English VP Ellipsis Research Articles

French Predicate Anaphora, Comparatives, and Ellipsis

Abstract While French does not display the kind of VP-ellipsis found in languages like English, it effects verbal anaphora by means of two constructions that have received relatively little attention in the literature. Both of these combine the generic ‘action verb’ faire ‘do’ with what appears to be a pronoun. The first one, which I call le-faire anaphora (LFA), uses the clitic le, whereas the second one, which I call faire-ça anaphora (FCA), brings into play the strong pronoun ça ‘it/that’. Taking such pronouns to be substitutive pro-forms devoid of inner structure cannot, however, explain why LFA, but not FCA, can appear in the standard of a comparative, a property that distinguishes English VP-ellipsis from VP-pro-forms like do it/that/so, which behave like FCA. On the other hand, LFA, unlike English VP-ellipsis, does not allow wh-extraction from a VP-internal position outside the realm of comparatives, which leads to a paradox left unresolved in the literature. In this article, I argue that LFA involves ellipsis of a whole vP phase. Specifically, I argue that faire in LFA, but not in FCA, is a (semi)auxiliary verb that takes a vP complement and bears an E-feature lexicalized by the clitic le. I show that this correctly predicts that A-movement out of the ellipsis site is possible and that A-bar movement of a degree wh-phrase out of vP in comparatives is made possible by the fact that French licenses Quantification at a Distance, a grammatical operation that allows degree quantifiers to escape vP before the next phasal head (C) is merged and triggers ellipsis. Other wh-quantifiers that do not benefit from the Quantification at a Distance option are then expected to not be able to escape vP prior to ellipsis, hence run-of-the-mill wh-extraction out of VP is correctly predicted to be incompatible with LFA. I then turn to what appears to be a related anaphoric phenomenon, which consists of the predicational copula être ‘be’ and the clitic le, which I call l’être anaphora (LEA), and show that it too is an instance of ellipsis in that it allows the full range of extraction phenomena out of the missing constituent introduced by the copula. I assume that in those cases in which the copula takes a small clause, it participates in an asymmetric structure where it lexicalizes Pred, a head that mediates between subject and predicate. In those cases in which the copula introduces a passivized VP, on the other hand, I assume that it lexicalizes v, an assumption in line with theories that posit multiple instantiations of predicate mediators (so-called ‘flavors of v’). In both cases, the copula in LEA heads a phase, bears an E-feature lexicalized by le, and is argued to license ellipsis of its phasal complement. Thus, elements are allowed to escape ellipsis by moving to the edge of the phase headed by the copula, and this correctly predicts that LEA permits a wider range of extractions out of the ellipsis site than LFA does.

Auxiliary Verbs and VP Ellipsis in English

Auxiliary Verbs and VP Ellipsis in English

Structural priming in production through ‘silence’: An investigation of verb phrase ellipsis and null complement anaphora

There are two common competing conceptions of how ellipsis can be resolved: in the first, ellipsis is resolved by constructing unpronounced syntactic representations at the ellipsis site; in the second, ellipsis can be resolved by consulting the semantic/discourse information present in the antecedent, without the mediation of any syntax at all. In four syntactic priming experiments, we examine whether resolving English VP ellipsis and Null Complement Anaphora involves accessing the syntactic representations, or only the semantic representations, of the antecedent clause. Our findings suggest both VPE and Null Complement Anaphora can trigger structural priming effects, but the conditions under which they trigger priming are different. These results have implications for both theories of structural priming mechanism and theories of ellipsis resolution.

MaxElide and Extraction out of VP Ellipsis in English

MaxElide and Extraction out of VP Ellipsis in English

Another Look at Re-binding in English VP Ellipsis

This paper revisits the issue of when re-binding in cases of VP ellipsis in English is degraded, and a new analysis is given that revises the...

