DOCSLIB.ORG

A Survey of Ellipsis in Chinese

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Survey of Ellipsis in Chinese A Survey of Ellipsis in Chinese Timothy Osborne Junying Liang Zhejiang University Zhejiang University Hangzhou Hangzhou China China [email protected] [email protected] see which ellipsis mechanisms are and are not Abstract present. The analysis of ellipsis pursued below is de- Much work on ellipsis has been conducted pendency-based, and the catena unit plays a cen- using data from English, and many widely tral role in the account. A catena is a word or acknowledged types of ellipsis exist in Eng- combination of words that are linked together by lish. The extent to which the named ellipsis dependencies (Osborne et al. 2012). Ellipsis me- mechanisms exist in other languages is, chanisms in English have been shown to elide though, often not clear. This manuscript sur- veys ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese using a catenae. The survey seeks to determine the extent dependency-based approach to syntax. It to which the catena is also the central unit for a probes to see which ellipsis mechanisms exist theory of ellipsis in Mandarin. in Mandarin. The survey demonstrates that This contribution thus pursues three goals: 1) gapping, stripping, pseudogapping, sluicing, provide an initial exploration of ellipsis in Man- and comparative deletion do not exist in darin, 2) determine the extent to which the catena Mandarin (or are highly restricted) and that unit can serve as the basis for a theory of Manda- VP-ellipsis, answer ellipsis, and N-ellipsis are rin ellipsis, and 3) consider what can be learned all arguably present. Furthermore, zero ana- about ellipsis in general from a comparison of phora is frequent in Mandarin, whereas it is ellipsis mechanisms across English and Manda- absent from English (or highly restricted). The catena unit is pillar of the account, since rin. the elided material of ellipsis is a catena. A word of caution is appropriate concerning the dependency hierarchies assumed for Manda- 1 An inventory of ellipsis mechanisms rin below. To our knowledge, many basic aspects of Mandarin sentence structure have not yet been The study of ellipsis recognizes numerous dis- worked out in theoretical detail from a DG pers- tinct types. The following mechanisms are pective. Basic questions about the dependency among the most commonly acknowledged: status of sentence-final particles, coverbs, de-constructions, classifiers, etc. have not been 1. Gapping debated from a DG perspective. Thus the validity 2. Stripping of many of the structures posited below is taken 3. Pseudogapping for granted. Future explorations into the depen- 4. Sluicing dency structures of Mandarin may motivate cor- 5. Comparative deletion rections to the dependency hierarchies for Man- darin posited below. 6. VP-ellipsis 7. Answer ellipsis 2 Gapping, stripping, pseudogapping 8. N-ellipsis Gapping, stripping, and pseudogapping have 9. Null complement anaphora been thoroughly explored (e.g. Jackedoff 1971, 10. Zero anaphora Kuno 1976, Stump 1977, Levin 1986, McCawley Excepting zero anaphora, these mechanisms oc- 1998). The following three sentences illustrate cur in English, and most of them are present in gapping, stripping, and pseudogapping in Eng- languages related to English. The extent to which lish: they exist in languages more distant from English is often not clear, however. This contribution surveys ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese, probing to 271 Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Dependency Linguistics (Depling 2015), pages 271–280, Uppsala, Sweden, August 24–26 2015. (1) Should or should (6) líkāi-le líkāi-le I call you call you me Jō Lǐ yě Should I call you, or should you call me? *Jō líkāi-le, Lǐ yě líkāi-le. Jo leave-le Li also leave-le. (2) Intended: ‘Jo left, and Li also.’ Should or should (7) *Jō bìxū gōngzuò, Lǐ ye bìxū gōnzuò. I call you call Jo has.to work Li also has.to work. Jo her Intended: ‘Jo has to work, and Li too.’ Should I call Jo, or should you call her? Noteworthy about these failed attempts at gap- ping and stripping is the fact that Mandarin lacks (3) She should call me more than a direct equivalent to and for coordinating claus- should es. Perhaps the absence of such an element is a she call factor limiting the distribution of gapping and stripping, since these mechanisms are widely you acknowledged as occurring only in the she should call you. non-initial conjuncts of coordinated clauses. The following attempt at pseudogappng in Example (1) illustrates gapping, example (2) Mandarin also fails: stripping, and example (3) pseudogapping. Gap- ping and stripping occur in coordinate structures. (8) Nǐ yīngāi xué fǎyǔ, Pseudogapping can appear in subordinate clauses you should study French in the absence of coordination, but the pseudogap yīnggāi must find an antecedent – it cannot take a post- cedent. nǐ yě xué The elided material should…call in (1) and (2) déyǔ is a catena, and the word call in (3) is also a ca- *nǐ yě yīnggāi xué déyǔ. tena, a one-word catena. The fact that should you also should study German immediately dominates call is what makes the combination should…call a catena. The exam- Intended: ‘You should study French, and ples therefore deliver a sense of the importance you should study German, too.’ of the catena unit for the theory of ellipsis. There The data just produced demonstrate that gap- are, however, many details of the dependency ping, stripping, and pseudogapping are types of hierarchies shown in (1–3) that can be over- ellipsis that are either absent from Mandarin, or looked here, since they are not important for are much more restricted than in English. The surveying ellipsis in Mandarin. fact that examples involving both gapping and Turning to Mandarin, we see that these ellip- stripping are bad is not surprising since the two sis mechanisms are generally not possible. The are widely viewed as involving the same one el- following attempts at gapping fail: lipsis mechanism. Concerning the absence of pseudogapping (4) diǎn-le diǎn-le from Mandarin, however, the fact that it is not possible is more revealing. Pseudogapping be- Tā kāfēi tā chá haves like VP-ellipsis in certain ways, and like *Tā diǎn-le kāfēi, tā diǎn-le chá. gapping in other ways. It behaves like s/he ordered coffee s/he ordered tea VP-ellipsis mainly insofar as it is licensed by an Intended: 'He ordered coffee, and she tea.’ auxiliary verb just like VP-ellipsis, and it is like gapping insofar it involves a true “gap” with a (5) *Jō xǐhuān dàngāo, Lǐ xǐhuān qiǎokèlì. remnant, whereby the remnant must stand in Jo likes cake. Li likes chocolate contrast to the parallel constituent in the antece- Intended: ‘Jo likes cake, and Li chocolate.’ dent clause. Thus the absence of pseudogapping The following attempts at stripping in Mandarin verifies to an extent the insight that pseudogap- also fail: ping is at least somewhat related to gapping, 272 enough so that if a language disallows gapping speakers in a main clause, the acceptability and stripping, then it will also disallow pseudo- judgments are less robust: gapping. (11) A: Jō xǐhuān mǒu gè rén. Jo likes certain CL person 2 Sluicing ‘Jo likes a certain person.’ Sluicing (Ross 1969, Merchant 2001) typically xǐhuān elides everything from a clause except an inter- rogative expression (wh-element), e.g. Jō Shuí ? (9) They are hiding something, but a. B: – Jō `xǐhuān Shuí? ? won’t b. B: – Jō Xǐhuān shuí? Jo likes who they say (12) A: Lǐ zhèng cáng zài mǒu gè dìfang. what Li now hide in certain CL place are ‘Li is now hiding in a certain place.’ they hidingg cáng 1 they won’t say what they are hiding. Lǐ zhèng zài The clause introduced by what is sluiced, that is, Nǎr the string they are hiding is elided. Sluicing is a ? frequently occurring type of ellipsis mechanism, a. B: – Lǐ zhèng cáng zài Nǎr? and it exists in most if not all Indo-European Li now hide in where languages. b. B: – ?Lǐ zhèng Cáng zài nǎr? Checking to see if sluicing exists in Mandarin, Li now hide in where the data are not entirely clear. Consider the fol- While there is a preference for the b-questions, in lowing examples: which the verb is repeated, the a-questions are (10) Tā xǐhuān mǒu gè rén, dàn not clearly bad. This situation clouds the picture, s/he likes certain CL person, but since the marginal a-questions look like the ‘S/he likes a certain person, but’ sluicing in direct questions that is frequent in zhīdào those languages that have sluicing. One might, however, assume that what has actually been wǒmen bù shì elided from the a-questions is the auxiliary shì shuí ‘be’. On such an account, such examples would, a. wǒmen bù zhīdào shì shuí. strictly speaking, not count as instances of sluic- we not know be who ing as it is commonly understood. ‘we don’t know who it is.’ Further data speak more clearly against the presence of sluicing in Mandarin. Cases of b. *wǒmen bù zhīdào shì shuí. so-called multiple sluicing are bad in Mandarin. we not know be who Multiple sluicing occurs when the sluiced clause Example (10a), in which the verb shì ‘be’ ap- contains two or more wh-remnants. The follow- pears, cannot, strictly speaking, be interpreted as ing example illustrates multiple sluicing in Eng- sluicing because sluicing typically elides the do- lish: minate verb in a clause. When the dominant verb (13) A: Somebody has a crush on somebody? is indeed elided (here shì), the result is bad, as illustrated with example (10b). This fact suggests has that sluicing is not present in Mandarin.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Syncom.Sluicing
    SynCom Case 98 Sluicing Jason Merchant University of Chicago August 2003 Contents 1. Introduction 2. Movement vs. non-movement approaches 3. Theoretical consequences 3.1. Non-movement approaches 3.2. Movement approaches 4. Puzzles and prospects 4.1. Sluicing-COMP generalization puzzles 4.2. Sluicing in non-wh-in-specCP languages 4.3. Multiple sluicing 4.4. Swiping 5. Conclusion References Glossary 1. Introduction Sluicing is the ellipsis phenomenon illustrated in (1), in which the sentential portion of a constituent question is elided, leaving only a wh-phrase remnant. (1) a. Jack bought something, but I don’t know what. b. A: Someone called. B: Really? Who? c. Beth was there, but you’ll never guess who else. d. Jack called, but I don’t know {when/how/why/where from}. e. Sally’s out hunting — guess what! f. A car is parked on the lawn — find out whose. The sluices in (1) should be compared to their non-elliptical counterparts in (2), with which they are synonymous. (2) a. Jack bought something, but I don’t know what he bought. b. A: Someone called. B: Really? Who called? c. Beth was there, but you’ll never guess who else was there. d. Jack called, but I don’t know {when/how/why} he called. e. Sally’s out hunting — guess what she’s out hunting! f. A car is parked on the lawn — find out whose is parked on the lawn. Sluicing appears to be widespread cross-linguistically (unlike VP-ellipsis), and may in fact be found in some form or another in every language (like nominal ellipses, 1 gapping, stripping, and fragment answers).
    [Show full text]
  • Gapping: in Defense of Deletion
    Gapping: In Defense of Deletion Elizabeth Coppock Northwestern University 1 Introduction Gapping refers to the following type of construction: (1) [α John likes caviar] and [γ Mary beans]. Typically, Gapping involves two such conjoined clauses, where the second clause contains no pronounced verbal material, as in (1). Following usual terminology, I call the missing material the Gap, the first clause (e.g. α) the antecedent clause, the second clause (e.g. γ) the gapped clause, and the pronounced elements of the gapped clause remnants. Assuming that the Gap is present somehow in the syntax, we have three potential analyses, depending on the nature of the Gap. We may interpret it as (i) a null pro-form, (ii) a deleted element, or (iii) a trace of movement. I immediately rule out possibility (i), following Hankamer and Sag (1976), who argue that Gaps are Surface Anaphors as opposed to Deep Anaphors (i.e. null pro-forms), based on their Island sensitivity and the fact that they require a linguistic antecedent. The second idea (deletion) is as old as the term Gapping. The first detailed investigation of the phenomenon was in Rosss 1967 dissertation, where he coined its name, and gave a deletion analysis. In 1976, Sag suggested that the remnants A'-move out of the gapped clause before deletion, preserving the hypothesis that operations (such as deletion) affect entire constituents. My proposal is essentially Sags, differing significantly only in the assumption that remnants adjoin to VP, rather than at the sentence level, as in (2).1 (2) John likes caviar, and [VP Mary1 [VP beans2 [VP t1 likes t2 ] ] ]].
