A Small Clause Difference between English and Japanese

松岡 幹就 (山梨大学)

   This paper argues that verbs like omou ‘think’ and suru ‘make’ in Japanese cannot select a small clause (SC) complement, unlike such verbs as consider and make in English. There are some pieces of evidence that the Japanese verbs project a complex predicate construction with a secondary predicate in a mono-clausal structure. Furthermore, it is observed that the construction cannot be built on bare NP predicates, unlike SC complements in English. The same categorial restriction is found in the resultative construction with transitive verbs in English. This paper claims that the restriction is attributed to a structural property of the two constructions. Moreover, this study provides an account of why Japanese, unlike English, does not have resultatives with unergative verbs.