The light verb construction in Japanese: the role of the verbal noun
Date
2018-07-25
Authors
Miyamoto, Tadao
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This is a study of the so-called Light Verb Construction (LVC) in Japanese, which
consists of the verb suru ‘do’ and the accusative-marked verbal noun, as exemplified in (1).
(1)
a. Taroo ga Tokyo ni ryokoo o suru.
NOM to travel ACC do
‘Taroo travels to Tokyo.’
b. Taroo ga eigo no benkyoo o suru.
NOM English GEN study ACC do
‘Taroo studies English.'
c. Taroo ga murabito ni ookami ga kuru to keikoku o suru
NOM villagers to wolf NOM come COMP warning ACC do
‘Taroo warns the villagers that the wolf will come.'
Since Grimshaw and Mester's (1988) seminal work, there have been unresolved
debates on the role of suru, whether suru in such forms as in (1) functions as a light verb
or not. An observational generalization is that the thematic array of a clause faithfully
reflects the argument structure of the VN which heads the accusative phrase. Hence, from
the viewpoint of argument structure, suru may be ‘light' in the sense that it makes no
thematic contribution to the VN-o suru formation. This suru may hence be different from
the regular use of suru as a two-place ACTIVITY predicate, as shown in (2).
(2)
a. Taroo ga gorufu o suru.
NOM golf ACC do
‘Taroo plays golf.'
b. Taroo ga tenisu o suru.
NOM tennis ACC do
‘Taroo plays tennis.'
c. Taroo ga kaimono o suru.
MOM shopping ACC do
‘Taroo does a shopping.'
The oft-cited differences between the so-called light suru construction and the heavy suru construction are two-fold. First, in the light suru construction, the arguments of the VN
may be 'promoted' into a clausal domain. Judging from the verbal case marking, the
arguments of the VN are treated as if they are those of suru. Second, the light suru construction may exhibit the so-called ‘frozen phenomena'. The observational
generalization is that when there is no overt argument in the accusative phrase domain, this
accusative phrase becomes ‘frozen' in the sense that it cannot tolerate syntactic processes,
such as scrambling and adverbial insertion .
The majority of previous studies examine the ‘weight' of suru either to support or
to refute the idea that suru can function as a light verb. In other words, these previous
studies attempt to disambiguate the VN-o suru formation relying solely on the lexical
property of suru. The contention of this study is that the above approach is problematic.
This study argues that the ambiguity does not stem from the ‘weight' of suru but from the
thematic properties of the VN which heads the accusative phrase, primarily, whether it is
headed by a thematic or non-thematic VN. Another contention of this study is that the
ambiguity can be resolved under the assumption that there is only one type of suru: a two-place
predicate which licenses Agent and EVENT. In this sense, this study will argue
against the idea that suru functions as a light verb and will argue that the characterization of
VN-o sum formation arises not from the dichotic distinction of suru but from the dichotic
distinction of its accusative phrase.
Description
Keywords
Japanese language, Verb, Noun phrase