3 Remarks
In this section, I will address some remarks on the following three issues, surveyed in section 2: (a) the property/event predication distinction and its relevance to the topic/subject issue, (b) the language typology based on the topic/subject distinction, and (c) the relation between the topic/topicless sentence distinction and the known/
unknown distinction. For expository purposes, I discuss (a) and (b) in 3.1, in the way that they are interrelated. Then I come to grips with (c) in 3.2.2
structure is determined by each individual predicate. For instance, warau ‘smile’ takes one argument,sodateru‘raise’two arguments, andwatasu‘hand’three argu- ments, as illustrated below.
(19) Kodomo ga waratta.
child NOM smiled
‘The child smiled.’
(20) Kodomo ga hana o sodateta.
child NOM flower ACC raised
‘The child raisedflowers.’
(21) Oya ga kodomo ni kagi o watasita.
parent NOM child DAT key ACC handed
‘The parent handed a key to his/her child.’
To add a word, the event predication characteristically calls for the notion of tempo- rality and spatiality. Particularly important is the notion of temporality. Hence, the grammatical category of“tense”is crucial to the event predication, and in the case of dynamic events, the grammatical category of“aspect”is relevant as well.
Concerning argument phrases appearing in the event predication sentence, the grammatical category of“case”comes into play, which represents the relation of a given argument to its predicate. In (21), for instance, the nominative case, the dative case, and the accusative case are respectively assigned to the three argumentsoya, kodomo, andkagi.Furthermore, as described in the introduction, there is a difference in superiority among arguments taken by a predicate, and so, grammatical relations such as subject and object are acknowledged on the basis of that difference. Subject, for example, is considered to be the most superior argument. One of the points of this chapter is that the notion of subject derives from the composition of the event predication sentence, that is, this notion is called for as an intrinsic part of the event predication.
On the assumption that there is a grammatical relation of subject, the gram- matical category of “voice” e.g. the passive voice, can be thereby defined. The passive sentence, for example, is defined such that the subject of the correspond- ing active sentence bears a grammatical relation other than subject, as exemplified in (22).
(22) Kodomo ga oya kara kagi o watas-are-ta.
child NOM parent ABL key ACC hand-PASS-PST
‘The child was handed a key by his/her parent.’
In this sentence,oya, the subject of the corresponding active sentence, is marked by kara, which represents a“source”relation to the passive predicatewatasareta‘was handed’.
Next, let us consider the property predication, which has not been discussed at length in the linguistics literature. The property predication is conceived of as attributing a constant property to a given entity, as in (23).
(23) Nihon wa yamaguni da.
Japan TOP mountainous country COP
‘Japan is a mountainous country.’
In (23), the constant property of“being a mountainous country”is attributed to the entityJapan. To put it another way, the entityJapanis construed as belonging to the category“mountainous country”. Let us call the property of this type“the property of category”. Predicating the property of category is representative of the property predication,3 which means that the representative property predication sentence is a noun-predicate sentence like (23). The view that the noun-predicate sentence and the verb-predicate sentence are respectively typical of the property predication sentence and the event predication sentence is in line with Mikami’s (1953) idea that the basic contrast in the relevant sentence type is that of“the noun sentence vs. the verb sentence”.
A notable feature of the property predication is the mutual-dependency relation that holds between a given entity and its property: the property in question requires the existence of an entity to which it is attributed, while the given entity requires the existence of a property to be attributed. Reflecting this mutual-dependency relation, the property predication sentence is composed of the part representing the entity to be predicated of and the part representing its property, i.e. the“bipartite structure” sentence in Mikami’s (1970) terminology, and the sentence formed by“the unification of the subject term and the predicate term”in Kawabata’s (1976, 2004) terminology.
With respect to the property predication sentence, it is not appropriate to say that the predicate is the head of the sentence. If we dare to use the notion of
“head”, both the entity part and the property part are thought of as the heads of the sentence. I thus contend that different from the event predication sentence, which has an endocentric structure, the property predication sentence has an exo- centric structure, in which the relevant parts are connected in such a way that they are mutually dependent.
Reflecting the mutual-dependency relation between the two parts, the property predication sentence takes the following form.
(24) [topic (the entity part) + comment (the property part)]
In the case of (23), for example, the entity part manifests itself asnihon wa, with the topic particlewa, and the property partyamaguni dafollows it as a comment. The
3Besides“the property of category”, we may allow for“the property of simple possession”and“the property of past record”. See Masuoka (2004, 2008, 2013) for details.
property predication conceptually presupposes the existence of an entity, and that entity is expressed as the topic of the sentence concerned since the sentence is
“about”that entity.
