Sobre La Clasificacion de La Elipsis

Introduction A typology of ellipsis Theories of ellipsis Ellipsis and anaphora
Empirical Approaches to Elliptical Constructions

Class 1: Background on ellipsis
Gabriela Bîlbîie1 and Anne Abeillé2

1 University of Bucharest
gabriela.bilbiie@gmail.com
2 Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7
anne.abeille@linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr
LSA 2017 Linguistic Institute
6 July 2017, University of Kentucky
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Main goals of the course
Go beyond the limited paradigms of data obtained through

introspection, by showing how corpora and psycholinguistic
experiments can be used to obtain a much finer-grained perspective on
the data wrt ellipsis phenomena.
Focussing on elliptical constructions (especially, Gapping in English
and Romance languages, Right-Node Raising in English and French,
Verb Phrase Ellipsis and Pseudogapping in English), we will show that
many putative empirical generalizations, on which sometimes very
elaborate theoretical reasoning is based, turn out not to hold.
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Outline of the course
Class 1 (July 6). Background on ellipsis

Overview of the state of the art on ellipsis and of the current theories
(Merchant 2013, Merchant to appear, Ginzburg & Sag 2000, Culicover
& Jackendoff 2005)
The deep and surface proposal (Hankamer & Sag 1976)
Early psycholinguistic research (Tanenhaus & Carlson 1990)
Class 2 (July 10). Focus on English gapping
Corpus-based study on English gapping (Bîlbîie ms.)
Related constructions : Stripping, Argument Cluster Coordination
Class 3 (July 13). Focus on Romance gapping
Corpus-based study (and experimental work) on gapping in Romance
(Abeillé et al. 2014, Bîlbîie 2017, Bîlbîie & Garcia-Marchena ms.)
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Class 4 (July 17). Focus on Verb Phrase Ellipsis – part 1

Theoretical overview (Craenenbroek to appear )
Corpus-based studies (Hardt 1993, Nielsen 2005, Bos & Spenader
2011, Miller 2011, Miller & Pullum 2014)
Discourse factors (Kehler 2002, Kehler to appear )
Class 5 (July 20). Focus on Verb Phrase Ellipsis – part 2
Experimental studies on VPE with mismatched antecedents (Grant et
al. 2013, San Pietro et al. 2012, Kertz 2013, Miller & Hemforth ms.)
Class 6 (July 24). Focus on Pseudogapping
Theoretical studies (Lasnik 1999, Gengel 2013, Aelbrecht & Harwood
to appear ), corpus studies (Levin 1986, Hoeksema 2006, Miller 2014),
experimental studies (Miller ms.)
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Class 7 (July 27). Focus on peripheral ellipsis (Right-Node Raising) –

part 1
Different approaches (Ross 1970, Chaves 2014)
Corpus and experimental studies on French RNR (Abeillé et al. 2015,
Shiraishi & Abeillé 2016)
Class 8 (July 31). Focus on peripheral ellipsis (Right-Node Raising) –
part 2
Corpus-based study on English RNR (Bîlbîie ms.)
Syntactic and semantic constraints (Chaves 2014)
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Course assessment
Questionnaire to fill in :
1 Mention your name(s) and affiliation.
2 Mention your status (Enrolled student vs. Auditor). For enrolled
students : do you need a letter grade (A, B, C, D) or P/F (Pass/Fail) ?
(two different sections on Canvas : Graded Students vs. Pass/Fail
Students)
3 Are you following other courses on experimental and empirical
approaches (corpus linguistics, experimental syntax, etc.) ?
4 Have you ever worked on ellipsis ? If the answer is positive, mention
the topic(s) of your research.
5 Mention the languages you know.
6 Mention the preference you have for the course assessment : (i) set up
an acceptability experiment (via e.g. Amazon Mechanical Turk, the
Ibex farm platform), (ii) do some corpus study (e.g. Penn Treebank,
French Treebank) on an elliptical construction, (iii) other.
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Class 1 – Content
1 Introduction
2 A typology of ellipsis
3 Theories of ellipsis
4 Ellipsis and anaphora
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Plan
1 Introduction
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Ellipsis – a challenge for grammar

Ellipsis : a form/meaning mismatch (significatio ex nihilo)
1 part of the material necessary for the interpretation is missing in

the syntactic structure (’incomplete’ syntax) ;
2 the missing material is recovered from an antecedent in the
context.
Descriptive problem : A mass of elliptical constructions, on the

basis of several criteria, e.g. syntactic function of the missing material
(head or dependent), syntactic context (coordination, subordination ;
dialogue), ellipsis directionnality (forward vs. backward ellipsis).
⇒ Sometimes, unstable terminology.
Theoretical problem : A plethora of competitive analyses, with
respect to the level at which reconstruction of the missing material
takes place : syntactic reconstruction vs. semantic reconstruction.
⇒ Unsolved theoretical problems.
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The difficulty of studying ellipsis
Lack of consensus about the typology of elliptical constructions

Lack of consensus about the appropriate analysis for various elliptical
constructions
Few naturalistic data compared to introspection judgements ; need of
relevant context (a lot of linguists’ examples are judged ungrammatical
for lack of proper context) ; need of relevant prosody
Very few corpora annotated for ellipsis
Lack of consensus about the annotation of ellipsis
Need of spoken corpora (dialogues)
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Plan
1 Introduction
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What’s ellipsis ?
Elliptical clause
A syntactically incomplete clause combined with a complete clause which fully
determines its interpretation.
Terminology :
Syntactically incomplete clause = Target clause
Missing material
Remnants : lexically-realized elements in the elliptical clause
The complete clause providing the material which is necessary for the
interpretation = Source clause
It contains the antecedent of the missing material.
Correlates : elements in the source clause which are parallel to
remnants in the target clause.
Semantics : The target has a propositional content.