    [Show full text]
  • Treatment of Multiword Expressions and Compounds in Bulgarian
    Treatment of Multiword Expressions and Compounds in Bulgarian Petya Osenova and Kiril Simov Linguistic Modelling Deparment, IICT-BAS Acad. G. Bonchev 25A, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria [email protected] and [email protected] Abstract 2012)), we will adopt the Multiword Expressions The paper shows that catena represen- classification, presented in (Sag et al., 2001). They tation together with valence information divide them into two groups: lexicalized phrases can provide a good way of encoding and institutionalized phrases. The former are fur- Multiword Expressions (beyond idioms). ther subdivided into fixed-expressions, semi-fixed It also discusses a strategy for mapping expressions and syntactically-flexible expressions. noun/verb compounds with their counter- Fixed expressions are said to be fully lexicalized part syntactic phrases. The data on Mul- and undergoing neither morphosyntactic variation tiword Expression comes from BulTree- nor internal modification. Semi-fixed expressions Bank, while the data on compounds comes have a fixed word order, but “undergo some degree from a morphological dictionary of Bul- of lexical variation, e.g. in the form of inflection, garian. variation in reflexive form, and determiner selec- tion” (non-decomposable idioms, proper names). 1 Introduction Syntactically-flexible expressions show more vari- Our work is based on the annotation of Multi- ation in their word order (light verb constructions, word Expressions (MWE) in the Bulgarian tree- decomposable idioms). We follow the understand- bank — BulTreeBank (Simov et al., 2004). We ing of (O’Grady, 1998) that MWEs have their in- use this representation for parsing and analysis of ternal syntactic structure which needs to be rep- compounds. BulTreeBank exists in two formats: resented in the lexicon as well as in the sentence HPSG-based (original - constituent-based with analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • Interpreting and Defining Connections in Dependency Structures Sylvain Kahane
    Interpreting and defining connections in dependency structures Sylvain Kahane To cite this version: Sylvain Kahane. Interpreting and defining connections in dependency structures. 5th international conference on Dependency Linguistics (Depling), Aug 2019, Paris, France. hal-02291673 HAL Id: hal-02291673 https://hal.parisnanterre.fr//hal-02291673 Submitted on 19 Sep 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Interpreting and defining connections in dependency structures Sylvain Kahane Modyco, Université Paris Nanterre & CNRS [email protected] Abstract This paper highlights the advantages of not interpreting connections in a dependency tree as combina- tions between words but of interpreting them more broadly as sets of combinations between catenae. One of the most important outcomes is the possibility of associating a connection structure to any set of combinations assuming some well-formedness properties and of providing a new way to define de- pendency trees and other kinds of dependency structures, which are not trees but “bubble graphs”. The status of catenae of dependency trees as syntactic units is discussed. 1 Introduction The objective of this article is twofold: first, to show that dependencies in a dependency tree or a similar structure should not generally be interpreted only as combinations between words; second, to show that a broader interpreta- tion of connections has various advantages: It makes it easier to define the dependency structure and to better under- stand the link between different representations of the syntactic structure.
