Conceptual Atoms at the Interface Takashi Nakajima. On Linguistic Interfaces II University of Ulster Dec. 2-4, 2010

Transcription

1 Conceptual Atoms at the Interface Takashi Nakajima On Linguistic Interfaces II University of Ulster Dec. 2-4, 2010 This paper argues that certain grammaticalized features with their designated PF exponents occur in words as well as in phrases as an integral part of linguistics structure building. In particular, I will demonstrate that the following PF exponents in Japanese play a vital role in deriving words and predicates: allomorphs of the copula, /s/ (the root of suru do ), /e/ (the root of eru get ) and /k/ (the root of kuru come ). These PF exponents are interrelated in lexical inchoative-causative alternations (ICA), syntactic causative constructions (CC), and unusual conjugational patterns of adjectives. Assuming that the single engine Concatenation (Chomsky 2000, 2005, 2008) is the only structure building device, the current analysis supports the view that syntax and morphology significantly overlap (Marantz 1997, Noyer and Embick 2001, Ackema & Neelman 2004, 2007), and the differences between the two could be attributed to feature composition and cyclic Spell-Out Inchoative-Causative Alternations (ICA) and /s/ It is well known that lexical inchoative-causative alternations (ICA) in Japanese exhibit extremely complex and sometimes contradictory behavior. Thus, the true mechanism of ICA has been left largely unexplained (See Shibatani 1997, Kageyama 1996). In addition, ICA is related to syntactic and productive causative construction (CC), but the question of how has never been clearly answered although they share similar morphology semantics (See among others Miyagawa 1989 for morphological blocking and Paradigmatic Structure, Kuroda 1993, 2000, Shibatani 1997, Kitagawa 1993 etc.). In what follows, I will demonstrate that the Root Hypothesis (Pesetsky 1995, Marantz 1997, Ramchand 2003) and syntactic template of event (Kratzer 1996, Ramchand 2008, Travis (to appear)) give natural and comprehensive analysis of ICA and CC that has never been achieved before ICA Jacobsen (1992) classified ICA into sixteen major types. The basic pattern observed throughout the types is that verbal roots are suffixed by various morphemes such as e, ar, as, re, os, etc. including zero (ø). As a result, their syntactic valence alternates. Here are some of the examples where (r)u shows imperfective tense. Type Alternation ROOT Intransitive Transitive Semantics I e/ø hag hag-e ru hag-ø u peel off II ø/e ak ak-ø u ak-e ru open III ar/e ag- ag-ar u ag-e ru rise IV ar/ø hasam hasam-ar u hasam-ø u catch between V r/s ama ama-r u ama-s u remain VI re/s arawa arawa-re ru arawa-s u appear VII ri/s ka ka-ri ru ka-s u borrow/lend X i/as ak ak-i ru ak-as u tire XI i/os horob horob-i ru horob-os u (fall to) ruin Table 1 In Type I, the verbal root hag- alternates its valence depending upon whether it is suffixed by /e/ or zreo ø. In the case of the former, the resultant verb is intransitive (hag-e ru,

2 peel off intr. ) while in the case of the latter, the resultant verb is transitive (hag-ø u, peel off tr. ). Thus, it seems that /e/ intransitivizes the transitive root. This generalization is immediately contradicted with Type II derivation in which the root ak- is intransitive when it is zero derived (ak-ø u, open intr. ) but is transitive when it is suffixed with /e/ (ak-e ru, open tr. ). That is, /e/ transtivizes the intransitive root. It seems, then, the morpheme /e/ shows both transitivizing and intranstivising functions. Types V to VII show another complication. /r/ and /s/ in Type V alternate the valence of the root ama as in ama-r u ( remain intr. ) and ama-s u ( remain tr. ). In the traditional Japanese grammar, /r/ and /s/ are taken to be the inchoative marker and the causativizer/transitivizer, respectively, and the pattern here shows why. In Type VI and VII, these morphemes are accompanied with the vowels /e/ and /i/. Many questions arise. For example, is /e/ in Type VI alternation the same /e/ in Type I-II? If it is not, is it simply a theme vowel? If it is, what role does it have? As shown, it