DP-internal relative readings of Japanese 'ichiban' superlatives

Abstract

This paper provides a new perspective on the question of whether Japanese superlatives involve movement of ichiban, considered to be a superlative morpheme, out of superlative DPs. Aihara (2007, 2009) proposes that the different readings of Japanese superlatives are due to the structural ambiguity caused by the movement of ichiban to different landing sites, following Heim (1985, 1999) and Szabolcsi (1986). However, I argue that no movement of a superlative morpheme to a DP-external position is involved in Japanese superlatives based on the absence of “DP-internal relative readings” that are observed in Slavic languages (Pancheva and Tomaszewicz, 2012; Tomaszewicz, 2015). To derive this reading, the superlative -est in Slavic moves out of the superlative DP; the absence of this reading in Japanese supports the view that no such movement obtains in Japanese.