The Acquisition of Argument Ellipsis and its Constraints in Japanese
Koji Sugisaki
Mie University
One of the well‐known characteristics that distinguish Japanese from languages suchas English is the availability of null arguments in finite clauses. The object and the subjectof a finite clause are null in (1b) and in (2b) respectively, but the sentences are completelygrammatical. In sharp contrast to the English counterpart in (3b) that contains an overt
pronoun or the Spanish counterpart in (3b) that contains a null subject, the Japaneseexamples in (1b) and (2b) allows the sloppy‐identity interpretation, as well as thestrict‐identity interpretation (e.g. Otani & Whitman 1991, Oku 1998).
(1)

a.
b.

(2)

a.

b.

(3)
(4)

a.
b.
a.

b.

Mary‐wa
zibun‐no neko‐ooikaketa.
Mary‐TOP
self‐GEN cat‐ACCchased‘Mary1 chased her1 cat.’John‐mooikaketa.
John‐alsochased Lit. ‘John also chased.’
Null Object = √Mary’s cat (strict), √John’s cat (sloppy)
Mary‐wa [ zibun‐no teian‐ga
saiyo‐sare‐ruto ] omotteiru.
Mary‐Top self‐Gen
proposal‐Nom
accept‐Pass‐Pres that think‘Mary1 thinks that her1 proposal will be accepted.’
John‐mo [saiyo‐sare‐ruto ] omotteiru.
John‐also
accept‐Pass‐Pres that thinkLit. ‘John also thinks thatwill be accepted.’
Null Subject = √Mary’s proposal (strict), √John’s proposal (sloppy)
Mary1 chased her1 cat.
John also chased it.
it = √Mary’s cat, *John’s cat
Mariacree[ que su
propuesta será
aceptada ] yMaria
believesthat herproposal will‐beacceptedand‘Maria1 believes that her1 proposal will be accepted and …’
Juan también
cree[ queseráaceptada ].
Juan toobelieves
thatwill‐beacceptedLit. ‘Juan also believes thatwill be accepted.’
Null Subject = √Maria’s proposal (strict), *Juan’s proposal (sloppy)

In order to account for the availability of the sloppy‐identity interpretation for nullarguments in Japanese, Oku (1998), Saito (2007), and Takahashi (2008) (among others)
proposed that Japanese allows ellipsis of argument DPs, as illustrated in (5).
(5)

a.
(=(1b))b.
(=(2b))

John‐mo zibun‐noJohn‐also
self‐GENJohn‐mo [ zibun‐noJohn‐also
self‐Genneko‐ooikaketa.
cat‐ACC
chasedteian‐gasaiyo‐sare‐ru
proposal‐Nom
accept‐Pass‐Presto ]thatomotteiru.
think

Building on Chomsky’s (2000) system of agreement, Saito (2007) suggests that theavailability of Argument Ellipsis in Japanese stems from the absence of obligatory
agreement in this language (cf. Kuroda 1988). More specifically, adopting the LF‐CopyingAnalysis, Saito argues that in English/Spanish‐type languages that have agreement,argument DPs cannot undergo LF‐Copy, since they have already established an agreement
relation (with T or v) in the antecedent clause and hence cannot participate in agreement
after they are copied into the second sentence. In Japanese‐type languages, however, thecorresponding derivation converges, since the copied DP need not establish an agreement
relation.
Saito’s (2007) parametric proposal predicts that if Japanese has a construction inwhich arguments must participate in agreement, Argument Ellipsis should be disallowedin that construction. A relevant case is provided by wh‐questions. According to Chomsky(2000), wh‐phrases must undergo agreement with an interrogative Complementizer evenin wh‐in‐situ languages like Japanese. Then, such an obligatory agreement relation with Cshould block wh‐phrases from undergoing Argument Ellipsis. The examples in (6)demonstrate that this is indeed the case: The null‐object sentence (6b) can only beinterpreted as a Yes/No question and never as a wh‐question.
(6)

a.

b.

Mary‐wanani‐otabemasitaka?
Mary‐NOM
what‐ACCate
Q‘What did Mary eat?’
Dewa,John‐watabemashitaka?
thenJohn‐TOPate
Q‘Then, did John eat something?’ / * ‘Then, what did John eat?’

Turning to child language, Hyams (2002) observes that agreement errors are
extremely rare in the acquisition of “rich” agreement languages (such as Italian andCatalan). Then, we can reasonably speculate that children acquiring agreementlesslanguages like Japanese would also be sensitive to the absence of overt agreement from theearly stages of acquisition. Since we have reasons to believe that the property that isallegedly connected to Argument Ellipsis is acquired early, the parametric proposal bySaito (2007) should make the prediction in (7a). In addition, since the ban on eliding
wh‐phrases directly follows from the properties of UG (the obligatory agreement relation
between a wh‐phrase and an interrogative C), we obtain the prediction in (7b).
(7)

Predictions for Child Japanese:a.
Japanese‐speaking preschool children should have knowledge of Argument
Ellipsis.
b.
Japanese‐speaking preschool children should have the knowledge about theconstraint that wh‐phrases cannot undergo Argument Ellipsis.

In my presentation, I report results of the experiments which evaluated the validityof the predictions in (7). The results demonstrate that (i) Japanese‐speaking four‐year‐olds
permit the sloppy‐identity interpretation for null objects, and also that (ii) children do notinterpret null‐object questions as object wh‐questions. These findings in turn suggest thatJapanese‐speaking four‐year‐olds already have the knowledge of Argument Ellipsis, aswell as the knowledge about its constraints. These findings are consistent with the viewthat the availability of Argument Ellipsis and its constraints directly follow from principles
and parameters of UG.