Syntax : Is the target a clause or not ?
(1) a. Paul is taller [than Mary].

b. = Paul is taller [than Mary is].
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Classifying elliptical constructions
We are interested here in elliptical clauses corresponding to some

specific constructions, i.e. syntactic structures lacking the head and/or
dependents, whose interpretation and, to some extent, syntax are fixed
by the context.
Three criteria used for classifying elliptical constructions :
1 Syntactic status of the missing material : head or dependents
omitted.
2 Syntactic contexts in which an elliptical construction may occur :
coordination, subordination, dialogue.
3 Ellipsis directionality : the missing material precedes or follows the
antecedent.
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Criterion 1 : Syntactic status of the missing

material
Three main classes :

1 Head ellipsis : the missing material in the target corresponds to a
syntactic head.
2 Dependents ellipsis : the missing material in the target corresponds
to a dependent (argument or adjunct) in the clause, rather than to a
head.
3 Undifferentiated/Non-selective ellipsis : the missing material may
correspond to either a head or a dependent in the clause.
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Head ellipsis
Gapping (Ross 1967, 1970) : any elliptical clause containing at least
two remnants (one of them being generally - but not necessarily - the
subject) and lacking at least the main verb (which is generally in
non-final position in non-head-final languages, such as English or
Romance languages).
Occurs mostly in coordination (2-a) and comparative (2-b) contexts.
(2) a. John drinks scotch [and Bill borbon].

b. Robin speaks French better [than Leslie German]. (Culicover &
Jackendoff 2005)
(3) a. Some talked with you about politics [and others with me about
music]. (Winkler 2005)
b. During dinner he didn’t address his colleagues from Stuttgart
[or at any time his boss], for that matter. (Winkler 2005)
c. I want to try to begin to write a novel [and Mary a play]. (Ross
1970)
For gapping in English, see class 2. For gapping in Romance, see class 3.
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Conjunction Reduction (Jackendoff 1971), also dubbed Left

Peripheral Ellipsis : the missing head is not in median position (as in
gapping constructions), but rather in a (left) peripheral position in
non-head-final languages, such as English (4-a).
The elliptical analysis of this construction was called into question by
Dowty (1988), Hudson (1988), Maxwell & Manning (1996), Steedman
(2000), etc. Steedman (2000) proposed the term Argument Cluster
Coordination : no ellipsis at all, but rather some unordinary
coordination of two non-standard constituents in the scope of a shared
predicate (4-b) ⇒ sub-clausal coordination.
Regardless of the elliptical vs. non-elliptical accounts, the distinction
between gapping and this construction is problematic in particular from
a typological perspective (see languages with SO + SOV order or VSO
+ SO order).
(4) a. John went to Paris on Monday [and to Rome on Friday].

b. John went [to Paris on Monday] [and [to Rome on
Friday]].
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Stripping (Ross 1969, Hankamer & Sag 1976), also dubbed Bare
Argument Ellipsis (Wilder 1997, Culicover & Jackendoff 2005),
defines any elliptical clause with one remnant, often combined with an
adverb such as too (5-a) or not (5-b) in English.
Stripping cannot be embedded in English (6-a), unlike Romance
languages (see French (6-b)).
(5) a. John drinks scotch, [and Bill too].

b. John drinks scotch, [but not Bill].
(6) a. *Jane loves to study rocks, and John says [that geography
too]. (Lobeck 1995)
b. Marie viendra à la fête et elle m’a dit [que
Marie come.fut to the party and she me-aux told that
son mari aussi].
her husband too
’Marie will come to the party and she told me that her
husband will come too.’
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Sluicing (Ross 1969) defines any elliptical (and generally embedded)

clause reduced to an interrogative phrase. The remnant interrogative
clause may correspond to an argument (7-a) or an adjunct (7-b).
(7) a. John drinks something, but I don’t know [what].

b. John will go to Paris, but I don’t know [when].
There are cases where the source clause doesn’t contain an explicit
correlate (8) ⇒ Sprouting.
Sluiced interrogative phrases are generally embedded, but they may
occur as root clauses too (9) ⇒ short questions.
(8) He drank, but I don’t know [what].
(9) A : – Someone left. B : – [Who] ?
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Ellipsis of dependents
Constructions involving ellipsis of dependents are all variants of

Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis (PAE), cf. Sag (1976).
Verb Phrase Ellipsis (Sag 1976) : a constituent or constituent

sequence immediately following an auxiliary is missing (e.g. a lexical
verbe or any argument/adjunct of that verb).
As noted by Hankamer (1978), Miller (2011) and Miller & Pullum
(2014), VPE is a very poorly chosen term, because it is neither
necessary or sufficient that it should involve ellipsis of a VP. ⇒ Sag’s
terminological suggestion : Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis.
(10) a. John drinks scotch, [but Bill doesn’t].

