Three types of nominalization in Modern Japanese: no, koto, and zero

要旨

In Modern Japanese, three nominalizers, no, koto, and zero, are used in overlapping but slightly differing syntactic and semantic environments. This paper will discuss two types of strategy in nominalizer variation in Modern Japanese, koto versus no, on the one hand, and no versus zero, on the other. The two types of variation are shown to be very different in nature. The contrast between koto and no is primarily a semantic one characterizable in terms of greater versus lesser semantic specificity. Koto nominalization is the most semantically sensitive type of nominalization; it tends to be called for where its semantic contribution is expected, no matter how it is. No nominalization, which generally lacks semantic content, is the most unmarked nominalization strategy extensively used in Modern Japanese. The contrast between no and zero, on the other hand, is primarily a syntactic one with a diachronic dimension. In Old Japanese, which lacked the nominalizer no, a syntactic contrast existed between koto and zero. Zero nominalization, a remnant of Old Japanese, is now generally a nonproductive process limited to lexicalized expressions with varying degrees of archaism. No nominalization has long competed with zero nominalization and has successfully replaced it in many syntactic environments including some of the lexicalized expressions where zero was traditionally the norm. However, in spite of the overall dominance of no nominalization, zero nominalization has continued to be used fairly productively in some limited syntactic environments and is not expected to disappear from the syntactic inventory of Modern Japanese in the near future

主題