is very difficult to explicate general rules, and together with the conception that lexical paradigm contains many exceptions, the inchoative-causative pairs have not been studied much at least at the morphological level. The difficulty, however, may stem partially from the analysis such as the one in Table 1 for it may contain some inconsistencies. For example, if /r/ is the inchoative marker as in Type V ama-r u ( remain intr. ), hasam-ar u ( catch between intr. ) should be analyzed as hasam-a-r u. Similarly, if /s/ is the causativizer/transtivizer as in ama-s u ( remain tr. ), ak-as u ( tire tr. ) in Type X should be analyzed as ak-a-s u. Furthermore, the root ka in Type VII shows the alternation ka-ri ru ( borrow ) and ka-s u ( lend ), but in the classical Japanese, ka-ri ru was kar-u thereby making a contrast with kas-u. If so, the correct analysis of ka-ri ru may be ka-r u. This makes the alternation ka-r and ka-s, which falls nicely into the dichotomy between /r/ and /s/ observed above. If one reanalyzes Jacobsen s list of sixteen alternation types this way, it becomes clear that a very small number of the same morphemes recur (albeit different combinations) with roots: there are four vowels, /a/, /i/, /e/ and /o/, and two consonants /s/ and /r/. The question is how to sort them out. In what follows, I will argue that each one of these morphemes is a head and licenses an argument in the spec position of its projection. The combinations of these morphemes with category neutral roots ( ROOT) derive seemingly complex behavior of ICA Sorting Things Out To pursue a decompositional account of morphosyntax on ICA, I follow the general architecture of the Minimalis Program (Chomsky, 1995, 2007). In particular, two theories are crucial; one is Distributed Morphology developed by Marantz (1984, 1997) and Marantz & Noyer (2008), and the other is the Root Hypothesis (Pesetsky 1997, Ramchand 2003). In addition, I assume that the following syntactic template compositionally embodies events. (1) vp XP v vp v YP v ROOT v v is the little v that determines the category of the root as V (Marantz 1997). The subjects of unaccusative and the objects of transitive roots are licensed in this position. v is equivalent to Voice (Kratzer 1996) or Init. (Ramchand 2008). The subjects of unergative and external 2

3 arguments of transitive roots are predicated of in this position. This v head could be defective in the cases of unaccusative verbs. In the next three subsections, I will show how /a/, /s/ and /e/ fit into the template /a/ as the Morphological Instantiation of the Little v Let us begin with /a/. This vowel has been considered to be a theme vowel that is inserted to break CC hiatus that is caused by roots that end in consonants and consonantal suffixes that follow them (e.g. /gs/: kog > kog-a-s u burn, tr., /ks/: kak > kak-a-se ru make X write ). There are, however, other vowels that appear in the same position, namely, /i/ and /o/. For example, the root ot fall below takes /i/ and /o/ as theme vowels. (2)?? T a. ot ø ø u fall, intr. (archaic) b. ot o s u fall, tr. c. ot i ru fall, intr. d. ot o r u be inferior to The most natural interpretation of this situation is that there is a position right after the root in which the vowels appear, and the morphological environment determines its phonetic content. Incidentally, this position overlaps with the position in which the little heads n, v, and a to appear under Distributed Morphology. I claim that the vowels (including the zero form) are the phonetic representation of the little v that determines the category of roots as V. If this view is correct, it predicts that these vowels have to have [+V] feature. This is, in fact, correct; they constitute variants of the verb be with some designating features in Japanese. (3) a. a-ru be, [-animate] b. i-ru be, [+animate] c. o-ru be, [+animate], [-honorific] This shows that Japanese verbs all have the following internal structure. (4) [[ ROOT] be]v A piece of syntactic evidence for the root analysis in (4) comes from adverbial modification. In Japanese, as in French, VP adverbs may intervene between verb and its direct object. (5) a. Je