Gapping in Japanese = Coordinate + Dependent Ellipsis

This paper argues that gapping in Japanese is best analyzed as the product of the interaction of Coordinate Ellipsis with Dependence Ellipsis originally proposed by Williams (1997) and further extended by Ackema and Szendröi (2002). The proposed analysis correctly derives several core properties of verb gapping in Japanese such as contrastive focus associated with overt remnants, and the role of coordination in this construction. This analysis also overcomes various empirical problems with earlier accounts of this construction as in Saito (1987), Abe and Hoshi (1997), and Mukai (2003), related to P-drop, the lack of LF subjacency effects, strict identity readings in gapping involving homonyms, and overgeneration.