Japanese/Korean Linguistics

This paper advances a theory of ‘Predicativization’ whereby a negatively intensifying adverb such as sappari ‘(not) at all’ in SpecNegP becomes reanalyzed as the Neg head, which then undergoes a categorial shift from Neg to A. I argue that the derived, X⁰ status of the adjectival predicate in question finds support in the unavailability of the predicative use of zenzen ‘(not) at all’ in the positively intensifying sense and that of sukosimo ‘(not) a bit’. The proposed Spec-to-Head reanalysis naturally extends itself to aspectual adverbs. In fact, the presence of predicative mada ‘(not) yet’ on the one hand and the absence of predicative moo ‘(not) any longer’ on the other lends empirical support to the syntactic nature of Predicativization. Predicativization, as understood here, aligns in spirit with syntactic analyses of lexicalization (Hale & Keyser 1993, 2002, Marantz 1997, among others) and is considered a case of ‘antigrammaticalization’ (cf. Haspelmath 2004).