The Axial Part Phrase in Japanese

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the categorial status of spatial terms in locative/directional expressions in Japanese. I will show that a certain class of spatial terms have a distinct categorial status from both regular postpositions and nouns. On one hand, syntactic diagnostics such as doubling, coordination by to, and co-occurrence with demonstratives indicate that these spatial terms belong to a nominal category rather than to a postpositional category. On the other hand, the fact that these spatial terms are modified by range modifiers indicates that they are more similar to regular postpositions than to nouns. On the basis of these diagnostics, I will argue that spatial terms in Japanese need to be assigned a new category Axial Part Phrase which is proposed by Svenonius 2006.