<OT> New Posting: ROA-748

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ROA 748-0605

Ambiguity avoidance as contrast preservation: Case and word order freezing in Japanese

Kathryn Flack <flack at linguist.umass.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=748


Abstract:
Much recent work in phonology is concerned with evaluating
contrasts among sets of forms (e.g. Flemming 1995, 1996;
Ito and Mester 2003; Lubowicz 2003; Padgett 2003, 2004).
This paper extends contrast preservation to syntax, where
it can be used to explain anti-ambiguity phenomena. One
such syntactic phenomenon is found in Japanese. Scrambling
is generally tolerated in Japanese; however, when a subject
and an object are morphologically identical (i.e. not distinguish
ed by case morphology), scrambling is blocked. If scrambling
were allowed in such a sentence, ambiguity would arise as
to the subject of the sentence: 'Taroo-ga Hanako-ga kowai'
could be the surface form of either an unscrambled structure
'Taroo-ga Hanako-ga kowai' (Taroo is afraid of Hanako) or
a scrambled structure *'Taroo-ga(i) Hanako-ga t(i) kowai'
(Hanako is afraid of Taroo). The ungrammaticality of the
latter scrambled structure prevents subject-related ambiguity.
I argue that this word order freezing (which occurs in German,
Hindi, and Korean as well as Japanese: Lee 2001) is motivated
by a PF constraint which demands contrast between forms
with different subjects.

Comments: 
Keywords: contrast, ambiguity, scrambling
Areas: Syntax, Formal Analysis
Type: Manuscript

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=748