Abstract
Movement and ellipsis have common features in both conceptual and empirical grounds. Conceptually, both movement and ellipsis share an operation “delete” and contain copies lacking phonological elements under the standard minimalistic treatments. Empirically, certain categories seem to undergo both ellipsis and movement, and may be subject to similar conditions. However, some categories can undergo only movement, but other categories can undergo only ellipsis. This paper aims to show that conditions on movement and ellipsis are not reducible to a single principle, and are subject to independent licensing principles in UG. We propose two overarching licensing conditions on movement and ellipsis; (i) only functional categories can license the ellipsis of their complements, (ii) movable categories should be phases. Given these conditions, our proposal can explain ellipsis and movement asymmetries in English.
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