The Role of Prosody and Information Structure in Licensing Ellipsis: Particle Stranding Ellipsis in Japanese

Japanese noun phrases typically consist of nouns and particles, but there is an ellipsis phenomenon called Particle Stranding Ellipsis (PSE) where nouns are elided with a particle left. A PF-based deletion analysis of PSE has been proposed, but there are several criticisms against it. Thus, it remains elusive what condition is imposed on the licensing of PSE. In this paper, we will formulate a finer-grained phonological theorization of PSE. Our analysis employs a phonological constraint, StrongStart, and information structural factors like givenness and foci, and characterizes PSE as an edge deletion applying to pragmatically given materials at the left edge of intonation phrases. Under this analysis, information structure plays an important role in ellipsis licensing: givenness feeds and foci bleed PSE. We demonstrate that this analysis can handle data that is problematic for the previous string deletion approach.