Chapter 139Reference Tracking and Omitted Expressions
Contextual recovery, third-person ambiguity, fourth-person reference, and continuity across linked clauses.
139.1 Recovering a participant from context
A participant need not be named in every clause. Nakagawa allows a noun phrase to be absent when its meaning can be supplied from context Nakagawa (2024: 362). The verb's argument structure constrains the participant's role, while the surrounding discourse helps identify the person or thing involved.
The sweet is the understood theme of giving. Satō uses the example to argue that a three-place predicate can retain an anaphorically interpreted theme without giving it a separate person index Satō (2025: 369–371, §4.2). The preceding sentence supplies the particular referent in this example. The competing analyses of indexes and overt noun phrases are discussed in Chapter 94 (Noun Phrases and Pronominal-Argument Analyses).
139.2 What a person form does and does not identify
Person forms constrain interpretation, but a third-person form does not uniquely identify one previously mentioned individual. Bugaeva illustrates this in an indirect report whose two third-person subjects may refer to the same person or to different people Bugaeva (2008: 65–66, §8.1, example 63a).
‘He said that he would go.’
Bugaeva 2008: 66; Saru, Example 63a, after Tamura 1972/2001:377 (T1); colloquial
Bugaeva allows the person who goes to be either the speaker of the reported words or someone else. Her explicit third-person zero signs are omitted here.
Her plural example likewise permits either ‘They said that they themselves did not know it’ or a report about other people who did not know it. She identifies context as the means of resolving the ambiguity Bugaeva (2008: 66, example 66).
139.3 Narrative and logophoric reference
Fourth-person morphology has several uses, including reference to a narrator and logophoric reference to the person whose speech or perspective is reported. Its morphological label is distinct from the person used in an English translation. Nakagawa's example uses fourth-person object i= for the narrator Nakagawa (2024: 170, example 127).
‘Take pity on me and give me lodging.’
Nakagawa 2024: 170; Saru, Example 127; narrator reference
Bugaeva analyzes a particular reported-discourse use of this series as logophoric. Her account distinguishes it from both direct speech and indirect reports such as the preceding ambiguous example Bugaeva (2008: 41–43, 65–66). Quotation therefore does not automatically replace every first-person form with a fourth-person form. See Chapter 67 (Fourth-Person Forms and Their Uses) and Chapter 105 (Quotation, Logophoric Speech, and Indirect Reports).
139.4 Continuity across connected clauses
Connectors can accompany tendencies in participant continuity without grammatically requiring the same or a different subject. Refsing's Shizunai wa examples have the same subject in about 90 percent of her sample Refsing (1986: 241). The documented different-subject constructions are discussed in Chapter 131 (Clause Linkage and Its Analyses) and Chapter 134 (Kor: Simultaneity, Habits, and Conditions).
Yoshikawa's narrative observations concern changes of scene, topic, or actor around a with p, korka, or wa; they do not require an actor change at every occurrence Yoshikawa (2022: §4.1.1, examples 34–36). Repeated nouns, omitted participants, and these constructions work within the developing narrative context described in Chapter 138 (Narrative Continuation and Repetition).
References cited in this chapter
Bugaeva (2008) ·Nakagawa (2024) ·Refsing (1986) ·Satō (2025) ·Yoshikawa (2022)