A movement approach to “gapless” constructions in Japanese

Abstract This paper discusses “gapless” topic constructions and relative clauses in Japanese, a discourse-oriented language according to the discourse-oriented vs. sentence-oriented parameter ( Huang 1982 , 1984 ; Huang and Li 1996 ). It has been claimed by, among others, Inoue (1976) , Kuno (1973) , and Saito (1985) that Japanese “gapless” topic constructions and relative clauses are derived by base-generation. Evidence in favor of a base-generation analysis comes from the observation that there does not exist any derivational source of “gapless” topic constructions and relative clauses. Contrary to this widely accepted view, this paper argues that Japanese “gapless” topic constructions and relative clauses are derived in terms of movement enforced by labeling. It is shown that our movement analysis is supported by island constraints, reconstruction, and parasitic gap facts. If our analysis is on the right track, it gives further support for Free Merge coupled with a labeling algorithm approach ( Chomsky 2013 ; 2015 ; 2021 ).