A sentence like (25), which is often discussed under the heading of“the double- subject sentence”, also takes the form of (24).4
(25) Zoo wa hana ga nagai.
elephants TOP trunk NOM long
‘As for elephants, their trunks are long.’
In (25), the topiczoo warepresents the entity to be predicated of, and the comment hana ga nagairepresents a property attributed to that entity.
I thus conceive that the notion of topic derives from the essential characteristic of the property predication. In other words, the notion of topic is called for as an intrinsic part of the property predication, and hence the topic of the property predica- tion sentence can be characterized as“the topic that is motivated sentence-internally”. In relation to the topic status in the property predication, a word is in order about the relevance of the notion of topic to the event predication. The event predi- cation differs from the property predication in that it does not intrinsically require the existence of a topic. However, there are cases in which a topic is necessitated by a sentence-external factor. That is, if a given context requires a specific argument of the predicate to function as the topic of the sentence, that argument is realized as a topic. This is exemplified by (26), where(sono) kodomois presented as a topic so that the predicate part can make a comment on it.
(26) (Sono) kodomo wa nikkori waratta.
the child TOP broadly smiled
‘The child smiled broadly.’
When an argument is realized as the topic of a given sentence, we may handle it as
“topicalization of an argument”. The topic in an event predication sentence like (26) can be construed as“the topic that is motivated sentence-externally”in the sense that it is called for by the context concerned.
Now let us summarize the discussion of the relation between the predication types and the topic/subject issue. The notion of topic is ascribed to the property predication. That is, the notion derives from the function of property attribution.
Property attribution is accomplished by the topic-comment combination, where
4The existence of this type of sentence wasfirst pointed out by Kusano (1901). The example (7), mentioned above, is a sentence of the same type.
the topic represents the entity to be predicated of and the comment represents its property.5
The notion of subject, on the other hand, is defined on the basis of the gram- matical characteristic of the event predication. When a predicate takes more than one argument, they are not equal in superiority. For instance, the three arguments oya (ga),kodomo (ni), andkagi (o)in the sentenceoya ga kodomo ni kagi o watasita
‘the parent handed a key to his/her child’ are different in superiority. Subject is defined as the most superior argument, i.e. the primary argument, of a given predi- cate. Subject and object are said to be representative grammatical relations relevant to grammatical description.
Incidentally, numerous Japanese grammarians and linguists, such as Mikami (1953, 1970), Harada (1973), Shibatani (1978, 1985), Onoe (2004), and Tsunoda (2009), have pointed out that arguments taken by a predicate exhibit a difference in superiority. They disagree as to whether the notion of subject should be acknowl- edged or not: Mikami takes a negative stance on this issue, while Harada and others take a positive stance. This topic will be taken up in 3.1.2.
Based on the above discussion, I now turn to the issue of (b), the language typology in relation to the topic/subject distinction. As surveyed in 2.2, a noteworthy idea as to the relevant typology is Li and Thompson’s (1976)“topic-prominent language vs. subject-prominent language” distinction. Here I propose a somewhat modified version of this distinction.
I consider Japanese to be a topic-prominent language, with the“topic-comment” bipartite structure of the property predication sentence forming the basis of sentence composition. To put it another way, the basic composition of the property predica- tion sentence is extended or generalized to the event predication sentence, with the result that an argument of the event predication sentence can be realized as a topic, as pointed out above in reference to (26). Another example of topicalization of an argument is (27).
(27) Watasi wa kesa roku-zi ni me o samasita.
I TOP this morning six o’clock at eye ACC awoke
‘I woke up at 6 this morning.’
A notable construction called “double-subject sentence” like (25) above, which is common in the property predication, is also extended to the event predication, thereby producing a sentence like (28).6
5Occurrence of topics in subordinate clauses is severely restricted, but I do not go into discussion of this issue.
6Strict semantic conditions are imposed on the double-subject sentence of the event predication type. See Masuoka (1987:61–70) for a discussion of this issue.
(28) Hanako wa musume ga zyozi o syussansita.
Hanako TOP daughter NOM girl ACC gave birth to
‘As for Hanako, her daughter gave birth to a girl.’(Masuoka 1987:70)
There are cases, however, in which event predication sentences lack a topic, as in (18) and (29), hence yielding the topic/topicless sentence distinction in the event predication.
(18) Kodomo ga nikkori waratta.
child NOM broadly smiled
‘The child smiled broadly.’
(29) Kodomo ga roku-zi ni me o samasita.
child NOM six o’clock at eye ACC awoke
‘The child woke up at 6.’
The event predication sentence goes without a topic in case it describes“an external event”(an event observed objectively).“An internal event”(an event expressing an experience of the subject concerned) such as (27), on the other hand, manifests itself as a topic sentence.7This point will be discussed in 3.2.
