Case in Japanese

Author(s): Susumu Oh-ishi
E-mail: susumu@ling.ed.ac.uk

This paper presents an outline of Case theory of Japanese within the general framework of the minimalist programme. Japanese seems to defy any structural Case analysis. Under some crucial assumptions, including the no-directionality-parameter hypothesis and the independent categorial status of inflectional endings of Japanese verbal morphology, an inherent Case theory of Japanese emerges, where categories are not associated with a specific Case, but rather they provide positions for general Case checking and other feature checking.

Paper: Postscript (363084 bytes)