Deriving the Syntax and Semantics of Japanese Internally Headed Relative Clauses through State Mediation

Abstract

This dissertation examines the syntactic and semantic properties of Internally Headed Relative Clauses (IHRCs) and spells out the requirements of a derivation to capture these properties. Chapter 1 lays out the theoretical context of this dissertation as well as providing an overview of the previous literature on Japanese IHRCs. Chapter 2 considers the syntax of IHRCs, particularly relating to (covert) movement of the RC head and rejects such movement from an experimental survey that tests anaphor binding and adjective readings. Chapter 3 turns to the semantics of IHRCs, particularly relating to Kuroda’s Relevancy Condition and temporal considerations, arguing that the prime restriction on IHRCs is temporal in basis and relies on the presence of a salient state or target state. Chapter 4 tackles a unique subclass of IHRCs, the Split-Pivot IHRCs, and shows they are simply a special reading of IHRCs rather than a novel construction. The syntactic and semantic properties are put together and summarized in Chapter 5 to clearly spell out the architecture of Japanese IHRCs.