Dealing with Japanese relatives clauses and beyond: Integration of information
Noun-modifying clauses in Japanese resemble relative clauses, but are not
satisfactorily accounted for by the standard syntactic analyses, which are mostly based on
relative clauses in languages that are typologically similar to English. In order to account
for various types of constructions that include “relative clauses”, I propose an analysis of
the integration of the two main constituents (i.e. the modifying clause and the head noun)
based on semantic, pragmatic and cognitive information. This analysis builds on the
frame-semantic based proposal of Matsumoto (e.g.1997, 2001).
The basic structure of Japanese Noun-Modifying Constructions (NMCs) is
schematically shown as [[Predicate (finite)] Noun]. The most crucial structural feature is
that there is no explicit marking, such as a relative pronoun and verb form encoding
person or number, which would indicate the grammatical and semantic relationship
between the head noun and the prenominal subordinate clause. For example, the three
NMCs in (1) – (3) present three different semantic relationships between the head noun
and the subordinate clause predicate, although the modifying clauses are identical. The
apparent “absence” of an expected argument of the subordinate predicate is unrevealing
as to whether the clause is a main clause, a relative clause or a noun complement clause.
A corollary of this observation is that the construal of the relationship between the two
main constituents and the acceptability of an NMC must rely upon an aggregate of
semantic and pragmatic factors, including the semantics of the head noun and the
interlocutors’ contextual and broader knowledge of the world. Thus, for example, the
interpretation of (4) that is preferred by native speakers is (4a), and not the more
syntactically favorable (4b), because of the real-world knowledge association of ‘tutor’
with someone who assists another to pass an examination.
To account for these syntactically underspecified yet semantically diverse
constructions, this paper suggests an analysis that furnishes a set of mappings among
domains evoked by the two main constituents and the unified domain of the complex
noun phrase. In this approach, which is inspired by the notions of “qualia structure”
(Pustejovsky 1993) and of conceptual blending proposed by Fauconnier (1997), and
Fauconnier and Turner (2002), the noun-modifying clause and the head noun are
described as each evoking a frame from which there is a mapping to an integrated frame
that represents the meaning of the complex noun phrase. The present proposal differs
from Matsumoto (1997) mainly in that it explicitly posits a third domain, i.e., the
integrated frame of the complex NP, to which the elements and the frames of the two
constituents are mapped. This is illustrated below in the analysis of example (5), which is
schematically shown in Figure 1.
Through the analysis of such examples, I illustrate the importance of integration of
information in order to explain the diverse range of linguistic data, and suggest that this
approach can offer an analytical basis for constructions in other languages that share the
characteristics of NMCs in Japanese such as the parallel constructions in other languages
of East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Dravidian languages of South Asia and some Turkic
languages, as discussed in Comrie (e.g. 1998a, 1998b).
(1) [[tabeta] ringo]
(2) [[tabeta] hanasi]
ate
apple
ate
story
‘The apple (which) ( ) ate.’
‘The story (that) ( ) ate ( )’
(3) [[tabeta] nokori]
ate
remainder
‘The remainder (from) eating’ (‘the leftovers’)
(4) [[Kookoo
nyuusi
ni ukaru] katei-kyoosi] o
sagasite-imasu.
high school entrance exam DAT pass tutor
ACC is-searching-for
(4a) ‘(I) am searching for a tutor (with whose assistance) ( ) can pass the high school
entrance exam.’
(4b) ‘(I) am searching for a tutor (who) can pass the high school entrance exam.’
(5) [[honyaku-sita] o-kane], zenbu tabe-tyatta no?
translated
money all
eaten-have NOM
‘Have you eaten your way through all the money (which you earned by) (your) having
translated (X) ?’
Input Frame 1 (Predicate)
HONYAKU-SITA
TRANSLATED
Translator
Translation
Time
Place
Consequence
:
etc.
Input Frame 2 (Head Noun)
World-View
(!)
(")
(#)
($)
(%)
O-KANE
MONEY
COMMERCIAL EVENT
Seller
Buyer
Goods
Money
:
HONYAKU-SITA
O-KANE
Translated
Commercial
Transaction
earn Money
Integrated Frame (NMC)
Figure 1. Integration of frames for honyaku-sita o-kane
References
Fauconnier, Gilles. (1997). Mapping in Thought and Languages. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Fauconnier, Gilles and Mark Turner. (2002). The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending
and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. Basic Books.
Matsumoto, Yoshiko. (1997). Noun-Modifying Constructions in Japanese: A framesemantic approach. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Matsumoto, Yoshiko. (2001). Extending Frame Semantics: Flexibility of Complex
Noun Phrase Constructions in Japanese, Cognition in Language Use: Selected papers
from the 7th International Pragmatics Conference, Vol. 1. Edited by Eniko Nemeth.
Antwerp: Belgium. 256-266.
Pustejovsky, James. (1993). Type coercion and lexical selection. Semantics and the
Lexicon, (ed.) J. Pustejovsky. Cordrecht: Kluwer. 73-94.