Multiple Sluicing Research Articles

Short sources, islandhood, and pronominal correlates: New experimental support from German and Spanish for a short source approach to apparent exceptions to the clausemate condition on multiple sluicing

This paper focuses on multiple sluicing (MS) utterances in which the antecedent for sluicing is syntactically complex, insofar as it contains at least one embedded clause. Complex antecedent MS (henceforth caMS) is subject to the clausemate condition (CC). Phrased in sententialist terms, the CC bans sluiced wh-phrases from being base-generated in different finite clauses in the elliptic clause. Under specific conditions, it seems that the CC is obviated. We report results from acceptability judgment experiments on German and Spanish that provide further evidence that elliptic wh-clauses in caMS can be monoclausal in nature and that these monoclausal elliptic clauses (so-called short sources) are judged as significantly more acceptable than their isomorphic, biclausal elliptic clause counterparts. We interpret these results as supporting the view that purported obviations to CC are only apparent, following Cortés Rodríguez (2022a) and Cortés Rodríguez & Griffiths (to appear). Because these experiments are novel in that they focus on caMS configurations involving syntactic islands, their results provide new insights into how putative CC-obviation and islandhood interact and demonstrate that not only personal but also relative pronouns can function as correlates in MS.

On the Clause Mate Condition in Multiple Sluicing

On the Clause Mate Condition in Multiple Sluicing

Pair-List Interpretation in Multiple Sluicing in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract Among the proposals for multiple sluicing in Mandarin Chinese is what we call the multi-clausal analysis, which posits that it involves conjoined single wh-questions. This paper aims to examine the analysis through the possibility of pair-list interpretation for multiply sluiced clauses. The conclusion drawn is that the multiclausal analysis alone is not sufficient to fully explicate the relevant phenomenon.

Attention and Locality: On Clause-Boundedness and Its Exceptions in Multiple Sluicing

We provide an account of clause-boundedness in multiple sluicing that also captures its exceptions. Clause-boundedness arises whenever an embedded clause’s subject is not coreferential with a topical discourse referent in the embedding clause. Our account ties clause-boundedness to discourse factors. We discuss implementations that import sensitivity to information structure into the syntax, and compare our approach with recent work—in particular, Grano and Lasnik 2018 and “short source” accounts (most recently, Abels and Dayal 2017, 2021)—and demonstrate that these accounts both under- and overgenerate. The empirical coverage of our account argues against purely syntacticized agreement-based approaches to clause-boundedness.

On the Syntax of Multiple Sluicing and What It Tells Us aboutWh-Scope Taking

Across many languages, multiple sluicing obeys a clausemate constraint. This can be understood on the empirically well-supported assumption that covert phrasal wh-movement is clause-bounded and subject to Superiority. We provide independent evidence for syntactic structure at the ellipsis site and for locality constraints on movement operations within the ellipsis site. The fact that the distribution of multiple sluicing is substantially narrower than that of multiple wh-questions, on their single-pair as well as their pair-list reading, entails that there must be mechanisms for scoping in-situ wh-phrases that do not rely on covert phrasal wh-movement. We adopt the choice-functional account for single-pair readings. For pair-list readings, we develop a novel functional analysis, argue for the functional basis of pair-list readings, and present a new perspective on pair-list readings of questions with quantifiers.

An Experimental Investigation of Multiple Sluicing in Mandarin Chinese

This paper examines multiple sluicing constructions in Mandarin Chinese (henceforth, MC) experimentally. The acceptability status of such constructions in MC is controversial, and the judgments reported in the previous literature vary. Obtaining experimental evidence on the acceptability status is, therefore, important to advance the research on multiple sluicing in MC. Consequently, the present study conducts two sets of experiments to investigate factors affecting the acceptability of multiple sluicing sentences and the influence of the distribution of shi preceding wh-remnants on acceptability ratings. The results show that multiple sluicing in MC is generally a marked construction. Nevertheless, factors including prepositionhood and specificity have ameliorating effects on the acceptability of such constructions. Moreover, the influence of the distribution of shi on the acceptability ratings is related to the nature of wh-remnants; that is, its presence significantly improves the acceptability of cases of multiple sluicing when it precedes bare wh-arguments. We argue that the observed ameliorating effects on multiple sluicing can be explained by a cue-based retrieval approach to cross-linguistic elliptical constructions. Compared to bare wh-arguments, prepositional and discourse-linked wh-phrases provide cues to facilitate the retrieval of information from antecedent clauses.

