5 Further consequences for comparative syntax
Japanese is a language that exhibits no active φ-features for nominal declensions
and subject-verb agreement. Thus, regardless of the semantic person, number
and gender of the subject nP, the verb form always stays the same, as exempli-
fi ed in (28).
(28) Watasi-ga/anata-ga/gakusei-ga maitosi ronbun-o kak-u.
I-NOM/you-NOM/student-NOM every.year paper-ACC write-PRES
‘I/you/a student/students write(s) a paper/papers every year.’
This traditional observation has been carried over to the generative literature
at least since Kuroda (1965). Adopting the Principles-and-Parameters
approach, Fukui (1986/1995, 1988, 2006) and Kuroda (1988, 1992) inde-
pendently put forward the hypothesis that the lack of obligatory φ-feature-
agreement in Japanese yields a highly intricate array of facts about this language
that are unobservable in languages like English. In this section, we would
like to maintain that our theory of symmetry-driven syntax may provide an
interesting set of links between certain peculiar facts about Japanese, incor-
porating some of the major insights behind Fukui and Kuroda’s macro-
parametric accounts.
As a starting point, let us adopt (29), a particular formulation of the afore-
mentioned observation put forward by Fukui (1986/1995, 1988, 2006):
(29) Hypothesis (Fukui 1986/1995, 1988, 2006):
Japanese is a language that lacks active formal φ-features in its Lexicon.
An immediate consequence of this premise is that there is no notion of
φ-feature symmetry/asymmetry in Japanese. Then, the language is also
expected to lack φ-symmetry-forming operations, such as φ-driven A-movement.
This is exactly what happens in Japanese, which is independently known as
a language that shows no evidence for obligatory A-movement: see Fukui
(1986/1995), Kuroda (1988), Ishii (1997), Kato (2006), and Narita (2014)
among others for the view that Japanese subjects can (at least optionally) stay
in situ.
(30) Japanese lacks obligatory A-movement.
A related consequence is that the edge of T remains unused/vacant in
Japanese-type languages. We maintain that this position can be optionally utilized
by a “major subject,” an nP that does not participate in predicate-argument
structure of the main verb and receives a topic-like interpretation.
(31) The edge of T in Japanese can be optionally utilized by a major subject,
yielding multiple subject constructions.
22 Hiroki Narita and Naoki Fukui