The Derivational Timing of Ellipsis

Abstract

This book explores the nature of ellipsis, the core phenomenon that results in various types of omission in sentences. The book has two functions: it provides a state-of-the-art introduction about the approaches to the derivational timing of ellipsis within the popular ‘silent structure’ accounts of ellipsis in the generative syntactic framework; and it provides a collection of novel works investigating at which point linguistic material becomes silenced during the building (the syntactic derivation) and the realization of syntactic structure. The most important topics handled include areas of intensive research within the Minimalist Program, such as structure building, the architecture of grammar, the interaction of the distinct modules interacting with syntax, the order of operations in the postsyntactic component and constraints on binding relations. The chapters also present novel arguments for and against the derivational approaches to ellipsis, the licensing of ellipsis and the phonological constraints on elliptical sentences.