Presuppositional Effects of Scrambling Reconsidered*

February 2001
To appear in the proceedings of the COE International Symposium,
Kanda University of International Studies
Presuppositional Effects of Scrambling Reconsidered*
1. Introduction
Yasuo Ishii
Kanda University of International Studies
This paper reconsiders the presuppositional effect of scrambling in Japanese which I
discussed in Ishii 1997. Contrary to my earlier proposal, I will explore the possibility
that scrambling in Japanese is a semantically vacuous operation in the sense of Saito
(1989, 1992), and that seemingly semantic effects caused by scrambling are rather
pragmatic in nature and come from conditions at the PF interface.
In Section 2, I will briefly review two major approaches to the presuppositional
effects of object-scrambling in Dutch and German: “syntactic encoding” proposed by De
Hoop (1992) and Diesing (1992) and an “interface approach” pursued in Reinhart 1995,
1997 and Neeleman and Reinhart 1998. The latter approach will lead us to the
discussion of the interaction between scrambling and focus in Japanese in Section 3.
In particular, I will consider the nature of the position that immediately precedes the
verb in this language and its relevance to scrambling. In Section 4, I will turn to the
apparently presuppositional effect of scrambling discussed in Ishii 1997 and propose an
analysis based on the idea that the source of the effect lies in the interface rather than
syntax. Section 5 summarizes the paper.
2. Presuppositional Effects of Object-Scrambling in Dutch
It has been observed by De Hoop (1992) that there are definiteness effects associated
with object-scrambling in Dutch, as illustrated in (1)-(3). As (1) shows, bare plurals
with an existential reading cannot occur in the scrambled position, whereas definite NPs
can occur in the scrambled position as well as in the unscrambled position as shown in
* I am indebted to many people for comments and discussion on earlier versions, some of which are
radically different from the one presented here. I am especially grateful to Noriko Kawasaki, Kazuki
Kuwabara, Tanya Reinhart, and Tim Stowell for fruitful discussion and helpful comments. I presented
the material at Sophia University on October 21, 2000 and at the COE International Symposium held at
Kanda University of International Studies on December 10, 2000. I would like to thank the audiences
for comments and discussion, in particular, Jun Abe, Minoru Amanuma, Kazuaki Ezure, Yoshiyuki
Igarashi, Masayuki Ike-uchi, Noriko Imanishi, Masaru Kajita, Yasuhiko Kato, Tsuguro Nakamura,
Hiroaki Tada, and Takao Yagi. When I was preparing the version presented at the COE Internatoinal
Symposium, I learned about Sinichiro Ishihara’s work on a very similar topic. Special thanks are due to
him for letting me read his paper (Ishihara 2000), from which I benefited greatly in completing the version
presented here. The research reported here has been supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for COE
Research 08CE1001 (Principal Investigator: Kazuko Inoue) from the Japanese Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
1

(2). If bare plurals have a generic reading, they can occur in the scrambled position as
shown in (1’).
(1) Bare Plurals:
a. dat de politie gisteren taalkundigen opgepakt heeft
that the police yesterday linguists arrested has
b. *dat de politie taalkundigen gisteren opgepakt heeft
that the police linguists yesterday arrested has
‘that the police arrested linguists yesterday’
(De Hoop 1992[1996]:145)
(1’) dat de politie taalkundigen altijd opgepakt heeft
that the police linguists always arrested has
‘that the police always arrested linguists’
(De Hoop 1992 [1996]:146)
(2) Definite NPs:
a. dat de politie gisteren de taalkundigen opgepakt heeft
that the police yesterday the linguists arrested has
b. dat de politie de taalkundigen gisteren opgepakt heeft
that the police the linguists yesterday arrested has
‘that the police arrested the linguists yesterday’
(De Hoop 1992[1996]:145-146)
Turning to cardinal NPs, De Hoop observes that they have either an existential reading
or a partitive reading when they are in the unscrambled position, but when they are
scrambled, they can only have a partitive reading, as illustrated in the contrast between
(3a) and (3b).
(3) Cardinal NPs:
a. dat de polite gisteren veel taalkundigen opgepakt heeft
that the police yesterday many linguists arrested has
‘that the police arrested many linguists yesterday’ (existential reading)
‘that the police arrested many of the linguists yesterday’ (partitive reading)
b. dat de polite veel taalkundigen gisteren opgepakt heeft
that the police many linguists yesterday arrested has
‘that the police arrested many of the linguists yesterday’ (partitive reading)
(De Hoop 1992[1996]:146)
Similar observations are made in Diesing (1992) for German scrambling.
De Hoop (1992) and Diesing (1992) have each given a syntactic analysis to this
apparently semantic effect of object-scrambling in Dutch and German, respectively.
Although their analyses are rather different from each other in the details, they both
argue that semantic properties such as specificity, genericity, and partitivity are encoded
syntactically: weak and strong Cases in the case of De Hoop, who bases her analysis on
2

