Masatoshi Koizumi

Phrase structure in minimalist syntax

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1995.

Psycholinguistic Evidence for the VP-Internal Subject Position in Japanese

The question of whether the subject stays in its thematic position within the VP or moves to Spec, TP is difficult to answer with respect to free word order languages such as Japanese because the surface constituent orders in these languages do not necessarily provide sufficient information to determine syntactic positions. In this article, we present psycholinguistic evidence for the theoretical hypothesis that, in Japanese, the subject must move to Spec, TP in sentences with the subject-objectverb word order, but may stay within the VP in sentences with the object-subject-verb word order.

Remarks on Nominative Objects

Taking Tada (1992) as the starting point, this paper discusses aspects of the case system in Japanese within the framework of generative grammar that has been called the minimalist program or the minimalist framework (cf. Chomsky 1993; 1994). It has three major theoretical claims. First, Case-licensing in Japanese involves abstract agreement process in the sense of Chomsky (1991, 1993). Second, the nominative object is Case-licensed in the Spec of T, which is higher than AGRo and Neg, but is lower than the Case position of the subject (i.e. the Spec of AGRs). Third, nominative NPs receive different interpretations depending on their structural positions: the exhaustive-listing interpretation in AGRsP-adjoined positions, and the neutral-description inleiprelation in the Spec of AGRs and T. (Area of interest: syntax and semantics)

Remarks on Japanese subjects

Abstract It has been proposed that subjects are base-generated under VP (VP internal subjects hypothesis). In this paper, we argue that the VP internal subject hypothesis that allows the subject to be base-generated under VP and move above VP at S-structure is not warranted in Japanese. Four pieces of evidence are discussed: floating numeral quantifiers; pseudo-cleft constructions; temporal phrases; and secondary depictive predicates. These collectively indicate that the subjects of unergative and transitive verbs are base-generated above VP while the subjects of unaccusatives and direct passives are base-generated under VP (i.e., the object position) in Japanese. The unaccusatives and the direct passives are different in that the subjects of the direct passives must be above VP at S-structure while the subject of the unaccusative can be at the object position.

Effect of second language exposure on brain activity for language processing among preschoolers

We investigated brain activity in 3-5-year-old preschoolers as they listened to connected speech stimuli in Japanese (first language), English (second language), and Chinese (a rarely exposed, foreign language) using near-infrared spectroscopy. Unlike the younger preschoolers who had been exposed to English for almost 1 year, brain activity in the bilateral frontal regions of the older preschoolers who had been exposed to English for almost 2 years was higher for Japanese and English speech stimuli than for Chinese. This tendency seemed to be similar to that observed in adults who had learned English for some years. These results indicate that exposure to a second language affects brain activity to language stimuli among preschoolers.

Effects of non-native language exposure on the semantic processing of native language in preschool children

We investigated the effects of non-native language (English) exposure on event-related potentials (ERPs) in first- and second-year (four- and five-year-old) preschool Japanese native speakers while they listened to semantically congruent and incongruent Japanese sentences. The children were divided into a non-native language exposed group (exposed group) and a group without such experiences (control group) on the basis of their exposure to non-native language. We compared the ERPs recorded from the two groups in each of the two preschool years. N400 was observed both in the first- and second-year preschoolers. Differences owing to exposure to non-native language appeared in the second-year preschoolers but not in the first-year preschoolers. In the second-year preschoolers, the N400 onset in the exposed group was shorter than that in the control group, but there was no difference in the N400 offset between the exposed and control groups. Furthermore, the scalp distribution of the N400 in the exposed group was broader than that in the control group. These results indicate that the time course and scalp distribution of semantic processing for native language sentences in young children fluctuated depending on exposure to non-native language.

Invisible Agr in Japanese

The purpose of this article is to show that, even in a language like Japanese which lacks overt morphological agreement, Agreement Phrases not only exist, but also play an important role in the grammar. Evidence comes primarily from facts about scope interaction in certain complex predicate constructions. The article also presents indirect support for the core idea of Watanabes (1993) three-layered Case theory

Is the subject-before-object preference universal? An event-related potential study in the Kaqchikel Mayan language

The processing load of sentences with different word orders in the Kaqchikel Mayan language was investigated using event-related potentials. We observed a P600 for subject-verb-object and verb-subject-object sentences as compared to verb-object-subject (VOS) sentences, suggesting that VOS order is easier to process than the other orders. This is consistent with the traditional interpretation in Mayan linguistics that the syntactically determined basic word order is VOS in Kaqchikel, as in many other Mayan languages. More importantly, the results revealed that the preference for subject-object word order in sentence comprehension observed in previous studies may not be universal; rather, processing load in sentence comprehension is greatly affected by the syntactic nature of individual languages.

Left Inferior Frontal Activations Depending on the Canonicity Determined by the Argument Structures of Ditransitive Sentences: An MEG Study

To elucidate the relationships between syntactic and semantic processes, one interesting question is how syntactic structures are constructed by the argument structure of a verb, where each argument corresponds to a semantic role of each noun phrase (NP). Here we examined the effects of possessivity [sentences with or without a possessor] and canonicity [canonical or noncanonical word orders] using Japanese ditransitive sentences. During a syntactic decision task, the syntactic structure of each sentence would be constructed in an incremental manner based on the predicted argument structure of the ditransitive verb in a verb-final construction. Using magnetoencephalography, we found a significant canonicity effect on the current density in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) at 530–550 ms after the verb onset. This effect was selective to canonical sentences, and significant even when the precedent NP was physically identical. We suggest that the predictive effects associated with syntactic processing became larger for canonical sentences, where the NPs and verb were merged with a minimum structural distance, leading to the left IFG activations. For monotransitive and intransitive verbs, in which structural computation of the sentences was simpler than that of ditransitive sentences, we observed a significant effect selective to noncanonical sentences in the temporoparietal regions during 480–670 ms. This effect probably reflects difficulty in semantic processing of noncanonical sentences. These results demonstrate that the left IFG plays a predictive role in syntactic processing, which depends on the canonicity determined by argument structures, whereas other temporoparietal regions would subserve more semantic aspects of sentence processing.

Interaction Between Syntactic Structure and Information Structure in the Processing of a Head-Final Language.

The effects of syntactic and information structures on sentence processing load were investigated using two reading comprehension experiments in Japanese, a head-final SOV language. In the first experiment, we discovered the main effects of syntactic and information structures, as well as their interaction, showing that interaction of these two factors is not restricted to head-initial languages. The second experiment revealed that the interaction between syntactic structure and information structure occurs at the second NP (O of SOV and S of OSV), which, crucially, is a pre-head position, suggesting the incremental nature of the processing of both syntactic structure and information structure in head-final languages.