LSA Summer Institute/MIT                                      			Summer 2005

LSA.239 | The Syntax of Pre-Modern Japanese

Instructors:	Akira Watanabe (University of Tokyo) and John Whitman (Cornell)
Time:		TR 2:55-4:35
Classroom:	32-144

This course takes up interesting syntactic properties of Pre-Modern Japanese, including word order, case marking, and topic-focus articulation (related to so-called kakarimusubi). We will discuss what kind of synchronic analysis must be given as well as how the relevant properties of Pre-Modern Japanese were lost and replaced by those which characterize Modern Japanese. A basic understanding of syntax in the principles and parameters framework is presupposed.

Readings:       	Available online at http://ling.cornell.edu/japanese_historical 				linguistics or distributed in class.

Work:   		Readings and a five page paper, due in class on 8/4.

Course Outline
7/19	(Whitman)	Diachronic syntax; periodicization; descriptive background; 
summary of major syntactic changes

7/21	(Whitman)	Ideas about basic clause structure in OJ; the antisymmetry issue
Readings: 	Kuroda, S.-Y. (2005) On the syntax of Old Japanese     
Whitman, J. (2005) Preverbal negation in Japanese and Korean 

7/26	(Watanabe):	Topic-Focus articulation (in general as well as in the Man'yōshū
				period)
Readings: 	Watanabe, A. (2002) Loss of overt wh-movement in Old Japanese    
Sasaki, T. (1992) Jōdaigo ni okeru -ka-ha- no kōbun (take a look 	if you can read Japanese)

7/28	(Watanabe):  	The kakari particles “so/zo” and “koso” in the Man'y_sh_ period
Readings: 	Watanabe, A. (2005) Topic-focus articulation in Old Japanese    

8/2	(Watanabe):  	Acquisition of wh-movement

8/4	(Whitman):	The ergativity hypothesis
Readings: 	Aldridge, E. (2005) The syntax and typology of ergativity
Yanagida, Y. (2005) Ergativity and bare nominals in early Old 
Japanese