Current Issues in Ellipsis and Ellipsis Mismatch: Studies in Japanese and Beyond

Dear Colleagues,

We are very pleased to announce the launching of the Special Issue in Languages under the title “Current Issues in Ellipsis and Ellipsis Mismatch: Studies in Japanese and Beyond”.

So much progress has been made to pave the way toward a better understanding of the nature and mechanism of ellipsis phenomena in Japanese, both in terms of the coverage of data and theoretical advances.  In fact, investigations of ellipsis in Japanese have continued to play an integral role in shaping, informing and sometimes even challenging general theories of ellipsis often developed solely on considerations drawn mainly from English and Indo-European languages (Huang 1984; Saito and Murasugi 1990; Takahashi 1994; Oku 1998; Saito 2007, among many others). More recent work has studied various forms of ellipsis such as sluicing and argument ellipsis based on novel Japanese ellipsis data and has drawn theoretically significant conclusions regarding central issues revolving around the proper formulation of identity conditions and operational mechanisms behind ellipsis constructions such as sluicing and argument ellipsis (Takita 2012; Funakoshi 2016; Sakamoto 2017, 2019, among others).

At the same time, however, there remains so much work to be done in the field of Japanese ellipsis for current and future generations of ellipsis researchers despite the growing body of rather intensive inquiries into ellipsis within contemporary generative research. We therefore find it timely to showcase a sample of cutting-edge research on ellipsis primarily focusing on (but not limited to) Japanese.

Against this general background, we would like to publish contributions from researchers working on a wide variety of ellipsis constructions which develop latest ideas on current topical issues surrounding the general theme of “ellipsis and/or ellipsis mismatch”. We particularly welcome contributions on this topic that draw on data primarily from Japanese. This issue is therefore wide in its scope, welcoming papers addressing current topical issues on ellipsis and/or ellipsis mismatch, including, but not limited to, the following:

1. What kind of ellipsis mismatch is available and why (category/size mismatch in antecedent-ellipsis pairs)?
2. What is the nature of identity conditions on ellipsis (syntactic, semantic, discourse, information structure)?
3. What operational mechanisms are available for ellipsis constructions (copying, deletion, movement)?
4. What implications do analyses of various ellipsis phenomena have for linguistic interfaces (syntax-semantics, syntax-phonology, and so on)?
5. What kinds of cross-linguistic variation can be found in ellipsis?

Tentative Completion Schedule

Abstract Submission Deadline: 31 October 2024
Notification of Abstract Acceptance: 15 November 2024
Full Manuscript Deadline: 15 May 2025

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors ([email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]) or to the Languages editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

References:

Funakoshi, Kenshi. 2016. Verb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis in Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 25: 113–142.

Huang, C.-T.  James. 1984. On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 15: 531–574.

Oku, Satoshi. 1998. A theory of selection and reconstruction in the minimalist perspective. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Connecticut, Storrs.

Saito, Mamoru, and Keiko Murasugi. 1990. N'-deletion in Japanese: A preliminary study. In Japanese/Korean Linguistics, Volume 1, 258–301. Stanford: CSLI.

Saito, Mamoru. 2007. Notes on East Asian Argument Ellipsis. Language Research 43: 203-227

Sakamoto, Yuta. 2017. Escape from silent syntax. Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticutt, Storrs.

Sakamoto, Yuta. 2019. Overtly empty but covertly complex. Linguistic Inquiry 50: 105–136.

Takahashi, Daiko. 1994.  Sluicing in Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 3: 265–300.

Takita, Kensuke. 2012. ‘Genuine’ sluicing in Japanese. In Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS45), 577–592. Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Dr. Yosuke Sato
Dr. Kensuke Takita
Dr. Yuta Sakamoto
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Japanese
• ellipsis
• ellipsis mismatch
• identity condition
• linguistic interface
• cross-linguistic variation