On Interpretation of Resultative Phrases in Japanese

The present paper attempts to formalize the semantic interpretation of resultative phrases in Japanese in the framework of Generative Lexicon, with a focus on the semantic subject of resultative phrases, i.e. the entity which resultative phrases are predicated of. The semantic subject cannot always be identified with the direct object of transitive verbs or the subject of unaccusative verbs, as generally believed, but also is expressed as an oblique NP or not syntactically expressed at all. It poses a challenge to the interpretation of resultative phrases since it cannot be tied to a specific syntactic constituent. The interpretation of resultative phrases is encoded in terms of the FORMAL quale and its argument built through the co-composition operation. 1 General Properties of Japanese Resultatives The resultative phrase is most generally characterized as the second predicate to describe the state of an argument, which results from the event denoted by the main verb. It is generally understood (e.g. Tsujimura, 1990; Kageyama, 1996) that resultative phrases in Japanese come in two types: object-oriented resultative phrases with transitive verbs and subject-oriented resultative phrases with unaccusative intransitive verbs. Object-oriented resultative phrases appear in a sentence headed by a transitive verb, and describe the resultant state of the referent of object NP as in (1). (In the following examples, resultative phrases are underlined while the semantic subjects of resultative phrases are in bold.) (1) Taro-ga kabin-o konagona-ni kowasi-ta. Taro-NOM vase-ACC pieces-NI break-PAST ‘Taro broke the vase into pieces.’ In (1), the resultative phrase konagona-ni ‘into pieces’ describes the state of the object kabin ‘vase’ which results from Taro’s breaking it. Subjectoriented resultative phrases, on the other hand, appear with an unaccusative intransitive verb, and describe the state of the referent of subject NP, which results from the event expressed by the verb, as in (2). (2) hune-ga huka-ku sizun-da. ship-NOM deep-KU sink-PAST ‘A ship sank deep.’ The resultative phrase huka-ku ‘deep’ describes the resultant state of the referent of subject hune ‘ship’ after its sinking. These resultatives conform to the general characteristics of two of the three types of resultatives in English, originally observed and analyzed by Simpson (1983). The resultative construction in Japanese, however, lacks the third type in Simpson’s analysis of English resultatives with an unergative intransitive verb with ‘a fake object’, in which the semantic subject of resultative phrases is not an argument subcategorized by the main verb: e.g. I cried my eyes blind. Other types of phrases which are analyzed as resultatives by various authors are also absent in Japanese: phrases that appear with the main verbs of sound emission (e.g. The garage door rumbles open.) and of location change (e.g. John danced mazurkas