September 26, 2003

Time:

4:00pm, September 26, 2003

Place:

Conference room, 3rd floor, Building 10, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo Komaba campus

Speaker:

Chizuru Nakao (University of Tokyo)

Title:

Japanese reciprocal constructions and Binding Theory

Abstract:

In this presentation, I will investigate two Japanese reciprocal constructions (the otagai construction and the V-aw construction) and show that these constructions should be classified into several subtypes according to their interpretations. As for the reciprocal pronoun otagai, otagai works as an anaphor in an object position and it works as a logophor in other positions. As for the verbal morpheme aw, aw which yields a reciprocal reading is an affix which saturates one of the arguments of the verb it attaches to, while aw which yields a competitive reading is a verb which selects a clausal complement. I will claim that these variations can be explained within Reinhart and Reuland's (1993) predicate-centered Binding Theory.