A Uniform Analysis of Right Dislocation: A Reply to Ko (2016)

Abstract

Ko (2016) proposes that gapless right dislocations are divided into two types: Specificational right-dislocation constructions are derived by rightward movement in a mono-clausal structure and repetitive right-dislocations are result of leftward movement and ellipsis in a bi-clausal structure. We examine Kos (2016) proposals in depth, and defend the claim that RD in Korean can still be uniformly analyzed as bi-clausal structure (host clause plus appendix clause) and that a right-dislocated phrase undergoes movement to a clause initial position in appendix clause and the rest of the clause undergoes deletion (cf. D. Chung 2009; Kim & Hong 2013; Ahn & Cho 2014a). We show that our uniform analysis may naturally account for the parallelism between right-dislocations and fragments that Kos (2016) hybrid analysis cannot explain. Our proposal also sheds light on the correlation between the double accusative constructions and gapless specificational RDCs, and further clarifies the issues related to constraints on wh-appendix and asymmetries in question-answer among RDCs in Korean.