On Swiping in English

Abstract

This paper examines the syntax of clauses in which prepositions undergo Swiping/Sluice-Stranding in elliptical questions like Who with? (e.g. in response to ‘She’s having an affair’). We begin by outlining characteristic properties of Swiping, noting that this involves an interrogative wh-constituent positioned in front of a focused preposition, and that the clause remnant following the preposition obligatorily undergoes a type of ellipsis traditionally termed Sluicing. We outline the recent CP shell analysis of Swiping developed by van Craenenbroeck (2010), under which a PP containing a wh-word is moved into the specifier position of an inner CP, the wh-word is moved into the specifier position of an outer CP (stranding the preposition on the edge of the inner CP), and the residual TP is deleted at PF. We discuss a range of problems with his analysis, and argue that it can be substantially improved if we adopt a more richly articulated cartographic structure for the clause periphery under which Swiped clauses contain ForceP, FocP, and FinP projections. More specifically, we argue that the wh-PP moves to the edge of FinP (with the auxiliary moving to Fino in structures involving auxiliary inversion), the preposition moves into Foco to mark it as focused, and the wh-constituent moves into Spec-ForceP to type the clause as interrogative. We claim that the obligatory Sluicing component of Swiping involves ellipsis of FinP in the PF component, and that this is required in order to repair violations of PF constraints which would otherwise arise. We show how our analysis accounts for a range of phenomena not captured under van Craenenbroeck’s original analysis.