The processing of ellipsis sentences can provide clues to their structure, as their structure can influence their processing. We present two studies examining the processing of a previously unexplored subclass of ellipsis sentence, gapping sentences in which one of the remnants is a preposed PP (PPGs). Like some other gapping structures, PPGs are ambiguous between readings in which a DP remnant...

We present an approach to VP ellipsis that allows the direct derivation of source and target sentences (the former need not be unique) during semantic construction. Specific syntactic constituent structures are associated with ellipsis potential, which can then be discharged by pro-verbs like did (too). The determination of source and target sentence, which is done with semantic features in an ...

In English coordinate ellipsis constructions, the determiner of a DP in the second conjunct can sometimes be omitted under identity with the determiner of the corresponding constituent of the first conjunct, a phenomenon known as determiner sharing. Following Williams’s (1997) analysis of nonconstituent ellipsis, we argue that determiner sharing involves a twostep elision process: coordinate el...

It has been argued that a variety of ellipsis constructions in Spanish show properties of rightward movement, e.g., Wh-Stripping (ellipsis with a wh-remnant other than why followed by a non-wh-remnant, [1]), (1a), Multiple Sluicing (Sluicing with multiple remnants, [2] following [3]), (1b), and Gapping (an ellipsis construction where a verb goes missing in the second conjunct of a coordinate st...

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...

We describe two methods of improving the coverage of a system that automatically detects and resolves verb phrase ellipsis. Both methods involve recognizing non-core sentence constituents, thereby making the core constituents more easily manipulated by the ellipsis detection and resolution functions. A system evaluation shows increases both in the number of sentences in which ellipsis is detect...

This paper discusses issues related to VP-Ellipsis and null object constructions in Mandarin Chinese. It consists of two parts. First, pace Li (1998), I argue that it is not true that no null object construction (NOC) sentences can be analyzed as VP -ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese, and I will show that the fact that the interpretation patterns of the relevant sentences deviate from those of their...

A modern statement about the structural relationship between an ellipsis site and its antecedent runs as follows. an elided XP must have a syntactically identical antecedent XP’, modulo traces This is quite a bizzare condition. Why should some parts of structure count for being identical, and others not? Of all the possible relations between two structures, why does this one describe the ellips...

I offer an overview of recent literature on ellipsis phenomena in natural language, including the most salient empirical arguments surrounding the classification of ellipsis as a phenomenon of the Phonological Form or of the Logical Form. I show that the majority of evidence supports the view of ellipsis as PF-deletion rather than LF-copying. I then give a theoretical argument that supports thi...