This squib analyzes a type of ellipsis in Japanese, which I dub particle-stranding ellipsis (PSE). This elliptic pattern, first documented by Hattori (1949, 1960), has been discussed in subsequent work (Arita 2009, Hayashi 2001, Sato 2008, Sato and Ginsburg 2006, 2007, Vance 1993, Yoshida 2004) but has not received due attention in the literature. PSE is used as a truncated reply in colloquial dialogues, as shown in (1).1 In this dialogue, where Speaker A’s question introduces Tanaka as the topic of conversation, Speaker B’s response begins with the noncontrastive topic marker -wa.
Rizzi (2005b) proposes within phase theory (Chomsky 2000, 2001, 2004) that the edge of the root may remain unpronounced while still being accessible to semantic interpretation, and he applies this analysis (“the privilege of the root”...