the generalization given in (4), and VP-internal and VP-external positions in the case of
Diesing, who appeals to the Mapping Hypothesis given in (5). 1
(4) De Hoop’s generalization
Only strong NPs can ‘scramble’. (Reinhart 1997:149)
(5) Mapping Hypothesis
Material from VP is mapped into the nuclear scope.
Material from IP is mapped into a restrictive clause. (Diesing 1992:10)
Reinhart (1995, 1997) proposes a completely different analysis of the phenomena in
question, which can be characterized as an “interface approach.” 2 Concentrating on
the distribution of definite NPs, Reinhart first notes that the scrambled structure is
preferred when two verbs are contrasted and thus need to be focused as in (6), whereas
the opposite is true when two object NPs are contrasted and thus need to be focused as
in (7).
(6) a. * Ik heb gisteren het boek gelezen en niet verscheurd.
I have yesterday the book read and not torn up
b. Ik heb het boek gisteren gelezen en niet verscheurd.
I have the book yesterday read and not torn up
(Reinhart 1997:149)
(7) a. Ik heb nog niet de krant gelezen, maar ik heb al wel
I have not yet the paper read but I have already
het boek gelezen.
the book read
b. * Ik heb de krant nog niet gelezen, maar ik heb het boek
I have the paper not yet read, but I have the book
al wel gelezen.
already read
(Reinhart 1997:149)
Scrambling makes the sentence less acceptable when the verb cannot bear focus as in
(8).
(8) a. omdat ik altijd een kat heb
because I always a cat have
1 I will not discuss the details of their analysis in this paper. See De Hoop 1992 and Diesing 1992. See
also Ishii 1997 for an analysis of Japanese along these lines.
2 The analysis is further developed in Neeleman and Reinhart 1998, where they argue for a
non-movement analysis of scrambling, but their analysis of focus, on which the present paper is based, is
independent of their particular analysis of scrambling. I am assuming a movement analysis of
scrambling here.
3

. * omdat ik een kat altijd heb
because I a cat always have
c. dat ik altijd de bus neem
that I always the bus take
d. * dat ik de bus altijd neem
that I the bus always take
(Reinhart 1997:161; (8b): De Hoop 1992[1996]:170)
Reinhart argues that one does not need to appeal to any syntactic machinery as De Hoop
and Diesing do, once the phenomena are reanalyzed on the lines of a descriptive
generalization pointed out by De Hoop, namely that scrambling of the object NP in
Dutch has the same semantic effect as placing a contrastive stress on the verb in English.
For example, the Dutch sentence in (9) with the scrambled object corresponds to the
English sentence in (10b) with the main stress on the verb arrested. The unscrambled
counterpart corresponds to (10a).
(9) dat de politie een kraker gisteren opgepakt heeft
that the police a squatter yesterday arrested has
(10) a. The police arrested a squatter yesterday.
b. The police arrested a squatter yesterday.
((9)-(10): Reinhart 1997:150)
The correspondence between Dutch and English can be confirmed by the parallel
behaviors of the Dutch sentences in (6)-(8) and their English counterparts in (11)-(13),
where # indicates that the sentence is awkward.
(11) I have read the book yesterday, and did not tear it up.
(12) #I have not yet read the paper, but I have already read the book.
(13) #because I always have a cat
((11)-(13): Reinharat 1997:150)
Reinhart argues that the above generalization follows from the fact in (14).
(14) [I]n the unscrambled version, main sentence stress falls on the object, while in the
scrambled version it falls on the verb. (Reinhart 1997:151)
On the basis of Cinque’s (1993) theory of sentence stress, Reinhart derives the
generalization in (14) in the following way. 3 As given in (15), the nuclear stress rule
assigns main stress on the most deeply embedded constituent. 4
3 Cinque 1993 and Reinhart 1995, 1997 are based on the view that focus is a property defined on PF
structures, as in Chomsky 1971. This is in contrast with the widely accepted view originally proposed in
Chomsky 1977 that focus is an LF property. See also Zubizarreta 1998.
4 Some details are omitted here. In the structure where the object and the verb are sisters, they would be
equally deeply embedded. In this case, the depth of embedding is determined by the direction of
4

(15) Main stress assigned by the nuclear stress rule falls on the most deeply embedded
constituent. (Neeleman and Reinhart 1998:341)
In the unscrambled structure as in (16a), the object receives the main sentence stress
since it is the most deeply embedded constituent. Now, the important generalization
made by Cinque is that the focus of IP is any constituent containing the main stress of IP.
The set of those constituents containing the main stress of IP is called the “focus set” of
that IP. The definition of “focus set” is given in (17a) with an illustration in (17b),
where the most deeply embedded constituent is bold-faced. Notice that the same focus
set is obtained whether it is an SVO language or an SOV language.
(16) a. 2 b. 2
Adv 2 O 2
O V Adv 2
* t V
*
(Reinhart 1997:147)
(17) a. Focus set
The focus set of a derivation D comprises all and only subtrees (constituents)
which contain the main stress of D.
b. [IP S [VP V O ]] / [IP S [VP O V ]] Focus set: {IP, VP, O}
(Reinhart 1997:157)
In (16a), the object is included in the focus set, but the head verb is not. When the
object is scrambled over the adverb as in (16b), the most deeply embedded constituent
will be the verb. Thus, the head verb will now be in the focus set.
The main stress of the English sentence in (18) falls on desk. The focus set of this
sentence has IP, VP, and NP as its members, and this sentence can be used in contexts
like (19a,b,c), respectively. (The underline indicates the focus required in each case.)
(18) [My neighbor [ is building [ a desk ] ] ]
* * *
a. NP cycle: [ * ]
b. VP cycle: [ * ]
c. IP cycle: [ * ]
(19) a. (What’s this noise?)
- My neighbor is building a desk.
b. (What’s your neighbor doing?)
- My neighbor is building a desk.
(Reinhart 1997:155)
recursion. Given two sisters, the most deeply embedded one is on the recursive side of the tree. See
Cinque 1993 for the further details of the “depth of embedding.” See also Ishihara 2000 for an
interesting reformulation of the notion.
5