b. John drinks scotch, [and Bill does too].
c. John cannot drink scotch, [but Bill can].
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Two different types of VPE in English, satisfying distinct discourse

requirements (cf. Miller 2011, 2014, Miller & Pullum 2014) :
1 Auxiliary-Choice (11-a) : the subject of the antecedent is identical with
the subject of the target clause and the auxiliary is (at least weakly)
stressed, signaling a new choice of tense, aspect, modality, or (the
most frequent) polarity. ⇒ ’Auxiliary focus’ (cf. Kertz 2008)
2 Subject-Choice (11-b) : the subject of the antecedent is distinct from
the subject of the target clause, and stressed if it is a pronoun. ⇒
’Argument/subject focus’ (cf. Kertz 2008)
(11) a. A : He shops in women’s. B : No, he dóesn’t.

b. She shops in women’s and he does too.
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According to Goldberg (2005), VPE (defined as PAE) is a rare

phenomenon cross-linguistically. It is absent in Romance languages
(Lobeck 1995), except Portuguese (Cyrino & Matos 2002, Martins
2005).
(12) A Ana já tinja lido o livro à irmã mas a

def Ana already had read def book to.the sister but def
Paula nõ tinha. (Cyrino & Matos 2002)
Paula not had
’Ana had already read the book to her sister but Paula had
not.’
A phenomenon which is related to VPE is, according to Goldberg

(2005), Verb-Stranding VPE in languages such as Portuguese (13),
Hebrew, Irish, Swahili, etc. : the elliptical clause is reduced to the main
verb (which is not necessarily an auxiliary).
(13) A : – O Kim pegou o livro ? B : – Pegou.

A : – def Kim took.3sg def book B : – took.3sg
’A : – Did Kim take the book ? B : – Yes, he did.’
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Null Complement Ellipsis, dubbed Null Complement Anaphora by

Hankamer & Sag 1976, defines any elliptical clause lacking the
complement of a modal (can), aspectual verb (start, stop, continue,
finish), attitude verb, etc.
It is licensed by a particular group of predicates, determined lexically,
but no natural class has been found yet (Depiante 2017).
(14) a. I asked Bill to leave, but [he refused].

b. John could have come, [but Mary disapproved].
If Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis is banned in most Romance languages (Lobeck

1995), ’post-modal’ ellipsis is acceptable in all Romance languages
(Dagnac 2008, 2010) : see the contrast in (15-a)–(15-b) for French.
(15) a. *Tom a vu Lee mais Marie n’a pas. (Dagnac 2010)

’Tom saw lee, but Marie didn’t.’
b. Tom a pu voir Lee, mais Marie n’a pas pu.
’Tom could see Lee, but Marie couldn’t.’
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Antecedent Contained Ellipsis (Bouton 1970) characterizes the

ellipsis occurring in a restrictive relative clause whose antecedent is
under the scope of a strong quantifier or a definite expression. The
missing material is contained inside its antecedent.
(16) a. John tried to read everything [he could].

b. Alicia visited every town [that Beatrix did].
Specific constraint on ACE in Romance : the subject of the target and

the subject of the source clause must corefer (’same subject
constraint’, cf. Dagnac 2008, 2010), as shown by the contrast
(17-a)–(17-b) in French.
(17) a. Marie lit tous les livres qu’elle peut. (Dagnac 2010)
’Marie reads all the books that she can.’
b. *Marie lit tous les livres que Jean peut.
’Marie reads all the books that John can.’
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Pseudogapping (Levin 1986) is a construction sharing properties with

both VPE and gapping.
It is similar to VPE in that it is characterized by an ellipsis behind an
auxiliary.
It is similar to gapping in that it involves at least two remnants
surrounding the auxiliary. The auxiliary is followed by a complement
remnant, which corresponds to a complement of the antecedent.
(18) a. John drinks scotch, [and Bill does bourbon].

b. John can drink scotch, [and Bill can bourbon].
Phenomenon considered as rare and marginal (Lasnik 1999), with a great

individual variation among English speakers (Hoeksema 2006).
However, recent corpus studies (Miller 2014) show that classical examples
are not at all representative in the COCA (Corpus of Contemporary
American English). 96,7% occur in comparative contexts, not coordination ;
preference for the same subject...
(19) a. It hurt me [as much as it did her]. (COCA, cf. Miller 2014)
b. You must treat him [as you would me]. (COCA, cf. Miller
2014)
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Undifferentiated/Non-selective ellipsis
Right-Node Raising (Postal 1974), also dubbed Right Peripheral
Ellipsis (Hohle 1991) : the target clause lacking a dependent (20-a) or
a head (20-b) in final position precedes the source clause which
determines its interpretation.
(20) a. [John made], and Mary sold a piece of furniture.

b. [If the President], and if Congress act under a letter of
attorney from the people, so do the judges.
As for pseudogapping, RNR is considered as very rare rare and marginal

(Meyer 1995). Classical examples are indeed not representative at all in the
corpora (see RNR data from the Penn Treebank in Bîlbîie 2013). Most of
the RNR occurrences in the PTB are subclausal : verbal phrase (21-a) or
nominal phrase (21-b) level.
(21) a. Motorola [either denied] or would not comment on the

various charges. (wsj-28924)
b. ... this was [a formal] or an informal dinner party ?
(swbd-132959)
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Criterion 2 : Syntactic contexts

Most ellipsis studies are limited to coordination, considered as the
preferred syntactic relation (if not the sole option) for ellipsis.
Some elliptical constructions seem to be preferred in coordination
contexts (e.g. gapping). Some others (VPE, RNR) may occur in
subordination too, the target clause being embedded in the source.
(22) a. Robert cooked the first course, and Marie the dessert.
b. *Robert cooked the first course, because Marie the
dessert.
(23) a. Joan write a novel, and Marvin did too.

