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Article published In:
Language and Linguistics
Vol. 21:4 (2020) ► pp.559–583

Structure and inference in Japanese right dislocation

| University of North Texas
This paper explores the syntactic nature of Japanese Right Dislocation Constructions (RDCs) by illuminating the ellipsis sites in the postverbal domains of the constructions via pragmatic inference. Although the most prevailing bi-clausal analysis of RDCs adopts the perspective that the repetition of the antecedent clause occurs in collocation, this paper shows that the same surface strings are potentially ambiguous since right dislocation is a heterogeneous phenomenon. It proposes additional types of a bi-clausal structure and discusses evidence that suggests that even when the surface strings are the same the recovery of the ellipsis site is possibly derived in multiple ways through the use of distinct linguistic strategies.
Keywords: right dislocation, bi-clausal analyses, preposing, (pseudo-)clefts, coordination
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Ellipsis sites of Japanese right dislocation
    • 2.1Elements in the postverbal domains
    • 2.2Syntactic properties of ellipsis sites in RDCs
  • 3.An analysis of elided sites in RDCs
    • 3.1Simplex RDCs
    • 3.2Complex RDCs with conjunctive coordination
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 18 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00070.fur
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Furuya, Kaori
2020. Additional bi-clausal types of Japanese right-dislocations. Journal of Japanese Linguistics 36:2 ► pp. 225 ff. DOI logo

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