c (What’s your neighbor building?)
- My neighbor is building a desk.
(Reinhart 1997:155)
Scrambling of the object NP in Dutch shifts the main stress to the verb. This is
because the scrambled object is not the most deeply embedded and therefore is
destressed in the sense that it does not bear the main stress. By (20), the structure in
which the object is scrambled is usable if and only if the scrambled object is
presuppositional in the sense that it is D-linked to an accessible discourse entity.
(20) A DP is destressed if and only if it is D-linked to an accessible discourse entity.
(Neeleman and Reinhart 1998:338)
The lack of stress on the scrambled object is now analyzed as the source of the
presuppositional effect of scrambling.
For cases like (21) and (22), in which the stress falls on a position not expected by
the nuclear stress rule, Reinhart proposes the rule in (23).
(21) (Has your neighbor bought a desk already?)
a. # - My neighbor is building a desk.
b. - My neighbor is building a desk.
(22) (Who is building a desk?)
a. # - My neighbor is building a desk.
b. - My neighbor is building a desk.
(Reinhart 1997:157)
(Reinhart 1997:157)
(23) Stress shift
Relocate the main stress on a constituent you want to focus. (Reinhart 1997:157)
Reinhart further argues that stress shift in fact involves two distinct operations. One is
destressing, whereby the object is destressed resulting in the prominent stress on the
verb. The operation is subject to (20) above, and is allowed only when destressing by
scrambling is unavailable (as it is in English). The other operation of stress shift is
stress strengthening, whereby an extra stress is assigned to the verb without destressing
of the object. 5 It is governed by the following economy condition. 6
5 Stress shift obtained by strengthening of the verb retains a secondary stress on the object. The effect
should be distinguished from that obtained by scrambling, where the object is essentially destressed and
hence must be D-linked. This can be seen with “light” indefinites, as illustrated below.
(i) a. Have you eaten anything already?
b. Heb je al iets gegeten
have you already anything eaten
c. *Heb je iets al gegeten?
have you anything already eaten
(Reinhart 1997:163)
6

(24) Economy entails that stress strengthening applies only to derive foci not already in
the focus set. (Neeleman and Reinhart 1998:340)
The condition explains why focus obtained by stress strengthening cannot project. To
see this, consider (21b) and (22b) again. These sentences cannot be used as an answer
to either of the questions in (25) and (26) below. (The underline indicates the focus
required in the given context. (25) requires a VP focus and (26) an IP focus.)
(25) What’s your neighbor doing these days?
a. - My neighbor is building a desk.
b. # - My neighbor is building a desk. (=(21b))
(26) What’s this noise?
a. - My neighbor is building a desk.
b. # - My neighbor is building a desk. (=(21b))
c. # - My neighbor is building a desk. (=(22b))
(Reinhart 1999)
(Reinhart 1999)
This indicates that the focus obtained by shifted stress does not “project.” This is in
contrast with the observation above that stress obtained by the nuclear stress rule allows
any projection containing it to serve as focus. This follows from the economy
condition given in (24). The shifted stress is allowed only when it is needed to derive
foci that are not in the focus set consisting of projections containing the unmarked stress
obtained by the nuclear stress rule. As shown above, (25b) and (26b,c) are not allowed
because the VP focus and the IP focus are available in the focus set of the sentence in
(18). As we will see shortly, this view of the stress-shifting operation plays a crucial
role in the analysis of scrambling and its interaction with focus in Japanese as well.
3. Scrambling in Japanese and Its Interaction with Focus
Let us now turn to Japanese scrambling. Tada (1993) observes that scrambling in
Japanese has three subclasses with distinct A/A’ properties, as summarized in (28).
The three kinds of scrambling are called S(hort)-scrambling, M(iddle)-scrambling, and
The “light” indefinites anything and iets in (ia,b) cannot be fully destressed because they are not
anaphoric. To have the main stress on the verb, stress strengthening should be the only option here. If
the object is scrambled, it should be fully destressed, and hence must be interpreted as D-linked, but this is
impossible with “light” indefinites. This accounts for the ill-formedness of the scrambled counterpart in
(ic).
6 Notice that this assumes a relative concept of well-formedness and requires a global computation.
Reinhart 1999 refers to this type of economy condition as “reference-set economy.” This is also called
“interface economy” in Reinhart 1995, 1997 in that a marked derivation becomes the optimal option if it
is the only way to satisfy an interface need. See also Chomsky 1995 on the role of economy in human
language.
7

