On the Locative Structure of <i>-te iru</i> Progressives in          Japanese

Matsuoka Mikinari

doi:10.11435/gengo.155.0_131

<p>This article focuses on the syntactic structure of -te iru progressives in Japanese, which contain a verbal complex composed of a verb with the gerundive suffix -te and the existential verb iru ‘be’. It is proposed that there are two types of -te iru progressives that involve different structures. One type has a biclausal locative structure in which iru is the existential main verb selecting the subject and a PP headed by a null postposition; the PP contains a nominalized clause whose subject is controlled by the matrix subject. The other type is built on a monoclausal structure in which iru occurs as an aspectual functional head; -te iru progressives with inanimate subjects can only be constructed on this structure because iru as the main verb cannot select those subjects. It is argued that this analysis provides a natural account of the fact that animate subjects of -te iru progressives behave like an internal argument with respect to the interpretation of a quantificational adverb regardless of the kind of the verb with -te, while inanimate subjects do not have the characteristic. Moreover, it is suggested that the dichotomy of the structure of -te iru progressives argued for here is parallel to the one proposed for progressives in Basque in a previous study, which also indicates that the monoclausal progressive is derived from the biclausal one due to grammaticalization.</p>

On the Locative Structure of <i>-te iru</i> Progressives in Japanese

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