b. Joan write a novel after Marvin did too.
(24) a. You know a man who sells, and I know a man who buys,
pictures of Elvis Presley.
b. It seemed likely to me, though it seemed unlikely to
everyone else, that he would be impeached. (Chaves &
Sag 2008)
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Comparatives as a specific syntactic context favoring ellipsis (Lechner

2004). Comparative contexts significantly improve acceptability
judgements wrt some ellipsis constructions (VPE in French,
pseudogapping, gapping).
Pseudogapping in English considered as marginal in general, but very
natural in comparative contexts (see supra).
VPE, considered as absent in French, but acceptable in comparatives
(see the contrast (25-a)–(25-b)).
(25) a. *Jean a lu le livre, et Paul a aussi. (Boeckx 2000)

’Jean read the book, and Paul did too.’
b. Jean avait lu plus de livres que Marie n’avait.
’Jean read more books than Marie did.’
Gapping, considered as ungrammatical in subordination, but quite

acceptable in comparatives (see classes 2 and 3).
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Criterion 3 : Directionality of ellipsis

Two directions of ellipsis (Haspelmath 2007) :
Forward ellipsis (Analipsis) : source clause precedes target clause, e.g.
Gapping in English (26-a) and other non-head-final languages
Backward ellipsis (Catalipsis) : source clause follows target clause,
e.g. RNR in English (26-b) and other non-head-final languages.
(26) a. John loves apples, and Mary bananas.

b. Birds eat, and flies avoid long-legged spiders.
Some elliptical constructions are compatible with both directions, e.g.

VPE in English.
(27) a. Bill will make a statement blasting the press, if Hillary

will.
b. If Hillary will, Bill will make a statement blasting the
press.
Directionality depends on ellipsis type, but also on language type.

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Directionality in a typological perspective

In a typological perspective, Ross (1970) establishes a correlation
between the directionality of gapping and the word order in a
language, in particular the position of the verbal head in a clause. The
complete clause precedes the elliptical one in head-initial languages
(SVO, VSO), but follows it in head-final languages (SOV) :
Forward gapping in SVO languages such as English (28-a), or VSO
languages like Irish (29-a).
Backward gapping in SOV languages such as Japanese (30-a).
(28) a. John likes apples and Mary pears.

b. *John apples and Mary likes pears.
(29) a. Chonaic Eoghan Siobhán agus Eoghnaí Ciarán.

saw Eoghan Siobhán and Eoghnaí Ciarán
’Eoghan saw Siobhán and Eoghnaí Ciarán.’ (Steedman 2000)
b. *Eoghan Siobhán agus chonaic Eoghnaí Ciarán.
Eoghan Siobhán and saw Eoghnaí Ciarán
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(30) a. Watakusi-wa sakana-o, Biru-wa gohan-o tabeta.

1sg-top fish-acc Biru-top rice-acc ate
’I ate fish, Bill rice.’ (Ross 1970)
b. *Watakusi-wa sakana-o tabeta, Biru-wa gohan-o.
1sg-top fish-acc ate Biru-top rice-acc
Ross’(1970) generalization is appropriate for non-head-final languages

(Jackendoff 1971, Lobeck 1995), but it cannot account for all the
empirical facts found in head-final languages or languages with free
word order :
Some head-final languages only have forward gapping : Persian (31-a).
Some head-final languages have both backward and forward gapping :
Basque (32), Hindi, Turkish.
Languages with free word order may permit both : Russian (33), Latin,
Zapotec.
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(31) a. Æli sib xord væ Mæzi hulu. (Hernández 2007)

Ali apple ate and Marzo peach
’Ali ate apples and Marzo peaches.’
b. *Æli sib væ Mæzi hulu xord.
Ali apple and Marzo peach ate
(32)
a. Linda-k ardau eta Ander-ek esnea edaten dabez.
Linda-erg wine.abs and Ander-erg milk.abs drink 3pl.3sg
’Linda will drink wine and Ander milk.’ (Haspelmath 2007)
b. Linda-k ardau edaten du, eta Ander-ek esnea.
Linda-erg wine.abs drink 3sg.fut and Ander-erg milk.abs
’Linda will drink wine and Ander milk.’
(33)
a. Ja pil vodu, i Anna vodku. (Ross 1970)
I drank water and Anna vodka
’I drank water and Anna vodka.’
b. Ja vodu, i Anna vodku pila.
I water and Anna vodka drank.fem
c. Ja vodu pil, i Anna vodku.
I water drank and Anna vodka 31 / 65
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When studying ellipsis, a problematic aspect in a typological

perspective is the fact that some elliptical constructions are difficult to
be identified in certain languages. In particular, languages have
sometimes ambiguous configurations which a priori are candidates for
more than one elliptical construction. ⇒ gapping and peripheral gaps
SO + SOV order : ambiguity between Gapping and Right-Node
Raising or Argument Cluster Coordination (see Farudi 2013 for Farsi
data or Ince 2009 for Turkish data ; this ambiguity also applies to
Japanese, Korean or subordination in German, see also Maling 1972,
Hankamer 1979, etc.) ;
VSO + SO order : ambiguity between Gapping and Argument Cluster
Coordination (Russian, Romanian, etc.).
Languages have sometimes devices (agreement, special coordinators,
etc.) to choose between these competing constructions. An empirical
study must be done before positing any elliptical construction in a
language.
⇒ Need of a language-by-language and construction-by-construction
study !
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What ellipsis is not
Expressions with no antecedents (implicit or overt).
Special registers : titles, headlines...