Possession type affects resolution of possessive pronouns in English VP ellipsis

The sentence “Bill washed his car, and John did, too” has two possible interpretations if the overt his refers to Bill: (i) a coreferential interpretation, in which John washed Bill’s car, or (ii) a bound variable interpretation, in which John washed his own car. What guides comprehenders’ selection of one over the other? Previous research has identified factors such as processing economy (e.g. Reuland, 2001) and lexical semantic properties of the verb and possessed noun (e.g. Foley et al., 2003; Ong & Brasoveanu, 2014). We extend research on the contribution of possession type to resolution of this type of ambiguous VP ellipsis. We hypothesize that the range of possession types found in natural language varies in the extent to which the possessum is processed as an independent discourse referent or as dependent on the discourse representation of its possessor. Moreover, we expect that such differences modulate the possessum’s availability for coreference and, therefore, affect ambiguity resolution. We conducted an experiment testing how different possession relations modulate adult L1 English speakers’ interpretational preference. Inanimate nouns favored bound variable interpretations more than animates did, supporting our hypothesis that the overt possession’s animacy and its resultant discourse status are important factors in the resolution of the elided possessive pronoun. Follow-up experiments confirmed these results and ruled out nouns’ real-world plausibility of possession as a determinant of interpretational preference. Our results suggest that animate possessions are more likely than inanimates to receive independent status in the discourse and consequently to be available for coreference when the ellipsis is interpreted.

An English VPE puzzle and a derivational approach to ellipsis

Even though a lot of researchers have tried to illuminate the exact nature of English VP ellipsis (henceforth VPE), there is no consensus on how sentences with VPE are generated. It seems that the most widely accepted approaches involve the PF deletion approach (Merchant 2001, 2008, 2013; Lasnik 2001, inter alia) and the LF copying approach (Chung et al. 1995; Saito 2007, inter alia). However, in this paper, I point out that these two analyses cannot account for the VPE puzzle presented by Tancredi (1992), which shows that the ellipsis site of VPE cannot contain an in-situ wh-phrase. That is, a wh-element staying in VP cannot be elided alongside VPE. In order to explain this puzzle, I adopt the proposal by Park (2017a, 2017b) that ellipsis is a narrow syntactic operation that occurs during the derivation, rather than a post-syntactic operation occurring at PF, and that what is elided as a result of ellipsis is phonological feature matrices of lexical items inside the ellipsis site. On the basis of this derivational approach to ellipsis, I propose a prosodic requirement that all questions have to obey. This requirement is based on Richards’ (2016) Contiguity, which states that syntax can make reference to particular types of phonological information, and that syntax generates a prosodic representation during the derivation (i.e. as the derivation proceeds) alongside the syntactic representation. I argue that this prosodic constraint can also explain puzzling properties of Dutch Modal Complement Ellipsis, and British English do construction, where the complement of do located in v is elided. (Seoul National University)

Do it, do so, and VP-ellipsis

This paper is a phase-based approach to the contrasting syntactic properties of VP-anaphora, do so, and VP-ellipsis in English. Since the emergence of the pioneering distinction between deep and surface anaphor by Hankamer and Sag (1976), much debate has been conducted to verify the validity of the distinction: whether the distinction is real, which anaphora belongs to which, or whether there is a better distinction between anaphora. In this regard, do so lies in the middle. A number of contradictory situations under the simple deep and surface dichotomy have been reported. Just as Sag and Hankamer (1984) already suggest that the distinction be reconsidered, this paper raises a question about what the syntactic (and semantic) nature of do so really is. This paper explores the dual nature of do so and attempts to find a syntactic solution by taking more syntactic facts into consideration regarding the extraction out of do so and the mismatch between an anaphor and its antecedent.

On wh-extraction out of VP ellipsis bled by subject-auxiliary inversion

This paper investigates wh-extraction out of VP ellipsis in English which is bled by subject-auxiliary inversion (SAI) applying only to the ellipsis clause but not to the antecedent clause. To elucidate the interaction of wh-extraction out of VP ellipsis with SAI, we first reinstate the requirement of successive cyclicity for wh-movement, which will leave behind a trace at the periphery of the VP that undergoes ellipsis. To boot, we redefine the domain for parallelism/identity on extraction-permitting ellipsis, proposing that it includes the three elements such as the extracted element, the ellipsis-licensing element, and the elided constituent. It will be shown below that both the reinstated general requirement for wh-movement and the redefined domain for parallelism are instrumental to accounting for the full paradigm of examples involving wh-extraction out of VP ellipsis interacting with SAI.

