Journal of Japanese Linguistics special issue 2003 Historical Development of the Accusative Case Marking in Japanese as Seen in Classical Literary Texts

要旨

The principles-and-parameters theory accounts for variations among contemporary languages by parametrizing the principles of universal grammar. Through a study of how Case was assigned to the direct object in Old Japanese, we demonstrate that the principles-and-parameters theory also accounts for certain historical changes in the grammar of a language. In modern Japanese the morphological accusative case marker o invariably marks the direct object. This case marker was also used in Old Japanese. But unlike modern Japanese, the direct object frequently occurred without any case marking. Old Japanese chose both options of the parameter for Case depending on verbal inflection: abstract or morphological. In modern Japanese the parameter has been “reset” so that only the morphological-case option is chosen. We give extensive data from classical literary texts of the Heian Period to demonstrate the distribution of abstract case and morphological case, and the constraints imposed on word order when abstract case was chosen. Our analysis also straightforwardly accounts for the linguistic change that transformed the Old Japanese case system to the system we see in modern Japanese.

主題