Labels : Campbell Soup. Starbucks. Next exit : Chicago.
Short directives : Left ! Higher !
Expressive exclamations : Wonderful ! Nonsense ! For Pete’s sake !
Clauses with a non-verbal head : How about a cookie ? What, me
worry ? Fr. A quelle heure le concert ? ’At what time the concert ?’
Subject-predicate analysis, non-verbal head. Do not need context to be
interpreted.
Etc.
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Plan
1 Introduction
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Two competing accounts

General question : how to articulate the usual form/meaning
dichotomy wrt ellipsis phenomena ? Two possible answers :
The usual form/meaning mapping is maintained : there must be an
’invisible’ form.
There is meaning in the absence of a form : there is no ’invisible’ form.
In mainstream generative grammars, the syntactic component
accounts for the correspondance between form and meaning. So, the
major question wrt ellipsis is what Merchant to appear calls the
structure question : In elliptical constructions, is there syntactic
structure that is unpronounced ?
⇒ The two possible answers have far-reaching implications for the theory
of grammar.
Positive answer = Structural approaches : we must posit more
abstract syntactic structures within theories of grammars that permit
unpronounced phrases and heads.
Negative answer = Non-Structural approaches : there is no abstract
syntactic structure ; the syntax of ellipsis may be ’what you see is what
you get’, with no unpronounced elements.
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Two kinds of reconstruction

Syntactic reconstruction in structural approaches : the meanings are
derived by the mechanisms at play in other contexts ; elliptical clauses
and their full counterparts share the same properties. Two accounts :
Positing essentially ordinary syntax, subject to some kind of ’deletion’
to render the syntax unpronounced ⇒ PF-Deletion (Ross 1967, 1969,
Sag 1976, Hankamer & Sag 1976, Hankamer 1979, Hartmann 2000,
Merchant 2001, Johnson 2004, Chung 2005, etc.) ⇒ Traditional
generative solution to ellipsis.
Positing a null lexical element which is replaced or identified at some
level of representation not relevant to the pronunciation ⇒ LF-copy,
null anaphora (Hardt 1993, Wasow 1972, Williams 1977, Fiengo &
May 1994, Lobeck 1995, etc.).
Semantic reconstruction in non-structural approaches, by
supplementing the theory of meanings, creating or exploiting devices
that can generate meanings in the absence of syntactic structure ⇒
Fragment-based accounts (Ginzburg & Sag 2000, Culicover &
Jackendoff 2005).
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Some evidence for structural approaches

Connectivity effects (Merchant 2001, 2004) : Form appears to be
determined by unpronounced elements.
Preposition matching : PP remnants appear with the preposition that
they would have in full clauses (34).
Case matching : In languages with morphological case, remnants
typically appear in the case that they would have in the understood
complete clause. E.g. German sluicing in (35-a)–(35-b).
(34) He seemed to be competing with someone, though we never knew {with
whom / *to whom}. (Ginzburg & Miller 2017)
(35) a. Er will jemandem schmeicheln, aber sie wissen nicht

he wants someone.dat flatter but they know not
{*wen / wem}. (Ross 1969)
{who.acc / who.dat}
’He wants to flatter someone, but they don’t know who.’
b. Er will jemanden loben, aber sie wissen nicht, {wen /
he wants someone.acc praise but they know not {who.acc /
*wem}.
who.dat}
’He wants to praise someone,Nbut they don’t know who.’ 37 / 65
Locality effects : Some kinds of locality constraints (in particular

island constraints) are observed to hold of elements whose putative
origin site is inside the understood missing material. If any of these are
due to restrictions on syntactic representations (cf. Sag 1976), then
their presence in elliptical structures argues that those representations
must be present.
Sensitivity to islands, when extracting from an elliptical structure : e.g.
Wh-island constraint applying with VPE (36-a) or stripping (36-b).
(36) a. *Abby knows five people [who have dogs], but cats, she
doesn’t. (Merchant 2009)
b. *They caught the man [who’d stolen the car] after
searching for him, but not the diamonds.
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Preposition-stranding generalization (Merchant 2001, 2004, 2009) :

Cross-linguistically, there is a strong correlation/parallelism between
languages that allow P-stranding in non-elliptical structures and in
elliptical contexts. If what regulates P-stranding is a morphosyntactic
condition, then this grammatical constraint will be operative in
elliptical contexts as well.
(37) a. Peter was talking with someone, but I don’t know (with)
who(m). (Merchant 2009)
b. A : – Who was he talking with ? B : – (With) Mary.
(38) a. I Anna milise me kapjon, alla dhe ksero *(me) pjon.

def Anna talked with someone but not I.know with who
’Anna talked with someone, but I don’t know with who.’
b. *Pjon milise me ? (Merchant 2009)
who talked.3sg with
’Who was he talking with ?’
Etc.
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Some evidence for non-structural approaches
Some data seem to point that there is no structure that has the
properties of its putative full counterpart.
Non-connectivity effects : case mismatches.
(39) A : – Who wants a slice of pizza ? (Merchant 2017)

