Floating Quantifiers in Japanese as Adverbial Anaphora

A surface-based analysis of so-called floating quantifiers (FQs) in Japanese is proposed based on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar and Minimal Recursion Semantics. We hypothesize that sentences with FQs, as other sentences, are processed incrementally from left to right and that an FQ has an independent semantic representation as NP that is anaphorically related to its antecedent. On these assumptions, we account for the asymmetry between the subject and object in terms of the quantification by a non-adjacent FQ. We also address a kind of FQ construction that has hitherto escaped the researchers’ attention, that with a whole-part relationship between the FQ and its host, and show that it is explained by the framework we bring forward.

[1]  Kazuhiko Fukushima,et al.  Phrase structure grammar, montague semantics, and floating quantifiers in Japanese , 1991 .

[2]  Shigeru Miyagawa,et al.  Structure and case marking in Japanese , 1989 .

[3]  Hiroaki Nakamura,et al.  Processing of Information Structure and Floating Quantifiers in Japanese , 2006, JSAI Workshops.

[4]  Kordula De Kuthy,et al.  Discontinuous NPs in German: A Case Study of the Interaction of Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics , 2002 .

[5]  Ivan A. Sag,et al.  Book Reviews: Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar and German in Head-driven Phrase-structure Grammar , 1996, CL.

[6]  Roger Schwarzschild,et al.  The Grammar of Measurement , 2002 .

[7]  Irene Heim,et al.  Semantics in generative grammar , 1998 .

[8]  Michael Halliday,et al.  Cohesion in English , 1976 .

[9]  Kôiti Hasida,et al.  Topics in Constraint-Based Grammar of Japanese , 1999 .

[10]  Roger Schwarzschild,et al.  The Role of Dimensions in the Syntax of Noun Phrases , 2006 .

[11]  David R. Dowty.  Thematic proto-roles and argument selection , 1991 .

[12]  Irwin Howard,et al.  Problems in Japanese syntax and semantics , 1980 .

[13]  S.-Y. Kuroda,et al.  What can Japanese Say About Government and Binding , 1992 .

[14]  Massimo Poesio,et al.  An Incremental Model of Anaphora and Reference Resolution Based on Resource Situations , 2011, Dialogue Discourse.

[15]  Hiroaki Nakamura,et al.  Relational Nouns as Anaphors , 2004, PACLIC.

[16]  Marilyn A. Walker,et al.  Japanese Discourse and the Process of Centering , 1994, Comput. Linguistics.

[17]  Tanya Reinhart,et al.  Syntactic Domains for Semantic Rules , 1978 .

[18]  David Lee.  The semantics of just , 1987 .

[19]  Kazuhiko Fukushima,et al.  Model theoretic semantics for Japanese floating quantifiers and their scope properties , 1993 .

[20]  Franz Guenthner,et al.  Formal Semantics and Pragmatics for Natural Languages , 1978 .

[21]  M. Saito.  Some asymmetries in Japanese and their theoretical implications , 1985 .

[22]  Scott Weinstein,et al.  Centering: A Framework for Modeling the Local Coherence of Discourse , 1995, CL.

[23]  Sanford A. Schane,et al.  Modern Studies in English: Readings in Transformational Grammar , 1974 .

[24]  Alfred V. Aho,et al.  The Theory of Parsing, Translation, and Compiling , 1972 .

[25]  Aravind K. Joshi,et al.  Processing crossed and nested dependencies: An automation perspective on the psycholinguistic results , 1990 .

[26]  Kimiko Nakanishi,et al.  Formal Properties of Measurement Constructions , 2007 .

[27]  Tanya Reinhart,et al.  Definite NP Anaphora and C. Command Domains , 1981 .

[28]  Dov M. Gabbay,et al.  Dynamic syntax - the flow of language understanding , 2000 .

[29]  Kôiti Hasida,et al.  Measurement and Quantification , 1999 .

[30]  T. Reinhart.  Anaphora and semantic interpretation , 1983 .

[31]  Masayoshi Shibatani,et al.  Grammatical Relations and Surface Cases , 1977 .

[32]  Ted Briscoe,et al.  Order independent and persistent typed default unification , 1996 .