Japanese has a construction whose first part has the structure of a sentence with a verbal (or similar) predicate, but whose second part has the structure of a sentence with a nominal predicate. In view of its dual characteristics, I have labeled it the 'mermaid construction'. Some of the nouns used in this construction have a grammatical meaning or function, that is, they are grammaticalized. The mermaid construction seems uncommon crosslinguistically, being found only in Japanese and seven other languages in Asia and one language in Africa.
〈共同研究プロジェクト紹介〉形容詞節と体言締め文 : 名詞の文法化 人魚構文と名詞の文法化
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