B : – Me ! (*Me want a slice of pizza.)
Absence of locality effects : island violations.
(40) a. Bob found a plumber [who fixed the sink], but I’m not
sure with what. (Culicover & Jackendoff 2005)
b. Robin knows a lot of reasons [why dogs are good pets],
and Leslie, cats.
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Exceptions to the P-stranding generalization : in Italian, speakers seem

to accept a bare wh-phrase in place of the PP in elliptical contexts,
whereas this is impossible in non-elliptical contexts.
(41) a. Pietro ha parlato con qualcuno, ma non so

Pietro has spoken with someone but not I.know
?(con) chi. (Merchant 2001)
with who
’Pietro has spoken with someone, but I don’t know
(with) who.’
b. *Chi ha parlato Pietro con ?
who has spoken Pietro with
’Who has Pietro spoken with ?’
Etc.
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Plan
1 Introduction
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Ellipsis and anaphora
Idea that there is interpretation beyond what is said/written,

something is literally missing, or is semantically much less contentful
than what is actually understood, and that what is understood is
understood because of the presence of an antecedent in the context.
Ellipsis : missing words that partly receive their interpretation through
a contextually given antecedent.
Anaphor = Proform : word or phrase that partly receives its
interpretation through a contextually given antecedent (plural :
anaphors).
Anaphora : the phenomenon linking ellipses and proforms/anaphors to
their antecedents.
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Analipsis (Forward ellipsis) ∼ Anaphoric relations

Catalipsis (Backward ellipsis) ∼ Cataphoric relations
(42) a. She said something. I no longer remember what Ø.

(Sluicing)
b. A. – Kim is working today. B. – Sandy is Ø too. (VPE)
(43) a. Though I haven’t yet had time to Ø, I will be seeing

John soon. (VPE)
b. John made Ø, and Mary sold a piece of furniture. (RNR)
(44) a. Ann saw Mary yesterday. She was tired.

b. Did Mary go home ? – I think so.
c. John then said this : “I cannot accept your offer”.
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Sometimes, alternance between an elliptical construction and a

structure using a pronominal or adverbial proform.
(45) a. Paul likes but Mary dislikes bananas.

b. Paul likes bananas but Mary dislikes them.
(46) a. John liked the play and Bob did too.

b. John liked the play and so did Bob.
(47) a. John liked the play, but not Bob.

b. John liked the play, but Bob, no.
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Deep vs. Surface Anaphora
Hankamer & Sag (1976)

Two main classes of anaphoric devices
Very influential paper : 906 citations on google scholar and continues

to be cited 39 years after publication.
Interesting data and a coherent and a priori attractive analysis.
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End 1960s and beginning 1970s : controversy between two analyses of

anaphora and ellipsis :
Deletion and substition transformations :
Ellipses are obtained by deletion under identity with an antecedent ;
proforms are obtained by substitution under identity with an
antecedent.
Interpretative analyes :
Ellipses and proforms are understood by recovering an appropriate
antecedent in the context.
Cf. Hankamer & Sag (1976), both types of analyses are valid, it
depends on the type of proform or ellipsis :
Surface anaphora are derived transformationally by deletion or
substitution under identity with a syntactically present antecedent.
Deep anaphora are present as such in underlying representation and
do not involve deletion or substitution.
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Criteria for distinguishing deep and surface

anaphora
1 Exophoric uses (pragmatic antecedent) : whether they can take a

non-linguistic (pragmatic) antecedent or not.
2 Syntactic identity/parallelism : whether they require a strict
syntactic parallelism with its antecedent.
3 Missing antecedents : whether they can make missing antecedents
accessible or not.
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Criterion 1 : Pragmatic antecedents
’Pragmatic control’ : situations in which the antecedent is presented in

the context, but not introduced explicitly in a linguistic expression.
Deep anaphora do not require a linguistic antecedent (both exophoric
and endophoric uses).
Surface anaphora require a linguistic (syntactically present)
antecedent ; they cannot be pragmatically controlled (only endophoric
uses).
(48) [Hankamer attempts to stuff a 9-inch ball through a 6-inch

hoop] (Depiante 2017, adapted from H & S 1976)
a. Sag : It’s not clear you’ll succeed. (NCA)
b. Sag : It’s not clear that you’ll be able to do it. (Do it
proform)
c. Sag : #It’s not clear that you’ll be able to. (VPE)
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Criterion 2 : Syntactic parallelism

Surface anaphora require superficial syntactic identity of structure
between the antecedent segment and the segment to be anaphorized.
E.g. no voice mismatches.
Deep anaphora do not require such a syntactically identical
antecedent. E.g. voice mismatches.
(49) Nobody else would take the oats down to the bin,
a. so Bill volunteered. (NCA)
b. so Bill did it. (Do it proform)
c. so Bill did. (VPE) (Hankamer & Sag 1976)
(50) The oats had to be taken down to the bin,

a. so Bill volunteered. (NCA)
b. so Bill did it. (Do it proform)
c. *so Bill did. (VPE) (Hankamer & Sag 1976)
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Criterion 3 : Missing antecedents

The missing antecedent phenomenon was previously discussed in
Grinder & Postal (1971) and Bresnan (1971).
Grinder & Postal (1971) argue that :
The NP a wife of the 1st clause of (51-a) cannot be the antecedent of
the pronoun she in the 3rd clause, as evidenced by the fact that (51-b)
is ungrammatical. This is because “a wife is indefinite and under the
scope of negation”.
But then why is (51-c) grammatical ?
Because, assuming a deletion under identity approach, illustrated in
(51-d), a wife occurs outside the scope of negation in the 2nd clause,
which can serve as an antecedent.
(51) a. Harry doesn’t have a wife but Bill does have a wife and
she is a nag.
b. *Harry doesn’t have a wife and she is a nag.
c. Harry doesn’t have a wife but Bill does and she is a nag.
d. Harry doesn’t have a wife but Bill does [have a wife] and
she is a nag.
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Bresnan (1971) : PAE vs. VPA

