A Dynamic Syntax Modelling of Postposing in Japanese Narratives

Japanese is prescriptively said to be verb-final, but it exhibits postposing in colloquial register, where an element is placed after a verb. Based on narrative data, we show that the syntactic type of postposed element is quite diverse and that, contrary to the prevalent, opposing view, Japanese postposing is not restricted to a matrix clause. These issues are addressed in Dynamic Syntax, with the outcome of developing some formal aspects of the framework. 1 Introduction1 Japanese is prescriptively verb-final as in (1)a, but elements may be placed after a verb in colloquial register. In (1)b, sushi-o appears after tabe ‘eat.