Embedding without a license?: typology of unselected embedded clauses
Date
2018
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
This thesis brings to light three kinds of adjunct clauses in Japanese/Korean (JP/KR)—two kinds of interrogative clauses and one kind of quotative clauses. They are distinguished from typical adjunct clauses in JP/KR by their lack of a clause- final particle designating the semantic roles. I discuss the forms and meanings of the three kinds in Chapters 2 through 4, respectively. ☐ Chapter 1 outlines the main purpose of this dissertation, and provides theoretical background. ☐ Chapter 2 shows how adjunct quotatives in JP/KR project the publicized opin- ions of the agent in the sentence. I propose that they are mapped to phrases that refer to speech acts, which have two additional argument slots for the speaker and the hearer above CP. The additional meaning of saying or thinking is a consequence of the phrase referring to a speech act. The meaning of ‘saying’ and the meaning of ‘thinking’ resides in whether or not the speaker and the hearer deixes are coreferential in the structure. ☐ Chapter 3 analyzes one kind of adjunct interrogative clause in JP/KR, which expresses the agent’s intention in the matrix event. I first show that the matrix predicates of these interrogatives must conventionally encode two properties in the matrix event: the agent’s volition and lack of information. These two properties provide grounds for pragmatic enrichment of the matrix predicates, which results in the introduction of an existentially closed question into the structure. I show that the existential closure becomes abstracted away, an open slot for a question-type argument is created, and adjunct interrogatives clause saturate the open slot step by step. ☐ Chapter 4 examines another kind of adjunct interrogative clause in JP/KR, which expresses the speaker’s question regarding the matrix event. First, I show that these interrogatives are interpreted independently from their matrix clauses, and their meanings are categorized as conventional implicatures. Secondly, I argue that the questions denoted by the adjunct interrogatives work as explanation-seeking questions based on the idea of Asher and Lascarides (2003). Also, I demonstrate that their status as unproposed, de-emphasized questions makes them self-addressing questions in the sense of Hara and Davis (2013). ☐ Chapter 5 concludes the thesis.
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Keywords
Language, literature and linguistics, Embedding, Unselected embedded clauses