Different short answers in Japanese: functionally similar but syntactically different

要旨

In this paper, we deal with two hitherto unexplored short answers: Soo Anaphora Answer (SAA), where the pro-form soo is followed by the copula da/desu, and Copular Short Answer (CSA), where the null pro-form is followed by the copula. Although these constructions exhibit similar discourse functions, expressing the speaker’s consent to the preceding utterance, they exhibit different syntactic properties regarding (i) compatibility with a topic phrase and the subject, (ii) embedding, and (iii) requirement of a sentence-final particle. We account for these differences by claiming that the pro-form soo in SAA is situated in the complement of the Pred head that is lower than T, while the null pro-form of CSA is in the CP domain. We further claim that the null pro-form needs phonetic and semantic licensing by an overt head in the (CP and) SA domain.

主題