Publications [#355515] of Yunchuan Chen

Papers Published

1. Chen, Y, Anaphor reconstruction in Japanese relative clauses, Language and Linguistics. 語言暨語言學, vol. 22 no. 2 (March, 2021), pp. 243-271, John Benjamins Publishing Company [doi] .
   (last updated on 2026/01/15)

   Abstract:
   AbstractThis study conducted two experiments to examine the derivation of the head noun phrase in Japanese relative clauses, with a focus on whether the anaphorsjibun‘self’ andjibun-jishin‘self-self’ within the head noun phrase can be co-referential with the relative clause subject. It aims to settle a long-standing debate among the previous studies concerning the interpretation of the anaphors inside the head noun phrase: while several studies claimed that the co-reference between the anaphorjibun‘self’ and the relative clause subject is prohibited, many other studies argued that such co-reference is possible. In addition, it has been claimed that while co-indexing the anaphorjibunwith the relative clause subject might be marginally acceptable, it would become fully acceptable if we replacejibunwith the morphologically complex anaphorjibun-jishin‘self-self’, which implies that the morphological make-up of an anaphor may affect its ability to be co-indexed with the relative clause subject.The results of two carefully controlled truth value judgment experiments show that neither the simplex anaphorjibunnor the complex anaphorjibun-jishinwithin the head noun phrase of relative clauses can take the relative clause subject as its antecedent, which suggests that the head noun phrase does not reconstruct and therefore lends support to thepro-binding analysis of Japanese relative clauses. Moreover, the findings also suggest that the morphological make-up of an anaphor does not affect its ability to take the relative clause subject as its antecedent, despite the claim that it is more acceptable to co-index the complex anaphorjibun-jishinwith the relative clause subject than the simplex anaphorjibun.