mange i souvent t i des pommes. I eat often of-the apples. (I often eat apples.) b. Taro ga ringo o yoku tabe ru. NOM apples ACC often eat PRES (Taro often eats apples.) It is widely assumed that in French, the verb mange eat moves up to T passing the adverb souvent often. That is, the verb mange and the DP des pommes are sisters before the movement, and the adverb appears in a V adjunct position above them. How come Japanese allows the adverbial intervention? This is a natural consequence according to the current analysis. In (4) the verbal root tabe eat and v are sisters, and assuming binary branching, the direct object is licensed in the spec of vp. The word order in (5b) is derived directly because the adverb yoku often appears between the predicate [ tabe-ø v ] and its direct object ringo apples in its specifier position. See (6). Here, v is null (ø) since the root ends in a vowel. (6) [vp ringo o [v yoku [v tabe-ø v ]]] ru Adverbs cannot appear on the right of the [ ROOT v] constituent because doing so would prevent other functional suffixes such as tense to form a predicate. Another piece of supporting evidence for (4) comes from semantics. Under this analysis, it is predicted that the words in the paradigm gain idiomatic interpretations for it is a 3

4 characteristic of root derivations (Marantz 1997, Ramchand 2003). This is indeed correct. (7) a. kata o ot-o-s u shoulder ACC drop-v-v PRES ((One is) deeply disappointed.) b. hu ni ot-i ru intestines LOC fall PRES (That makes sense.) This data strongly supports the root analysis. Let us turn to /s/ next /s/ as v Among traditional Japanese grammarians, /s/ has been recognized as a morpheme that licenses an agentive argument (Sakakura 1985, Ohno et al. 1974, and many others). Thus, I consider /s/ as the equivalent of v. The full paradigm is shown in (8). (8) v v T a. ot ø u fall, intr. (archaic) b. ot o s u drop, tr. c. ot i ru fall, drop, intr. d. ot o r u be inferior to The paradigm (8) contains all the possible ICA patterns with the root ot. In (8d), the passive morpheme /r/ is shown in the v position for an expository purpose. Sentences with this root and their analyses are shown in (9) (10). The root is unaccusative in (9a), and (9b) shows the transitivization of it. (9) a. Isi ga ot-i ru. stone NOM fall PRES (Stones fall.) b. Taro ga isi o ot-o-s u. NOM stone ACC drop-v-v PRES (Taro drops stones.) (10) a. vp b. vp vp unacc v Taro v ø isi v vp v s ot v isi v i In (10a), the unaccusative predicate [ ot-i] vp predicates of the subject isi stone in its spec position. Due to the unaccusative nature of the root, vp is inactive and does not license an external argument. This is the default derivation for the root. In (10b), vp is activated by the overt insertion of /s/ in v. It makes the specifier position in vp available in which the agentive subject Taro is predicated of. It also affects the v head and alters its properties so that ACC case becomes available. As a result, isi stone gains two characteristics; it is the subject of the unaccusative root, but is also the object of the composite transitive structure. The root ot retains its unaccusative nature even under the transitivization. Semantically, (10b) means Taro causes (or triggers) the stones to fall ( ot-o-s, fall-cause, i.e. drop, tr. ). ot v o Unergative Roots and the Nature of Transitivization 4

5 Basically the same mechanism works for unergative roots as well. Take, for example, the root narab line up below. (11) a. Taro ga narab-ø-ø u (koto) NOM line up-v-v PRES fact ((the fact that) Taro lines up.) b. Hanako ga Taro o narab-a-s u (koto) NOM ACC line up-v-v PRES fact ((the fact that) Hanako makes Taro line up.) (12) a. vp b. vp Taro v Hanako v vp unerg v vp (unerg) v ø s narab v Taro v ø narab The default case is shown in (12a) in which vp lacks its specifier position due to the unergative nature of the root, and the only argument is that of the subject in spec vp. When /s/ surfaces in (12b), it affects the v head below it and creates a specifier position, and as a result, the vp predicates its own subject, Taro, in the specifier position. This argument, again, has two crucial semantic