ZERO ANAPHORA: THE CASE OF JAPANESE (DISCOURSE ANALYSIS, PRONOUNS, SYNTAX, COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS, TYPOLOGY)

Japanese exhibits a typologically extreme case of an extensive use of zero anaphora. Major grammatical relations such as subject and object need not be overtly expressed in finite or nonfinite clauses. These unexpressed subjects and objects behave like pronouns, hence the name, zero pronominals.;The reference of a zero pronominal is recovered entirely in discourse. It is not syntactically recoverable because there is no obligatory morphological marking for its information elsewhere in the sentence. Certain pragmatic inference rules are assumed to exist for interpreting it, but exactly what they are has been little studied in the literature, either observationally or theoretically.;The main purpose of this study is to investigate the discourse functions of and syntactic constraints on zero pronominals in Japanese. My description draws on the basic representational assumptions of Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) in syntax (cf. Bresnan ed. 1982) and the computational framework of Centering in discourse (cf. Sidner 1983; Grosz, Joshi, and Weinstein 1983).;By analyzing cross-sentential coreference of zero pronominals, I first show that the zero pronominal, rather than the overt pronoun, encodes the Center (i.e., the entity most centrally talked about) and posit Center-establishment and Center-retention rules that crucially refer to the zero pronominal. These and the Expected Center Order based on the grammatical function of referring expressions give rise to preference rules for identifying the Center in Japanese discourse. These Center Rules will provide an ordered list of referent candidates, crucially contributing to the control of inferences.;The intra-sentential coreference of zero pronominals is then investigated. I show that their essential syntactic properties follow simply from two factors; (a) their Center-encoding role in discourse and (b) the mere fact that they are absent from the constitutent structure.;The present approach to Japanese zero anaphora thus highlights an interface between syntax and discourse. I demonstrate not only that the LFG and Centering frameworks are highly suitable for describing the phenomena, but also that they are mutually compatible. The present results can be naturally integrated into an overall zero pronominal interpretation model.