Pronominal inflection and NP ellipsis in German

Abstract

Indefinite and possessive pronouns in German such as ein-es ‘one’ and mein-er ‘mine’ bear strong inflectional endings unlike their determiner counterparts. Following Saab and Liptak (Stud Linguist 70(1):66–108, 2016), I argue that this difference in inflection is due to NP ellipsis, which creates a ‘stranded’ affix that subsequently docks onto the determiner. Assuming that adjectives are reattached by Local Dislocation allows us to account for the descriptive observation that the determiner and pronominal paradigms differ only in the same three exceptional cases where determiners do not bear overt inflection. Furthermore, I discuss how this approach can extend to similar data from Afrikaans, Dutch and English, as well as to split topicalization constructions in German. This analysis provides further support for Saab and Liptak’s proposal that inflection emerges as a direct result of ellipsis, rather than constituting part of the licensing conditions on ellipsis.