Beyond MaxElide: An Investigation of Ā-Movement from Elided Phrases

Abstract

Using Takahashi and Fox 2005 as an exemplar, this article argues that analyses of English ellipsis that make recourse to a MaxElide constraint (first introduced in Merchant 2008 ) are untenable, and that one must look beyond MaxElide to explain the distribution of acceptability in the “rebinding” elliptical constructions that MaxElide was originally invoked to explain. A novel analysis is outlined that attributes the unacceptability observed in the rebinding dataset to an inability to satisfy a more restrictive, reflexive version of Takahashi and Fox’s parallelism condition on ellipsis recoverability. More broadly, the success of this analysis supports the notion that clausal and nonclausal ellipsis are governed by distinct recoverability conditions. This article therefore provides support for a nonunitary approach to the semantic licensing of ellipsis.

Revisiting rebinding: an alternative to MaxElide

“…As mentioned in §3, adopting my analysis also commits one to the notion that clausal and nonclausal ellipsis are subject to different recoverability conditions. In Griffiths (2017), I demonstrate that this implication is borne out by the data. In that paper I show that the dissimilar behaviour of exceptive questions (i.e.…”

“…I suggest that rebinding is more permissive in TP ellipsis configurations (as stated in 27ii) because TP ellipsis is subject to a QUD-based recoverability condition to which rebinding is irrelevant (following Ginzburg & Sag 2000, Reich 2002, Barros 2014, Barros & Kotek 2017, among others; though see Barros & Kotek 2018 for sceptical remarks). While this rather bold claim cannot be defended in this short paper, it is defended at length in Griffiths (2017). Conversely, I suggest that rebinding is more restricted in VP and N -ellipsis contexts (as implied by 27i) because these forms of ellipsis are subject to a focus-sensitive recoverability condition.…”

“…Adopting my version of Parallelism has a number of broad implications. While these implications cannot be addressed in this short paper, I outline their nature as part of my concluding remarks in §4 and direct the reader to Griffiths (2017), where they are discussed in detail.…”

“…Consequently, Merchant's condition leads to the undergeneration of RUs in precisely the same way that T&F's version of Parallelism does. SeeGriffiths (2017) for details.…”

Why we still don't need/want variables: Two SALTy case studies

“…This covers not only the case in (5b) but also the original contrast for which Merchant proposed MaxElide. However, we set these aside here as Griffiths, 2019 shows that the original Merchant contrasts might have a completely different explanation. On the face of it the generalization sounds stipulative, but -to be fair -T&F derive this from their particular recasting of Rooth's focus condition on ellipsis.…”