Phonetic Resurrection from Ellipsis Sites:

A Case from Pseudo-gapping*

* I thank three anonymous reviewers for their questions and comments. Any error, however, is mine. This paper was supported by Wonkwang University in 2018.

Jeong-Shik Lee

https://doi.org/10.24303/lakdoi.2018.26.4.55

∣ Jeong-Shik Lee

Phonetic Resurrection from Ellipsis Sites: A Case from Pseudo-gapping ∣

(Wonkwang University)

Lee, Jeong-Shik. (2018). Phonetic resurrection from ellipsis sites: A case from pseudo-gapping. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 26(4), 55-81. Pseudo-gapping remnants have been assumed to raise out of VPs to survive VP-ellipsis via Heavy NP Shift, Object Shift, a combination of the two, or covert QR. I propose that they remain within VPs without raising, and that after VP-ellipsis, they be phonetically resurrected at PF due to their Focus. Thus, ellipsis may leave room for phonology to moderate syntactic overstepping through phonetic resurrection. The current proposal will be supported by showing that the existing approaches do not properly deal with Pseudo-gapping phenomena, and that the current one can offer alternative solutions to the problems that the other ones face.

Key Words: Pseudo-gapping, VP-ellipsis, Heavy NP Shift, Object Shift, covert QR, phonetic resurrection

1. Introduction

Pseudo-gapping constructions in English, as introduced in (1), for instance, have been analyzed as an instance of VP-ellipsis (hereafter VPE) (see, e.g., Jayaseelan 1990, Lasnik 1999, among others).

(1) While some people advised Mary to visit cities, others did ∆ lakes.

(Sauerland 1998: 141)

The gap, marked with ∆, in the elliptic clause apparently indicates a gap representing [advise Mary to visit]. This sequence particularly draws attention in that it does not form a constituent. Apparently, a VP-internal element, namely, lakes, in the elliptic clause survives ellipsis and contrasts with an element in the antecedent clause, namely, cities.

A reviewer reminds me that it is called catena in Dependency Grammar. Although (s)he adds that this catena is a linguistic unit in the above model of grammar, I do not assume that it is a unit in that it is not a constituent.

It has been suggested that the object lakes undergoes movement out of VP, and the VP containing its copy is elided via VPE. Two types of movement are popular; that is, Heavy NP Shift in Jayaseelan (1990) and Object Shift in Lasnik (1995, 1999). After I examine these two major analyses and other minor analyses, I elaborate the alternative idea that the Pseudo-gapping remnant does not raise and remains inside the VP-ellipsis site, but it is phonetically resurrected from the ellipsis site later at PF due to its Focus. Evidence will be drawn from Pseudo-gapping in English and Korean.

2. Previous Approaches

2.1. The Heavy NP Shift Analysis

Jayaseelan (1990) proposed the Heavy NP Shift (hereafter HNPS) analysis to derive the Pseudo-gapping remnant, for example, you in (2a); that is, the remnant moves to the right of the clause via HNPS to survive VPE, as illustrated in (2b).

(2) a. John will select me, and Bill will ∆ you.    (Lasnik 1999: 141)

b. John will select me, and Bill will [VP select t] you.

Lasnik (1999), however, argues against the HNPS analysis based on the following facts. He first observed that Direct Objects can undergo HNPS, as seen in (3a), and can be a Pseudo-gapping remnant by way of HNPS, as seen in (3b).

(3) a. John gave Bill ti yesterday [more money than he had ever seen]i.
b. Although John wouldn't give Bill the book, he would

[VP give Bill ti] the paperi.

But he pointed out that Indirect Objects cannot undergo HNPS, as seen in (4a), but can be a Pseudo-gapping remnant via HNPS, as seen in (4b).

(4) a. *John gave ti a lot of money [the fund for the preservation of

VSO languages]i.

b. Although John wouldn't give Bill the book, he would

[VP give ti the book] Susani.

Here, the logic is that if an element does not undergo HNPS, it cannot be a Pseudo-gapping remnant. Thus, based on the fact from (4a), the derivation in (4b) should not be possible. In this regard, it is not entirely clear whether the remnant you in (2a) is really heavy enough to undergo HNPS. Notice also that if it undergoes HNPS, the result is actually ungrammatical.

(5) *Bill will select ti on Friday youi.

In other words, the derivation in (2b) is in fact illegitimate. It is also unclear whether the string vacuous movement in (2b) should be posited in that it has no output effect on word order. So I would not regard the movement in question as HNPS but rather as something like string vacuous rightward movement.

Another case in which the NHPS analysis faces difficulty was pointed out by Takahashi (2004: 573). It has been observed that multiple Pseudo-gapping remnants are possible (see Baltin 2000, Takahashi 2004 and others).

(6) a. ?Although John would give Bill a book, he wouldn't ∆

Susan a paper.

b.  Although John would give a book to Mary, he wouldn't ∆

a paper to Susan.

But multiple remnants do not undergo HNPS, as seen below (Takahashi 2004: 572).

(7) a. *John gave ∆ ∆ yesterday [the tall man] [the book written by

the professor at MIT].

b. *Sue gave ∆ ∆ on Friday [the book about HNPS] [to the student

who works on Parasitic Gaps].

This result thus shows that the HNPS analysis makes an incorrect prediction that Pseudo-gapping cannot take place in (6). In the next section, I will examine another analysis.

2.2. The Object Shift Analysis

Lasnik (1995, 1999) argues that the Pseudo-gapping remnant in (2a) is obtained by Object Shift (hereafter OS), followed by VPE, as seen in (8).

(8) John will select me, and Bill will [youi [VP select ti]]

The OS analysis can derive the Pseudo-gapping remnant lakes in (1) in this manner, as shown in (9).