However, a difference is found between Dutch and Japanese when we turn to
scrambled structures. While scrambling of the object NP in Dutch results in shifting of
the focus to the verb, scrambling of the object NP in Japanese does not.
(31) a. Taroo-ga sono hon-o katta.
Taro-NOM that book-ACC bought
‘Taro bought that book.’
b. Sono hon-oi Taroo-ga ti katta.
that book-ACC Taro-NOM bought
(32) a. Taroo-ga Hanako-ni sono hon-o ageta.
Taro-NOM Hanako-to that book-ACC gave
‘Taro gave Hanako that book.’
b. Taroo-ga sono hon-oi Hanako-ni ti ageta.
Taro-NOM that book-ACC Hanako-to gave
In (31b) and (32b), the object NP is moved by M-scrambling and S-scrambling,
respectively. Unlike in Dutch, the focus does not shift to the verb but to the constituent
that has come to the position immediately preceding the verb as a result of the
scrambling.
Ishihara (2000) attributes this difference between Dutch and Japanese to the
presence of overt verb movement in Japanese. 9 If, as argued in Koizumi 1995, the
verb moves out of VP (or vP) in overt syntax, then the verb can never be the most
deeply embedded constituent, whether scrambling applies or not. When the phrase that
immediately precedes the verb is scrambled, the next immediately preceding phrase is
the most deeply embedded and therefore is assigned the main stress. This is shown in
the diagrams in (33), where the location of the main stress is marked by an asterisk, and
in the sentences in (34), where the word that bears the nuclear stress is in boldface. 10
“stress” may not be an appropriate term. See Selkirk and Tateishi 1991 and references cited there for
details. Whatever the actual phonetic realization may be (and whether or not it can always be perceived
clearly), the point is that the most deeply embedded constituent plays a crucial role in determining the
focus set of a derivation in Japanese as well.
9
The existence of overt verb raising in Japanese is still an unsettled issue. See Aoyagi 1998, Sakai 1998,
and Takano 1999, among others, for arguments against overt verb raising proposed in Koizumi 1995.
For an analysis of scrambling in Japanese that crucially relies on overt verb raising to T, see Miyagawa, in
press. In this paper, I adopt Ishihara’s proposal based on overt verb raising. However, I believe the
present analysis holds in its essentials even if the verb is raised to T in PF in Japanese, provided that the
nuclear stress rule applies after PF verb raising. This is a departure from Cinque’s null theory but not an
unnatural assumption. Importantly, I adopt the view that focus is not directly encoded in the core
computation (CHL) but is an “interface” phenomenon. See Horvath 2000 for a good overview of the
status of focus in generative grammar.
10
If the verb alone needs to be focused, a marked stress shift rule applies as in (i). This may be the
Japanese counterpart of (23).
(i) a. ?? Taroo-ga hon-o kaIMAsita.
Taro-NOM book-ACC bought
‘Taro BOUGHT a book (rather than borrowing it).’
9

. Taroo-ga hon-oi Hanako-ni ti ageta (koto)
Taro-NOM book-ACC Hanako-to gave fact
‘Taro gave a book to Hanako.’
For instance, (35a) can be an answer to (36a,b), and (35b) can be an answer to (36c). 11
(35) a. Taroo-wa Hanako-ni hon-o agemasita.
Taro-TOP Hanako-to book-ACC gave
‘Taro gave Hanako a book.’
b. Taroo-ga Hanako-ni hon-o agemasita.
Taro-NOM Hanako-to book-ACC gave
‘Taro gave Hanako a book.’
(36) a. Taroo-wa Hanako-ni nani-o agemasita ka?
Taro-TOP Hanako-to what-ACC gave Q
‘What did Taro gave to Hanako?’
b. Taroo-wa nani-o simasita ka?
Taro-TOP what-ACC did Q
‘What did Taro do?’
c. Sono toki nani-ga okorimasita ka?
that time what-NOM happened Q
‘What happened then?’
(36a) requires the object NP to be the focus of its answer, whereas (36b) requires VP to
be the focus. On the assumption that the nominative subject NP in Japanese can be
either in [Spec, TP] or in [Spec, vP], and that the topic phrase is located outside the TP
domain, the schematic structure for (35a,b) will be (37), where the verb V raises through
v to T, as argued in Ishihara 2000 and Miyagawa, in press. Then, the focus set of
(35a,b) will be (38). 12 Whether there is any focus that contains the verb but excludes
the subject depends on the location of the subject NP. What looks like VP focus is T’
focus with the subject in [Spec, TP]. 13 If the subject NP bears a topic marker, then it
will be outside the TP domain and cannot be included in any of the foci in the focus
set. 14
11
Due to the nature of Japanese as a topic-oriented language, the subject NP must be marked as a topic in
questions like (36a,b), and accordingly (35b) cannot be a natural answer to these questions.
12
There is no essential difference between vP and v’ in this focus set as far as foci are concerned because
the v head does not contain any lexical content.
13
Ishihara 2000 pursues a different view. He claims that focus interpretation is calculated at LF, and
that even if the verb raises to a higher position in overt syntax, it obligatorily reconstructs at LF, thereby
the head V is included in the VP in the focus set. This is clearly a departure from Reinhart’s view that
focus is essentially a PF phenomenon (outside the core computation). The present paper does not depart
from this basic assumption.
14
With the structure given in (37), there would be no focus containing the raised verb and DO but
excluding IO, potentially a problem. One possible solution is to adjoin the indirect object to T’ or TP by
scrambling, but I will leave the issue for future research.
11

