Models of nominal structure in Japanese and Korean (JK) are commonly built on the assumption that the nominal domain must be head-final because JK clauses show head-final ordering, rather than being directly supported by observable empirical head-final patterns. In order to produce the surface orders that are found in JK nominals, all head-final analyses require massive hidden movements from underlying structures which are never overtly realized in any surface sequencing. This paper suggests that a much more parsimonious analysis of JK nominal structure is available if JK are not taken to be uniformly head-final in their syntax but exhibit a degree of mixed-headedness, as found in German, Hindi, Hixkaryana, Amharic, Persian and other languages. The paper develops such an analysis, in which underlying head-initial structures do occur in surface syntax, and refines this further with support from the patterning of various numeral-classifier-noun relations in Japanese and Korean. The resulting analysis proposes that the functional structure of JK nominals is head-initial, while the lexical domain (nP, NP) is head-final. Such mixed-headedness is shown to accord with the Final Over Final Constraint/FOFC, and hence is not an unconstrained departure from the pure head-finality widely assumed for JK.
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