Ellipsis and Information Structure in Japanese Narrative Texts: Topic Continuity and Focus Management in Reading Materials

Abstract

This study examines ellipsis in Japanese narrative texts and its implications for topic continuity and information focus. Previous work has analyzed ellipsis in a narrative context, and most focus on the syntactic and pragmatic components. This study focuses on Japanese folktales and employs a qualitative descriptive–analytical and minimal quantitative analytical approach. The findings suggest that argument ellipsis and zero anaphora are the most frequent forms and are used almost exclusively for the continuity of the topic, in the case of the omission of an element. However, new or focal information is always expressed. The findings indicate ellipsis is an adjunct that is highly significant in organizing discourse for the streams, the coherence, and the focus of the information, and for the syntactic-discord interface. Most importantly, the study examines the relevancy of ellipsis in Japanese language pedagogy.