About Me

I am Taika Nagano (永野大夏), a Ph. D. student at The University of Osaka. I specialize in linguistics, working on syntax, morphology, and their interface.

I am working within the current framework of Generative Grammar, specifically the Minimalist Program, and its application to morphology through Distributed Morphology. My primary interest lies in what Chomsky refers to as Externalization, to which linguistic variation can largely be attributed. I aim to investigate in detail the role that Externalization plays, using insights from various morphological theories. As a morphologist, I focus on cross-linguistic variation in verbal morphology. One of my key interests is allomorphy, whose distribution varies significantly across languages. For instance, English exhibits a wide range of tense allomorphs, whereas Japanese, by contrast, is richer in voice-related allomorphy. I am also particularly interested in the conjugation system of Japanese. Despite the existence of numerous descriptive studies on this topic, few issues have reached scholarly consensus. I hope to contribute to resolving these issues through the application of theoretical linguistic frameworks. In syntax, I have been pursuing research on argument alternations, such as causative-inchoative and dative-ditransitive alternations. Many of the phenomena I investigate involve the dative case. The theoretical basis for dative case assignment (or licensing) remains relatively unclear, partly because, in many languages, the dative form coincides with an adpositional element. I am also exploring argument suppression, a phenomenon observed cross-linguistically in constructions such as the passive and nominalization. Suppressed external arguments are sometimes realized via adpositional phrases, often referred to as demoted arguments. I aim to uncover the mechanisms behind argument suppression and demotion.

Fore more information, please take a look at my CV, or click here!

Recent Publications

Presentations/Talks

  • SICOGG 27 Decomposing Causative/Passive Morphemes in Japanese. Poster Presentation. Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea. Aug 14-16, 2025. [poster]
  • ConSOLE 33 (w/ Kanta Tateno) Morpho-Semantic Notes on unhappier. Oral Presentation. The University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany. Jan, 29 -31, 2025. [slides]

Papers/Proceedings

  • Nagano, Taika and Kanta Tateno (To Appear) Morpho-Semantic Notes on unhappier. in Proceedings of the 33rd Edition of the Conference of the Student Organisation of Linguistics in Europe (ConSOLE).
  • Proceeding of SICOGG 27 Nagano, Taika (2025) Decomposing causative/passive morphemes in Japanese. in Proceedings of the 27th Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar (SICOGG 27), A. Kang, Ed., The Korean Generative Grammar Circle, pp. 182–191. [PDF]
  • Nagano, Taika (2025) Phonological Allomorphs of sase. in Ms., the University of Osaka[HERE]

[MORE]

Contact

E-mail:

nagano.taika[AT]gmail.com

Adress:

Graduate School of Humanities, Division of Language and Culture
Osaka University
1-8 Machikaneyama
Toyonaka Osaka 560-0043 JAPAN