On Middle Construction in Japanese

This study uncovers Japanese middle constructions based on the approach of “distributed morphology”. The findings reveal that adjunct is obligatory in Japanese middles. Two types of grammatical elements contribute to the adjunct: suffix and adverbs. The suffix yasui corresponds to English “able”. The case of the subject must be nominative, i.e., が. Once verbs are attached by the suffix yasui, their part of speech transits from verb into adjective. The new lexicon predicates an inherent property of the subject. Regarding middles with adjuncts rendered by adverbs, two subtypes are confirmed: the na-adjective formed adverb 簡単に kantan ni, and the i-adjective formed adverb よく yoku. The former is produced by the na-adjective 簡単 with the copular に. The latter is formed by the i-adjective よい with the predicate く ku. The mechanisms of the constructions rendered by the two are similar. Furthermore, unlike English middles, where non change-of-state verbs are ruled out, there is no distinct lexical category of middle verb Japanese. Rather, six groups of verbs are compatible: (a) motion verbs; (b) change-of-state verbs; (c) action verbs; (d) perception verbs; (e) stative verbs; and (f) accomplishment verbs. Crucially, such generosity does not result from the adjuncts. It is the “potential form” of verbs that enables psychological and perception verbs to be licensed in Japanese middles.


Introduction
Constructions where the verb is active in form but passive in meaning are alleged to be "middle constructions" (1a).Constructions that indicate a spontaneous event, without specifying the agentivity, are "ergative constructions" (1b).Constructions, whose syntactic external argument is not a semantic agent, are deemed "unaccusative constructions" (1c).
(2) LCS of middle construction The door opens tran.easily.
x The window broke.
x CONTROL [ y BECOME [ y BE AT-z (Note 2) ] ] (x = y) Middle construction is a unique phenomenon of the English language.Generally, it is known to bear the following characteristics.
(I) Middle construction is derived from its transitive counterpart; the subject is the original PATIENT of the verb.The original AGENT is not realised overtly, as exemplified by ( 5): ( (III) Middles predicate an inherent property of the subject referent, as in ( 7): (7) a.The car drives smoothly (because it is new).
b. *The car drives smoothly (because the driver is me).
The third feature leads to three restrictions: (a) Middles do not construe the designated situation (8a); (b) Middles are incompatible with the progressive (8b); and (c) Psychological verbs and perception verbs in Germanic languages (Fagan, 1988;Hale & Keyser 1987) are unlikely to denote a middle construction (9).Intralinguistic variations exist even within the same language family.In German, middles appear in the form of a reflexive, and are thus morphologically distinguished from their transitive counterparts.See, for example, ( 10 The door open itself easily.

These clothes wash themselves well
"These clothes wash well." Cross-linguistic diversities are also observed.In Romance languages, the form of a reflexive seems obligatory to middles, and the agent are syntactically expressed.( 13) provides an illustration: (13) French middles a. Les gens lisent facilement les histoires de détectives.
Turn to Altaic languages.Intriguingly, psychological verbs and perception verbs are well accepted by Japanese middles ( 14).This comes to significantly differ from middles of Germanic-language.
( In Japanese middles, two issues in particular are worthy of discussion.First, the adjunct is obligatory.There are two grammatical items that may render a modifier: (i) the suffix やすい yasui (easily), for example (14a); and (ii) the adverb, e.g., よく yoku (well, better, best), as in (14b).Two questions therefore arise: (I) What role do the suffix and the adverb play in middles?Are they responsible for the well-formed middles by psychological and perception verbs?
(II) Do middles denoted by suffix and adverb display different mechanisms?
This paper is organised as follows.Section 2 introduces the "distributed morphology" approach, particularly shedding light on the Single Engine Hypothesis and the Root Hypothesis.Section 3 delves into middles conveyed by suffixes.Section 4 turns to middles conveyed by adverbs.The discussion falls into two parts.Section 4.1 focuses on middles with adjuncts conveyed by adverbs formed by the na-adjective; Section 4.2 turns to middles with adjuncts conveyed by adverbs formed by the i-adjective.Section 5 highlights the results and concludes the paper.
The data was extracted using the Balanced Corpus of Modern Written Japanese, compiled by the National Institute for the Japanese Language and Linguistics (2011).

The Single Engine Hypothesis
The formation (forming a new lexicon by combining two constituents) is a completely syntactic manipulation.

The Root Hypothesis
The syntactic categories (V, N, A) are not predetermined, but are determined by an unspecified "√ root" plus syntactic environment.Marantz (2001, pp. 6-7) demonstrates two places for building words.One is in the domain of a root, attaching a morpheme to the root before attaching a functional head that determines the syntactic category of the word (N, V, Adj).The second place is outside the domain of functional head that determines the syntactic category.
The following sections investigate Japanese middles, posing three questions: (a) Why are psychological verbs and perception verbs licensed in middles?(b) Do middles rendered by suffixes and adverbs display syntactic distinctions?and (c) What kinds of verbs are licensed in middles or ergatives in terms of the Japanese language?

