Some notes on the scope properties of nominative objects in Japanese

This chapter aims to provide novel support for a phrasal complementation approach to restructuring phenomena on the basis of an analysis of some novel observations concerning the scope properties of nominative objects in Japanese. It is first shown that nominative objects must take scope under the potential suffix when subjects receive an instrumental case. It is then argued that the obligatory narrow scope of nominative objects under consideration follows from the phrasal complementation approach, which dictates that the nominative object is base-generated below the potential suffix. The observation is difficult to capture with an alternative complex head approach, in which the nominative object is always base-generated above the potential suffix.