A Base-generated Approach to Why-Stripping in English

Abstract

Recently, Yoshida et al. (2014) propose a movement-plus-ellipsis analysis of the Why-Stripping construction with base-generation of why in the clause initial position. While agreeing with the idea of base-generated why in this construction, this paper argues that Yoshida et al. have a number of limitations, especially with respect to the clausal ellipsis requirement and the analysis of Stripping constructions with other adverbials. In this paper, a non-movement, non-ellipsis based analysis of the construction will be proposed on the basis of Ginzburg & Sag’s (2000) approach to fragment clauses. By incorporating Minimal Recursion Semantics representations, this paper also provides an account of question interpretations, focus-sensitive readings, and scope relations in why and other adverbial Stripping constructions.