A Note on the Licensing Conditions of Ellipsis

Byung-No Yoon 한국언어과학회 2014 언어과학 Vol.21 No.4

The purpose of this paper is to examine two restrictions on ellipsis in English: semantic recoverability and licensing. For the necessity of the former, I show that the ellipsis is not possible if the elided part does not include the identical elements with its antecedent. I point out that the copying theory has one problem in dealing with ambiguities within the elided material, and that semantic recoverability of the elided site is not a sufficient condition to get ellipsis constructions. In addition to the conditions for the ellipsis constructions which are necessary to derive them legitimately, I examine that the licensing ellipsis constructions by the functional categories do not give us full accounts for the ellipsis in general. Finally, I will show that Case-markers like Japanese -mo as well as English adverb too or negation marker not can license the ellipsis under the feature agreement framework. (Daejeon University)

Licensing Conditions for VP Ellipsis: Multiple Sites Approach

( Cho Keeseok ) 한국현대언어학회 2021 언어연구 Vol.36 No.4

This article aims to discuss the ellipsis of the verb phrase in English and come up with new general licensing conditions under the framework of Chomsky (2013). The licensing conditions put forth in this study will account for English VP ellipsis in terms of a new alternative syntactic structure. The new alternative syntactic structure replaces Chomsky (2001)’s double verb phrase vP with four basic syntactic elements, such as Link, Perfect Aspect, Progressive Aspect, and V-v amalgam. The four basic syntactic elements are syntactic positions that accommodate relevant verbal lexical items. The general licensing conditions for the ellipsis of the verb phrase are: (i) The VP ellipsis elides the minimum of the progressive aspect phrase and elides the maximum of the perfect aspect phrase; (ii) The elided verbs and the antecedent verbs should be in the same type of syntactic positions to satisfy the identity conditions between the elided verbs and the antecedent verbs. (Cyber Hankuk University of Foreign Studies)

Can VP Ellipsis Put Aside the Verb?

Hong Soo-Min(홍수민) 새한영어영문학회 2011 새한영어영문학 Vol.53 No.1

This paper argues for the null object account against the VP ellipsis account for Korean coordinate structures containing a null object. Otani and Whitman (1991), drawing on Huang (1988), proposes the relevant Japanese/Korean coordinate structure should be taken as a case of "null VP in disguise" on the assumption that the verb is raised out of the VP. When most of the arguments in support of verb raising are scrutinized one by one, they turned out not to be maintained. Moreover, the availability of a sloppy reading is not a definitive diagnostic of VP ellipsis. It is empirically proven that the alleged Korean VP ellipsis does not really fit in with the English VP ellipsis. When the English VP ellipsis yields a sloppy reading, the alleged Korean one does not. In the opposite way, when the English VP ellipsis does not allow for a sloppy reading, the putative Korean one does. The Korean sentences and the English sentences under consideration are not syntactically comparable, but they are structurally different. The relevant coordinate sentences in Korean do not result from VP ellipsis, but they simply have a null object in the ellipsis site.

Notes on East Asian Argument Ellipsis

Mamoru Saito 서울대학교 언어교육원 (구 서울대학교 어학연구소) 2007 語學硏究 Vol.43 No.2

This paper presents further supporting evidence for argument ellipsis in East Asian languages, and explores its theoretical consequences. It is demonstrated in the first part that argument ellipsis is attested in a wide range of phenomena. This discussion leads to the examination of the precise characteristics of argument ellipsis. Then, adopting Oku’s (1998) LF copying analysis, the paper shows that DP argument ellipsis is possible only in languages without obligatory agreement. Finally, it is suggested that the same LF copying mechanism is responsible for radical pro-drop. The paper, thus, relates three major properties of East Asian languages; argument ellipsis, radical pro-drop, and the absence of overt agreement.

Can VP Ellipsis Put Aside the Verb?

홍수민 새한영어영문학회 2011 새한영어영문학 Vol.53 No.1

This paper argues for the null object account against the VP ellipsis account for Korean coordinate structures containing a null object. Otani and Whitman (1991), drawing on Huang (1988), proposes the relevant Japanese/Korean coordinate structure should be taken as a case of "null VP in disguise" on the assumption that the verb is raised out of the VP. When most of the arguments in support of verb raising are scrutinized one by one, they turned out not to be maintained. Moreover, the availability of a sloppy reading is not a definitive diagnostic of VP ellipsis. It is empirically proven that the alleged Korean VP ellipsis does not really fit in with the English VP ellipsis. When the English VP ellipsis yields a sloppy reading, the alleged Korean one does not. In the opposite way, when the English VP ellipsis does not allow for a sloppy reading, the putative Korean one does. The Korean sentences and the English sentences under consideration are not syntactically comparable, but they are structurally different. The relevant coordinate sentences in Korean do not result from VP ellipsis, but they simply have a null object in the ellipsis site.

