Ban on Quantifier in θ-Positions: Centering on Korean and Japanese
Bošković (2004) argued that a quantifier cannot float in θ-positions in English, German and other several languages. In this paper, I strengthen this generalization by offering an independent set of arguments from Korean and Japanese. It will be shown that floating numeral quantifiers in these languages pattern precisely like the quantifiers in other languages, so that they only occur in non-θ-positions. Notwithstanding these gratifying results, several gaps in the generalization remain to be explained. In this paper, I argue that these and other related questions are adequately resolvable under the DP Split Hypothesis, proposed by Takahashi and Hulsey 2008 (see Sportiche 2005 for a similar argument), the essence of which is that A-moved subjects need not have a full set of DP in θ-positions. More specifically, an FQ cannot occur in θ-positions because there is no complete DP to which it can be merged in θ-positions. It can only occur in non-θ-positions when a full-fledged DP is available.