Shigeru Miyagawa

Locality in Syntax and Floating Numeral Quantifiers

We defend the idea that a floating quantifier observes syntactic locality with its associated noun phrase. This idea has given rise to a number of important empirical insights, including the VP-internal subject position, intermediate traces, and NP-traces. Recently, this syntactic locality of floating quantifiers has been questioned in a number of languages. We take up evidence from Japanese that purports to disprove the locality requirements on floating numeral quantifiers and their associated NP, and we demonstrate that the arguments in fact give evidence for syntactic locality, not against it. Our conclusions suggest that evidence against the locality of floating quantifiers given in other languages should be reexamined.

S)ase as an Elsewhere Causative and The Syntactic Nature of Words

0. Introduction The Japanese causative morpheme (s)ase exhibits both synr ictic and lexical properties. By syntactic, I mean that the causative morpheme acts as a periphrastic causative, very much like make/cause in English, so that it takes a full clausal complement (e.g., Kuno 1973; Kuroda 1965; Miyagawa 1984 ,1986) . In contrast, and paradoxically, the lexical properties w e see for (s)ase make it plausible to v i e w the causative verb V-(s)ase as a lexical unit (cf. Miyagawa 1980, 1984, 1986, 1989) . In this paper, I wil l propose a modif icat ion of the theory to resolve this paradox. Our analysis makes it possible to capture the most basic generalization about the distribution of (s)ase, and also its related form, (s)as. 1. Distribution of (s)ase The causative morpheme may attach to a verb, monomorphemic or derived,

The emergence of hierarchical structure in human language

We propose a novel account for the emergence of human language syntax. Like many evolutionary innovations, language arose from the adventitious combination of two pre-existing, simpler systems that had been evolved for other functional tasks. The first system, Type E(xpression), is found in birdsong, where the same song marks territory, mating availability, and similar “expressive” functions. The second system, Type L(exical), has been suggestively found in non-human primate calls and in honeybee waggle dances, where it demarcates predicates with one or more “arguments,” such as combinations of calls in monkeys or compass headings set to sun position in honeybees. We show that human language syntax is composed of two layers that parallel these two independently evolved systems: an “E” layer resembling the Type E system of birdsong and an “L” layer providing words. The existence of the “E” and “L” layers can be confirmed using standard linguistic methodology. Each layer, E and L, when considered separately, is characterizable as a finite state system, as observed in several non-human species. When the two systems are put together they interact, yielding the unbounded, non-finite state, hierarchical structure that serves as the hallmark of full-fledged human language syntax. In this way, we account for the appearance of a novel function, language, within a conventional Darwinian framework, along with its apparently unique emergence in a single species.

Lexical categories in Japanese

Abstract The lexical feature system proposed by Chomsky (1970), [+/-V, +/-N], makes it possible to capture a number of significant syntactic and morphological generalizations. The feature system can minimally distinguish the four major English categories, but in Japanese, there are six categories commonly recognized. It is shown that the feature system is capable of dealing with the Japanese lexical categories. Those properties that resist ready categorization by the feature system are shown to derive from general principles of the grammar, thus making categorial distinction based on those properties unnecessary.

On the “Undoing” Property of Scrambling: A Response to Bošković

Bokovi (2004) argues that what defines scrambling in languages such as Japanese is its undoing property (Saito 1989). Bokovi (2004) and Bokovi and Takahashi (1998) argue that this undoing property shows the way for scrambling to count as a last-resort operation, instead of being purely optional as is widely believed. In this article, I give empirical evidence that undoing does not occur and that the reconstruction effect simply reflects a normal property of -movements like wh-movement in English. I further show that the condition that governs optional scrambling is Foxs (2000) Scope Economy.

Blocking and Japanese causatives

Abstract A principle is proposed that organizes verbs in the lexicon according to their meaning and the number of arguments they require. This principle, which we call the Paradigmatic Structure, acts as a filter for the permanent lexicon, letting all verb stems into the lexicon but only some morphological derivatives. The effects of the Paradigmatic Structure are observed in blocking, in which some but not all morphological derivatives manifest processes regularly associated with verb stems. The Paradigmatic Structure is motivated on the basis of the causative construction in Japanese. The fact that the causative construction is subject to the Paradigmatic Structure demonstrates its word-like characteristic. However, the construction also behaves in a way that suggests that it is syntactically complex. To capture both the word-like and the syntactic behaviors, it is proposed that a parallel structure is projected from the verb, one simplex and the other complex.

The integration hypothesis of human language evolution and the nature of contemporary languages.

How human language arose is a mystery in the evolution of Homo sapiens. Miyagawa et al. (2013) put forward a proposal, which we will call the Integration Hypothesis of human language evolution, that holds that human language is composed of two components, E for expressive, and L for lexical. Each component has an antecedent in nature: E as found, for example, in birdsong, and L in, for example, the alarm calls of monkeys. E and L integrated uniquely in humans to give rise to language. A challenge to the Integration Hypothesis is that while these non-human systems are finite-state in nature, human language is known to require characterization by a non-finite state grammar. Our claim is that E and L, taken separately, are in fact finite-state; when a grammatical process crosses the boundary between E and L, it gives rise to the non-finite state character of human language. We provide empirical evidence for the Integration Hypothesis by showing that certain processes found in contemporary languages that have been characterized as non-finite state in nature can in fact be shown to be finite-state. We also speculate on how human language actually arose in evolution through the lens of the Integration Hypothesis.

The precedence of syntax in the rapid emergence of human language in evolution as defined by the integration hypothesis.

Our core hypothesis is that the emergence of human language arose very rapidly from the linking of two pre-adapted systems found elsewhere in the animal world—an expression system, found, for example, in birdsong, and a lexical system, suggestively found in non-human primate calls (Miyagawa et al., 2013, 2014). We challenge the view that language has undergone a series of gradual changes—or a single preliminary protolinguistic stage—before achieving its full character. We argue that a full-fledged combinatorial operation Merge triggered the integration of these two pre-adapted systems, giving rise to a fully developed language. This goes against the gradualist view that there existed a structureless, protolinguistic stage, in which a rudimentary proto-Merge operation generated internally flat words. It is argued that compounds in present-day language are a fossilized form of this prior stage, a point which we will question.

The logic of Kara and Node in Japanese

The two Japanese particles kara and node, both mean ‘because’ or ‘since’, as illustrated in (1).

Integration Hypothesis: A Parallel Model of Language Development in Evolution

There are generally two views of how language emerged in evolution: emergent and gradual. The emergent view holds that language appeared relatively rapidly within the last 100,000 years, possibly due to some minor mutation. The gradualist view postulates stages of “protolanguage” that began as a simple system that progressively developed into ever-complex systems until language as we know it emerged. The original protolanguage may have been singing, as Darwin conjectured, or lexical in nature as proposed by a number of linguists. Human language is enormously rich and complex, which makes it difficult to imagine that all the components of it emerged somehow out of the blue in recent evolutionary time, yet there is no evidence for such a system earlier in evolution. The Integration Hypothesis holds that language is an integration of two independently occurring systems in nature that underlie communication. One system, exemplified by the alarm calls of primates, is the lexical system, which is composed of isolated units of utterance that typically have a specific referent, such as “leopard,” “snake,” and “eagle,” we see in the calls of vervet monkeys. The expression system, associated with birdsong, creates patterns without the use of lexical items. Each system has developed over a long span of time, millions and possibly hundreds of millions of years. At some point in recent evolutionary time, the two systems, L and E, integrated uniquely in humans to give rise to language, which gives the appearance of rapid emergence. I will speculate on how the integration may have been triggered.