Multiple sluicing and islands: a cross-linguistic experimental investigation of the clausemate condition

Abstract This paper experimentally investigates the two generalizations for multiple sluicing (MS) recently presented by Klaus Abels and Veneeta Dayal: first, that wh-remnants must have clausemate correlates in the antecedent utterance and, second, that wh-remnants in MS can have correlates in the antecedent clause that are contained in a strong syntactic island. The fact that MS displays both of these properties is puzzling since island insensitivity under sluicing favors a non-sententialist approach to MS, while the clausemate requirement on MS is most straightforwardly explained by postulating a silent structure at the ellipsis site. Even though the clausemate condition has been reported in several languages, no experimental work has been conducted so far to examine its precise effects on the acceptability of MS constructions. In this paper, I will present the results of a series of experiments in German, English, and Spanish (employing both acceptability judgment tasks and a self-paced reading task), where the factors of clausemateness and islandhood have been examined systematically. The results provide solid cross-linguistic support for Abels and Dayal’s generalizations by showing that multiple sluices originating from islands and non-islands are equally acceptable and do not exhibit online processing differences. Furthermore, the acceptability judgment tasks show a significant degradation in acceptability when the correlates in the antecedent do not stem from the same finite clause, thus violating the clausemate condition. I will interpret these results as supporting a particular strand of sententialist research known as the island evasion approach and, in particular, defend that MS is derived from a non-isomorphic short source sluice.

Experimentally testing the interpretation of multiple sluicing and multiple questions in Hungarian

Abstract Hungarian multiple sluicing has been claimed to only be allowed in contexts that set up a pair-list, but not a single-pair reading. This has been taken as evidence that multiple sluicing is derived from multiple wh-fronting questions, which only license pair-list, but not single-pair answers. Providing novel experimental evidence, we show that all three relevant constructions in Hungarian – multiple sluicing, single wh-fronting questions, and multiple wh-fronting questions – in fact pattern alike in their answerhood conditions: both pair-list and single-pair readings are allowed, with a modest preference for single-pair readings. Based on our results, we thus argue that answerhood conditions are not sufficient to determine the source of multiple sluicing.

Conjunction saves multiple sluicing: How *(and) why?

Our goal in this paper is to analyze coordinated wh-sluicing in English and compare its properties to the properties of multiple sluicing, coordinated wh-questions and coordinated clefts. We show that none of these constructions has the properties of coordinated sluices, and conclude that coordinated sluices are not derivationally related to them. We propose, instead, that coordinated sluices underlyingly involve coordination of two interrogative CPs with a single fronted wh-phrase and an elided TP in each CP. In addition, we propose that the elided TP of the second conjunct in a coordinated sluice contains a pronominal element (an E-type pronoun) coindexed with the trace of the fronted wh-phrase in the first conjunct. We show that this analysis derives the properties of coordinated sluices and explains why they differ from multiple sluices, coordinated wh-questions and coordinated clefts.

Multiple Sluicing, Scope, and Superiority: Consequences for Ellipsis Identity

This article defends a semantic identity account of ellipsis licensing. The argument comes from examples of multiple sluicing, especially from Russian. Concentrating on antecedents that contain two quantified statements, we uncover a surprising asymmetry: surface scope antecedents can license a multiple sluice, but inverse scope antecedents cannot. We explain this finding in terms of semantic accounts of ellipsis licensing, where ellipsis is licensed when the sluice corresponds to an (implicit) question under discussion. We show that QUDs cannot be computed from the truth-conditional content of the antecedents alone; instead, they must be computed only after (scalar) implicatures have been calculated and added to the common ground, along with the context of utterance. We further discuss the commitments required of syntactic/LF identity accounts of ellipsis licensing in order to accommodate multiple sluicing with quantified antecedents, and argue that such accounts are practically untenable.