(24) Economy entails that stress strengthening applies only to derive foci not already in
the focus set. (Neeleman and Reinhart 1998:340)
Notice that the “VP focus” required by the question in (41) is available in the focus set
of the derivation of (35a). Thus, the stress strengthening need not and must not
apply. 15
There is one important property with those cases in which a constituent other than
the most deeply embedded constituent bears stress: the verb is always included in the
presupposition. This property automatically follows from the present account. In
Japanese, the stress never falls on the verb alone (except for the marked stress
assignment mentioned in footnote 10). The verb can be included in focus only when
the entire constituent containing the verb is in the focus set. This “broad” focus is only
possible when the stress is assigned by the nuclear stress rule, and not by stress
strengthening because the stress assigned by stress strengthening does not project. In
the latter case, only the constituent that bears the shifted stress can be the focus with all
the others being excluded from the focus. 16
There is one more fact to be considered. As the contrast between (42a) and (42b)
shows, there are cases where the position immediately preceding the verb not only can
escape focalization but also resists it.
(42) a. Taroo-wa ittai nani-o isoide yonda no?
Taro-TOP on earth what-ACC quickly read Q
‘What on earth did Taro quickly buy?’
b. ?* Taroo-wa isoide ittai nani-o yonda no?
Taro-TOP quickly on earth what-ACC read Q
(Yanagida 1995)
15
Similarly, the following sentence with Taroo-ga ‘Taro-NOM’ replacing Taroo-wa ‘Taro-TOP’ cannot be
used as an answer to the question in (36c).
(i) Taroo-ga Hanako-ni hon-o agemasita.
Taro-NOM Hanako-to book-ACC gave
‘Taro gave a book to Hanako.’
16 I also assume that a destressing rule applies to anaphoric (D-linked) elements. Ishihara 2000 proposes
the following rule of deaccenting (=destressing) in addition to stress strengthening for cases like (39)
where the sentence stress falls on a constituent that is not the most deeply embedded.
(i) Deaccenting Rule
The sister node of a stressed element must be deaccented. (Ishihara 2000)
However, it is not clear whether deaccenting must always apply along with stress strengthening. Recall
that “light” indefinites in Dutch and English retain a secondary stress after stress strengthening shifts stress
to the verb. (See footnote 5 above.) This means that the sister node of a stressed element is not
automatically destressed at least in these languages. See Ishihara 2000 for his arguments for
Deaccenting Rule and the claimed interaction between Deaccenting Rule and Economy.
13

By examining many other examples illustrating a similar contrast, Yanagida (1995)
proposes the structure in (43) with a new functional projection FocP for Japanese in
order to account for such contrasts. 17
(43) IP
2
I’
2
FocP I
2
Foc’
2
VP Foc (Yanagida 1995:35)
There is no need to enrich the structure of sentences as in (43) under the interface
approach. Notice that the question in (42a) presupposes that Taro read something
quickly. One notable property of the unacceptable (42b) is that the presupposed part is
split across the focus. The contrast between (42a) and (42b) thus points to a tendency to
have material in the presupposition linearly contiguous. As a first approximation, I
will state this tendency in the form of a condition as in (44). 18
(44) Material in the presupposition must be contiguous inside TP at PF.
(42b), in which the main stress is assigned to the object by the nuclear stress rule, does
not satisfy (44). The object is scrambled across the adverb isoide ‘quickly’ and
receives the main stress by stress shift in (42a). As a result, the adverb and the verb,
the two presupposed parts, occur contiguously within TP. Notice that the verb cannot
be scrambled along with the rest of the presupposition, Japanese being a rigid verb-final
language. If the verbal part is presupposed, the only way to satisfy (44) is to place the
rest of the presupposition right next to the verb itself.
Note the formulation in (44) refers to the TP domain. 19 The topic NP John-wa
‘John-top’ is old information and hence should be included in the “presupposition.”
However, John-wa is separated from the other part of the presupposition in (42). I
tentatively assume that topic phrases are outside the TP domain, and (44) is irrelevant.
The sentence in (45) can be an appropriate answer to (42a). Here again, isoide
‘quickly’, which is part of the presupposition, occurs in the position that immediately
precedes the verb for the same reason that it does in (42a).
17
Yanagida’s (1995) analysis can be regarded as an extension of Horvath’s (1986) analysis of Hungarian
to Japanese. See Harvath 2000 for her recent view on focus, where an interface-based account is
proposed along the lines of Reinhart (1995) and Neeleman and Reinhart (1998).
18
See Ishihara 2000 for an attempt to derive a condition that is somewhat similar to (44) from Economy
and its interaction with his Deaccenting Rule. (See also footnote 16.)
19
This is a partial return to the Mapping Hypothesis in the sense that elements outside a certain domain
(TP here) are necessarily presuppositional.
14