In Japanese, a topic-prominent language, a topic appears overtly in a sentence.
The topic in Japanese shows up explicitly: it takes a marker likewaand basically is placed in the sentence initial position. If we refer to the topic of this type as
“prototype topic”, Japanese can be said to have the prototype topic in this sense.
Experience indicates that it is not difficult to identify a topic in a given sentence.
Incidentally, the idea that the basic composition of Japanese sentences is molded on that of the property predication sentence is also found in Kawabata’s (1976, 2004) view. As surveyed in 2.2, Kawabata contends that the sentence corresponds to judg- ment and that the adjective sentence, which corresponds directly to judgment, deter- mines the basic structure of a sentence. In Kawabata’s view, it is not only that the adjective sentence and the verb sentence are distinguished, but also that the structure of the verb sentence is characterized on the basis of that of the adjective sentence.
In contrast to Japanese, English is a subject-prominent language. In subject- prominent languages like English, the basic composition of sentences is considered to be molded on that of the event predication sentence. To put it differently, the basic composition of the event predication sentence is extended or generalized to the property predication sentence, and so the entity being predicated of in property predication is realized as a subject, modeled on the argument realization of the event predication sentence.
7It is to be noted that an external event sentence can be realized as a topic sentence in a certain context, as in (26).
Thus, the subject-prominent language is endowed with a mechanism to have a subject in the composition of sentences. Due to this“inclination toward a subject sentence (a sentence with a subject)”, subject sentences form the majority, while subjectless sentences are in the minority. English seems to be particularly conspicuous in the inclination toward a subject sentence. The fact that the “subject-predicate” form is maintained by means of formal elements like“expletiveit”is symbolic of this characteristic of English.
In English, a subject appears overtly in a sentence. The subject in English shows up quite explicitly: in the basic word order, the subject is placed in the initial posi- tion, and morphologically the subject agrees with the predicate infinite clauses. In relation to word order, subject-auxiliary inversion also plays a role in giving an overt status to the subject in English.
While the entity being predicated of in property predication is explicitly realized as a subject, the construction called“double-subject sentence”, such as (25) and (28) above, is not found in English. This is attributable to the characteristic of the subject- prominent language like English, which does not have a topic-comment structure as the basic sentence composition (cf. Li and Thompson 1976). As mentioned in 2.2, English is considered to have“the prototype subject”, and hence it is quite easy to identify a subject in a given English sentence.
3.1.2 The overtness/covertness of topic and subject
In 3.1.1, it was stated that Japanese and English sharply contrast in that they are a typical topic-prominent language and a typical subject-prominent language, respec- tively. This does not mean, however, that the notion of subject is unnecessary for a topic-prominent language like Japanese, or that the notion of topic is unnecessary for a subject-prominent language like English. It will be shown below how the notion of subject is relevant to Japanese and that of topic is relevant to English.
Let us begin with Japanese. Mikami (1953, 1970) addressed the issue of the sub- ject status in Japanese and advanced hisshugo-hitei-ron(‘the thesis of the denial of subject’). As described in 2.2, Mikami’s thesis was based on a typological linguistic point of view, more specifically, on an observation of the typological difference between Japanese and English. Harada (1973), Shibatani (1978, 1985), Kuroda (1988), Onoe (2004), Tsunoda (2009), Kishimoto (2010), and others, as opposed to Mikami, have presented the thesis which acknowledges the notion of subject. Among them, Harada (1973) and Shibatani (1978, 1985) are direct arguments against Mikami’s view.
Although Mikami and the other linguists like Harada disagree as to whether the notion of subject is feasible for Japanese or not, a detailed examination of their factual observations reveals that their views do not conflict substantially. They share the view on the event predication sentence that there is a difference in superiority among arguments taken by a predicate. The points of departure are: (i) how the
notion of case like nominative and dative concerns the issue of the acknowledge- ment of subject, and (ii) how the structural position of the subject is specified.
With respect to the first issue, Mikami imposed a strict restriction to the effect that only nominative case is relevant to the notion of subject. Harada (1973), Shibatani (1978, 1985), Tsunoda (2009), and Kishimoto (2010), on the other hand, do not im- pose such a restriction and allow for the dative subject and the like, in addition to the nominative subject.
Based on an observation of grammatical phenomena like honorification, Mikami pointed out that arguments taken by a predicate vary in their superiority. Examples of the honorification phenomena that he took notice of are the following.
(30) Sensei wa ookuno tyosyo o o-motida.
teacher TOP many book ACC HON-have
‘The teacher has many books.’