VP-ellipsis, Stripping, and the Functions of the Delimiter –to in Korean

VP-ellipsis constructions in English can be schematized as S + [NP finite-AUX __ ] where the underlined part is understood to be a VP. Similarly, the pattern S + NP[-to] can be observed in Korean colloquial contexts. Though the English VP-ellipsis sentence pattern and the Korean pattern superficially seem to be similar, the Korean pattern exhibits peculiar properties: Syntactically, the NP of the pattern should have the delimiter -to. Semantically, it may convey ambiguous readings: VP-ellipsis-like and/or Stripping-like interpretation. To account for the pattern at issue, we propose a base-generated analysis driven by the delimiter -to within a construction grammar. We claim that the mother of the NP[-to] in this pattern is an S whose meaning is ambiguous between a VP-ellipsis-like and a Stripping-like reading. Consequently, the code of the VP-ellipsis in English is finite auxiliary verbs while that of the pattern S + NP[-to] in Korean is the delimiter -to.

To be or not to be elided: VP ellipsis revisited

The main question that this paper addresses is: what happens to non-finite auxiliaries under English VP ellipsis (VPE)? Do they remain overt like finite auxiliaries, or do they disappear together with lexical verbs? Akmajian and Wasow (1975) and Sag (1976) observed the following pattern: non-finite have always stays overt, being is obligatorily elided, and be and been are optionally elided. We provide an analysis for this pattern. As preliminaries for our account we follow Chomsky (1993) and Lasnik (1995b) in assuming that English auxiliaries carry uninterpretable inflectional features which force the auxiliary to raise to the relevant inflectional head for feature checking at PF. As we argue that VPE includes the progressive projections in the ellipsis site, but nothing higher, the have and being data automatically fall out: have is base-generated outside the ellipsis site, so is never elided, whilst being's landing site is inside the ellipsis site, so being is always elided. For be and been, which are base-generated in the ellipsis site and raise out of it to get their inflectional features checked, we take an optional raising approach: in non-elliptical sentences raising is obligatory, otherwise the derivation crashes at PF because of unchecked features. Ellipsis contexts, on the other hand, provide the option of not raising for be and been, because ellipsis then deletes be and been in their base positions, along with their unchecked features, avoiding the PF violation. We extend this account to other phenomena, such as VP fronting, pseudo-clefts and predicate inversion.

Subjacency and MaxElide in English VP Ellipsis Constructions

Subjacency and MaxElide in English VP Ellipsis Constructions

Processing VP-ellipsis and VP-anaphora with structurally parallel and nonparallel antecedents: An eye-tracking study

In this paper, we report on an eye-tracking study investigating the processing of English VP-ellipsis (John took the rubbish out. Fred did [] too) (VPE) and VP-anaphora (John took the rubbish out. Fred did it too) (VPA) constructions, with syntactically parallel versus nonparallel antecedent clauses (e.g., The rubbish was taken out by John. Fred did [] too/Fred did it too). The results show first that VPE involves greater processing costs than VPA overall. Second, although the structural nonparallelism of the antecedent clause elicited a processing cost for both anaphor types, there was a difference in the timing and the strength of this parallelism effect: it was earlier and more fleeting for VPA, as evidenced by regression path times, whereas the effect occurred later with VPE completions, showing up in second and total fixation times measures, and continuing on into the reading of the adjacent text. Taking the observed differences between the processing of the two anaphor types together with other research findings in the literature, we argue that our data support the idea that in the case of VPE, the VP from the antecedent clause necessitates more computation at the elision site before it is linked to its antecedent than is the case for VPA.