properties: on the one hand, it is the object of the newly created transitive predicate, but on the other hand, it retains the important properties of an unergative subject, i.e. it is [+animate]. The animacy requirement can be verified by substituting Taro with an inanimate object isi stone. The result is completely ungrammatical. (13) *Hanako ga isi o narab-a-s u (koto) MOM stone ACC line up-v-v PRES (fact) ((the fact that) *Hanako makes stones line up. The observations above show that /s/ affects v, the head that is immediately below it, and alters its properties to suit the transitivization requirements. It makes a new specifier position available in the projection of a head that lacks it. New external and internal arguments are predicated in spec of vp and vp for unaccusative and unergative roots, respectively. The roots are, however, unaffected. This gives the arguments in spec vp dual syntactic and semantic identities. So, for example, isi stone in (12b) is the unaccusative subject as well as the object of Taro s action, and this is exactly that it means in the sentence. This supports the view that causativization is basically monotone increasing (Koontz-Garboden 2009). Another important point is that creating multiple specifiers in a projection is prohibited in ICA. This is so because there are very tight syntactic and semantic relations between a head and its subject in the spec position. Licensing multiple subjects with the same properties would only result in ungrammaticality. I argue that this is ICA /e/, the GETP Let us turn to the identity of /e/. It has been used as a main verb e-ru get throughout the history of Japanese. It has also been the affix of potential as in kak-e ru write-can: X can write in modern Japanese. It is a well-known fact that the verb get becomes grammaticalized in languages (Heine & Kuteva 2002), and when it happens it gains various meanings such as ability, change-of-state, obligation, passive, permissive, possibility and others. English sentences such v a 5

6 as I ve got to go (obligation), It gets softer over time (change-of-state), I get to choose what I want (permission), John got busted (passive) etc. show the point. In ICA, however, /e/ has been problematic for it shows some contradictory properties. As we have seen above, it seems to transitivize or intransitivize certain roots. Okutsu (1995: 70) notes, rightly so, that we cannot assign these contradictory properties to the same morpheme /e/. He therefore concludes that /e/ is not directly relevant to ICA processes. In this paper, I differ from Okutsu and show that /e/ projects GETP and plays a vital role in ICA. To see how, let us return to the unaccusative root ot drop, intr. in (8). With this root, we could have ot-o-s-e ru being able to drop, tr. in the paradigm. This makes the sentence Taro ga isi o ot-o-s-e ru Taro can drop the stone. See (14) in which /e/ projects GETP. (14) GETP Taro i GET vp GET GET: Benefactive e (Taro i ) v vp v v: Outer Event s isi v ot v v: Inner Event o I assume that GETP licenses a beneficially argument. In (14), the argument Taro in GETP stands in a particular relation with the event in vp. The relation would most properly be described as MANIPULATIVE (Shibatani 1976) where the beneficially argument manipulates bringing out of a particular event. vp introduces the causer argument and is considered to express Outer Event. In this case, the beneficially and causer arguments are the same individual. I.e., the causative is reflexive (Chierchia 2004, Koontz-Garboden 2009). vp licenses the causee argument and is considered an Inner Event for causation is a composite event of a causing event and a resulting event/state. The same vp calculi of the unaccusative root apply to the Inner Event Causative (S)ase If the analysis developed above is on the right track, the Japanese causative morpheme is not (s)ase with allomorph (s)as (Kuroda 1965 and subsequent work) that is mono-morphemic and opaque to further decomposition. Rather, (s)ase is the combination of independent morphemes (features) /s/, /a/, and /e/ that license their arguments in much the same way as they do in ICA. I will show