Locational verbs, agreement, and object shift in Japanese

In Japanese, the locational verbs iru (animate) and aru (inanimate) can exp ress locative-existential meanings when they are intransitive, and possessi ve meanings when they are transitive. The animacy alternation that occurs b etween aru and iru is conditioned by the subject of an intransitive locativ e-existential verb, and by the object of a transitive possessive verb. In J apanese, animacy agreement is generally obligatory, but when the inanimate verb aru is used transitively, agreement does not obtain (unless it is forc ed by other factors). This peculiar behaviour of animacy agreement in Japan ese is shown to follow straightforwardly on the assumption that the light v erb associated with the animate verb iru has a strong D-feature to attract its nominative phrase overtly, while the light verb associated with the ina nimate verb aru has a weak D-feature, which does not require its overt move ment, and that instantiation of agreement is contingent upon whether or not the nominative phrase is overtly raised to [Spec, v]. This paper demonstra tes that Japanese is a language which selectively induces overt object shif t.