Masaaki Kamiya, associate professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures, presented a paper titled "EPP, D-linking and Grammaticality Judgments" at the Mid-America Linguistics Conference held at University of Missouri at Columbia on Oct. 9 and 10. He collaborated with Akemi Matsuya of Takachiho University, Tokyo.
In this talk, Kamiya presented evidence that supports that Japanese is not required Extended Projection Principle (EPP) which is mandatory in a language like English. The relevant data involved indeterminate pronouns + mo under the scope of negation. The low-rated judgments of the previous studies have nothing to do with EPP, but rather the type of indeterminate pronouns. That is, if the indeterminate pronouns are D(iscourse)-linked type, the grammaticality boosts up, but whenever Non-D-linked type appears without any discourse factors, native speakers' judgments are low-rated. If EPP is not required, then, it will lose its universal status among languages. Kamiya suggests that researchers must reconsider universal requirement of EPP.
In this talk, Kamiya presented evidence that supports that Japanese is not required Extended Projection Principle (EPP) which is mandatory in a language like English. The relevant data involved indeterminate pronouns + mo under the scope of negation. The low-rated judgments of the previous studies have nothing to do with EPP, but rather the type of indeterminate pronouns. That is, if the indeterminate pronouns are D(iscourse)-linked type, the grammaticality boosts up, but whenever Non-D-linked type appears without any discourse factors, native speakers' judgments are low-rated. If EPP is not required, then, it will lose its universal status among languages. Kamiya suggests that researchers must reconsider universal requirement of EPP.