    [Show full text]
  • Some Observations on the Hebrew Desiderative Construction – a Dependency-Based Account in Terms of Catenae1
    Thomas Groß Some Observations on the Hebrew Desiderative Construction – A Dependency-Based Account in Terms of Catenae1 Abstract The Modern Hebrew (MH) desiderative construction must obey four conditions: 1. A subordinate clause headed by the clitic še= ‘that’ must be present. 2. The verb in the subordinate clause must be marked with future tense. 3. The grammatical properties genus, number, and person tend to be specified, i.e. if the future tense affix is underspecified, material tends to appear that aids specification, if contextual recovery is unavailable. 4. The units of form that make up the constructional meaning of the desiderative must qualify as a catena. A catena is a dependency-based unit of form, the parts of which are immediately continuous in the vertical dimension. The description of the individual parts of the desiderative must address trans-, pre-, and suffixes, and cliticization. Catena-based morphology is representational, monostratal, dependency-, construction-, and piece-based. 1. Purpose, means and claims The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the Hebrew desiderative construction. This construction is linguistically interesting and challenging for a number of reasons. 1. It is a periphrastic construction, with fairly transparent compositionality. 2. It is transclausal, i.e. some parts of the construction reside in the main clause, and others in the subordinated clause. The complementizer is also part of the construction. 3. The construction consists of more than one word, but it does not qualify as a constituent. Rather the construction cuts into words. 4. Two theoretically 1 I want to thank Outi Bat-El (Tel Aviv University) and three anonymous reviewers for their help and advice.
    [Show full text]
  • Clitics in Dependency Morphology
    Clitics in Dependency Morphology Thomas Groß Aichi University, Nagoya, Japan [email protected] tured in much the same fashion as sentences was Abstract proposed first in Williams (1981), and further discussed in the famous “head-debate” between Clitics are challenging for many theories of grammar Zwicky (1985a) and Hudson (1987). In contem- because they straddle syntax and morphology. In most porary morphological theories that attempt to theories, cliticization is considered a phrasal pheno- inform syntax (predominantly within the genera- menon: clitics are affix-like expressions that attach to tive framework) such as Di Sciullo (2005) and whole phrases. Constituency-based grammars in par- the theory of Distributed Morphology (Halle and ticular struggle with the exact constituent structure of such expressions. This paper proposes a solution Marantz 1993, Embick and Noyer 2001, 2007, based on catena-based dependency morphology. This Harley and Noyer 2003, Embick 2003), words theory is an extension of catena-based dependency are now seen as hierarchically structured items. syntax. Following Authors et.al. (in press), a word or Seen in the light of this development, it is time a combination of words in syntax that are continuous for dependency grammar (DG) to make up for its with respect to dominance form a catena. Likewise, a neglect of morphological matters. The assess- morph or a combination of morphs that is continuous ment by Harnisch (2003) that the development of with respect to dominance form a morph catena. Em- a dependency-based morphology requires imme- ploying the concept of morph catena together with a diate attention is accurate.
    [Show full text]
  • An Asymmetry in Voice Mismatches in VP-Ellipsis and Pseudogapping
    An asymmetry in voice mismatches in VP-ellipsis and pseudogapping Jason Merchant University of Chicago [email protected] Final revision for Linguistic Inquiry, March 29, 2007 VP-ellipsis and pseudogapping in English show a previously unnoticed asymmetry in their tolerance for voice mismatch: while VP-ellipsis allows mismatches in voice between the elided VP and its antecedent, pseudogap- ping does not. This difference is unexpected under current analyses of pseu- dogapping, which posit that pseudogapping is a kind of VP-ellipsis. I show that this difference falls out naturally if the target of deletion in the two cases differs slightly: in VP-ellipsis, a node lower than Voice is deleted, while in pseudogapping a node containing Voice is deleted. This analysis further- more accounts for a new observation concerning the distribution of floated quantifiers in these two constructions as well.1 1Thanks to Kirsten Gengel, Kyle Johnson, and the two LI reviewers for very helpful comments. 1 1 Voice mismatches It is well known that VP-ellipsis in English tolerates mismatches between the voice of the elided constituent and that of its antecedent, in both directions. Typical examples are those in (1) and (2) (the (a) examples from Kehler 2002:53; see also Sag 1976:17, 75, Dalrymple et al. 1991, Hardt 1993, Johnson 2001, and Arregui et al. to appear for further examples, discussion, and qualifications). (1) Passive antecedent, active ellipsis a. This problem was to have been looked into, but obviously nobody did. <look into this problem> b. The system can be used by anyone who wants to.
