The morphological markings of GA and WA have attracted much attention from traditional Japanese grammarians. In recent years the rise of transformational grammar (henceforth TG) has brought about many analyses concerned with the syntactic characteristics of the two noun phrases in Japanese. The main issues that have been involved in the traditional and TG analyses are: i) the status of 'subject' in Japanese, ii) the treatment of 'double nominative' sentences, and iii) the process of topicalisation. Summaries of the main analyses are presented in the following section to show what have been the concerns regarding NP GA and NP WA. A discussion on 'double nominative' sentences is not included, however, since as already mentioned in 2.2.1, I am dealing with prototypical subjects only in this study.
3.2.1 NP GA and status of subject
In the TG theory where subject is structurally defined as the NP that is directly governed by S in the tree diagram, Mikami's analysis where NP GA is treated equally with other NPs (as seen in section 2.2) has been considered to pose a problem. Not only does his analysis not uniquely define subject in Japanese but it also implies that there is no VP in Japanese [Shibatani (1985:4)].
A number of studies have been produced by transformational gram marians to support the existence of subject in Japanese. [See Inoue (1976), Kageyama (1978), Shibatani (1977, 1978 and 1985) and Sugimoto (1986) amongst others.] What is currently agreed upon by linguists on the status of subject in Japanese is that a subject NP is a morphosyntactic category that satisfies at least the following conditions1:
i) it is placed sentence-initially in an unmarked word order ii) it is marked by GA (when not topicalised)
iii) it triggers honorification iv) it triggers reflexivisation
In (5) and (6) the initial GA marked NPs, sensei GA and Tennoo GA triggered honorification as well as the reflexive pronoun jibun' oneself' which refers back to sensei and Tennoo respectively. Thus these GA marked NPs may be considered to be the subject of the sentence according to the above definition.
(1) Sensei GA jibun no nooryoku ni genkai o kanjiteirassharu. teacher NOM self GEN ability DAT limit ACC is feeling(HON) 'The teacher is feeling the limitation of his(her) ability.' (2) Tennoo GA köre o gojibun de okakininarimashita.
Emperor NOM this ACC self(HON) by wrote(HON)
'The Emperor wrote this by himself (with his own hand).'
3.2.2 Topicalisation process
In the framework of transformational grammar there have been two fundamentally different theories competing with regards to the generation of topic—marked N P . Much discussion and a number of different approaches have evolved around these two basic theories. The first theory extracts an NP from the sentence and makes the NP the topic of the sentence. This transformation rule is called thematisation
[Muraki (1970:154)] and is described as follows: SD:
Xi
[. X2 NP, X3 ]SC:
Xi
[. NPjWa [, X2 NPl X3 ] ]The original NP (NPj^ in the above) is to be deleted by zero-pronomina- lisation. Thus we get the following tree diagram as the end result of derivation:
N P X WA S
X NPX Y
This extraction theory is not without problems. The gravest one lies with a group of sentences like (3) and (4) below, whose topic marked NP could not be traced back to any NP within the deep structure of the sentence.
(3) Sakana WA [tai ga i i]. fish TOP snapper NOM be good 'As for fish, snapper is good.'
(4) Suteeki WA [ano mise ga oishii]. steak TOP that shop NOM be delicious 'For steak, that shop is good.'
Such sentences are abundant in the language and need some uniform treatment.
This very problem with the first theory of thematisation was certainly one of the major forces that drove Kuno (1973a and 1973b) to take up an alternative view, which is the second theory alluded to above. The second theory proposes that a topic NP is not extracted in any way from within the sentence but is already existent as a topic NP in the deep structure. This theory, although it is more widely accepted than the other and although it also solves the problem the extraction theory suffered from, is not free from problems either. According to the second theory (5) is derived from the deep structure
like (6):
(5) Kono hon WA, Taroo ga yonda. this book TOP NOM read 'This book, Taroo read it.'
(6) [Kono hon] WA, Taroo ga kono hon o yonda.
TOP NOM ACC
From (6) kono hon o is deleted and thus (5) is obtained. This theory, however, cannot give an account (perhaps I should say an elegant non-
ad hoc account) for the appearance of particles such as kara'from' and e'to' within the noun phrase as demonstrated in (7) and (8):
(7) Narita e WA densha demo ikemasu. to TOP train also can go 'To Narita, you can also go by train.'
(8) Tonari kara WA, piano ga kikoetekita. next door from TOP NOM was heard 'From the next door, a piano was heard.'
Presumably (7) and (8) are derived from (9) and (10) below: (9) [Narita] WA, Narita e densha demo ikemasu.
(10) [Tonari] WA, tonari kara piano ga kikoetekita.
The explanation of the occurrence of particles like kara and e in the topic NPs presents a troublesome task simply because if there is from the outset a topic NP—WA in the deep structure, it would be very difficult to think of a non-complex rule which would correctly predict
the occurrence of these extra particles in the sentences. Therefore adherents of the second theory are often not given much choice but to resort to no more than a technical justification, i.e., the making up of rules and the ordering of such rules, etc. [See Kuno (1973b: 236) for details.]
Like the two theories above, more recent theories of topic construction in Japanese which are discussed in the general framework of the Government and Binding theory, continue to be concerned with the formal rules which may produce the topic construction. [See Kitagawa (1982) and Farmer (1984).]
3.2.3 Problems with syntactic treatment of NP GA and NP WA
Although the syntactic analyses shed much light on the formal properties of NP GA or NP WA, they do not answer the very fundamenatal question of why NP GA and NP WA exist in Japanese. If NP GA is more basic than NP WA as many grammarians would insist, then the issue of what motivates topicalisation to take place, or why there is such a process, has not been given much attention. Thus their studies do not directly contribute to the enquiries this dissertation pursues such as finding out the difference between the topicalised or untopicalised sentences below:
(11) Chichi GA biiru o nondeiru. my father NOM beer ACC is drinking 'My father is drinking beer.'
(12) Chichi WA biiru o nondeiru. TOP
'My father is drinking beer.'