Subjects and constituent structure in Japanese

Abstract

In this article, on the basis of a set of new data that allow us to assess the position of subjects, it is shown that in Japanese, ordinary subjects (which are marked with either nominative or dative case) are moved to Spec of TP, while the subjects of oblique-subject constructions do not undergo subject raising. We argue that subject raising to TP is motivated if the clause is constrained by the nominative-case requirement, which dictates that a clause must have at least one nominative argument. Nevertheless, there are also cases among idioms where nominative subjects remain in vP-internal position; that is, idiom subjects, which are interpreted non-compositionally as part of clausal idioms, do not undergo subject raising. In Japanese, subject raising to TP motivated by the EPP requirement of T is most typically instantiated, owing to the fairly persistent nominative-case requirement, but still, it is not unitarily implemented, since subjects do not undergo raising to TP if they receive oblique marking, which brings out the effect of voiding the nominative-case requirement, or constitute part of idiomatic expressions.