that /s/ plays several functions: (i) it is the grammaticalized do as in ICA and (ii) it appears as the root of the ungrammaticalized verb suru do Adjectival Conjugation The decompositional analysis developed above sheds new light to adjectival conjugations in Japanese. The traditional definitions of adjectives in Japanese are that they end with /i/ in the conclusive form and conjugate with the /k/ and /s/ that immediately precede it. These conjugational patterns are unique only to adjectives. Verbs conjugate solely with vowels. (15) a. tsuyo-k-i strong (Adnominal) b. tsuyo-s-i is strong (Conclusive) Why adjectives have these conjugational patterns has largely remained unclear. In this paper, I 6

7 claim that /k/ is an independent morpheme (Urusibara 1993, Nishiyama 1999) and is the grammaticalized verbal root kuru come. I would also argue that /s/ is the same /s/ that appears in the verbal predicates. As for /i/, I follow Narahara (2002) and Strauss (1993) that it is a copula that lacks semantic content. It is reminiscent to Korean adjectival copular ita be which is said to lack existential import (Sohn 1999: 281). This /i/ categorizes adjectival stems as A /k/ in the Conjugation Paradigm Let us analyze /k/ first with the adjectival stem hiro- wide. Its present conclusive form in modern Japanese is shown in (16a), but note that /k/ appears in the past form in (16b). (16) a. Miti ga hiro-i. b. Miti ga hiro-katta. road NOM wide-pres. wide PAST. (The road is wide.) (The road was wide.) It has been assumed that -katta in (16b) was derived from combining ku + atta. Atta is the past form of the verb a-ru be. This suggests that hiro- has the structure [[hiro-](k)]. Further, /o/ in hiro- is the verbalizing head v in (2) that appears in the verbal paradigm. The structure of the adjective hiroi wide is shown in (17a) (cf. Nishiyama 1999: 190). Compare it with (17b) where the unaccusative root ot- drop intr. is transtivized. (17) a. Adjective [[[[ hir-] o ] vp (k) ] vp i ] A wide b. Verb [[[[ ot-] o ] vp s ] vp u ] V drop tr. The claim is that this /k/ is the grammaticalized verbal root of kuru come Grammaticalized /k/ The verb come is often grammaticalized with variety of meanings (Heine & Kuteva 2002). Japanese is no exception, and it is often used as an aspectual verb as in (18). (18) Mary ga ohiru o tabete kita. NOM lunch ACC eat-ger come-past (Having eaten lunch, Mary came.) The verb kuru come here is not the main verb but is an aspectual one. If you negate (18), for example, the scope of negation skips the verb in the most salient reading. (19) Mary ga ohiru o tabete ko-nak-atta. NOM lunch ACC eat-ger come-neg.-past (Reading 1: Not having eaten lunch, Mary came.) (Reading 2: *Having eaten lunch, Mary did not come.) Here, kuru come presumably expresses a path from the point of view of the goal. This implies the completion of coming and makes it somehow immune to the force of negation. If one wants Reading 2, a pause is needed between the gerund and the verb-negation complex. The verb is also used to describe change of state. (20) Ringo ga akaku natte kita. apples NOM red-adv. become-ger come-past. (Apples are becoming red.) The verb kuru come here expresses scalar implicature in that the reddening of the apples has started, and it is at some stage toward completion The Function of /k/ Going back to our discussion of the adjectival root hir- wide, the above considerations of the grammaticalization of kuru come suggests that hir-o-(k)i wide could semantically be paraphrased as (X comes to one s senses to be) wide. This is consistent with the semantics of the adjectives hir-o-(k)i wide in that it expresses objective fact of an item that is independent of the observer. I.e., /k/ expresses the path of sensation from the point of view of 7

