English Right Dislocation

English Right Dislocation Kohji Kamada Chiba University 1-33, Yayoicho, Inage Ward, Chiba-shi, Chiba, 263-8522 Japan k-kamada@L.chiba-u.ac.jp/k-kamada@chiba-u.jp Abstract A number of researchers claim that the derivation of the Right Dislocation Construction (RDC) involves movement (e.g., Chung, 2012, for Korean; Ott & de Vries, 2012, 2015, for Dutch and German; Tanaka, 2001 and Abe, 2004, for Japanese; Whitman, 2000, for English, Japanese, and Korean). However, the RDC in English does not obey movement constraints such as the Coordinate Structure Constraint and the Left Branch Condition; that is, there are acceptable sentences that seem to violate these movement constraints. This suggests that the derivation of the English RDC should not involve movement. The present paper demonstrates that some syntactic properties of the English RDC can be explained instead through the interaction of independently motivated parsing strategies with a licensing condition for adjoined elements. 1 Introduction The Right Dislocation Construction (RDC) is a construction in which a dislocated NP appearing in sentence-final position refers to a pronoun, as observed in example (1), with the relevant pronoun in italics and the dislocated NP in boldface. (1) He is real smart, John. As (2) shows, the dislocated NP cannot occur outside the embedded clause that contains the relevant pronoun. This seems to suggest that the dislocated NP is derived by movement, because a violation of a movement constraint—namely, the Right Roof Constraint (RRC)—appears to be present (Ross, 1986: 179). 1 1 Another possibility is a violation of the Sentential Subject Constraint. (2) *That they spoke to the janitor about that robbery yesterday is terrible, the cops. (Ross, 1986: 258) However, there is a construction that violates the RRC but is still acceptable, as seen in (3). (3) [That they spoke to the janitor about that robbery yesterday] is terrible, I mean, the cops. (Whitman, 2000: 450) The sentence in (3) differs from that in (2) only in that it has I mean inserted between the preceding clause and the dislocated element. This suggests that the derivation of the RDC should at least not involve rightward movement. 2 Note that the relevant pronoun is not a “resumptive” pronoun that repairs an island violation; it would otherwise be difficult to account for the unacceptability of the example in (2), in which the pronoun seems to play no role in repairing the violation of the RRC.3 Further acceptable examples that appear to violate movement constraints exist, as in (4). (4) a. I saw Mary and him downtown yesterday, your friend from Keokuk. (Ross, 1986: 260) b. I noticed his car in the driveway last night, your friend from Keokuk. (ibid.) In (4), it is possible to connect the dislocated NPs with him and his, respectively. If the dislocated NP in (4a) were extracted from the position occupied by the pronoun him, a conjunct could be moved. Likewise in (4b), if the dislocated NP were extracted from the position occupied by his, an 2 An example of the type in (3) was originally provided by Tsubomoto (1995), who argues against …

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