Japanese and French specificational sentences with left-dislocation and the questions they induce

Abstract This study examines the nature of questions induced in Japanese and French specificational sentences with left-dislocation. Despite their superficial similarities, the two constructions show the following differences. In Japanese, such constructions are almost exclusively found in monologic discourse, where the speaker speaks one-sidedly; a clear pause is required after the dislocated item, whose head is a lexical noun. In contrast, the French construction is mostly found in dialogues, and no pause is necessary after the dislocated sequence, whose head is typically occupied by a pronominal element. Building on these differences, this paper argues that: (i) In Japanese, the left-dislocated sequence introduces a topic, and the pause serves not only to signal a discourse boundary, as previously claimed, but also to provide the interlocutor with time to detect the contextual relevance of the introduced topic and to implicitly ask a question about it. Such a question may be explicitly articulated as an anticipated question. (ii) In French, while the left-dislocated sequence with a pronominal head should pick up a question shared among the discourse participants, it may introduce a topic when the head is a lexical noun. In these cases, the speaker may explicitly insert an anticipated question before the pronominal pickup.