An Integral Study on the Interface between Syntax and Lexicon

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Three investigator participate in this project, and the following results are obtained during the research period. Kishimoto, the head investigator, researches the relation between predicates and arguments, demonstrating the need for setting several predicative classes such as verbs of movement and verbs of change of state. He also conducted a research on the grammaticalization of negative word nai, and found that among idiomatic expressions Japanese has some remnant of lexical negation, which has not been grammaticalized yet. Kageyama, a co-investigator of this project, has proposed a system of qualia structures which incorporate encyclopedic knowledge as well as conceptual structures, in order to explain the relation between semantic and syntactic structures. He also analyzes the relation between semantic structures and resultative constructions, showing that the cross-linguistic distribution of resultative constructions can be explained in terms of a universal implicational hierarchy. Yumoto, another co-investigator, researches the distribution of the case marking and theta role assignment of compound verbs. In addition, she investigated the mechanism and the role of argument realization on the word formation of verbs and adjectives making crucial reference to some existing semantic structures of nouns, adjectives and verbs.