ABSTRACT:

Concealed Argument Ellipsis in Japanese Right Dislocation

This talk focuses on the two phenomena in Japanese; the null argument phenomena, where arguments of a predicate are freely dropped, and right
dislocation, where some phrase appears post-verbally, leaving a gap in the pre-verbal position. The main goals of this talk are to connect
these superficially unrelated phenomena with each other, and to show that close examination of Japanese right dislocation has significant
contributions for the study of the null argument phenomena. Specifically, I provide a supportive evidence for the Argument Ellipsis analysis
of the null argument phenomena, based on the novel observation regarding the NP Is formed with the suffix '-sika'. Then, I propose that some
instances of the gap in Japanese right dislocation are created by Argument Ellipsis. Finally, I show that Japanese right dislocation provides a novel
empirical test ground for the proposals regarding Argument Ellipsis.