(45) Taroo-wa hon-o isoide yonda ( no desu).
Taro-TOP book-ACC quickly read NL COP
‘Taro quickly read a book.’
The examples in (46) make a similar point. (46a) and (46b) share the presupposition,
namely that someone goes to Osaka. In (46a), Osaka-wa ‘Osaka-TOP’ is a topic phrase,
and hence may be separated from the rest of the presupposition. Since the rest of the
presupposition consists of the verbal part only, the sentence trivially satisfies the
condition in (44). In (46b), in contrast, Osaka-ni is not a topic phrase and is not
overtly marked as “presuppositional.” These examples are taken from Kim (1988),
who points out that the sentence in (46b) fits contexts such as (47). Since the verb is
included in the presuppositional part in this context, Osaka-ni must occur in the
immediately preverbal position in order to satisfy (44). This accounts for the
awkwardness of (46b’).
(46) a. Osaka-wa dare-ga iku no?
Osaka-TOP who-NOM go Q
‘Who will go to Osaka?’
b. Dare-ga Osaka-ni iku no?
who-NOM Osaka-to go Q
‘Who will go to Osaka?’
b’. # Osaka-ni dare-ga iku no?
Osaka-to who-NOM go Q
(a-b: Kim 1988:159)
(47) If the company has several branches in major cities and the branch managers are
routinely rotated, then [(46b)] would be more appropriate. Osaka in this context is
considered as a part of the routine affair (old information) going to one of those
branches, unlike [(46a)] where Osaka is especially topicalized by itself.
(Kim 1988:159)
Kim uses the term “phrasal topic” to refer to this presuppositional part (or old
information). Kim’s observation is compatible with the claim made in this paper
because the term “phrasal topic” implies that it must be contiguous.
The present account based on the condition in (44) makes a prediction. The
pattern observed in (42), where the position immediately preceding the verb resists
focalization, are limited to cases where the verb is in the presupposition. Where the
verb is not presupposed, the position immediately to the left of the verb receives the
main stress as we have seen above.
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4. Floating Quantifiers and Focus
We have seen in Section 3 that scrambling in Japanese, unlike scrambling in Dutch,
does not shift the focus to the verb due to overt verb raising, and that it is always the
constituent that immediately precedes the verb that bears the main stress unless stress
strengthening applies. If, as we have seen in Section 2, the shift of focus to the verb is
the crucial source of presuppositional effects of scrambling on indefinite NPs, then it
will be predicted that Japanese scrambling does not induce such presuppositional effects
in the same context. This prediction is basically borne out: Scrambling of cardinal NPs,
for example, does not make any difference in interpretive possibilities in Japanese
unlike the Dutch examples in (3). There is, however, one case where a somewhat
similar effect is observed. The effect arises when scrambling of the object NP strands a
numeral quantifier associated with it.
The following examples show that scrambling in Japanese can strand a floating
quantifier. 20
(48) Taroo-ga Hanako-ni [QP [NP hon-o] [Q san-satu]] ageta (koto)
Taro-NOM Hanako-to book-ACC 3-CL gave fact
‘Taro gave three books to Hanako.’
(49) Taroo-ga [QP [NP hon-o] [Q san-satu]]i Hanako-ni ti ageta (koto)
Taro-NOM book-ACC 3-CL Hanako-to gave fact
‘Taro gave three books to Hanako.’
(50) Taroo-ga [NP hon-o]i Hanako-ni [QP ti [Q san-satu]] ageta ( koto)
Taro-NOM book-ACC Hanako-to 3-CL gave fact
‘Taro gave three books to Hanako.’
Floating quantifiers (=FQs) have been analyzed (e.g., in Ueda 1986 and Miyagawa
1989) as secondary predicates taking an (indefinite) host NP as their subject. The host
NP and the associated FQ form a constituent, as in (48). 21 When the host NP is
scrambled, it can either take the FQ along, as in (49), or strand it, as in (50).
Scrambling the host NP while leaving the associated FQ behind has an effect somewhat
similar to what we have seen in Dutch: The focus shifts from the host NP to the FQ (as a
predicate) just as the focus shifts from the object NP to the verb, and the host NP
becomes destressed and becomes presuppositional.
In order to see the pragmatic effect of the operation in question, let us consider
some examples where the host NP is modified by a relative clause as in (51). 22 In (52),
20 The observation that FQs sometimes require a partitive interpretation goes back to Inoue 1978.
21 See Fujita 1994, Ishii 1999, Kamio 1983, Kawashima 1998, Terada 1990, and Yoshida 1992, among
others, for the argument that the host NP and the FQ can form a constituent when the former immediately
precedes the latter.
22 In fact, the relative clause providing the context is necessary in order for the presuppositional effect to
be observable in many cases. See Ishii 1997 for related discussion. I now suspect that the condition is
rather pragmatic in nature: The context helps the contrast between the existential and the partitive readings
16

