The ellipsis of grammatical functions in coordinative structure of Japanese language

Abstract

The discussion in this paper is focused on the ellipsis of grammatical functions in Japanese covering that of the function of grammatical of coordinative structure. The data analyzed in this paper were taken from Japanese corpus data. The concept of ellipsis was taken from Quirk et al., (1985), Makino & Tsutsui, (1994), and Verhaar (1981). The ellipsis from Quirk et al (1985) was applied the concept of recoverability from the grammatical point of view: (1) textual recoverability, (2) situational recoverability, and (3) structural recoverability. The qualitative and synchronic descriptive method was employed in this study. A qualitatively descriptive method was employed to explain and describe the coordinative sentence, whereas the synchronic approach was used to cover the current language phenomena. The findings show that in the coordinative structure, ellipsis of the function of grammatical subject, ellipsis the function of predicate and ellipsis of the function of object took place. Ellipsis of the function of grammatical in the coordinative structure can be anaphoric or cataphoric. It is called anaphoric because the ellipsis takes place rightward, the controlling constituents are located in the first clauses and the controlled constituents are located in the second clause. It is called cataphoric because the controlling constituents are located in the second clauses and the controlled constituents are located in the first clauses.