How to Neutralize a Finite Clause Boundary: Phase Theory and the Grammar of Bound Pronouns

A bound pronoun in the subject position of a finite embedded clause renders the clause boundary relatively transparent to relations ordinarily confined to monoclausal, control, and raising configurations. For example, too/ enough-movement structures involving a finite clause boundary are degraded in sentences like * This book is too long [for John to claim [that Bill read ___ in a day]] but improved when the finite clause has a bound pronominal subject as in ? This book is too long [for John1to claim [that he1read ___ in a day]]. This bound pronoun effect holds across a wide range of phenomena including too/ enough-movement, tough-movement, gapping, comparative deletion, antecedent-contained deletion, quantifier scope interaction, multiple questions, pseudogapping, reciprocal binding, and multiple sluicing; we confirm the effect via a sentence acceptability experiment targeting some of these phenomena. Our account has two crucial ingredients: (a) bound pronouns optionally enter the derivation with unvalued ϕ-features and (b) phases are defined in part by convergence, so that under certain conditions, unvalued features void the phasal status of CP and extend the locality domain for syntactic operations.

The syntax of two types of sluicing in Tamil

AbstractRecent analyses of sluicing focus on the underlying structure of the sluiced clause, i.e. sluicing as deriving from full-fledged wh-questions, or from reduced clefts (Ross 1969, Guess who? In Robert I. Binnick, Alice Davison, Georgia M. Green & Jerry L. Morgan (eds.),Proceedings of the Fifth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 252–286. Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago; Merchant 2001,The syntax of silence. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press; Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van. 2010b.The syntax of ellipsis: Evidence from Dutch dialects. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press., inter alia). In this paper, we investigate two sluicing strategies in Spoken Tamil, namelycase-marked(CM) andnon-case-marked(NCM) sluicing. In addition to the morphological distinction with respect to the presence/absence of grammatical case on the wh-sluice, we argue that the two types of sluicing differ in the configuration of the underlying embedded CP. For CM sluicing, the sluiced clause is derived from a full-fledged interrogative CP at the underlying level, whereas the bare wh-sluice undergoes leftward wh-scrambling to the CP-initial position followed by TP-domain deletion at PF. While we contend that most A/A’-diagnostics are uninformative of the type of operation wh-scrambling in Tamil involves (contra Sarma 2003, Non-Canonical word order: Topic and focus in adult and child tamil. In Karimi Simin (eds.),Word order and scrambling, 238–272. Malden, Oxford: Blackwell), various properties of the CM wh-sluice (e.g. scope, negation, adverb placement, multiple sluicing) can still be described by postulating that the wh-sluice involves A’-scrambling. For the second type of sluicing (NCM sluicing), the sluiced clause involves a biclausal structure formed by a normal sentence and a null copular question. We claim that the NCM wh-sluice is derived fromSpad(Sluicing Plus A Demonstrative), since the null copular question can be accompanied by a demonstrative, cf. English ‘John met someone, who is that?’ and Dutch spading (Van Craenenbroeck 2010b). Spad is not derived from a full-fledged interrogative CP, and therefore its wh-sluice does not involve any scrambling operation. The present analysis of Tamil sluicing refutes the claim that reduced clefts are one underlying sluicing source in Dravidian languages, and moreover invites an inquiry of whether Dravidian as a language family in the historical sense always receives a homogeneous analysis, given the immense parametric variation among branch languages. In the same vein, we contend that any claim about the ‘principles’ of Dravidian syntax must be supported by strong cross-linguistic evidence at the microscopic level.

