The major concerns underlying my research include (1).

(1)　a. 　How can we try to ensure and measure progress in what we do in generative grammar?
　　b. 　How can we tell whether or not given intuitions of ours are likely to be a reflection of the Computational System?

The absence of the concern in (1b) in much of the field seems to have resulted in the state of affairs depicted in (2a) and remarks such as (2b).

(2)　a.　Alleged generalizations that have been shown to be invalid keep on being used in theoretical discussion.
　　b.　"Okay, you have provided some examples that go against the generalization I have proposed/adopted. But what is your alternative account of the contrast that I have been discussing? I have an account but you do not. I would give up my account only if you provided an alternative account of the contrast that I have been discussing, which, as I noted, is shared by at least some native speakers of the language under discussion."

Not every observation qualifies as something that must be accounted for by a theory about the Computational System; it must first be demonstrated that it is most likely a reflection of the Computational System.

One example of (2a) is the continued adoption by some researchers of the claim that zibunzisin in Japanese has the same formal properties as the so-called anaphors in English such as himself, herself, myself, etc. The results of the preliminary surveys, portions of which are available at

http://www.gges.xyz/hoji/cfj-results/CFJ-37_Zibunzisin.pdf
http://www.gges.xyz/hoji/cfj-results/CFJ-47_LocalAnaphorsEnglish.pdf

show clearly that such a claim is not justified at all; yet the assumption in question is still adopted and used widely, and in fact crucially, in the field and continues to be referred to by researchers who do not have direct knowledge of the language (as well as by some who do).

Consider the claim in (i).

(i) Zibunzisin has the same formal property as English reflexives (e.g., himself) in terms of the requirement of having its 'antecedent' in a particular structural position.

While there are environments where English reflexives do not behave like a 'local anaphor', it has been fairly widely agreed upon in the field that when they occur in a direct object position, their use is felicitous only if there is an NP/DP in a position that c-commands it within the same clause.

So, when native speakers of English are asked to report how (un)acceptable they find each of the examples below, most speakers seem to have clear judgments and mark the (a) examples "acceptable" and the (b) examples "unacceptable."

(1) 　a. 　John loves himself.
　　b. 　John thinks Mary loves himself.
(2) 　a. 　John recommended himself for that position.
　　b. 　John thought that Mary had recommended himself for that position.
(3) 　a. 　Mary, who had firmly believed that Chomsky would recommend her, was shocked to death when she found out that Chomsky recommended Bill instead. (where her = Mary)
　　b. 　Mary, who had firmly believed that Chomsky would recommend herself, was shocked to death when she found out that Chomsky recommended Bill instead.

Although there are slight variations among the speakers, their reactions are fairly uniform, and I have not encountered any native speakers who would say "Fine" to the (b) examples above without any hesitation, whether they are linguists or not.

Given the claim in (i) above, the Japanese analogues of the (b) examples in (1)-(3), with zibunzisin in place of him/herself, are predicted to be unacceptable due to the same grammatical/formal property that underlies the native speaker intuitions on the (b) examples in English (1)-(3).

When native speakers of Japanese are asked the same questions about the Japanese analogues of (1)-(3), however, their reactions are qualitatively different from the reactions by native speakers of English to (1)-(3). Many speakers readily accept the JP versions of the (b) examples in (1)-(3). If they do answer "unacceptable," such a response often/usually comes only after a great deal of hesitation, in sharp contrast to how the native speakers of English typically respond as "unacceptable" to the (b) examples in (1)-(3) – there typically is no such hesitation.

It may be of interest to note that all of the 7 non-linguist informants I have checked with find the JP version of (3b), for example, almost fully acceptable, while the 32 linguist informants' judgments are more 'conservative'. Yet, their average response is more 'acceptable' than 'unacceptable'. If we compute 'markings' as Good to Bad on a 5-point scale, as -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, which we might say more or less correspond to customary *, *?, ??, ?, okay, the average 'score' by the 7 non-linguists on the JP version of (3b) was +1.57, and the average score by the 32 linguist informants was +0.47.

It is actually quite difficult to find speakers who systematically find examples like the JP versions of the (b) examples in (1)-(3) totally unacceptable.

As noted before, if zibunzisin shared with English reflexives the formal property that is responsible for their local-anaphor nature, the Japanese version of (3b) should be ruled out in the same way as (3b) is ruled out.

The same goes with so-called reciprocal anaphor otagai. It was pointed out more than 10 years ago and was noted in Ueyama 1998 that the generalization under the thesis/assumption that otagai is a local anaphor is far from being valid. Compare the English example in (4) and the Japanese example in (5).

(4) 　*The nice spring breeze made each other feel very happy.
(5) 　Haru-no atatakai kaze-ga otagai-o totemo siawasena kimoti-ni sita.
　　Spring-gen warm breeze-nom otagai-acc much happy feeling-to did/made
　　'The warm spring breeze made them feel very happy.'

The native speakers of English cannot even seem to process (4). On the other hand, (5), which is a pretty close rendition of English (4) is quite acceptable. I found the example in (5) in the Mainichi Newspaper about 10 years ago, and I have not met any native speaker of Japanese who finds it unacceptable. As the English translation of (5) indicates, otagai in (5) corresponds to 'them'. One might thus suggest that the local-anaphor property under discussion can be detected with otagai only under its 'reciprocal interpretation'. As discussed in some depth in my "Otagai" paper, however, such a move would not save the thesis/assumption that otagai is a local anaphor since the distribution of 'otagai' 'with a reciprocal interpretation' does not exhibit the predicted locality, either, even if we focus on otagai appearing in 'argument positions'. (The paper "Otagai" can be downloaded at "Downloadable papers.") Yet, the refuted thesis keeps on being used, and responses such as (2b) are rather common. What underlies such research attitude, I contend, is the failure to understand the point made in [29073] at this board, the posting "dominating" this..