Atypical Stative Sentences In Japanese And English

Abstract

Stative predicates normally mark objects in the nominative in Japanese and are non-passivizable in English. However, under some conditions, Japanese uses accusative marking and English allows passivization. Fujimura 1989 attributes the Japanese Nom/Acc alternation to degrees of transitivity and Rice 1985 the English passivizability to subjective encoding. I argue the determinant for both phenomena is boundedness based on individuation.