TY  - BOOK
AU  - Baika,Tadashi
ED  - University of Hawaii.
TI  - Verb classes and split intransitivity in Japanese and English
SN  - 0599970642
KW  - Language, Linguistics
N1  - Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 61-10, Section: A, page: 3970; Chairperson: John Haig; Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hawaii, 2000
N2  - The objectives of this study are to identify the determining factor for split intransitivity in Japanese and English and diagnostic tests sensitive to the factor, and to account for Nom/Acc alternations in Japanese and passivizability in English, both of which are argued to be conditioned by the same factor; Van Valin 1990 claims that it is lexical aspect, namely, an operator BECOME and agentivity that determine split intransitivity. In Japanese, Kishimoto 1996 and Toratani 1998 are based on Van Valin 1990, and, being word-level analyses, they cannot explain cases where split intransitivity is conditioned at the sentence-level. Tenny 1994 claims that only aspectual structures, which are given at sentence as well as word level, are visible to split intransitivity; In this dissertation, I argue that boundedness is the determinant for split intransitivity. Boundedness is defined on cognitive as well as aspectual characteristics of given sentences, so that it can cover broader cases than Tenny's proposal. I also argue that the te-iru construction is sensitive to boundedness, so that it works as a perfect diagnostic test for split intransitivity in Japanese. When a given sentence has a resultative reading in the te-iru construction, it is diagnosed as unaccusative whereas otherwise, it is diagnosed as unergative. In addition, adjectival passive is another diagnostic test for split intransitivity in English as well as Japanese. However, unlike the te-iru construction, the determinants for adjectival passive are narrower than the determinant for split intransitivity, and consequently adjectival passive cannot diagnose some intransitive sentences properly; Nom/Acc alternations in Japanese are conditioned by boundedness as is passivizability in English stative sentences. However, by definition, no change of state/quality can be brought about in statives. Since affectedness requires change, I argue that boundedness is given by not affectedness but by individuation. In other words, individuation is correlated with the transitive alternations above
ER  -