Worked examples — Kanji Morphology × Valency

High earn
Classifiers

Prenominal vs postnominal geometries; Amount ≠ Denomination; counters inert for verbal valency.
High earn
VN + suru

Light vs heavy; Argument Transfer; surface arity ≠ piece arities.
Low earn / fossil
Compounds

Scalar opacity; 勉強 / 挨拶 / 葡萄; Givón mnemonic flagged SPECULATIVE.

Diagnostic 1 · high earn

Classifiers as packaging geometries

Japanese is an obligatory classifier language. Same surface “number + unit” can realize two packaging geometries (Oho 2019). Counters are inert for verbal valency.

Two positions

Prenominal · Num-Cl-no N 三冊さんさつの本ほん san-satsu-no hon · ‘three books’ · Num+Cl as NP adjunct (Oho)

Postnominal · N Num-Cl 本ほん三冊さんさつ hon san-satsu · ‘three books’ · Num and Cl as extended-nominal heads (Oho)

Floating · N-Case Num-Cl 本ほんを三冊さんさつ買った hon-o san-satsu kat-ta · ‘(I) bought three books’ · float of the Measure complex, not an extra verbal object

People counter 人 — irregular spell-out, same geometry

Num+CL	Form	Note
1 person	一人ひとり	Suppletive
2 people	二人ふたり	Suppletive
3 people	三人さんにん	Regular -nin
Prenominal	三人さんにんの学生がくせい	Geometry A
Float	学生がくせいが三人さんにん	Float of complex

Sortal + mensural — still no extra verbal arity

Project MeasureP example: sortal Measure on Theme + mensural Price as Instr can co-occur. Price is not a second Acc object of uru (Double-o banned). Four distinguished participants + two Measure complexes ≠ six verbal arguments.

SPECULATIVE mnemonic (optional). “Kanji counters look like frozen packaging labels for sortal units.” Collapse if treated as evidence that orthography is MeasureP.

Sources. Oho 2019 PACLIC; Watanabe 2006 NLLT; Sudo 2016; project MeasureP excerpts. Orthography: 人冊本個台枚匹円 — correlate only.

Diagnostic 2 · high earn

VN + light suru — Argument Transfer

Light suru assigns Acc and inflection but no θ-roles. Process nominals (often Sino-Japanese, kanji-written) supply the θ-grid. Argument Transfer redistributes roles across Noun and Verb domains (Grimshaw & Mester 1988).

Core paradigm — VN licenses the array

(1) Talk — Goal outside JohnはMaryに話はなしをした John-wa Mary-ni HANASHI-o shita · ‘John talked to Mary.’ · VN 話

(2) Departure — Source outside Johnは東京から出発しゅっぱつをした John-wa Tookyoo-kara SHUPPATSU-o shita · ‘John departed from Tokyo.’ · VN 出発

(3) Warning — Goal + clausal Theme Johnは村人に[狼が来ると]警告けいこくをした John-wa murabito-ni [ookami-ga kuru-to] KEIKOKU-o shita · ‘John warned the villagers that the wolf was coming.’ · VN 警告

Observation (G&M): The argument array varies with the Noun, not with suru. Suru contributes inflection + Acc, not the θ-grid.

Transfer schematic for 警告

keikoku (Agent, Goal, Theme)
    Transfer →
keikoku (Theme)  +  suru (Agent, Goal) (acc)

Surface arity ≠ piece arities

Expression	VN θ-grid (approx.)	suru alone	Surface clause
話をする (+ Goal)	Agent, Goal	( )	Agent + Goal
出発をする (+ Source)	Agent, Source	( )	Agent + Source
警告をする (+ Goal + S′)	Agent, Goal, Theme	( )	Agent + Goal + Theme
到着をする (+ Goal)	Theme, Goal	( )	Theme + Goal

Punchline: Counting surface DPs does not tell you the arity of either vocabulary item in isolation. Transfer packages θ-roles across Noun and Verb domains — Grant’s slogan without invoking kanji as syntax.

Also a VN (opaque compound neighbor) 勉強べんきょうする benkyoo-suru · ‘to study’ · often incorporated; see compounds panel for fossil opacity of 勉強

SPECULATIVE mnemonic only. “Kanji VN stems look like portable θ-packages plugged into a light verbal host.” Collapse if treated as evidence that graphs assign θ-roles.

Sources. Grimshaw & Mester 1988 LI 19(2). Most productive light-suru VNs are Sino-Japanese → kanji-written; analysis = Argument Transfer.

Diagnostic 3 · low earn / fossil

Opaque vs compositional compounds

Compositionality facts = REAL. Givón-style “eroded syntax” reading = SPECULATIVE mnemonic. Not load-bearing for Bridge / valency earn tests.

Compositional end — morphography working

Compound	Parts	Pattern
国道こくどう	country + road	Modifier + modified
登山とざん	climb + mountain	verb + complement
外食がいしょく	outside + eat	complement + verb
変化へんか	change + change	synonymous pair

Some encode predicate–argument relations inside the word — lexical packaging of event structure, not clause-level Merge. Do not promote to “kanji syntax.”

Phonetic borrowing — no morphographic constituency

Ateji / phonetic 葡萄ぶどう · 面倒めんどう budō ‘grapes’; mendō ‘care / bother’ — graphs do not contribute live morpheme composition (Joyce / Honda)

Bleaching — the fossil zone

勉強 /benkyō/ ‘study’ 勉べん + 強きょう → 勉強べんきょう Naive sum ‘strive + strength’; modern meaning ‘study’. Compositionality decreased (Honda). Speakers need not compute the parts.

挨拶 /aisatsu/ ‘greeting’ 挨拶あいさつ Historical compositionality — and morphological constituency — lost (Honda). Prefer: opaque lexeme written with two graphs; not two live morphemes; not cran-operators.

Jukujikun 田舎いなか ‘countryside’ — complex graph string ↔ one phonological exponent; morphography of the parts suspended

SPECULATIVE · Givón mnemonic. Older compositional word-formation eroded into a simplex lexical package. Collapse if equated with dopant clustering, or treated as current θ-structure of two verbal roots in the syntax.

Non-claims. Not ideography. Not syntax. Not doping. Not arity. Not “kanji composing ideas without phonology.”

Sources. Honda 2019 §§3.2.1–3.2.2; Joyce 2011 (via Honda). Opaque compounds support the morphology waypoint (“spell-out can freeze”), not Bridge earn tests.