(31) Sensei ni wa ookuno tyosyo ga o-arida.
teacher LOC TOP many book NOM HON-exist
‘The teacher has many books.’
In (30), the honorific formo-motida in the predicate is targeted at the nominative sensei (ga)(the topicsensei wais thought of as bearing a nominative case relation to the predicate). In (31), on the other hand, the target of the honorific formo-arida is the locativesensei ni(he uses the term“locative case”instead of the more com- mon term“dative case”). Mikami utilizes the observation that the locative as well as the nominative can be the target of honorification as evidence in favor of his thesis of the denial of subject.
In contrast, Harada (1973), Shibatani (1978, 1985), and others regard the observed facts about honorification as evidence that the dative, like sensei ni in (31), is to be acknowledged as a subject (“the dative subject”) just as the nominative, like sensei (ga)in (30), is a subject (“the nominative subject”).
As for the second issue above, how the structural position of the subject is speci- fied, it is noted that Mikami (1953, 1970) proposed a hierarchical sentence structure.
Mikami (1970: 37–38) is especially worthy of notice in that tree diagrams as used in generative grammar at that time were utilized to represent the hierarchical structure.
As an example of the hierarchical structure representation, he gave the sentence Taroo ga Ziroo ni hon o kasita‘Taro lent a book to Ziro’, where the nominativeTaroo gais the primary argument. For this sentence he proposed a hierarchical structure in which the accusativehon o‘book ACC’and the verbkasu‘lend’make up a low level VP, the dativeZiroo ni‘Ziro DAT’and the low VP make up an intermediate level VP, andTaroo ga‘Taro NOM’and the intermediate VP make up a high level VP. Another example sentence given by Mikami iswatasi ni musume ga aru‘I have a daughter’, where the dative (“locative”in Mikami’s terminology)watasi ni‘I DAT/LOC’is taken
to be the primary argument. For this sentence, Mikami proposed a hierarchical struc- ture in which the nominativemusume ga ‘daughter NOM’ and the verb aru‘exist’ make up a low level VP, and the dative/locativewatasi ni‘I DAT/LOC’and the low VP make up a high level VP.
Under that proposal, Mikami contends that the superiority of the nominative like Taroo gaand the dative/locative like watasi ni in the above examples is restricted inside the domain of VP, and that the necessary condition for an NP to qualify as a subject is that the NP concerned is positioned outside the VP and forms an exo- centric bipartite structure. This is the point of his thesis of the denial of subject.8
Notice that Mikami takes a different stance from Matsushita (1928) in the charac- terization of the notion of subject. As reviewed in 2.1, Matsushita (1928) pointed out that the predicate and the subject in a sentence are in a“government-dependence relation” –more precisely, a head-complement relation. To put it in the current lin- guistic terminology, Matsushita regarded the subject as an argument of the predicate.
It can further be said that Matsushita’s view on the notion of subject is basically in agreement with“the VP-internal subject hypothesis”, advanced by Kuroda (1988) and others.
Thus, I would emphasize that, although Matsushita and Mikami had different views as to whether the notion of subject is feasible for Japanese, they both came up with the idea of the relative superiority of the arguments of a predicate, prefigur- ing the VP-internal subject hypothesis. As far as the substance of the relevant obser- vations is concerned, Matsushita, Mikami, and Kuroda can be grouped as a single school of thought.9
In view of the foregoing observation, I acknowledge the notion of subject in Japanese, with the proviso that, while topics are overtly expressed in Japanese, sub- jects behave only covertly. As mentioned in 3.1.1, topics in Japanese take the topic marker wa and are placed in the initial position of the basic word order; hence, they are directly accessible in the outer forms. Subjects in Japanese, on the other hand, are not directly accessible, to be acknowledged only in terms of their behavior in grammatical phenomena like honorification.10
8Mikami’s thesis is also related to the problem of thefiniteness/non-finiteness of predicates, but I do not enter into this problem.
9Different from the VP-internal subject hypothesis, Kishimoto (2010) argues that subjects in Japanese take a position outside the VP just like subjects in English. This view is in marked contrast to Mikami’s idea in that it acknowledges the“subject-predicate”bipartite structure for Japanese as well as English.
It is noted further that different from Mikami, who presumably considered the“subject-predicate” bipartite structure to be an exocentric structure, Kishimoto (2010) should think that the subject and the predicate constitute an endocentric structure in which the subject occupies the specifier position of the IP.
Much remains to be examined to resolve the problem of the structural position of subject, and for that matter, that of the structural position of topic (cf. Kishimoto 2007).
10 The entity being predicated of in property predication, which is realized as a topic, also counts as subject in view of its behavior in grammatical phenomena like honorification.