diff --git a/ext/ripper/lib/ripper/lexer.rb b/ext/ripper/lib/ripper/lexer.rb
index 6a3c04af30..a0f1cbeaa8 100644
--- a/ext/ripper/lib/ripper/lexer.rb
+++ b/ext/ripper/lib/ripper/lexer.rb
@@ -242,7 +242,12 @@ class Ripper
     end
 
     def on_error2(mesg, elem)
-      @errors.push Elem.new(elem.pos, __callee__, elem.tok, elem.state, mesg)
+      if elem
+        elem = Elem.new(elem.pos, __callee__, elem.tok, elem.state, mesg)
+      else
+        elem = Elem.new([lineno(), column()], __callee__, token(), state(), mesg)
+      end
+      @errors.push elem
     end
     PARSER_EVENTS.grep(/_error\z/) do |e|
       arity = PARSER_EVENT_TABLE.fetch(e)
diff --git a/test/ripper/test_scanner_events.rb b/test/ripper/test_scanner_events.rb
index 792f19ef1a..261e259889 100644
--- a/test/ripper/test_scanner_events.rb
+++ b/test/ripper/test_scanner_events.rb
@@ -53,6 +53,8 @@ class TestRipper::ScannerEvents < Test::Unit::TestCase
                  Ripper.tokenize("1  .foo\n")
     assert_equal ["1", "\n", "  ", ".", "foo", "\n"],
                  Ripper.tokenize("1\n  .foo\n")
+    assert_equal ["def", " ", "f", ";", " ", "(", "x", ")", "::", "A", " ", "="],
+                 Ripper.tokenize("def f; (x)::A =")
   end
 
   def test_lex
diff --git a/version.h b/version.h
index 741c42c89f..ded70969db 100644
--- a/version.h
+++ b/version.h
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
 # define RUBY_VERSION_MINOR RUBY_API_VERSION_MINOR
 #define RUBY_VERSION_TEENY 4
 #define RUBY_RELEASE_DATE RUBY_RELEASE_YEAR_STR"-"RUBY_RELEASE_MONTH_STR"-"RUBY_RELEASE_DAY_STR
-#define RUBY_PATCHLEVEL 96
+#define RUBY_PATCHLEVEL 97
 
 #include "ruby/version.h"
 #include "ruby/internal/abi.h"