Abstract

Abstract As is well-known, VP Ellipsis in English is possible when INFL is filled with an auxiliary verb, modal, or pleonastic do. Ellipsis is blocked, however, when introduced by a main verb. This is illustrated by the contrast between ( l) and (2). It has been argued that empty VP in (1) is constrained by the ECP (Zagona, 1982, 1988a, 1988b, Lobeck, 1987a, 1990, 1991a, 1993; Chao, 1987), and that INFL properly governs empty VP. Ellipted verb phrases have not yet been analyzed, however, within current government-binding analyses of tensed clauses as projections of AGR or Tense. For example, Chomsky (1992) argues that IP is AGRP, as illustrated in (3).

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