The Acceptability Cline in VP Ellipsis

Abstract

This paper lays the foundations for a processing model of relative acceptability levels in verb phrase ellipsis (VPE). In the proposed model, mismatching VPE examples are grammatical but less acceptable because they violate heuristic parsing strategies. This analysis is presented in a Minimalist Grammar formalism that is compatible with standard parsing techniques. The overall proposal integrates computational assumptions about parsing with a psycholinguistic linking hypothesis. These parts work together with the syntactic analysis to derive novel predictions that are confirmed in a controlled experiment.

The division of labor in explanations of verb phrase ellipsis

“…This resembles the pattern of results reported by Kim et al (2011), with structural mismatch selectively degrading sentences with VPE. In addition, Experiment 1 shows that sentences featuring a Cause-Effect relation were less sensitive to structural mismatch in general-not only in sentences containing VPE.…”

“…Kertz (2008) found that Frazier and Clifton (2006)'s finding-that Cause-Effect sentences were worse overall than Resemblance sentences-was true of both the VPE sentences and their unelided counterparts. This contrasts with another magnitude estimation study by Kim et al (2011), which tested both voice mismatch and category mismatch (nominal antecedents) in VPE and unelided controls, and found a mismatch penalty only in sentences containing ellipsis.…”

“…In this respect, it may be similar to other lexical or discourse-level factors that may influence well-formedness in ellipsis and in non-elliptical sentences (for example, information structure, as proposed by Kertz 2013). On the other hand, Experiments 1 and 2 also show a persistent degradation due to structural mismatch, which is VPEspecific (see also Kim et al 2011). Because the structural mismatch effect appears against a backdrop of multiple lexical and discourse-level biases which all contribute to a sentence's overall acceptability, looking at elliptical sentences alone may give the impression that such general pressures are additional constraints on ellipsis.…”

“…Having a structural constraint that can be satisfied to varying extents also allows for degrees of acceptability. Prior research (Arregui et al 2006;Kim et al 2011) has argued for models of VPE resolution that link the extent of mismatch to the extent of degradation in acceptability. In terms of the relationship between grammar and acceptability, Kim et al (2011) (and Kobele et al 2008) assumed that cases of structural mismatch are grammatical in that they were generated by the grammar.…”

“…The decision to focus on the voice alternation in this set of experiments was in large part tactical. Structural mismatch effects are reported in some form or other by a number of researchers investigating VPE, in a range of constructions (Tanenhaus and Carlson 1990;Arregui et al 2006;Frazier and Clifton 2006;Fine et al 2009;Kertz 2010Kertz , 2013Kim et al 2011); we therefore wanted to take the first step of investigat-20 As stated in Bever (1970), the following (often misquoted to mean the opposite of what it means):…”