8 the observer /s/ in the Conclusive Form In (15b), the conclusive form tsuyo-si strong ends with -si, and I argue that this /s/ is the same /s/ that transitivizes the intransitive verbal root ot- fall in (2). With adjectival roots, /s/ licenses an animate argument that bears a certain psychological state. A piece of supporting evidence for this claim comes from expressions such as the following. (21) a. John wa aoi me o site iru. TOP blue eye ACC do-ger be-pres. (John has blue eyes.) b. Iya na yokan ga suru. bad hunch NOM do-pres (Lit: I feel that an undesirable event may happen.) The grammaticalized suru do licenses inalienable possession in (21a) and psychological state in (21b). Since psychological state is one s inalienable possession, the sentences in (21) show that suru do does license such relations. Interestingly, There is a group of adjectives called siku- conjugating adjectives that incorporate /s/ in their roots. See examples in (24). (22) a. kanasi i sad b. uresi i happy c. tanosi i fun Contrary to the ku- conjugating adjectives such as hir-o-(k)-i wide, the -siku conjugating adjectives predominantly express spontaneous mental state. /s/ needs to be incorporated into such roots since (i) /k/ X come to be one s senses to be Y is semantically inconsistent with mental state and (ii) only the bearer of the psychological state can report such a condition. This explains why the conclusive form of kanasi i sad in classical Japanese is kanasi and is not kanasi si. The feature that licenses a bearer of psychological state is already in the root, and the duplication of it is avoided (Ohno 1978). Note that this incorporation of /s/ into a root is not an isolated phenomenon to adjectival roots. Verbal roots have a similar case. See (23). (23) a. kir-u wear kis-e ru make somebody wear b. mi-ru see mis-e ru show c. nir-u resemble nis-e ru make somebody resemble /s/ causativizes the verbal roots on the left column of the pairs and is inseparable in modern Japanese. In fact, they are listed as independent words in dictionaries On the Historical Origin of Adjectival Conjugations A question still remains as to why adjectives have this irregular conjugation patterns. Differently put, why do adjectives need grammaticalized exponents such as /k/ and /s/ to conjugate? The other side of this question is why can adjectives form predicates at all? An answer to these questions may lie in the fact that adjectives and their conjugational patterns developed at a much later stage in the history of the Japanese language. Take, for example, the stem taka- high. According to Ohno (1978), it was used in adnominal, nominal and adverbial forms. (24) a. Adnominal taka-yama, taka-nami high mountain high waves b. Nominal omo-daka surface-high c. Adverbial taka-iku, taka-tobu a lot go high fly Note the surface phonological form of the root does not change except the assimilation /t / 8

9 /d/ in (24b). These are assumed to be the earliest uses of adjectives due to this lack of syntactic plasticity. Importantly, none of the uses in (24) is predicative. In fact, their functions in sentences were so limited that they could not take negation nor could they even take the past tense. By the Nara Period (8 th AD), however, three conjugational patterns emerged. See (25). (25) a. Conclusive takasi b. Adnominal takaki c. Adverbial takaku Ohno (1978: 88) states that these patterns appeared because people wanted to clarify what functions adjectives have in a sentence, but what really happened was that adjectives for the first time gained predicative force in grammar. So, for example, one could say (26) instead of the compound [taka-yama] N high mountains. (26) Yama takasi mountains high (The mountains are high.) This change, of course, was possible only because of the suffixation of /s/ and /k/, the PF exponents of the grammaticalized verbal roots do and come, respectively. /s/ introduces an implicit argument that can judge (Conclusive), and /k/ also introduces an implicit argument that receives sensations at the end point of the path. Once this stage was set, it paved the way for the full-scale grammatical expansion of adjectives as a predicate. The past tense became possible as in [[[ tak-] a] k] atta was high (=(17a)). Negation could be attached as in [[[ tak-] a] k] nai was not high. Similarly, the irrealis form was developed as in (29). (27) tak a k ar e < takakare < takakere ROOT be come be GET (if it is high) 5.4. Extended Adjectival Conjugation Recall that the adjectival structure (17a) contains verbal projections. This