스페인어의 소유대명사와 명사구 생략

정원석 한국스페인어문학회 2019 스페인어문학 Vol.0 No.92

This paper discusses why Spanish possessive pronouns cannot license nominal ellipsis, contrary to other determiners such as definite articles, demonstratives and numerals. In previous literature, there have been some attempts to elucidate the incompatibility of possessive pronouns with nominal ellipsis, assuming that possessive pronouns are determiners just like definite articles, demonstratives or numerals, all of which are located in the head position of the DP. However, in this paper I argue that the incompatibility between possessive pronouns and nominal ellipsis is due to the fact that the former is not located in D and hence cannot allow the latter under the Head-Comp configuration. To support this claim, I first review previous analyses on possessive pronouns involved in nominal ellipsis, and then I propose an alternative in which the possessive pronoun occupies the specifier of DP and hence it is not in a structural position eligible to license nominal ellipsis. In this way, the incompatibility of possessive pronouns with nominal ellipsis can be explained in a more principled way.

Deletion as Cliticization and Stress in English VP-Ellipsis Construction

Young-Sun Kim(김영선) 한국생성문법학회 2006 생성문법연구 Vol.16 No.3

  This paper deals with the relationship between licensing deletion and stress in English VP-Ellipsis construction. In English, auxiliaries in auxiliary reduction, to in to-contraction and not in negative contraction are all function words subject to cliticization. However, in a VP-Ellipsis construction, these function words act more like hosts as licensing heads, rather than clitics. It is not a coincidence that these function words license the ellipsis of their complements. I suggest that stress makes these two behave in a different way. Once a function word gets stressed, it does not undergo cliticization. In a VP-Ellipsis construction, the auxiliaries, the infinitival to and the negator not carry stress with the deletion of its complement, serving as licensing heads. I will argue that the deleted VP is some kind of clitic and the auxiliary verbs, to and not that get stressed with the deletion of their complements can be hosts to the deleted VP. The restriction on auxiliary reduction (contraction) and on auxiliary shift in a VP-Ellipsis construction shows that the auxiliary serves as a host and its deleted complement is a kind of clitic.

전치사의 목적어 생략이 불가한 이유에 대한 이론적 고찰

정원석 ( Jung Wonsuk ) 한국스페인어문학회(구 한국서어서문학회) 2020 스페인어문학 Vol.0 No.94

This paper discusses why the ellipsis of the complement of a Preposition(P) cannot be allowed in the general case. In principle this is unexpected if we consider that P is a functional category which is also eligible to be a licensing head of ellipsis, along with other functional categories such as T, C, and D, all of which can be the licensor of ellipsis in a variety of elliptical constructions. In this paper, I argue that the reason why a functional category P cannot allow ellipsis of its complement may be attributable to a PF-constraint; the so-called “Stranded Affix Filter(SAF)”(Lasnik 1981), in conjunction with the (a)tonicity of P(Gallego 2009, 2011). Concretely, I suggest that if P is atonic and thus cannot stand alone at PF, the complement of P cannot be elided due to the SAF imposed on P, whereas if P is tonic and can thus stand alone at PF, it is not subject to the SAF and thereby can be survived at PF after the deletion of its complement. To explore more of the possibility of ellipsis in the prepositional domain, I also discuss issues related to the ellipsis of PP as well as other instances where the complement of P is missing on the surface.

Licensing VP-ellipsis in English Infinitival Clauses

Jeong Shik Lee 현대문법학회 2006 현대문법연구 Vol.44 No.-

Polarity Mismatches in Korean Fragments

박소영 한국생성문법학회 2013 생성문법연구 Vol.23 No.4

This squib presents an analysis of polarity mismatches attested in Korean fragment answers. Contrary to Kim (2013) and Park (2013),whose analyses are based on a TP-ellipsis analysis of Korean fragments,this squib puts forward a vP-ellipsis analysis of fragments. The proposed analysis satisfies the licensing condition of an NPI fragment answer,obeying the parallelism condition on ellipsis as well. Tense mismatches in Korean fragments also lend support to a vP-ellipsis analysis.