Secondary predicates

Abstract

One problem in linguistic theory concerns the way in which a predication relation between a predicate and its subject (antecedent) is formally licensed by the grammar. The aims of this paper are: (i) to describe in detail the syntactic relationships between secondary predicates and their subjects (antecedents) in Japanese, a language that has not been previously studied from this point of view, and (ii) to propose, based on empirical evidence from Japanese, a new UG principle that governs predication relations in natural languages. © 1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.