This paper considers whether the negative transportation (NT) rule operating in English is operative also in Japanese and whether investigation of the phenomenon in Japanese may provide new insights for English research. The discussion begins with an explanation and examples of the NT rule in English. Japanese cases are then studied, and the semantic and structural implications considered. The author states that if the line of thinking presented in the paper turns out to be valid, it presents a case in which semantic interpretation may be preceded and followed by transformations, and even a cooccurrence restriction may sometimes be accounted for only after certain semantic interpretations. (VM)