the FQ is stranded in the preverbal focus position by S-scrambling. This sentence
prefers the partitive interpretation.
(51) John-ga Mary-ni [QP [NP urenokotta hon-o] [Q san-satu]] ageta (koto)
John-NOM Mary-to left unsold book-ACC 3-CL gave fact
‘John gave Mary three books that were left unsold.’ (existential reading)
(52) S-scrambling:
John-ga [NP urenokotta hon-o]i Mary-ni [QP ti [Q san-satu]]
John-NOM left unsold book-ACC Mary-to 3-CL
ageta (koto)
gave fact
‘John gave three of the books that were left unsold to Mary.’ (partitive reading)
As a result of the S-scrambling operation, the stranded FQ is now the most deeply
embedded and receives focus, while the host NP is defocalized, and hence is interpreted
as “presuppositional,” due to the rule in (20). This scrambling can be string-vacuous
as in (51’).
(51’) String-vacuous S-scrambling:
John-ga Mary-ni [NP urenokotta hon-o]i [QP ti [Q san-satu]] ageta (koto)
John-NOM Mary-to left unsold book-ACC 3-CL gave fact
‘John gave three of the books that were left unsold to Mary.’ (partitive reading)
be easily conceivable. Further, the presuppositional effect is observed only when the FQ has a
non-distributive reading (involving a single event). (See Kitagawa and Kuroda 1992 and Ishii 1999 for
related observations.) Thus, there is no contrast between (i) and (ii), where the FQs are interpreted as
distributive.
(i) Kono ni-syuu-kan-no aida-ni John-wa urenokotta hon-o hyaku -satu
these two weeks during John-TOP left unsold book-ACC 100-CL
ton’ya-ni okurikaesita.
warehouse-to returned
‘For the past two weeks John has returned 100 books / 100 of the books that were left unsold to the
warehouse.’ (existential/partitive)
(ii) Kono ni-syuu-kan-no aida-ni John-wa urenokotteita hon-o
these two weeks during John-TOP left unsold book-ACC
ton’ya-ni hyaku-satu okurikaesita.
warehouse-to 100-CL returned
‘For the past two weeks John has returned 100 books / 100 of the books that were left in the store to
the warehouse.’ (existential/partitive)
This may also be pragmatic in that the existential vs. presuppositional contrast is more easily conceived in
a single event than in multiple events. (I am grateful to Minoru Amanuma for the comment leading to this
possibility.)
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However, the partitive reading on the stranded FQ is not obligatory when the host
NP has been moved by M-scrambling or L-scrambling, as shown in (53) and (54).
(53) M-scrambling:
[NP urenokotta hon-o]i [ John-ga [QP ti [Q san-satu ]] kaesita] ( koto)
left unsold book-ACC John-NOM 3-CL returned fact
‘John returned three books that were left unsold.’ (existential reading)
‘John returned three of the books that were left unsold.’ (partitive reading)
(54) L-scrambling:
[NP urenokotta hon-o]i [ Mary-ga [ John-ga [QP ti [Q san-satu ]] kaesita]
left unsold book-ACC Mary-NOM John-NOM 3-CL returned
to sinziteiru] (koto)
COMP believe fact
‘Mary believes that John returned three books that were left unsold.’ (existential
reading)
‘Mary believes that John returned three of the books that were left unsold.’
(partitive reading)
Thus, M- and L-scrambling do not induce the pragmatic effect observed with
S-scrambling. I propose that this difference has nothing to do with the scrambling
operations per se, but has to do with the pragmatic effect of the surface linear order that
results from it. More specifically, I propose that the sentence-initial (non-topic) NP
bears a certain pragmatic role, and that the difference between S-scrambling and
M/L-scrambling stems from the fact that only the latter can move NPs into the
sentence-initial position.
Let us consider the contrast between (55a) and (55b). With the presupposition that
someone stole some money, (55b) is very awkward.
(55) a. Dare-ga okane-o nusunda no?
who-NOM money-ACC stole Q
‘Who stole (some) money?’
b. #Okane-o dare-ga nusunda no?
money-ACC who-NOM stole Q
This is predicted by the contiguity condition in (44). However, if the sentence-initial
NP is made definite by adding sono ‘that’, as shown in (56), then the acceptability of the
sentence increases.
(56) Sono okane-o dare-ga nusunda no?
that money-ACC who-NOM stole Q
‘Who stole that money?’
Sono okane ‘that money’ is not new information, but it seems that something other than
presupposition is involved here.
18

