Japanese syntax and semantics By S.-Y. Kuroda (review)

Abstract

146LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 1 (1998) To conclude, the theory of LF is potentially quite interesting as H develops it. However, much more work is needed if the vague vision of grammar promoted in MP is to be tightened up into a carefully worked-out program of linguistic investigation. This book is a useful step in that direction. REFERENCES Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Everett, Daniel L. 1989. Clitic doubling, reflexives, and word order alternations in Yagua. Language 65.339-72. Lasnik, Howard. 1993. Lectures on minimalist syntax. University ofConnecticut working papers in linguistics . Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut. Pesetsky, David. 1996. Some optimality principles ofsentence pronunciation. Cambridge, MA: Unpublished MS. Pullum, Geoffrey K. 1996. Nostalgic views from building 20. Linguistics 32.137-47. 2816 CL-Linguistics University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Japanese syntax and semantics. By S.-Y. Kuroda. Dordrecht, Boston & London: Kluwer, 1992. Reviewed by Hajime Hoji, University of Southern California If 'the aim of science is, on the one hand, a comprehension, as complete as possible, of the connection between the sense experiences in their totality, and, on the other hand, the accomplishment of this aim by the use of a minimum of primary concepts and relations', as Einstein (1936/1982: 293) puts it, and if generative grammar is that part of science whose aim consists in part of a comprehension of the connection between the sense experiences as reflections of the human linguistic faculty, it follows that one of the tasks in generative grammar is to identify the relevant sense experiences. Since our sense experiences, such as introspective judgments about a given sentence in a given language in a given context, are no doubt reflections of more than one component of our linguistic faculty, such a task necessarily involves hypotheses about the nature of such sense experiences. The postulation, evaluation, and modification of such hypotheses have in fact constituted a major portion of generative grammatical studies. It is clear therefore that our understanding of the human linguistic faculty, i.e. universal grammar (UG), deepens only insofar as our understanding of our sense experiences, in the above sense, deepens. It thus follows that a rigorous work on the characterization of sense experiences, which empirical research in natural language ought to be, is an indispensable part of the generative enterprise. Kuroda, the founder of Japanese generative grammar, has been engaged in such research for the past 30 years. He tries to elucidate the connections among, and the nature of, sense experiences of various sorts that arise in the mind of native speakers of Japanese, often in contrast to those that arise in the mind of native speakers of English, as a step toward understanding the properties of UG (see Chomsky 1975:37). (especially in light of its empirical problems)? (2) What principles constrain the possible types ofconstraints in MP? (3) Why has MP decided to appeal to global constraints without the slightest acknowledgment of the debate which Chomskyan grammarians carried on with proponents of generative semantics, the original source of global constraints in modern linguistics, against such constraints? Years ago, some readers may remember, generative semantics predicted that the global rule/constraint would replace the transformation as the most important, revolutionary innovation in modern linguistics. MP seems to agree with this assessment in practice, although it allows a wider range of constraints than even generative semantics proposed. Yet still it does not cite generative semantics as the source of some of its core notions (or, if 'source' is too strong, at least similar and earlier ideas). This type of 'amnesia' is also noted in, inter aha, Pullum 1996. REVIEWS147 In his 1965 dissertation, K provided descriptions and hence analyses of some of the most productive aspects of the Japanese grammar. The thesis is full of insightful descriptions and characterization of the relevant aspects of the Japanese grammar. A great deal of K's insight is of the sort that one can appreciate only after one has experienced a similar probe into the working of Japanese grammar, and as a result has attained some level of linguistic sophistication. His research into aspects of Japanese has continued. Over the years, the descriptive coverage that...