PAE = Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis (cf. Sag 1976) = VPE = Verb Phrase
Ellipsis)
VPA = Verb Phrase Anaphors = do it, do this, and do that
Bresnan (1971) suggests that PAE/VPE and VPA differ in their ability
to license missing antecedents :
PAE/VPE license missing antecedents (52-a), (53-a).
VPA don’t license missing antecedents (52-b), (53-b).
(52) a. My uncle didn’t buy anything for Christmas, but my

aunt did, and it was bright red. [it = something]
b. *My uncle didn’t buy anything for Christmas, so my aunt
did it for him, and it was bright red. [it = something]
(53) a. Jack didn’t cut Betty with a knife, though Bill did, and
it was rusty. [it = knife]
b. *Jack didn’t cut Betty with a knife. Bill did it, and it was
rusty. [it = knife]
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Coming back to Hankamer & Sag’s typology,

Surface anaphora exhibit the missing antecedent phenomenon, i.e. they
can make missing antecedents accessible.
Deep anaphora do not exhibit the missing antecedent phenomenon.
(54) a. *John didn’t want to give up his seat, so Peter

voluntereed because it was too narrow for him anyway.
(NCA) (Depiante 2017)
b. *John didn’t want to give up his seat, so Peter did it
because it was too narrow for him anyway. (Do it
proform)
c. John didn’t want to give up his seat, so Peter did
because it was too narrow for him anyway. (VPE)
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Deep Anaphora : do it, do this, do that, NCA, personal pronouns

Exophoric uses are possible
No strict syntactic identity
Missing antecedents are not possible
⇒ Present in deep structure (not transformationally derived)
Surface Anaphora : do so, PAE/VPE, Sluicing, Stripping, Gapping
No exophoric uses are possible
Strict syntactic identity
Missing antecedents are possible
⇒ Result from a deletion or substitution under identity
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Empirical evidence for Hankamer & Sag’s

typology
Tanenhaus & Carlson (1990)

Psycholinguistic research : three experiments on comprehension of
deep and surface anaphora.
Materials : pairs of stimuli in which a context sentence introduced an

antecedent for an anaphor in a following target clause.
Task : a “makes sense” judgement task in which subjects were
instructed to decide as quickly as possible whether or not the target
clause made sense given the context sentence.
Three experiments investigating the effects of parallelism on the
comprehension of deep and surface anaphora.
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Experiment 1
Manipulating parallelism by introducing the antecedent in either an

active or a passive sentence.
Active version (= parallel antecedent) : there is a linguistic constituent
that can serve as the antecedent for the anaphor.
Passive version (= non-parallel antecedent) : there is no appropriate
constituent that can serve as the antecedent.
Parallel antecedents were introduced in active sentences (55-a) and

non-parallel antecedents in passive sentences (55-b).
Target clauses : deep anaphor (55-c) vs. surface anaphor (55-d).
(55) a. Someone had to take out the garbage.

b. The garbage had to be taken out.
c. But Bill refused to do it.
d. But Bill refused to.
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Participants : 36 undergraduates from introductory psychology courses.

Material : 20 sets of sentences (each set containing two context
sentences and two target sentences). Within a set, each context
sentence was paired with each target clause, resulting in four
sentence-pairs which were counterbalanced across four presentation
lists. Test sentences intermixed with 39 filler sentences (16 control
items which do not make sense given the context sentence, as in
(56-a)–(56-b)).
(56) a. After the exam Bill decided to have a beer or two. Sam
didn’t either.
b. Yesterday, the sports star announced his retirement. Sam
denied it, too.
Procedure : The subject sees first a context sentence. When she

finished reading it, she pressed a response button which erased the
context sentence and replaced it with the target sentence. The subject
then pressed the appropriate response button to indicate whether or
not the target makes sense given the context sentence.
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Results :
Two types of data : judgement data (a “yes” or “no” judgement), and
latency data (latency to make a judgement : the time that the subject
took to make the decision that the target sentence makes sense).
Surface anaphora were judged to make sense more often when their
antecedent was syntactically parallel (significant effect of parallelism
for the surface anaphora), whereas syntactic parallelism did not
significantly affect judgements to the deep anaphora.
However, parallelism did affect comprehension latencies to both types
of anaphors.
Parallel Antecedent Non-parallel antecedent

Anaphor % Judgement Latency % Judgement Latency
Deep 94 2073 msec 91 2273 msec
Surface 89 2161 msec 70 2776 msec
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Experiment 2
Manipulating parallelism by introducing the antecedent in either a verb

phrase or a noun phrase using a nominalised verb.
Prediction : The nominalisation manipulation should affect the surface
but not the deep anaphora.
Parallel antecedents were created by presenting the antecedents in a
verb phrase and non-parallel antecedents in a nominalised form.
(57) a. It always annoys Sally when anyone mentions her sister’s

name.
b. The mention of her sister’s name always annoys Sally.
c. However, Tom did it anyway out of spite.
d. However, Tom did anyway out of spite.
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The same design as in the experiment 1.
Results : very similar to those obtained in the experiment 1.
Judgement data : Surface anaphora were judged to make sense less
often when their antecedents were syntactically non-parallel than when
they were syntactically parallel. But no significant effects in the case of
deep anaphora.
Latency data : Increase in latency for both surface and deep anaphora
with non-parallel antecedents.

