This article aims to elucidate the true nature of the so-called Double-o Constraint (DoC) in Japanese. The nature of the DoC has long been discussed in the literature since Harada’s work back in the 1970’s,
but it has eluded a principled explanation. The DoC has been known to apply to certain domains and a careful study presented in this article shows that these domains correspond
to phases. Thus, the DoC reduces to a PF constraint against realizing multiple occurrences of the accusative Case value within a single
Spell-Out domain. Specifically, I argue that the DoC applies cyclically phase-by-phase and thus that the DoC provides solid
evidence for the cyclic phase-based computation in the current minimalist theorizing (Chomsky 2001, 2004, 2008). If correct, Case in Japanese has two facets: a Case is valued in narrow syntax but its value is only realized at Spell-Out,
at which point PF interface conditions apply. It is further suggested that the DoC reduces to a syntactic OCP (Obligatory
Contour Principle). The DoC, therefore, is considered to be a case in which an apparently language-particular and hence peripheral
phenomenon provides empirical support for the architecture of the Universal Grammar.
Keywords Double-o Constraint - Cyclic Spell-Out - PF-Interface - Case - Language-Particular Process - UG - Obligatory Contour Principle
I am very grateful to three anonymous reviewers for NLLT. This material has been presented at various places including Kwansei Gakuin University, The University of British Columbia,
The University of Calgary, The University of The Ryukyus, and The University of Washington. I would also like to thank the
Japanese native speakers in the audience for their judgments. I am grateful to Noam Chomsky, Marcel den Dikken, Yoshi Dobashi,
Tomo Fujii, Naoki Fukui, Takeo Kurafuji, Shinsho Miyara, Kimiko Nakanishi, David Pesetsky, Hiroyuki Ura, and Akira Watanabe.
Special thanks to Marcel den Dikken for editorial assistance and to Adam Steffanick for proof-reading the manuscript. All
errors and are solely mine. This work is partially supported by the Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows No. 1710271 from the Ministry
of Education, Sports, and Culture. The abbreviations used in this article are as follows: Acc = Accusative, Ben = Benefactive,
Caus = Causative, C = Complementizer, Cl = Classifier, Cop = Copula, Dat = Dative, Dem = Demonstrative, F = Focus marker,
Gen = Genitive, Loc = Locative, Lv = Light verb, Nml = Nominalizer, Nom = Nominative, Pass = Passive, Pl = Plural, Pres =
Present, Prog = Progressive, Pst = Past, Q = Q-complementizer, Sg = Singular, Top = Topic marker.