    [Show full text]
  • Interpreting and Defining Connections in Dependency Structures
    Interpreting and defining connections in dependency structures Sylvain Kahane Modyco, Université Paris Nanterre & CNRS [email protected] Abstract This paper highlights the advantages of not interpreting connections in a dependency tree as combina- tions between words but of interpreting them more broadly as sets of combinations between catenae. One of the most important outcomes is the possibility of associating a connection structure to any set of combinations assuming some well-formedness properties and of providing a new way to define de- pendency trees and other kinds of dependency structures, which are not trees but “bubble graphs”. The status of catenae of dependency trees as syntactic units is discussed. 1 Introduction The objective of this article is twofold: first, to show that dependencies in a dependency tree or a similar structure should not generally be interpreted only as combinations between words; second, to show that a broader interpreta- tion of connections has various advantages: It makes it easier to define the dependency structure and to better under- stand the link between different representations of the syntactic structure. We will focus on the possible syntactic combinations (what combines with what), without considering the fact that combinations are generally asymmetric, linking a governor to a dependent. We use the term connection to denote a dependency without the governor-depen- dency hierarchy. Section 2 presents the notions of combination and connection, which are based on the notion of catena (Osborne et al. 2012). The properties of the set of catenae are studied and used to define an equivalence relation on the set of combinations, which is used to define the connections.
    [Show full text]
  • On Pseudogapping in HPSG*
    On Pseudogapping in HPSG* Dong-woo Park Department of Laguage and Literature, Seoul National University 599 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, Korea [email protected] Abstract. This study investigates the constraints imposed on the pseudogapping in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). Based on the existing schema to account for coordination and gapping, a new pseudogapping schema in coordination structures is proposed in this paper. In the process of capturing the constraints, new DOM lists are added and an existing DOM list is divided into two DOM lists depending on the feature of elements in each domain. Furthermore, new features SEP and INC are introduced. SEP is used for distinguishing prepositions which should be located in the same domain with the following NPs from those which can be separated from the following NPs. INC feature determines whether overlapping adverbs are in non-empty lists or not. Pseudogapping occurs not only in coordination structures, but in comparative or subordination structures. Thus, this paper introduces a pseudogapping schema that can be applied to all structures mentioned above. Keywords: DOM lists, SEP feature, INC feature, pseudogapping schema. 1 Introduction English has ellipsis like these examples. (1) a. Sluicing: She read something, but she won’t say what [vP ]. b. Verb Phrase Ellipsis: She read something and he did [vP ] too. c. Pseudogapping: She’ll read something to Sam, but she won’t [vP ] to Billy. d. Gapping: Some read something to Sam and others [vP ] to Billy. e. Right Node Raising: She deliberately [vP ], and he accidentally, read something.
    [Show full text]
  • By Nayoun Kim 2019
    NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Hold, Release, and Retrieve: The Study of Wh-Filler-Gap Dependencies and Ellipsis A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of Linguistics By Nayoun Kim EVANSTON, ILLINOIS September 2019 2 © Copyright by Nayoun Kim 2019 All Rights Reserved 3 Abstract This dissertation is concerned with how components in memory structures and online structure building processes interact by investigating the online processing of Wh-Filler-Gap Dependencies (WhFGD) and ellipsis constructions. Resolving long-distance dependencies involves linking the dependent element to the controlling element. In the case of Wh-gap dependency formation, the wh-element is linked to the gap. In the case of ellipsis resolution, the ellipsis site is linked to the antecedent. In the processing of long-distance dependency resolution, I point out that two component processes are involved: the storage/maintenance component and the retrieval component. A series of studies on WhFGD formation reveal that the sentence processing mechanism involves the maintenance component on top of the retrieval component. Studies on ellipsis constructions further reveal that when the antecedent is retrieved, detailed grammatical structural information should be retrieved, thus grammatical and structural information must be encoded in memory. Based on the results of these studies, I specifically argue for the following points: (i) the filler is released from memory, depending on the grammatical requirement of the filler; (ii) given that information associated with the filler being retrieved reflects the extent to which the filler is maintained, the parser retrieves grammatical information associated with the wh- filler; and (iii) the parser is sensitive to grammatical distinctions at the ellipsis site in contrast to the processing of Anaphoric one and Pronoun it.
