The coordinate structure constraint as a discourse-oriented principle: Further evidence from Japanese and Korean

Abstract

We reexamine the status of the coordinate structure constraint (CSC; Ross 1967) by drawing on evidence from Japanese and Korean. Contrary to the standard view that the CSC is a syntactic constraint, the empirical patterns from the two languages show that it should instead be viewed as a pragmatic principle. We propose a pragmatic analysis by building on and extending a previous proposal by Kehler (2002). Examining the Japanese and Korean data turns out to be vital in the comparison of the syntactic and pragmatic approaches, since the syntactic differences between the relevant constructions in the two languages and their counterparts in English crucially distinguish the predictions of the two approaches.