The conceptual basis of grammar: A cognitive approach to Japanese clausal structure

This dissertation examines the clausal structure of Japanese within the framework of cognitive grammar and aims to accomplish three goals. One is to elucidate the varied ways the Japanese language conceptualizes an event involving two entities. While the nominative-accusative pattern codes a direct interrelation between two entities, the dative-nominative and double-nominative patterns code a layered interrelation, where one entity is construed as standing in a relation, forming a higher-order entity, and another entity as standing in another relation with this higher-order entity. The topic construction codes a layered interrelation at a much higher level of processing, called a sequential reference-point construction, in which two entities are mentally accessed and processed in two distinct steps.; Another goal is to propose that the notion of subject be defined at two different levels. A certain type of dative-nominative sentences is shown to exhibit split subjecthood: the dative nominal functions exclusively as clause-level subject, and the nominative nominal solely as predicate-level subject.; The last goal is to argue for the conceptual basis of case marking. Against the commonly-held position that case markers are semantically-empty grammatical morphemes employed only to indicate different syntactic structures, constructions with distinct case marking patterns are proven to be associated with unique schematic semantic contents, and case markers themselves as well with semantic contents, albeit highly schematic ones. Therefore, the conceptual basis of syntax is argued for, against the autonomy thesis.; The organization of this dissertation is as follows. Chapter I presents a brief introduction to cognitive grammar and an overview of the dissertation. Chapter II examines subjecthood tests. Chapter III analyzes the nominative-accusative construction, and Chapter IV the dative- nominative construction. Chapters V and VI examine the double-nominative construction, with the former focusing on bi-clausal double-nominative sentences and the latter on mono-clausal ones. Lastly, Chapter VII analyzes the topic construction. Appendix A presents an analysis of the semantic content of the nominative marker ga itself, and Appendix B summaries of all major constructions examined in Chapters IV, V, and VI.