Attending The Kaken Meeting at Kyudai
Chris Kennedy
(Department of Linguistics, NorthWestern University, USA)
In December of 1998, I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to participate in the third Kaken Meeting on the comparative syntax and semantics of Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English at Kyushu University. This project, organized by Professor Yukinori Takubo, brings together linguists from Japan and the United States to discuss their current research on theoretical issues in the study of these four languages. This was my first year of participation in the project, and I am pleased to say that I found the experience immensely satisfying and enjoyable, both from an intellectual and a personal perspective, thanks to the contributions of the participants and the overall excellence of the organizers, in particular, the faculty and students in the Linguistics Department at Kyushu University.
The meeting took place over three days in December on the campus of Kyushu University. Talks were scheduled for two hours, which both allowed presenters plenty of time to present their work in detail, and gave the participants enough time for in-depth discussions of the issues raised in the talks. The talks themselves covered a full range of topics in the syntax and semantics of Japanese, English, and Chinese. The meeting began on the afternoon of the first day with my own presentation of a new analysis of the puzzling syntactic properties of different types of comparative constructions in English. The discussion was extended to a consideration of comparatives in Japanese by Ayumi Ueyama (Kyoto University of Foreign Studies), who raised a number of important and critical questions about whether an analysis of the facts of English can be successfully extended to Japanese. In the true spirit of comparative syntax, this discussion continued throughout the three days of the meeting, culminating in a second presentation by Ayumi Ueyama and Hajime Hoji (USC) that summarized the results of the informal discussions.
The talks on the second day of the meeting focused on semantic questions. Barry Schein (USC) began the day with a discussion of the semantic properties of predicates and how this influences the possible interpretations of the arguments of predicates. Later, Toshiyuki Ogihara (University of Washington) discussed the latest results of his important work on the temporal semantics of complex sentences, which seeks to explain an array of interesting typological distinctions between Japanese and English (and other languages as well). The third day of the meeting covered a broad range of topics. First, Audrey Li (USC) presented her recent work on the syntax of nominal expressions in Chinese and its implications for noun phrase typology in general, and then Ikumi Imani (Nagoya Gakuin University) discussed a number of problematic issues in the semantic analysis of indefinite NPs in English. Finally, the meeting closed with Yukinori Takubo's (Kyushu) presentation of the comprehensive and important work he and Satoshi Kinsui (Osaka) have completed on the semantics and pragmatics of Japanese demonstratives, with a focus on explaining the distributional differences of nominals marked with 'do', 'ko', and 'so'.
On the whole, the talks were extremely interesting, and the discussion both during the meeting and afterwards was excellent. Without a doubt, this was due to the wonderful job of organization and coordination done by the students and faculty at Kyushu. From our fabulous meals in Fukuoka to our very comfortable lodgings to the post-meeting onsen(hot-spring) tour, the participants were kept in a high level of comfort and satisfaction throughout the trip, allowing us to relax and focus our thoughts on the work that we were there to discuss. From a more personal perspective, I can say that I learned a great deal from the Kaken meeting, but I am most grateful to have had the opportunity to meet and discuss issues in linguistics with my new colleagues in Japan. I very much look forward to returning to Fukuoka for another visit in the near future.
The Kaken Meeting referred to in the essay was held in December 1998 at Kyushu University as part of the Monbusho grant-in-aid for International Scientific Research, titled "Comparative Syntax of Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English", headed by Professor Yukinori Takubo of the Faculty of Letters at Kyushu University.
Dr. Kennedy obtained his Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
He is currently an assistant professor of linguistics at Northwestern University in Chicago.
He specializes in syntax and semantics and is one of the most prolific researchers in the field.