Mithun 1992 examines the ordering of constituents in three languages: Cayuga,
Ngandi and Coos. She points out that these languages pose a problem for the common
assumption of theme-rheme (or topic-comment) ordering in that they exhibit the
opposite rheme-theme (or comment-topic) order. 23 As a subcase of this tendency,
Mithun discusses cases of what she calls “topic shift,” where an NP representing a new
topic or a new point of view is placed at the beginning of the sentence when the topic of
the discourse shifts from one to another. While Japanese does not exhibit the
rheme-theme order as a basic pattern, it is likely that what is happening in (56) is “topic
shift” in the sense that the sentence-initial NP introduces a new topic (or a new point of
view). Thus, this NP should not be defocalized but receives another kind of focus,
whose exact nature will be left for future research. Notice that this “topic” is different
from those marked with the topic marker wa as in (57). While the wa-marked NP in (57)
has a contrastive reading, the preposed object NP in (56) does not. Still, the preposed
object NP in (56) plays a role similar to that of wa-marked NPs in that it serves as a
topic. This suggests that not only the wa-marked topic but also this new topic (“topic
shift” topic) is not included in TP. It follows then that it need not be contiguous with
the presupposed verb. 24
(57) Sono okane-wa dare-ga nusunda no?
that money-TOP who-NOM stole Q
‘As for that money, who stole it?’
(58) and (59) further illustrate the “topic shift” in M-scrambling.
(58) Taroo-wa sakana-o tutta. Sono sakana-o Hanako-ga nite tabeta.
Taro-TOP fish-ACC caught that fish-ACC Hanako-NOM cook ate
‘Taro caught a fish. Hanako cooked and ate that fish.’
(59) Senba-yama ni-wa tanuki-ga otte sa. Sore-o ryoosi-ga
Senba mountain in-TOP raccoon-NOM was that-ACC hunter-NOM
teppoo-de utte sa.
gun-with shot
‘In Mt. Senba lived a raccoon. A hunter shot it with a gun.’ (Children’s play
song)
In (58), the first sentence introduces a fish into the discourse. The second sentence
then turns to this fish and says what happened to it. The same applies to the raccoon in
(59).
A similar pragmatic role is played by NPs moved to the sentence-initial position by
L-scrambling.
23 Ojibwa, discussed in Tomlin and Rhodes 1992 also belongs to this category.
24 The “topic shift” topic can appear in embedded clauses from which wa-marked topics are excluded.
Possibly, the “topic shift” topic is adjoined to TP and the contiguity condition applies to only those
elements properly included by TP.
19

(60) #okane-o dare-ga Taroo-ga nusunda to omotteiru no?
money-ACC who-NOM Taro-NOM stole COMP believe Q
‘Who believes that Taro stole (some) money?’
(61) sono okane-o dare-ga Taroo-ga nusunda to omotteiru no?
that money-ACC who-NOM Taro-NOM stole COMP believe Q
‘Who believes that Taro stole that money?’
The contrast between (60) and (61) suggests that the NP in the sentence-initial position
simply serves to set up the topic of the sentence. Sono okane ‘that money’ must be
already introduced in the previous discourse, and hence is not “new information” in that
it is already “given.” Still it is not just presupposed but serves a special discourse
function.
This observation on M- and L-scrambling can be related to the optionality of
presuppositional effects of M- and L-scrambling on scrambled indefinites in (53) and
(54). M-scrambling and L-scrambling place the scrambled NP in the sentence-initial
position. We have just seen that the sentence-initial non-topic NP can receive another
kind of focus (introducing a new point of view), in which case it is not defocalized. If
the host NP scrambled by M- or L-scrambling is not defocalized, then the stranded FQ
does not have a partitive reading. If it is defocalized, the stranded FQ will have a
partitive reading.
5. Summary
In this paper, I have examined the assignment of the main stress and its relation to the
presuppositional interpretation in Japanese. The position immediately preceding the
verb is the most deeply embedded position in Japanese, and hence bears the main stress
of the sentence (along the lines of Reinhart 1995, 1997), serving as a focus position
occupied by a constituent with new information. Elements moved by S-scrambling are
not in the most deeply embedded position, and accordingly do not receive the main
stress. They are destressed and receive a presuppositional reading. I have also
examined the cases where the position immediately preceding the verb is occupied by a
destressed and presuppositional part of the sentence, and argued that such cases are
possible only if it the verb is also contained in the presupposition.
Presuppositional effects of scrambling show up in Japanese when S-scrambling
leaves a FQ behind, but are not observed with M-scrambling or L-scrambling. I have
made a new proposal for the pragmatic role of the NPs preposed to the sentence-initial
position by M-scrambling or L-scrambling: Those NPs can bear a different kind of focus
indicating a new “point of view” of the sentence and therefore is not (purely)
presuppositional. This is a pragmatic role that can be assigned to an NP in the
sentence-initial position, and has nothing to do with the scrambling operation itself.
As argued by Reinhart (1995, 1997), focus and presupposition are to be captured at
the interface, at which discourse conditions determine whether a derivation with a given
focus is appropriate for a given context. While scrambling in Japanese alters syntactic
20

structure and word order, which in turn affects where focus can be placed, scrambling
per se does not have any effect on LF. In this sense, scrambling is indeed a
semantically vacuous operation as Saito (1989, 1992) argues. I hope the present paper
has shown one possible line along which pragmatic effects of scrambling in Japanese
can be considered and examined in future work.
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Department of English
Kanda University of International Studies
1-4-1 Wakaba, Mihama-ku
Chiba-shi, Chiba-ken 261-0014
JAPAN
ishii@kanda.kuis.ac.jp
23