Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/68785

Since Kageyama（1993） the syntactic compound verbs in Japanese have been classified into three types; raising, intransitive control, and transitive control verbs. In this paper I argue that there is a fourth type of syntactic compound verb in Japanese, -owar ‘come to an end’, as in (1). (1) Piza-ga tukuri-owat-ta. pizza-nom make-come to an end-past ‘One finished making pizza.’ Specifically, I show that -owar in (1) is a raising（unaccusative） verb taking a “restructuring” complement in the sense of Wurmbrand (2001, 2016). If so, the embedded object ‘pizza’ is assigned no Case by the embedded nor the matrix verb, and only assigned nominative Case by the matrix Tense, which results in the construction in (1). First I establish the status of -owar as a raising verb on the basis of two diagnostics for raising verb. Next I examine the details of the nominative Case assignment to the object in long passive, which has been shown to involve a restructuring complement, and argue that the same nominative Case assignment occurs in (1). This can be taken as evidence that -owar in (1) is also taking a restructuring complement. As further evidence, I point out that the scope of the embedded object (the surface subject) in (1) is the same as that of the object in restructuring complement. This also supports the conclusion that -owar in (1) is taking a restructuring complement.