REMARKS ON SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF NOUNS IN JAPANESE

In this paper, I discuss some characteristics of Japanese nouns. First, I point out some syntactic phenomena concerning nouns. Second, I insist that they can be explained only by classifying nouns into two types according to the “argument” of nouns. Third, I show how nouns are classified into these two types: 1-place nouns, which take an argument syntactically obligatorily, and 0-place nouns, which take no argument obligatorily. Fourth, I present the argument structure for both noun types. Fifth, I explain the aforementioned phenomena in terms of their argument structure. Sixth and finally, I comment on textual functions of nouns and show that nouns have a potential to create a complete text.