The Syntactic Licensing of VP Ellipsis in English

The Syntactic Licensing of VP Ellipsis in English

Factoring out the parallelism effect in VP-ellipsis: English vs. Dutch contrasts

Previous studies, including Duffield and Matsuo (2001; 2002; 2009), have demonstrated second language learners’ overall sensitivity to a parallelism constraint governing English VP-ellipsis constructions: like native speakers (NS), advanced Dutch, Spanish and Japanese learners of English reliably prefer ellipsis clauses with structurally parallel antecedents over those with non-parallel antecedents. However, these studies also suggest that, in contrast to English native speakers, L2 learners’ sensitivity to parallelism is strongly influenced by other non-syntactic formal factors, such that the constraint applies in a comparatively restricted range of construction-specific contexts. This article reports a set of follow-up experiments — from both computer-based as well as more traditional acceptability judgement tasks — that systematically manipulates these other factors. Convergent results from these tasks confirm a qualitative difference in the judgement patterns of the two groups, as well as important differences between theoreticians’ judgements and those of typical native speakers. We consider the implications of these findings for theories of ultimate attainment in second language acquisition (SLA), as well as for current theoretical accounts of ellipsis.

Local licensers and recovering in VP ellipsis

The core properties of VP ellipsis in English and Portuguese may be captured assuming that the elliptical constituent is licensed under local c-command by a verbal element in a sentence functional head. However, the lack of VP ellipsis in most Romance languages and in German, despite the existence of verb movement to sentence functional projections in these languages, suggests that a parameter is involved. Empirical evidence indicates that this parametric variation should not be attributed to a specific functional head because the functional head occupied by the verbal licenser may vary across languages and language varieties. So we will claim that the existence vs. absence of VP ellipsis in the languages considered in this study is due to the features of the functional head that intervenes between the verbal licenser and the elliptical vP phase.

The asymmetric nature of Bantu applicative constructions

Studies of the applicative constructions in various Bantu languages have revealed two types: symmetrical object languages in which both objects in double object applicatives exhibit the same syntactic properties, and asymmetrical object languages, where the two objects do not behave the same way [Bresnan, J., Moshi, L., 1990. Object asymmetries in comparative Bantu. Linguistic Inquiry 21, 147–185]. This study investigates the constituent structure of the applicatives in Kikuyu (a symmetrical object language) and Chingoni (an asymmetrical object language). Following [Ngonyani, D., 1996a. The Morphosyntax of Applicatives. Doctoral dissertation, UCLA], VP ellipsis in which only the object is missing is established as a diagnostic tool. The data demonstrate that although the constructions lack only the complement, they exhibit the same syntactic properties as English VP ellipsis, namely, availability of sloppy identity interpretation, possibility of deleting idiom chunks, and lack of island constraints. VP ellipsis reveals that applicative constructions in both languages are generated with the direct object appearing in the lowest predicate, while the applied object appears in the higher VP. This suggests the applicative affix is a head that takes an event as its complement [Pylkkänen, L., 2002. Introducing Arguments. Doctoral dissertation, MIT]. The findings show the same pattern of argument positions in the two language thus supporting Baker's [Baker, M., 1988. Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago University Press, Chicago] UTAH. The study brings to light some interesting features of multiple applicatives. For example, the symmetry noted in Kikuyu double object construction is not found in multiple applicatives.

Cross-linguistic semantics

Rooth & Partee (1982) and Rooth (1985) have shown that the English-specific rule-by-rule system of PTQ can be factores out into function application plus two transformations for resolving type mismatch (type lifting and variable binding). Building on these insights, this article proposes a universal system for type-driven translation, by adding two more innovations: local type determination for gaps (generalizing Montague 1973) and a set of semantic filters (extending Cooper 1983). This system, dubbed Cross-Linguistic Semantics (XLS), is shown to account for various phenomena — including scope relations in English and Greenlandic Eskimo, internally headed relative clauses in Lakhota, serial verbs in Yoruba and VP ellipsis in English.