A Resumption Strategy for Gapless Multiple Right Dislocation

This paper mainly focuses on gapless multiple right dislocation constructions in Korean. Abe (2016) argues against the most popular approach to right dislocation, namely, a bi-clausal analysis incorporating repair by ellipsis strategy. Instead, he argues for a bi-clausal in situ deletion approach based on island insensitivity, intervention effects, and multiple sluicing in Japanese. In this paper, I carefully examine Abe’s arguments, using corresponding Korean examples, and argue that his arguments are not tenable. I even claim that the bi-clausal analysis is not an option. More specifically, I propose that the in situ deletion effects are achieved by another mechanism, which I call phonetic resumption, under the mono-clausal analysis coupled with TP-raising.

Multiple Sluicing and SWIPING Meet RT-based Experimental Syntax

The main purpose of this paper to scrutinize to what extent advanced L2 learners would differ from L1 speakers in the anticipation, integration, and repair of syntactic information during sentence processing. For this purpose, we conducted two on-line self-paced reading experiments for processing multiple Sluicing (or TP ellipsis) with two PP remnants in English by both L1 speakers and L2 learners and found some interesting findings as follows. First, L1 speakers showed an early effect of processing both the first preposition pied-piped and the first SWIPING-ed (or inverted preposition) PP remnant conditions in the same way, pointing to the fact that they anticipated upcoming information (TP ellipsis), whereas the L2 learners did not. The latter result is in line with those in other works showing that L2 learners do not expect upcoming syntactic categories in the same fashion as L1 speakers do. Second, L2 speakers showed a late effect of processing both the first and the second SWIPING-ed PP conditions analogously, implying either an increase in working memory or the use of different repair tactics compared with L1 speakers.

Multiple Sluicing in English and Its Implication for the Unconstrained Pseudosluicing Hypothesis*

Multiple Sluicing in English and Its Implication for the Unconstrained Pseudosluicing Hypothesis*

Toward a Unified Analysis of the Finiteness Restriction in Multiple Fragment Answer, Gapping, and Multiple Sluicing

his paper investigates the syntax of Multiple Fragment Answer (MFA), Gapping, and Multiple Sluicing (MS) in English, the common thread of these three constructions being the survival of more than one expression outside a deletion site. One outstanding issue raised by these constructions is the finiteness restriction that disallows the second surviving expression from escaping the finite embedded clause to the edge of the matrix TP to be deleted. We argue that this restriction follows from parallelism that governs the syntax and semantics of the ellipsis clause and its corresponding antecedent clause. Specifically, the inability of the second surviving expression to move out of the finite embedded clause to the outside of TP deletion is ascribed to the fact that its correlate expression in the antecedent clause is construed as a functional variable and quantificational, thus undergoing QR if it moves, so that it is clause-bounded. The finiteness restriction in these three constructions is shown to receive a unified analysis, thus theoretically more appealing than any other previous analyses.

Multiple Sluicing in English?

AbstractSeveral cases have been discovered where syntactic violations seem to be “repaired” by sluicing. One such case is repair of island violations, first observed by Ross (1969). Another is situations in which a normally obligatory movement fails to apply and the derivation is seemingly salvaged by ellipsis. Another potential instance of repair by ellipsis involves cases where an element moves although it should not have, but the violation is seemingly ameliorated by sluicing. That type is the focus of this article. In particular, English does not generally allow multiple wh‐movement, but under some circumstances it seems to allow multiple sluicing. I explore the properties of this apparent multiple sluicing in English and argue instead for a rightward movement account of the second wh‐expression, especially based on “Right Roof” effects and on a constraint on P‐stranding.

Single and Multiple Sluicing in Persian

This article discusses the syntax and LF properties of the phenomenon of sluicing as ellipsis of the sentential complement to an interrogative complementizer hosting a wh-phrase in Persian. The main purpose of this paper is to explore sluicing in Persian as a real wh-in-situe language that displays optional wh-movement, with a special focus on multiple sluicing. Built on focus movement analysis rather than wh-movement, we examined the movement-plus-deletion approach and the role of focus fronting in moving the remnant out of the deleted constituent in Persian sluicing to a position where it can be stranded. Finally, we also looked into possibility of non-interrogative sluicing and non-d-linked wh words and briefly put forward our proposition about wh the hell phrases in Persian.