    [Show full text]
  • What VP Ellipsis Can Do, and What It Can't, but Not Why*
    What VP Ellipsis Can Do, and What it Can’t, * but not Why Kyle Johnson University of Massachusetts Amherst VP Ellipsis is the name given to instances of anaphora in which a missing predicate, like that marked by “)” in (2), is able to find an antecedent in the surrounding discourse, as (2) does in the bracketed material of (1). (1) Holly Golightly won’t [eat rutabagas]. (2) I don’t think Fred will ), either. We can identify three sub-problems which a complete account of this phenomenon must solve. (3) a. In which syntactic environments is VP Ellipsis licensed? b. What structural relation may an elided VP and its antecedent have? c. How is the meaning of the ellipsis recovered from its antecedent? These tasks tend to run together, as we shall see; but there is no immediate harm in treating them separately. 1. LICENSING THE ELLIPSIS The first of the problems presents itself with pairs such as (4). (4) I can’t believe Holly Golightly won’t eat rutabagas. a. I can’t believe Fred won’t ), either. b. *I can’t believe Fred ), either. These contrasts are typically thought to involve licensing conditions that the environment to the left of the ellipsis invoke. The contrast between (4a) and (4b), for instance, indicates that the ellipsis site must be in construction with, or perhaps governed by, a member of “Aux,” where these can be understood to be just those terms that are able occupy the highest of the functional projections which clauses are made up of. The modal, won’t, is an Aux, as is the infinitival to and the auxiliaries have, be and do in (5).
    [Show full text]
  • The Syntax of Comparative Constructions : Operators, Ellipsis
    Julia Bacskai-Atkari The Syntax of Comparative Constructions Operators, Ellipsis Phenomena and Functional Left Peripheries Universitätsverlag Potsdam Julia Bacskai-Atkari The syntax of comparative constructions Julia Bacskai-Atkari The syntax of comparative constructions Operators, ellipsis phenomena and functional left peripheries Universitätsverlag Potsdam Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de/ abrufbar. Universitätsverlag Potsdam 2014 http://verlag.ub.uni-potsdam.de/ Am Neuen Palais 10, 14469 Potsdam Tel.: +49 (0)331 977 2533 / Fax: 2292 E-Mail: [email protected] Zugl.: Potsdam, Univ., Diss., 2014 Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Gisbert Fanselow, Department Linguistik, Universität Potsdam Prof. Dr. István Kenesei, Department English Studies, University of Szeged Datum der Disputation: 25.02.2014 Dieses Werk ist unter einem Creative Commons Lizenzvertrag lizenziert: Namensnennung 4.0 International Um die Bedingungen der Lizenz einzusehen, folgen Sie bitte dem Hyperlink: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/de/ Online veröffentlicht auf dem Publikationsserver der Universität Potsdam URL http://pub.ub.uni-potsdam.de/volltexte/2014/7125/ URN urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-71255 http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-71255 Zugleich gedruckt erschienen im Universitätsverlag Potsdam ISBN 978-3-86956-301-5 Acknowledgements This dissertation could not have been written without the funding pro- vided by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) through the Collaborative Research Centre SFB-632 (Information structure: The linguistic means for structuring utterances, sentences and texts) at the Linguistics Department at University of Potsdam, where I held a short- term PhD scholarship in 2012/2013 (working in project A1 in Potsdam and partially also in B4 at the Humboldt University of Berlin), and where I am currently employed as a research fellow (project Z).
    [Show full text]