Particle-Stranding Ellipsis in Japanese, Phase Theory, and the Privilege of the Root

1 Introduction

This squib analyzes a type of ellipsis in Japanese, which I dub particle-stranding ellipsis (PSE). This elliptic pattern, first documented by Hattori (1949, 1960), has been discussed in subsequent work (Arita 2009, Hayashi 2001, Sato 2008, Sato and Ginsburg 2006, Sato and Ginsburg 2007, Vance 1993, Yoshida 2004) but has not received due attention in the literature. PSE is used as a truncated reply in colloquial dialogues, as shown in (1).¹ In this dialogue, where Speaker A’s question introduces Tanaka as the topic of conversation, Speaker B’s response begins with the noncontrastive topic marker -wa.

(1)	Speaker A
	Tanaka-kun-wa?
	Tanaka-tit-top
	‘How about Tanaka?’
	Speaker B
	Wa	ne,	kaisha-o	yameta-yo.
	top	tag	company-acc	quit-excl
	‘He quit his company!”
	(Hattori 1960:452)

Rizzi (2005b) proposes within phase theory (Chomsky 2000, 2001, 2004) that the edge of the root may remain unpronounced while still being accessible to semantic interpretation, and he applies this analysis (“the privilege of the root” (PoR)) to topic drop in German (Ross 1982). I propose that PSE instantiates the PoR phenomenon; it arises when the topmost phase head is spelled out at the end of the phase it defines, together with its complement, for phonetic interpretation at PF, while the entire structure is transferred to LF for semantic interpretation.

2 Particle-Stranding Ellipsis in Japanese

Yoshida (2004) observes that PSE has three distributional properties. First, it can apply only to a sentence-initial topic, as the contrast between (2a) and (2b–c) shows.

(2)	Speaker A
	John-wa	kyoo	nani-o	siteiru-no?
	John-top	today	what-acc	doing-q
		‘What is John doing today?’
	Speaker B
	a.	∅-wa, Mary-ni	daigaku-de	atteiru-ne.
		top Mary-dat	university-loc	meeting-tag
		‘Intended: ∅ (= John) is meeting Mary at a university.’
	b.	*Mary-ni	∅-wa, daigaku-de	atteiru-ne.
		Mary-dat	top university-loc	meeting-tag
		‘Intended: ∅ (= John) is meeting Mary at a university.’
	c.	*Mary-ni	daigaku-de	∅-wa, atteiru-ne.
		Mary-dat	university-loc	top meeting-tag
		‘Intended: ∅ (= John) is meeting Mary at a university.’

Second, PSE is a root phenomenon, as shown in (3a). (3a) becomes grammatical with Taroo-wa in the embedded CP, as in (3b). This minimal pair thus shows that (3a) is judged ungrammatical not because there is an embedded topic but because the embedded topic is null.

(3)	Speaker A
	John-wa					sono-toki	Taroo-o	dare-ga	korosita-to
	John-top					that-time	Taro-acc	who-nom	killed-comp
	omotta-no?
	thought-q
	‘Who did John think at that time that killed Taro?’
	Speaker B
	a.	*John-wa sono-toki [cp ∅-wa, Mary-ga korosita-to]
		John-top that-time					top Mary-nom		killed-comp
		omotta-yo.
		thought-tag
		‘Intended: John thought at that time that ∅ (= Taro),
		Mary killed.’
	b.	John-wa			sono-toki [cp Taroo-wa,				Mary-ga
		John-top that-time					Taro-top		Mary-nom
		korosita-to] omotta-yo.
		killed-comp thought-tag
		‘Intended: John thought at that time that ∅ (= Taro),
		Mary killed.’
		((3b) adopted from Yoshida 2004:297, with modifications)

Finally, PSE can occur only once in a clause, as shown by the contrast between (4a) and (4b).

(4)	Speaker A
	Suzuki-sensei-wa		Takahasi-kun-o	doko-ni
	Suzuki-tit-top		Takahashi-tit-acc	where-loc
	suisensuru-tumori-na-no?
	recommend-intend-cop-q
	‘Where does Prof. Suzuki intend to recommend Takahashi?’
	Speaker B
	a.	*∅-wa-ne,		∅-wa, MIT-ni
		top-tag		top MIT-loc
		suisensuru-tumori-mitai-da-ne.
		recommend-intend-seem-cop-tag
		‘Intended: It seems that Prof. Suzuki intends to recommend Takahashi to MIT.’
	b.	?∅-wa-ne,		Takahasi-kun-wa, MIT-ni
		top-tag		Takahashi-tit-top MIT-loc
		suisensuru-tumori-mitai-da-ne.
		recommend-intend-seem-cop-tag
		‘Intended: It seems that Prof. Suzuki intends to recommend Takahashi to MIT.’

PSE is different from so-called argument ellipsis (AE) in Japanese (Kim 1999, Oku 1998, Saito 2004, 2007, Takahashi 2008) because AE exhibits none of the properties that characterize PSE. First, AE can target a non-sentence-initial element...