The pro-head analysis of the Japanese internally-headed relative clause

Abstract

The objective of this paper is two-fold. One is to advance the view (call it the pro-head analysis) that the so-called internally-headed relative clause (IHRC) in Japanese is a nonrestrictive relative clause whose external head position is occupied by pro functioning as an E-type pronoun. It demonstrates that this view provides a natural framework in terms of which sundry and significant phenomena associated with Japanese IHRCs can be accounted for, including their characteristic properties contrasting with the corresponding change relatives and the doubly-headed relatives. The pro-head analysis contradicts a currently popular claim propagated by a series of papers that rely on null operator movement leading to the thesis that: (i) Japanese IHRCs may exhibit a “change sub-variety” (i.e., “Change IHRC”) that is not reducible to gapless externally light-headed relatives; (ii) Japanese IHRCs are strictly island-sensitive; and (iii) they disallow definite referential semantic heads. The other objective of this paper, therefore, is to present this long overdue challenge by arguing that their claims (i) ~ (iii) are not empirically sustainable, although their claim (iii) presents some difficult issues that defy clear-cut treatment as yet.