onaji forms its own unique NMC in that it can appear directly before the head noun it modifies, whereas other nouns must be used in the no (genitive) construction in order to modify a head noun. Interestingly, of the 16 cases of onaji being used attributively (rather than as a predicate) in this corpus, 15 of 16 were uttered by non-native speakers, as in both of the following examples; I will return to this point below.
16 In fact, the status of the na-adjective word class as true adjectives has proven controversial since
na-adjectives sometimes share more behavioral characteristics with Japanese nouns than with i-
adjectives. (Analogously, i-adjectives share many morphosyntactic behaviors with Japanese verbs.) However, for the purposes of the present study, I will treat both i- and na-adjectives as a unified word class of adjectives—with their constructions taking slightly different forms—both for simplicity and because (1) the two word classes are often taught together in an “adjective” unit in beginning Japanese courses and textbooks (see the Genki textbook series, Banno et al. 2011), and (2) Japanese noun-modification has been viewed as a continuum, ranging from nominal to adjectival to clausal modification (Teramura 1980, Kato 2003, Ozeki & Shirai 2010).
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(31) 19-JC NNS onaji kyoushitsu jana-katta-n desu,
(IU 687) same classroom COP.NEG-PST-IUFP COP.NPST.POL ‘(it) wasn’t the same classroom,’
(32) 11-JE NNS sore to onaji purojekuto da yo ne.
(IU 276) that and same project COP.NPST IUFP IUFP ‘(it)’s the same project as that one, you know.’
Type 6: _ono NMCs. These are nominals modified with one of three demonstratives: kono ‘DEM.PROX’, sono ‘DEM.MED’, or ano ‘DEM.DIST’. These demonstratives tend to be used anaphorically. They directly precede the noun they modify, and are similar to this and that in English.
(33) 1-JC NJS demo sono kareshi wakarete-shimatte, (IU 951) but DEM.MED boyfriend break.up-regrettably
‘but (she and) that boyfriend broke up,’
(34) 8-JE NJS youkan-wa kono %rekutanguru no yatsu de, (IU 411) youkan-TOP DEM.PROX rectangle GEN thing COP.NPST
‘youkan [a Japanese dessert] are these rectangular things,’
Type 7: _nna NMCs. These are modifying constructions featuring a specific type of na- adjective, formed based on the three demonstratives, kono ‘DEM.PROX’, sono ‘DEM.MED’, or ano ‘DEM.DIST’. While the demonstrative sono ‘DEM.MED’ precedes a noun it modifies and functions to refer to a specific referent, e.g., sono hito ‘that person’, the analogous _nna type of NMC is an adjectival version of the demonstrative, yielding sonna hito ‘a person like that; that kind of person’. Thus, these three types are konna ‘this kind of’, sonna ‘that kind of’, and anna ‘that kind of’. These modifiers directly precede the noun
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they modify, and are often—but not exclusively—used with a negative or derisive connotation.
(35) 2-JK NJS sonna koto nai. (IU 577) that.kind.of thing exist.NEG
‘that’s not true.’ (lit. ‘that kind of thing’s not the case.’)
(36) 18-JK NJS kibidango tte konna aji ka,
(IU 197) kibidango QUOT/TOP this.kind.of flavor Q ‘kibidango [a Japanese sweet] taste like this huh,’
Type 8: verbal-predicate GNMCCs (hereafter ‘verbal GNMCCs/NMCs’, or simply ‘GNMCCs’). As described above in section 4.1.1, these have the structure of an entire verbal-predicate clause (often consisting solely of the verb in Japanese) used to modify a noun. (Note that the attributive adjective type could also be considered a case of an entire clause—with an adjectival predicate—being used to modify a noun, since adjectival- predicate clauses often consist solely of the adjective in Japanese; nevertheless, these were separately classified, as Type 4 above.) The head noun of verbal GNMCCs always bears some semantic and/or pragmatic relation to the verbal-predicate clause. The construction nevertheless allows for Japanese speakers to produce a particularly wide array of
GNMCCs whose head noun referents range from core arguments (S, A, O) of the verbal- predicate clause to the topic or an oblique of the verbal-predicate clause. Moreover, the referents of Japanese GNMCC head nouns bear only a pragmatic relation to the clause, which must be inferred from real-world contextual knowledge (e.g., Matsumoto 1988) in order to be interpreted correctly.
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In the following examples, the modifying verbal-predicate clause, which could also be grammatical as a stand-alone clause, appears in brackets, just prior to the head noun being modified. One or more possible interpretations of the relationship of the head noun to the modifying clause is given in parentheses prior to each example:
(head noun is the S argument of the modifying clause) (37) 1-JC NJS [yoku tabe-ru] hito.
(IU 169) well eat-NPST person
‘someone who eats a lot.’ (lit. ‘a person who eats well.’) (head noun is the A argument of the modifying clause)
(38) 25-JE NJS [sore-o benkyou shite-i-ru] hito. (IU 763) that-ACC study do-PROG-NPST person
‘someone who’s studying that.’
(head noun could be either the O argument of the modifying clause or an Oblique) (39) 25-JE NJS [jibun-de benkyou suru] bunya dakara.
(IU 1175) self-OBL study do.NPST field COP.NPST-because ‘because it’s the field that I study’
(‘because it’s (in) my own field of study.’)
(head noun could be the O or the S17 argument of the modifying clause) (40) 18-JK NJS [nanika yomi-tai] hon at-tara,
(IU 380) something read-DES book exist-COND ‘if there’s some book that (you) want to read,’
(head noun could have Oblique or pragmatic relationship to the modifying clause) (41) 16-JE NJS [kuriimu-ga notte-i-ru] yatsu?
(IU 523) cream-NOM place.on-PROG-NPST thing ‘the kind with cream on top?’
(head noun has a pragmatic relationship to the modifying clause)
17 It might seem that hon ‘book’ could only be analyzed as the O argument of the verb yomi-tai (read-DES) ‘want to read’. However, Japanese verbs that take desiderative morphology (the suffix -tai) do not always have the same argument structure as their non-desiderative counterparts. (In fact, they could be viewed as similar to predicative i-adjectives.) Desiderative verbs can also be used in such a way that they take a single S-argument, marked with the nominative case-marker ga. The corresponding desiderative structure in this case would be ano hon-ga yomitai (that book-NOM
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(42) 2-JK NJS watashi [ichi-jikan inai-ni owar-ase-ru] (IU 521) 1 one-hour within-OBL finish-CAUS-NPST
jishin-ga ar-u kara.
confidence-NOM exist-NPST because ‘Because I am confident (I can) have (it) end within an hour.’
(lit. ‘Because I have the confidence that (I can) have (it) end within an hour’)
Type 9: iu GNMCCs. These are a specific sub-type of verbal GNMCCs: clauses whose