On ellipsis: The PF approach to missing constituents

Howard Lasnik, University of Maryland

Ellipsis has long been a target of generative investigation. By the late 1960's, there was intensive debate about whether the derivation of ellipsis constructions involves 'deletion under identity' of material that was present in underlying form, or, alternatively, 'interpretive' copying of the antecedent into a position that was underlyingly empty. More recently, there have been proposals that an ellipsis site contains no structure at any level of representation. I will argue, following Ross (1969) and Merchant (2001) for the original deletion approach. The apparent amelioration of island effects under (some) ellipsis is a potential problem, but I will suggest (developing ideas of Fox and Pesetsky (2005)) how islands can be construed as PF effects, hence, plausibly ameliorated by PF deletion.

Download a copy of the handout.