Nominative-marked phrases in Japanese tough constructions

Abstract

In this paper we conduct a detailed examination of the tough construction in Japanese with the main focus on some types of nominative case particles "ga". They are correlated with the difference not only in the nominative-genitive case alternation but also in the semantic or pragmatic interpretation. Based on these data, we discuss the categories of the nominative case particles and derivations for tough predicates within the framework of Combinatory Categorial Grammar.