Grammar for ellipsis resolution in Japanese

This paper elucidates the linguistic mechanisms for resolving ellipsis (zero anaphor). The mechanisms consist of three tiers of linguistic system. [1] Japanese sentences are structured in such a way to anchor the topic, which is predominantly the subject (by Sentence devices), [2] with argument inferring cues on the verbal predicate (by Predicate devices), and [3] are cohesively sequenced with the topic as a pivot (by Discourse devices). This topicalised subject is most prone to ellipsis. This agrees with the fact that over 90% of ellipsis is of topicalised subjects. An interplay of these mechanisms constitute the keys to ellipsis resolution. I have developed an algorithm capturing the mechanisms. The initial hand-simulated test based on a set of narrative texts has shown that the algorithm achieves a high level of accuracy, over 85%.