Japanese/Korean Linguistics

We explore multiple Right Dislocation (RD) in Japanese, which has previously received very little attention. We argue that multiple RD is derived not by syntactic movement but by Prosodic Right Dislocation, evidenced by its insensitivity to syntactic constraints, its lack of LF interpretive effects, and its prosodic properties. We show that single RD obeys syntactic island constraints, whereas multiple RD is insensitive to syntactic islands. Furthermore, argument/adjunct asymmetries for binding which are exhibited under single RD disappear under multiple RD. In addition, phonetic evidence suggests that multiple RD involves the dislocation of a prosodic constituent – a Major Phrase – to which tonal downstep applies. The evidence suggests that though single RD is derived by syntactic movement of a syntactic constituent, multiple RD is not; rather, multiple RD is the product of right dislocation of a prosodic constituent within the phonology.