Ellipsis licensing in differential degree complements∗

Here I investigate the licensing of ellipsis in degree complement clauses found inside differential degree quantifiers. I identify an asymmetry in which the degree complement clause where VP ellipsis takes place must contain a QR-ed quantifier outside the ellipsis site, despite the seeming availability of antecedents both with and without the QR-ed quantifier. This phenomenon has not previously been investigated, to the best of my knowledge, likely owing to the relative understudiedness of comparatives with differential phrases that are themselves comparative or equative degree quantifiers. I explore, and ultimately reject, the possibility that this requirement might be explained via an appeal to incommensurability.1 There is some initial plausibility to the idea that the degree complement clause without the QR-ed quantifier and the constituent in the scope of the relevant degree head denote measures on different scales. The resulting incommensurability finds a natural expression in the directed scale segment framework of Schwarzschild 2013; I sketch an analysis along those lines in section 3. A fuller view of the data, however, reveals that the putative incommensurability is a problem only under ellipsis. This, in turn, suggests that any explanation for the restriction on ellipsis in differential degree complements must come from a theory of ellipsis licensing, not from a theory of scale structure. I show in section 5 that the theory of ellipsis licensing proposed by Kennedy (2014)— which he calls the predicates and formulas theory—correctly derives the restriction in question. On this theory, the ellipsis-containing degree complement clause can never stand in the requisite contrast relation to its antecedent without the QR-ed quantifier. The restriction