<i>Uttering trees</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Uttering trees Yosuke Sato Norvin Richards. 2010. Uttering trees. In the series Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 56. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pp. x + 233. US $24.69 (softcover). Uttering trees presents two hypotheses regarding the syntax-phonology interface within the framework of the Minimalist Program. One hypothesis, “Distinctness”, states that if any pair of nodes in a spelled-out domain cannot be distinguished from each other, and are in an asymmetric c-command relation, the derivation crashes because the linearization procedure would include a contradictory statement of the form < α,α >. The other hypothesis, “Beyond strength and weakness”, is an attempt to predict whether a language has overt wh-movement or wh-in-situ from the position of the interrogative C (initial vs. final) and its prosodic alignment structure (right vs. left-edge). The book consists of four chapters followed by notes, references, and index. Chapter 1 (“Introduction”) gives an overview of the two hypotheses. Chapter 2 (“Distinctness”) presents an argument for the Distinctness Hypothesis (1). 1. Distinctness: If a linearisation statement < α,α > is generated, the derivation crashes. (p. 5) Couched within Phase Theory (Chomsky 2000), (1) disallows any trees where two nodes of the same type are to be linearized in the same spell-out domain if they are in an asymmetric c-command relation. The precise nature of “the same type” varies across languages. In English, two nodes cannot be distinguished from each other if they share the same label. Richards claims that this follows from the proposal of Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993), that functional heads are inserted via late vocabulary insertion. Assuming that linearization precedes late insertion, two nodes of the same label are non-distinct and cause the derivation to crash if linearized in the same spell-out domain. Section 2.1 examines several cases of Distinctness violations. For example, English allows multiple sluicing (2a), but such a construction is impossible if the remnants are both dps (2b). This pattern follows from (1) if the two dps are non-distinct within the same spelled-out domain. 2. Section 2.2 shows that the Distinctness effects are sensitive not to phonological adjacency, but to spell-out domains demarcated by the phase-based derivation. Richards first uses various facts to show that linear adjacency is insufficient. For instance, consider the examples in (3). 3. The condition in (1) correctly predicts the contrast between (3b) and (3a, c). Since passives do not induce a phase boundary (Chomsky 2000), made and leave in (3b) [End Page 286] are linearized in the same spell-out domain. This is not the case in (3a) or (3c), which involves the phase-inducing transitive verb. Linear adjacency would not predict the contrast in (3b, c) because the two verbs are adjacent in both cases, but only (3c) is grammatical. Linear adjacency is not necessary, either. For example, a Distinctness effect arises in a quotative inversion where two dps appear after the verb (4a). The effect persists even when an adverb disrupts the adjacency between the two dps (4b). This pattern follows if the two dps are spelled-out in the same domain. 4. Section 2.3 investigates the type and features of nodes that Distinctness is sensitive to. Richards argues that different languages avoid Distinctness violations by assigning different features to the potentially offending nodes. Japanese, for instance, allows multiple dp-sluicing. Distinctness effects arise only when both remnants have the same case or animacy (5). 5. Thus, the calculation of Distinctness is more nuanced in Japanese dps than English dps; two dps are non-distinct only if they have the same values for case and animacy. Section 2.4 examines four methods for avoiding Distinctness violations: (i) adding phase boundaries, (ii) removing functional superstructure from one of the offending nodes, (iii) movement suppression, and (iv) movement. Section 2.5 argues that parts of Case theory, together with Case Resistance, can be made to follow from (1). Chapter 3 (“Beyond strength and weakness”) proposes that the overt vs. covert wh-movement distinction, stipulated in the Minimalist Program, is predictable from the position of the interrogative C and the prosodic alignment of Minor Phrases (hereafter, MinPs). Specifically...

Deriving Multiple Sluicing in Korean

Deriving Multiple Sluicing in Korean