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Experiment 3
Examining the effects of syntactic parallelism when both types of

anaphora involve null elements.
Eliminating confound between type of anaphora and their phonological
explicitness.
In most surface anaphora, the anaphoric element is not realised
phonologically.
For most deep anaphora, there is an explicit anaphoric element.
NCA is a deep anaphor, but the anaphoric element is not realised
phonologically.
Comparison between NCA (a deep anaphor) and VPE (a surface
anaphor), both types involving null elements.
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Material : only 12 sets (instead of 20), because of the limited number

of verbs that can be used with NCA.
(58) a. Someone has to take out the garbage. (Parallel

antecedent)
b. The garbage has to be taken out. (Non-parallel
antecedent)
c. But Bill refused. (NCA)
d. But Bill refused to. (VPE)
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Results : similar to those obtained in the experiments 1 and 2.

Judgement data : Surface anaphora were judged to make sense
significantly more often when their antecedents were syntactically
parallel than when they were syntactically non-parallel. But no
significant effects in the case of deep anaphora.
Latency data : Increase in latency for both surface and deep anaphora
with non-parallel antecedents.

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General discussion
According to Sag & Hankamer’s hypothesis, surface anaphora but not

deep anaphora must be linked to a linguistic (syntactically present)
antecedent. These 3 experiments made by Tanenhaus & Carlson
(1990) show clear evidence for an interaction between syntactic
parallelism and type of anaphor : surface anaphora are sensitive to the
form of their antecedents in a way that deep anaphora are not. The
basic distinction established by Hankamer & Sag (1976) is reflected in
comprehension processes.
Depiante (2017) : “Independently of one’s theoretical position and
perspective on the details of Hankamer and Sag’s proposal, the gist
behind Hankamer and Sag’s typology is still empirically accurate in the
sense that all languages have anaphors that need linguistic antecedents
and anaphors that can get their interpretation from the non-linguistic
context.”
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Thank you !
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Sobre La Clasificacion de La Elipsis

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Introduction A typology of ellipsis Theories of ellipsis Ellipsis and anaphora

Empirical Approaches to Elliptical Constructions

Gabriela Bîlbîie1 and Anne Abeillé2

Main goals of the course

Go beyond the limited paradigms of data obtained through

Outline of the course

Class 1 (July 6). Background on ellipsis

Class 4 (July 17). Focus on Verb Phrase Ellipsis – part 1

Class 7 (July 27). Focus on peripheral ellipsis (Right-Node Raising) –

4 Ellipsis and anaphora

4 Ellipsis and anaphora

Ellipsis – a challenge for grammar

1 part of the material necessary for the interpretation is missing in

Descriptive problem : A mass of elliptical constructions, on the

The difficulty of studying ellipsis

Lack of consensus about the typology of elliptical constructions

4 Ellipsis and anaphora

Semantics : The target has a propositional content.

(1) a. Paul is taller [than Mary].

Classifying elliptical constructions

We are interested here in elliptical clauses corresponding to some

Criterion 1 : Syntactic status of the missing

Three main classes :

(2) a. John drinks scotch [and Bill borbon].

Conjunction Reduction (Jackendoff 1971), also dubbed Left

(4) a. John went to Paris on Monday [and to Rome on Friday].

(5) a. John drinks scotch, [and Bill too].

Sluicing (Ross 1969) defines any elliptical (and generally embedded)

(7) a. John drinks something, but I don’t know [what].

(8) He drank, but I don’t know [what].

(9) A : – Someone left. B : – [Who] ?

Constructions involving ellipsis of dependents are all variants of

Verb Phrase Ellipsis (Sag 1976) : a constituent or constituent

(10) a. John drinks scotch, [but Bill doesn’t].

Two different types of VPE in English, satisfying distinct discourse

(11) a. A : He shops in women’s. B : No, he dóesn’t.

According to Goldberg (2005), VPE (defined as PAE) is a rare

(12) A Ana já tinja lido o livro à irmã mas a

A phenomenon which is related to VPE is, according to Goldberg

(13) A : – O Kim pegou o livro ? B : – Pegou.

Null Complement Ellipsis, dubbed Null Complement Anaphora by

(14) a. I asked Bill to leave, but [he refused].

If Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis is banned in most Romance languages (Lobeck

(15) a. *Tom a vu Lee mais Marie n’a pas. (Dagnac 2010)

Antecedent Contained Ellipsis (Bouton 1970) characterizes the

(16) a. John tried to read everything [he could].

Specific constraint on ACE in Romance : the subject of the target and

Pseudogapping (Levin 1986) is a construction sharing properties with

(18) a. John drinks scotch, [and Bill does bourbon].

Phenomenon considered as rare and marginal (Lasnik 1999), with a great

(20) a. [John made], and Mary sold a piece of furniture.

As for pseudogapping, RNR is considered as very rare rare and marginal

(21) a. Motorola [either denied] or would not comment on the

Criterion 2 : Syntactic contexts

(23) a. Joan write a novel, and Marvin did too.

Comparatives as a specific syntactic context favoring ellipsis (Lechner

(25) a. *Jean a lu le livre, et Paul a aussi. (Boeckx 2000)