This article presents novel data from ellipsis in Nupe, a Benue-Congo language of Nigeria, and explores its theoretical implications. Three claims are made. First, sluicing in Nupe counter-exemplifies Merchant 2001’s Sluicing-COMP Generalization. Second, ungrammatical outputs resulting from extraction from perfect clauses are salvaged by ellipsis, arguing against Kandybowicz’s (2009) analysis where such a restriction is a narrow syntactic derivational constraint. Third, COMP-trace effects in Nupe are also repaired under ellipsis, lending support to Kandybowicz’s (2009) claim that the Nupe COMP-trace effect is an interface phenomenon. Our findings provide evidence for the claim that ellipsis can repair certain otherwise ill-formed structures.

We argue that deletion is not the only way that chain links created by A′-movement can be affected at PF. Chain links can also be substituted by a morpheme. This substitution delivers a linearizable output (in a manner parallel to deletion), creating overt "traces" on the surface. We demonstrate the virtues of our proposal through the empirical lens of adjunct extraction in two Mayan languages of the K'ichean branch: K'iche' and Kaqchikel. In these languages, extraction of low adjuncts triggers the appearance of a verbal enclitic wi. The distribution of the enclitic upon long distance extraction shows that it must be analyzed as a surface reflex of substitution of a chain link. Our proposal provides evidence that movement proceeds successive cyclically and has two additional theoretical consequences: (i) C 0 must be a phase head (contra den Dikken 2009; 2017), (ii) v 0 cannot be a phase head (in line with Keine 2017).

We argue that the C-element que, following fronted wh-elements and fronted focused elements more generally in Brazilian Portuguese, is realized as Fin, rather than Foc (MENDES KANDYBOWICZ, 2021; pace MIOTO, 2001; MIOTO KATO, 2005). We put together three observations from the literature: (i) the appearance of que is contingent on wh/focus fronting; (ii) que introduces a finite clause, and (iii) que disappears under sluicing. We present novel evidence that Nupe’s focus particle is a left-periphery element and that Nupe provides a concrete counterexample to Merchant’s (2001) sluicing-COMP generalization. A comparison between Nupe and Brazilian Portuguese regarding the presence of nonoperator material in sluicing constructions is crucial to establishing sluicing as FinP ellipsis (BALTIN, 2010; ABOH, 2010), instead of TP ellipsis, as standardly assumed, as well as que as a Fin element. We offer an analysis that captures all of the Brazilian Portuguese distributional facts, according to which que is a Fin head with a [finite] feature and an uninterpretable [ufoc] feature that must be licensed by Agree with a higher focus head.

Abstract

Using English data, I show that Head Movement Constraint violations cannot be repaired by deletion and compare this result with cases of salvation and non-salvation by ellipsis from previous literature. I then consider two possible sources for this lack of repair. The first is to take the Head Movement Constraint as a derivational constraint, and the second is to assimilate it into the Empty Category Principle (Chomsky 1986).