Verb semantics and argument realization in pre-modern Japanese: a comprehensive study of the basic syntax of pre-modern Japanese.

前现代日语动词语义与论证实现——前现代日语基本句法综合研究。该项目将通过8世纪初至17世纪初的有记载的历史，详细介绍前现代日语的基本结构或语法。该项目的学者小组是迄今为止在前现代日语研究方面最强大的团队，预计将在日语研究、日本语言学、历史和一般语言学理论方面取得重大成果。大多数对历史日语语法（包括句法）的研究，都隐含地假设了现代语言的语法类别，并将它们投射到语言的早期阶段。相比之下，这个项目将根据其自身的优点来调查前现代日本，为每个早期阶段提供一个内在的、全面的描述。该项目还将描述语言在这些阶段之间发生的变化，并对理解日语语法如何随时间变化做出重大贡献。我们的理论重点是“参数实现”，这是语言语法的一个基本重要方面，涉及动词意义决定参数数量及其形态句法和语义属性的方式。这将通过大型文本语料库进行详细调查，重点关注日语的以下三个不同且得到充分证明的时期。古日语（主要是700 - 800年）早期中世纪日语（800-1200年，但特别是900 - 1100年）早期现代日语（约1600年）项目的描述和分析工作是基于这三个时期的大量文本语料库。该项目的第一步是建立一个大型数据库（仅供内部使用），该数据库组织用于分析的经验材料：首先将文本转录并输入电子数据库，然后“标记”以显示句子中名词的语法作用；最后，所有的动词都将被提取出来，并与它们出现的语法角色信息一起记录下来，从而创建一个包含每个动词及其可能出现的语法框架信息的电子索引。该数据库可以对日语各个阶段的动词意义和相关语法框架进行全面系统的分析和描述，确定动词意义中哪一部分对其语法潜力贡献最大，以及这种潜力如何在句子中实现。该项目将详细分析相关的动词类，以及动词类之间和之间的异同。在此分析的基础上，进一步有可能绘制单个动词和动词类别的变化图表，并建立动词含义和语法框架随时间的可能“发展路径”。在这种理论方法中，从未对任何语言进行过这种详细的调查。调查结果将首先涉及对前现代日语及其随时间变化的描述和理解，并对文本的解释产生影响。这项研究还将对语言学理论产生一些影响，包括理解动词语义和句子结构的框架，以及对“死亡”语言的语法理论应用。

Verb semantics and argument realization in pre-modern Japanese: a comprehensive study of the basic syntax of pre-modern Japanese.This project will give a detailed account of the basic structure or grammar of the pre-modern Japanese language through its recorded history from the beginning of 8th until the beginning of the 17th century. The group of scholars on the project is the strongest team ever to work together on pre-modern Japanese language and significant results of relevance to Japanese studies in general, Japanese linguistics, and historical and general linguistic theory are anticipated.Most research into historical Japanese grammar, including syntax, implicitly assumes the grammatical categories of the modern language and projects them onto earlier stages of the language. This project, by contrast, will investigate pre-modern Japanese on its own merit, providing an immanent, comprehensive account of each of the earlier stages. The project will also give a description of the changes that have taken place between these stages of the language and contribute significantly to an understanding of how the grammar of Japanese has changed through time.Our theoretical focus is on 'argument realization', which is a fundamentally important aspect of the syntax of a language which concerns the way in which verb meaning determines the number of arguments and their morpho-syntactic and semantic properties. This will be investigated in detail through large text corpora, focusing on the following three distinct and well-attested periods of the Japanese language.Old Japanese (mainly 700 - 800)Early Middle Japanese (800-1200, but especially 900 - 1100)Early Modern Japanese (c. 1600)The descriptive and analytical work of the project is based on extensive text corpora from these three periods. The first step in the project is the construction of a large database (for internal use only) which organizes the empirical material for analysis: the texts will first be transcribed and entered into an electronic database and then 'tagged' to show the grammatical role of nouns in the sentences; finally all verbs will be extracted and recorded together with information about the grammatical roles with which they occur, thereby creating an electronic concordance with information about each verb and the grammatical frame in which it can occur.This database makes possible a comprehensive and systematic analysis and description of verb meaning and associated grammatical frames in each of the stages of Japanese, determining what part of verb meaning contributes most importantly to its grammatical potential and how this potential is realized in sentences. The project will give a detailed analysis of relevant verb classes and of differences and similarities between and across verb classes.Based on this analysis it will further be possible to chart changes for individual verbs and classes of verbs and to establish possible 'developmental pathways' through time for verb meaning and grammatical frames.A detailed investigation of this kind within this theoretical approach has never been carried out for any language. The results of the investigation will first of all bear on the description and understanding of pre-modern Japanese and its changes through time, with implications for interpretation of texts. The study will also have a number of implications for linguistic theory, both with regards to frameworks for understanding verb semantics and clause structure, and with regards to the application of grammatical theory to 'dead' languages.