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Eliding the derivation: A minimalist formalization of ellipsis
- In: Müller, S. (Ed.), Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Chungnam National University Daejeon. CSLI Publications
"... Abstract In this paper I use the formal framework of minimalist grammars to implement a version of the traditional approach to ellipsis as 'deletion under syntactic (derivational) identity', which, in conjunction with canonical analyses of voice phenomena, immediately allows for voice mis ..."
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Abstract In this paper I use the formal framework of minimalist grammars to implement a version of the traditional approach to ellipsis as 'deletion under syntactic (derivational) identity', which, in conjunction with canonical analyses of voice phenomena, immediately allows for voice mismatches in verb phrase ellipsis, but not in sluicing. This approach to ellipsis is naturally implemented in a parser by means of threading a state encoding a set of possible antecedent derivation contexts through the derivation tree. Similarities between ellipsis and pronominal resolution are easily stated in these terms. In the context of this implementation, two approaches to ellipsis in the transformational community are naturally seen as equivalent descriptions at different levels: the LF-copying approach to ellipsis resolution is best seen as a description of the parser, whereas the phonological deletion approach a description of the underlying relation between form and meaning.
Verb phrase ellipsis: The view from information structure.
- Language
, 2013
"... An analysis of antecedent mismatch effects under ellipsis is proposed to explain why some cases of verb phrase ellipsis exhibit a sizeable penalty when the elided target is not structurally matched to its antecedent, while other cases show little or no penalty at all. The proposal attributes the pe ..."
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An analysis of antecedent mismatch effects under ellipsis is proposed to explain why some cases of verb phrase ellipsis exhibit a sizeable penalty when the elided target is not structurally matched to its antecedent, while other cases show little or no penalty at all. The proposal attributes the penalty in the former case to an information-structural constraint governing contrastive topics, and it is argued that previous accounts have misattributed that penalty to a licensing constraint on ellipsis. Results from four experiments (three off-line acceptability, one on-line self-paced reading) confirm that the relative size of the mismatch penalty can be reliably predicted based on the information structure of the clause containing the ellipsis and that acceptability differences associated with information structure are observable even in the absence of ellipsis.*
2012. Accounting for Voice Mismatch in Ellipsis
- In Proceedings of the 30th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics
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Ellipsis: Computation of
, 2012
"... A computational account of ellipsis should specify not only how the meaning of an elliptical sentence is com-puted in context, but also a description of what is be-ing computed. Many proposals can be divided into two groups, as per whether they compute the mean-ing of an elliptical sentence based on ..."
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A computational account of ellipsis should specify not only how the meaning of an elliptical sentence is com-puted in context, but also a description of what is be-ing computed. Many proposals can be divided into two groups, as per whether they compute the mean-ing of an elliptical sentence based on the semantic or the syntactic parts of its context. A unifying theme of these proposals is that they are all based on the idea that the meaning of an elliptical sentence is deter-minable based on a structured representation which is transformationally related to its surface syntactic structure. 1
AccountingforVoiceMismatchinEllipsis
"... Common approaches to ellipsis typically posit one of two kinds of identity between elided material andsomelocalantecedent: syntacticorsemantic,exclusively. Whensuchidentityispresent,theellipsis isallowed,andnototherwise. Thefactthatmismatchesinvoicebetweenantecedentandelidedmaterial are only sometim ..."
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Common approaches to ellipsis typically posit one of two kinds of identity between elided material andsomelocalantecedent: syntacticorsemantic,exclusively. Whensuchidentityispresent,theellipsis isallowed,andnototherwise. Thefactthatmismatchesinvoicebetweenantecedentandelidedmaterial are only sometimes allowed poses problems for both theories. Athird, hybrid approach –the discourse
LF-Copying without LF
"... A copying approach to ellipsis is presented, whereby the locus of copying is not a level of derived syntactic structure (LF), but rather the derivation itself. The ban on prepo-sition stranding in sprouting follows without further stipulation, and other, seemingly structure sensitive, empirical gene ..."
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A copying approach to ellipsis is presented, whereby the locus of copying is not a level of derived syntactic structure (LF), but rather the derivation itself. The ban on prepo-sition stranding in sprouting follows without further stipulation, and other, seemingly structure sensitive, empirical generalizations about elliptical constructions, including the preposition stranding generalization, follow naturally as well. Destructive operations which ‘repair ’ non-identical antecedents are recast in terms of exact identity of deriva-tions with parameters. In the context of a compositional semantic interpretation scheme, the derivational copying approach to ellipsis presented here is revealed to be a particular instance of a proform theory, thus showing that the distinctions between, and arguments about, syntactic and semantic theories of ellipsis need to be revisited.
