Introduction

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the syntax of possession expressions in Japanese at the sentential level. In this introductory chapter, I will start with a background of possessive syntax and illustrate how Japanese presents us with an interesting case study of possessive syntax. Section 1.1 overviews previous literature on the topic. Section 1.2 sketches Japanese language data and highlights some of the relevant questions. Section 1.3 gives the organization of the thesis, as well as a synopsis of the proposals.