A Note on Japanese Noun Phrases

by Takao Gunji

In this article, I will give analysis of Japanese nouns on the assumption that they semantically denote kinds as opposed to objects. Based on this assumption, a verb that requires an object-level argument is assumed to have its counterpart that requires a kind-level argument, which is related to the former via a lexical rule. This article is a lexicalist approach to semantically-motivated `type shift' analysis and its analysis is closely intertwined with syntax (and lexicon). Another proposal in this article is a lexical rule that applies to a verb that requires a kind-level argument and gives its counterpart that takes an object-level argument. The combination of the two lexical rules correctly accounts for several different patterns of kind-level predicates and object-level predicates.