Remnant connectivity in pseudogapping

Experimental evidence for a direct generation approach

Bibliographic Data

ID10139592
AuthorsTill Poppels (0000-0003-3404-774X, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, corresponding author), Philip Miller (0000-0002-1436-9533, Albert Einstein College of Medicine)
Year2022
Volume59
Issue2
Pages293-325
Publication date2022-08-23
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-2267 • E-ISSN: 1469-7742
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022226722000354
OpenAlexW4292716448
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited29

This paper reports the results of two acceptability judgment experiments that examine the effect of PP remnants with mismatching correlates in the antecedent clause (either a PP, with a distinct preposition, or an NP) on the acceptability of pseudogapping as well as non-elliptical controls. Across both experiments, three novel findings emerge: First, utterances with mismatching PPs across the ellipsis clause and its antecedent were consistently degraded relative to their preposition-matched counterparts. Second, this mismatch penalty arose for elliptical and non-elliptical variants alike with only minor differences between the two. Finally, a significant portion of the mismatch penalties was explained away by the degree of semantic similarity between the thematic relations established by the mismatching prepositions with respect to the antecedent verb which was measured in a separate norming experiment. We examine the consequences of these new empirical results for current theories of pseudogapping, namely (i) the remnant-raising analysis, according to which the remnant XP is raised leftward out of the VP prior to VP ellipsis, licensed under identity with its antecedent; and (ii) the direct generation analysis, under which auxiliaries are verbal proforms that recover their referent anaphorically without the need for remnant movement or syntactic identity between the verb and its antecedent. We conclude that the data are more naturally accounted for under the direct generation approach

Antecedent (behavioral psychology · Ellipsis (linguistics · Identity (music · Image (mathematics · Linguistics · Raising (metalworking · Referent · Similarity (geometry · Verb · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Mathematics · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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