, degree adverbials fundamentally modify a degree of state denoted by adjectives.They are classified into two types. First, adverbs of degree of state such as totemo 'very' and adverbs of degree of state and amount such as kanari 'very, quite, considerably' modify gradable adjectives. This kind of adjectives are classified into open-scale and closed-scale adjectives. The two kinds of adverbs have been called intensifier or booster, etc. in English Linguistics. Second, kyokuten-shushoku adverb (completive/ maximizer) such as kanzennni 'completely' and kyokuten-kinjichi adverb (approximator) such as hobo 'almost, nearly' modify non-gradable adjectives or closed-scale adjectives. Both types of adjectives have a maximal end point on their scalar structure.From the view of the theory of Lexical Decomposition of verbs or the 1(exical)-syntactic approach to verbs, we can, to some extent, predict (a)telicity of verbs, based on the root of the verbs. In this viewpoint, languages are divided into root-sensitive languages and non-root-sensitive ones. For example, English belongs to the former, and Japanese the latter. In the latter type languages, (a)telicity of verbs is not completely predicted on the basis of the root.