We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
NP-ellipsis: a comparative syntax of Japanese and Okinawan.
- Authors
Hiraiwa, Ken
- Abstract
Every language manifests ellipsis phenomena, but the mechanisms underlying them are not uniform (see Johnson 2001; Lobeck 2006; Merchant 2006). Regarding ellipsis within DP, it has been argued in the literature that Japanese allows so-called N′-deletion (hereafter NP-deletion; Jackendoff 1971, 1977; Saito and Murasugi 1990; Saito et al. 2008; Watanabe 2010, among others). This article argues, with abundant empirical evidence, that what has been considered to be NP-deletion in Japanese is indeed better analyzed as an instance of pronominalization with a light noun, followed by haplology. In contrast, I argue that Okinawan, a Ryukyuan language, does allow NP-deletion (in addition to pronominalization). One of the strongest pieces of evidence is that NP-ellipsis in Japanese, unlike in Okinawan and English, cannot target a [+human] NP. The availability of NP-deletion in Okinawan is theoretically expected given its richer agreement syntax.
- Subjects
ELLIPSIS (Grammar); SYNTAX (Grammar); PRONOMINALS (Grammar); JAPANESE language; RYUKYUAN language
- Publication
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 2016, Vol 34, Issue 4, p1345
- ISSN
0167-806X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11049-015-9324-6