Two D-distributive Elements in One Language: The Case of Japanese

At the end of chapter II.4, it was pointed out that Japanese is unusual in not obeying the correlation between the morphological form of the DD, and its (non-) ability to distribute over non-DP denotations or to occur with underlying subjects. Japanese is the only

language in the sample where the DD (sorezore) differs formally from the distributive D-

quantifier (wh…+mo), but still it is unable to distribute over non-DP denotations or to

occur with underlying subjects.

The foregoing remarks show that the correlation between these three properties that was postulated in chapter II.4 does not hold for all languages: Not every DD that differs formally from the D-quantifier can distribute over events and occur in subject position (though the reverse still holds).

On the other hand, the Japanese data do not form counterevidence to the generalisation that only DDs without D-features can distribute over events and occur with underlying

subjects. A closer look at the nature of sorezore ‘each’ provides a solution to the riddle. It

was already mentioned in chapter II.4.2.2, and in 5.1 that sorezore has nominal properties.

It is case-marked in (226ab), and it functions as a pronoun in (226b).

(226) a. [Huta-ri no musume]-ga [sorezore-ga tadasii to] iiha-tta] koto]

two-CLGEN daughter NOM each- NOM right cp insist-past fact

‘The fact that the two daughters insisted that each of them was right.’

(Sakaguchi 1998:115, ex.3)

b. Ken-to Erika-ga sorezore-no hahaoya-o hometa.

Ken-and Erika-NOM each- GEN mother-acc praised

‘Ken and Erika praised their own mother.’ (Tomioka, p.c.)

In addition, sorezore is formally similar to the demonstrative pronoun sorera ‘those’ in

(227) (Tomioka, p.c.):

(227) Shinbunkisya-ga futari-zutu sorera-no seizika-o sirabeta.

news-paper journalist- NOM 2-cl-each those- GEN politician- ACC investigated

‘Those politicians were investigated by two newspaper journalists each.’

The data in (226) and (227) suggest that sorezore does have D-features after all, despite its

formal dissimilarity with the distributive D-quantifier wh…+mo. The presence of D-

features in sorezore accounts for its inability to distribute over non-DP denotations and to

occur with underlying subjects.

(227) also shows that Japanese appears to have a second D-distributive element zutu

‘each’, which can occur with underlying subjects, licensing backwards distribution over the object denotation. The following example from Sakaguchi (1998:115, fn.1) shows that

zutu can also distribute over implicit sets of events:

104 _{As will be shown in chapter V.3.2, the DistKey objects in (220) must LF-move for semantic reasons after all.}

Except for Bulgarian, the languages that allow for backwards distributive readings with DDs in underlying subject position show no weak crossover effects. That is, LF-movement of the DistKey across the DD is licensed in these languages, ensuring interpretability.

(228) Taroo-wa i-ssatu-zutu hon-o ka-tta.

Taroo- TOP one- CL-each book- ACC buy- PAST

‘Taroo bought one book on each occasion.’

Although many questions remain, the data in (227) and (228) suggest that Japanese has a

second DD, zutu. The ability of zutu to distribute over non-DP denotations and to occur

with underlying subjects suggests that it contains no D-features.105,106

In conclusion, it was shown that Japanese poses no problem for the claim that there is a correlation between the feature content of a DD on the one hand, and the range of possible DistKeys and the (non-) occurrence with underlying subjects on the other. The discussion has also shown that one has to be careful with hasty conclusions regarding the syntactic behaviour of a DD on the base of its morphological shape alone. This being said, looking at the morphological shape of a DD remains a valuable tool in predicting its syntactic behaviour, when exercised with the necessary caution.

5.5 Two Open Problems

Section 5.4 has shown that the different feature specifications for DDs across languages determine part of their syntactic distribution. DDs with D-features are more restricted. Their DistKey antecedent must be a DP, and they cannot occur in underlying subject position of root clauses. DDs without D-features are not restricted in this way. Both restrictions on DDs where shown to follow from the need of the NP-proform to acquire D- features under c-command.

The explanation in terms of c-command does not account for all restrictions on the distribution of d-distributive elements, though. In light of the discussion so far, the ungrammaticality of the English sentences in (229ab) comes as a surprise.

(229) a. *The boysi painted two houses eachi red.

b. *The journalistsi said that one politician eachi was stupid.

In (229a), each occurs in subject position of a resultative small clause (see also (72b) from

II.4.2.4). In (229b) ( =(72c) from II.4.2.4), each occurs in subject position of an embedded

clause. In both sentences, there is a potential c-commanding DistKey expression that should suffice to license the DD.

The situation in German is slightly different. The German counterpart of (229a) is grammatical (cf.230a). The counterpart of (229b) in (230b) is equally ungrammatical

when the DD distributes over the DP die Journalisten ‘the journalists’ in the matrix

clause.

(230) a. Die Jungeni haben jeweilsi zwei Häuser rot angestrichen.

the boys have each two houses red painted

*The boys have painted two houses each red.’

105 _{A potential problem for a structurally parallel treatment of sorezore and zutu arises from the fact that}

sentences with zutu are only grammatical if zutu is suffixed to the numeral, and not to the entire numeral NP (Sakaguchi 1998:115).

106 _{Possibly, Japanese is not the only language with two DDs with different feature specification as [+/- D].}

Dutch has a genitive-marked (!) element steeds, which can distribute over implicit sets of events from adnominal position (cf. i), suggesting that it is the [-D]-counterpart of elk ‘each’.

(i) Steeds twee meisjes zijn binnen gekomen.

b. Die Journalisten sagten, dass jeweils ein Politiker dumm sei.

the journalists said that each one politician stupid was

*‘The journalistsi said that one politician eachi was stupid.’

The contrast in grammaticality between English (229a) and German (230a) is revealing. Assuming that the semantics behind the DD-construction are universal, the difference must follow at least partly from syntactic reasons. In chapter IV.6, I will argue that the contrast in grammaticality is due to the different underlying word order of English and

German, SVO and SOV respectively, in interaction with semantic considerations. In a

nutshell, (229a) is out because the semantic derivation does not get the right arguments in the correct order in English. In German, this problem is avoided because the verb has a different underlying position.

Turning to (229b) and (230b), both are ungrammatical, suggesting that the difference be semantic in nature. As a matter of fact, both are violations of the clausemate condition discussed in chapter II.1.7. In my view, the clausemate-condition of DD and DistKey follows from semantic reasons. In chapter IV.6, this will be shown for DDs in object position that fail to distribute over a DistKey in the matrix clause. The interpretation of DDs in subject position is a little more complex and postponed to chapter V.3. As a result, an account for the ungrammaticality of (229b) and (230b) will have to wait until then.

This concludes the unified cross-linguistic analysis of d-distributive constructions. The analysis for German was shown to extend to a range of languages. The observable differences in the expression of d-distributive constructions were shown to derive from two independent factors. The (im-)possibility of overt DP-internal movement in a language governs the occurrence of the DD in pre- or postnominal position (abstracting away from the problematic Italian facts). The syntactic feature content of the DD governs its syntactic distribution. DDs with no D-features need not have a c-commanding DP as DistKey. They can distribute over all kinds of pluralities, including implicit sets of events, and are licensed in underlying subject position of root clauses. In contrast, DDs with D- features need a c-commanding DP as DistKey. For this reason, they can only distribute over DP-denotations, and are banned from underlying subject position.