Only a head-raising derivation for Japanese gap relatives

In the literature, the three kinds of derivations have been proposed for Japanese relative clauses (see Miyamoto 2017). However, because some of the empirical evidence that these derivations depend on is acceptable for some people but ungrammatical for others, it is controversial which analysis is correct. This paper aims to argue that Japanese relative clauses must be derived by an overt movement of a relativized head by presenting previously unnoticed data on Japanese relative clauses. This study also provides an analysis based on Form Copy suggested by Chomsky (2021) to explain the empirical facts reviewed in this paper.