Edited by Giuliana Giusti, Vincenzo Nicolò Di Caro and Daniel Ross
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 274] 2022
► pp. 245–270
This paper addresses Japanese pseudo-coordination containing an existential verb by focusing on the two types of existential verbs, one taking an animate subject and the other taking an inanimate subject. Though both can form a pseudo-coordination expression, one is two-way ambiguous in aspectual interpretation, and the other is not. Moreover, dialectal variation is observed. This paper attempts to explain the difference between the two interpretations of Japanese pseudo-coordination and assigns a different structure to each interpretation. More specifically, in one interpretation, existential verbs are truly existential verbs of a lexical category, and in the other interpretation, they are functional categories. Based on this analysis, dialectal variation is also explained based on the notion of externalization.