The Role of Prosody and Information Structure in Licensing Ellipsis: Particle Stranding Ellipsis in Japanese
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors“The Role of Prosody and Information Structure in Licensing Ellipsis: Particle-Stranding Ellipsis in Japanese” investigates Particle Stranding Ellipsis (PSE) in Japanese. This paper offers an Optimality-Theoretic account, extending Weir’s (2022) analysis of Left Edge Ellipsis.
This paper takes discourse effects, which have received relatively little attention in the PSE literature, into consideration in analyzing PSE. It aims to cover new data as well as the observations made in the previous literature, which argue for different analyses of PSE. Therefore, this manuscript would potentially make a notable contribution to research in PSE and ellipsis in general. However, the current version of the paper lacks a clear explanation of several crucial issues. I hence recommend revise and resubmit.
- Non-constituent deletion
The author(s) (henceforth A) claims that PSE involves string deletion in line with Sato & Maeda (2019) rather than syntactic or LF operations, crucially based on the observation that PSE can target non-constituents (Section 2).
In analyzing PSE, A suggests that givenness feeds PSE. Under the suggested analysis, [G]-marked elements can be deleted (depending on the ranking of the constraints). However, it is not clear how PSE can target non-constituents. In particular, A relies on the following constraint:
(27) [G]=No-φ (DEPHRASEGIVEN)
A [G]-marked constituent in MSO [=morpho-syntactic output] corresponds to prosodic constituent in PI [=phonological input] which is not a φ and contains no φ. (Kratzer and Selkirk (2020: 29))
This constraint itself says that what can be [G]-marked is a constituent. If [G]-marked elements are deleted under PSE (as A shows in the paper), how can PSE target non-constituents, which is a crucial point A makes? In order not to undermine the starting point of the whole discussion, a more detailed discussion would be needed regarding how/when non-constituent strings can be elided under PSE.
- (42), (49)-(51)
A derives two potential answers to (42A): “Δ=no=wa mimashita” and “Hawks=ga katta=no=wa mimashita” here. I believe it is also possible to answer (42A) by saying “mimashita” (candidate (e)), as in the case of (47). How can we derive this answer?
- Nature of [MAX]
Following Weir (2022), A assumes that the constraint [MAX] floats among other constraints, which derives PSEed and non-elliptic outputs. Is there any independent evidence for this floating nature of [MAX] in Japanese? Without such evidence, the analysis may overgenerate; are there empirical boundaries that constrain the floatability of [MAX]?
Minor points:
Example (1): “quitted” should be “quit”.
Example (4): “Spaeker A” should be “Speaker A”.
Line 399: “recieves” should be “receives”.
Author Response
Thank you for spending time to review our manuscript and giving the comments. We attached a pdf file, where our responses are given. We hope that our responses and revisions adequately address the reviewers’ concerns.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease refer to the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for spending time to review our manuscript and giving the comments. We attached a pdf file, where our responses are given. We hope that our responses and revisions adequately address the reviewers’ concerns.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments/suggestions attached.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for spending time to review our manuscript and giving the comments. We attached a pdf file, where our responses are given. We hope that our responses and revisions adequately address the reviewers’ concerns.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease refer to the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for spending time to review our manuscript and giving the comments. We attached a pdf file, where our responses are given. We hope that our responses and revisions adequately address the reviewers’ concerns.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