explains why adjectival roots participate in inchoative-causative alternations. Take an adjective such as hiroi is wide again. The root hir- appears in ICA as in hirogaru widen intr. hirogeru widen tr., or hiromaru, spread intr. hiromeru spread tr.. The first pair, for example, has the internal structures of the following where /k/ gets voiced with the assimilation with the following vowels. (28) a. [[[[ hir- ] o ] vp k ] vp a ] GETP ru hiroga ru widen intr. root be come GET T b. [[[[ hir- ] o ] vp k ] vp e ] GETP ru hiroge ru widen tr. root be come GET T /a/ in (28a) is the grammaticalized root of the verb a-ru be. /e/ in (28b) is the grammaticalized root of the verb e-ru get in the verbal paradigm. They both appear in GETP with [+V] feature. See (29) and the corresponding structures in (30) below. (29) a. Miti ga hiro-i. road NOM wide-pres (The road is wide.) b. Miti ga hiro-g-a-ru. road NOM widen-pres (The road widens.) c. Taro ga miti o hiro-g-e-ru. NOM road ACC widen-pres (Taro widens the road.) 9

10 (30) a. GETP A b. GETP V c. GETP V miti i ga GET miti i ga GET Taro i ga GET vp GET vp GET vp GET i [+A] a [+V] e [+V] vp UNACC v (k) vp UNACC v k (Taro i ) v (miti i ) v (miti i ) v vp v k hir- o hir- o miti o v hir- o (30a) is the adjectival derivation where hir- wide is assumed to have unaccusative structure. /k/ appears as v head, but it is phonologically null in modern Japanese. It licenses, however, an implicit argument that receives the sensation as argued above. This argument is implicit since the predicate is unaccusative in nature, and the spec position in vp is not available. The projection is typed as adjective because of /i/ in GETP. In (30b) the overt /k/ come and /a/ of a-ru be in GETP derive the structure to inchoative (unaccusative). This can be verified by the fact that when (30b) is in the gerundive te construction, the sentence designates a resulting state, not an on-going activity. This is considered to be the benchmark test for unaccusativity. (31) Miti ga hirogatte iru. road NOM wide-ger. be (The road widened.) In (30c), /e/ get in GETP licenses the CONTROLLER (Kageyama 1993) argument in its spec position. This activates vp, and as a result, it obtains the transitive structure. The implicit argument now appears as an agent, Taro, in spec of vp. This agent is co-indexed with the CONTROLLER argument. The result is the transitivization/causativization of (30b): i.e., ICA. Adjectival conjugations have been considered to be simpler than the verbal counterpart, but, or because of this assumption, questions like why adjectives have conjugations with /s/ and /k/ and why they can form predicates to begin with are left largely uninvestigated. Furthermore, the fact that adjectives and verbs could be derived from the same root has been overlooked (except works like Sugioka 2002). The analysis presented here could give us much needed new insight on the matter in a comprehensive manner Conclusion If the single engine hypothesis is correct, it is predicted that it does not discriminate what it builds, be as it may words or phrases. Differences between the two, if there are any, largely stem from the properties of ROOTS and other features that are localized at terminal nodes. The current study is consistent with this view in that words and predicates both utilize a syntactic template [[[ ROOT] v ] v] α] where α = GET and other types of grammaticalized features such as adjectival marker /i/ and /a/, an allomorph of the copula. References Arad, Maya Locality Constraints on the Interpretation of Roots: The Case of Hebrew Denominal Verbs, NLLT, Vol.21, Num.4, Springer, Dordrecht, TheNetherlands: Chomsky, Norm Derivation by Phase. Kenstowicz, Michael (ed.), Ken Hale: A life in language CambridgeMA: MIT Press. Embick, David. Dec Localism and Globalism in Morphology and Phonology. University of Pennsylvania. (ms.) Kuroda, Shige-Yuki Complex Predicates and Predicate Raising, Lingua 113: Elsevier Miyagawa, Shigeru Structure and Case Marking in Japanese. New York: Academic Press. Okutsu, Keiichiro Zidoka, Tadoka Oyobi Ryokyokukatenkei. Suga, Kazuyosi & Hayatsu Emiko (eds.) Doshi no Zita. Tokyo, Hitsuji Shyobo