Middle Constructions Rendered by Suffixes
As touched on in Section 1, the suffix やすい yasui (denoting the ease of doing somthing) is employed in middles.Illustrations are given in ( 15)-( 16).
( The data has brought us to the point that there is no distinct lexical category of verbs with respect to middles in Japanese.Verbs of achievement perhaps are the only type ruled out by Japanese middles.Six groups of verbs seem capable of rendering a middle construction: Verb types that contribute to middles and their properties are summarised in Table 1.

Middle Constructions Conveyed by Adverb
This section delves into middles with an adjunct conveyed by an adverb.Adverbs that modify Japanese middles include 簡単に kantan ni (easy + copular), and よくyoku (better, best, well).The two adverbs are in fact produced from two types of adjectives, i.e., na-adjective (簡単) and i-adjective (よい).The predicate of the na-adjective is the copular に ni, i.e., kantan → kantan ni.The predicate of the i-adjective is く ku, i.e., yoi → yoku.(Note 6) With this in place, the following discussions will be divided into two parts: (a) middles with adjuncts conveyed by adverbs formed by the na-adjective, and (b) middles with adjuncts conveyed by adverbs formed by the i-adjective.

Middles with Adjuncts Conveyed by Adverbs Formed by the Na-adjective
To begin with, the following illustrations are drawn from the corpus, where the adjuncts are conveyed by the na-adjective with a copular ni. (

Kami no ke yara gomi yara ga kantan ni torinozokeru
Hair or rubbish or NOM easy COP clear-remove-POT "Hair or rubbish can easily be removed." (KOTONOHA) Note that the middle construction ( 19) is composed by a compound verb, 取り除く, in the potential form, 取り 除ける.The first event, conveyed by V1 取る toru "take", denotes the manner of the action.The second event denotes the result, and is rendered by V2, 除ける nozokeru "remove".
Incorporating "distributed morphology", the composition of middle construction (19) can be described as follows: ( yoku.pular some tiny differences, the mechanism of middle constructions rendered by the two types of adverbs are quite similar.This allows us to deduce that the acceptance of psychological and perception verbs in Japanese middles does not lie in the adjuncts.On the contrary, it is the potential form of verbs that licenses psychological and perception verbs in Japanese middles.

Conclusion
This study has uncovered Japanese middle constructions based on the approach of "distributed morphology", conveying two ways of modifying a middle construction: (a) middles modified by the suffix やすい yasui (easy to do something), and (b) middles with an adjunct conveyed by the adverbs 簡単に kantan ni (easy + copular) and よく yoku (better, best, well).The findings are summarised below.accomplishment verbs.This generosity does not result from the adjuncts (suffix yasui and adverb kantan ni; yoku), but it is rather the "potential form" of verbs that enables psychological and perception verbs to be licensed in Japanese middles.Potential form is a uniqueness of the Japanese language, and now it has contributed to the uniqueness of Japanese middles (in other words, psychological and perception verbs are possible to be rendered as middles).
(II) An adjunct is obligatory in Japanese middles.Two types of grammatical elements convey the adjunct: suffixes and adverbs.The suffix yasui corresponds to the English "able".For this reason, the case of the subject must be nominative, i.e., が.Crucially, once verbs are attached by the suffix yasui, their part of speech transits from a verb into an adjective (e.g., 書く →書きやすい).The new lexicon predicates an inherent property of the subject, denoting a semantic meaning of "easy to do something".Thus, the focus of the expression alters from action (transitive sentence) to the inherent property of the subject (middle construction).Regarding adverbs in middles, two subtypes exist: the na-adjective formed adverb and the i-adjective formed adverb.簡単に kantan ni is produced by the na-adjective 簡単 with the copular に. よく yoku is formed by the i-adjective よい with the predicate く ku.Essentially, the mechanisms of construction rendered by these two types of adverbs are similar.
This paper has focused on middle constructions.The Japanese language is further featured with the extensive pairs of transitive (vt) / intransitive verbs (vi).Three ways of deriving a vt or a vi exist: (a) Derived from the same adjective stem; (b) Adding a morpheme that indicates vt or vi properties to a stem; and (c) Verbalising a loanword or a Japanese-originated lexicon.
Ergative constructions by wago and kango are exemplified by ( 29) and ( 30).With this in mind, a further study on Japanese ergative constructions from a "distributed morphology" approach seem necessary, tackling the category of lexicons that are compatible with ergatives as well as the distinctions between ergatives and middles in more depth.

(
I) Unlike English middles, which only permit change-of-state verbs, there is no distinct lexical category of middle verbs with respect to middles in Japanese.A large variety of verbs seem compatible with middles: (a) motion verbs; (b) change-of-state verbs; (c) action verbs; (d) perception verbs; (e) stative verbs; and (f)

"
The morning glory rolled up the tendril." dislike CONC aware-do-easily.SUFF "The waist turns voluminous, though it does not feel comfortable, it is likely for us to be aware of it." (15) implies the meaning, i.e. kana is simple, everyone can write (characters are difficult, not all the nation can write).(16)ウエストが タプタプしてくる から 嫌 でも 自覚しやすい.NOM voluminous do-come.CONJ

Table 1 .
Verbs of middles regarding the suffix "yasui" attachment

Table 2 .
Middles with adjuncts conveyed by the suffix yasui