(9) While some people advised Mary to visit cities, others did [lakesi

[VP advise Mary to visit ti]].

Here, the object lakes undergoes OS out of VP, and the VP containing its trace is elided via VPE. The landing site may be the Spec of FocP between TP and VP as in Merchant (2008), due to a reviewer. Although the sequence [advise Mary to visit] does not form a constituent, this remnant movement helps maintain the constituent ellipsis hypothesis.

Takahashi (2004), however, pointed out that the OS analysis faces the analogous problem that the HNPS analysis does. To see why, consider the following examples (Takahashi 2004, (11)):

(10) a. Although John wouldn't give Bill the book, he would ∆ Susan.

b. Although John wouldn't give Bill the book, he would ∆ the

paper.

Under the OS analysis, Pseudo-gapping applies to (10a,b), as represented in (11a,b), respectively.

(11) a. Although John wouldn't give Bill the book, he would [Susani

[VP give ti the book]].

b. Although John wouldn't give Bill the book, he would [the paperi

[VP give Bill ti]].

Takahashi (2004, (17)) considers the following contrast to evaluate the analysis in (11).

(12) a.  Maryi was given ti a book.

b. *A booki was given Mary ti.

It is seen that the Indirect Object can undergo passivization, an A-movement, as seen in (12a), but that the Direct Object cannot across the Indirect Object, as seen in (12b). Saying that the OS approach predicts that the movement of a remnant patterns with A-movement, Takahashi claims that in deriving the Pseudo-gapping remnant, OS can apply to Indirect Objects, but it cannot apply to Direct Objects. Thus, according to him, while the derivation in (11a) is allowed, that in (11b) is not.

Although Takahashi (2004: 576) says that the OS approach can account for Pseudo-gapping with the Indirect Object remnant in (10a), which is problematic for the HNPS approach, it should be mentioned that OS is actually impossible in English regardless of whether the object is an indirect one or a direct one, as seen in (13).

(13) a. *He would [Susani [VP give ti the book]].

b. *He would [the paperi [VP give Bill ti]].

The reason why Takahashi argues for the OS approach to the Indirect Object Pseudo-gapping remnant is found in his assumption that OS correlates to the possibility of passivization of an object in Scandinavian languages. That is, if an object can be passivized, it can undergo OS; otherwise, it cannot. Therefore, he assumes that in English too, Indirect Objects can be a Pseudo-gapping remnant as they can be passivized, but Direct Objects cannot as they cannot be passivized.

From a different angle, however, it should be reminded that the possibility of OS correlates with main verb raising in Scandinavian languages (Holmberg 1999). That is, OS is possible only when main verb raises. What about English? As seen in (13), OS is impossible in this language, which is known to lack main verb raising. Under the OS approach, the impossible OS must apply for the derivation of (10a,b), as seen in (11a,b), which is not consistent with the logic mentioned in 2.1., and VPE obligatorily applies to repair the resultant trouble here, which is not consistent with the optional nature of ellipsis in general. The latter point can be made clearer by considering that the VP may be phonologically reduced instead of being elided. Phonological reduction of the VP in (11) produces the bad result.

(14) a. *Although John wouldn't give Bill the book, he would

[Susani [give ti the book]].

b. *Although John wouldn't give Bill the book, he would

[the paperi [give Bill ti]].

In short, I claim that (10a) cannot be derived via OS, as represented in (11a), contrary to Takahashi (2004), let alone (10b).

Another case in which the OS analysis faces difficulty was pointed out by Takahashi (2004: 579). As introduced in (6), repeated below, multiple Pseudo-gapping remnants are possible.

(6) a. ?Although John would give Bill a book, he wouldn't ∆

Susan a paper.

b. Although John would give a book to Mary, he wouldn't ∆

a paper to Susan.

Although multiple remnants can undergo OS in (6a), the PP will not undergo OS in (6b) since it does not need Case feature checking.

It is also unclear whether the elided VP in (9), repeated as (15) below as a representative example, with the trace replaced with the copy, is strictly identical to its antecedent VP for ellipsis to occur. This is because the copy of lakes that remains in the elliptic VP is distinct from the antecedent cities.

(15) While some people advised Mary to visit cities, others did [lakesi

[VP advise Mary to visit <lakes>]].

In connection with this, whether the object movement in (15) is A-movement or A'-movement is also open to further debate. This OS has been widely regarded as A-movement (Lasnik 1995, 1999). If only A-movement obviates Binding Condition C, and thus, A-traces do not show reconstruction effects, as seen in (16a) below, the trace/copy of the raised object in (15) may be ignored to evade the problem with the identity requirement under concern. Compared to A-traces in (16a), A'-traces do show reconstruction effects, as seen in (16b). While the R-expression Kai in the A-moved phrase in (16a) can be coreferent with the pronoun him, Kai in the A'-moved phrase in (16b) behaves as if it is in the trace position with respect to Condition C.

(16) a.  [One relative of Kaij's]i seemed to himj to ti like Kazuko.

b. *[Which relative of Kaij's]i did hej say ti likes Kazuko.

(Sauerland 1998: 111, (29))

Nevertheless, Sauerland (1998) claims that Pseudo-gapping involves A'-movement based on the following examples:

(17) a. *I gave heri a book and you did [a picture of Maryi

[VP give heri <a picture of Maryi>]]

b. *While some told heri to paint a portrait of John, others did

[a picture of Suei [VP tell heri to paint <a picture of Suei>]]

(cf. Sauerland (1998: 143, (77))

The above Condition C effects show that the raised complements must be reconstructed, indicating that they undergo A'-movement on a par with (16b).

Now, if the objects in Pseudo-gapping undergo A'-movement, leaving a trace with the same lexical content as the trace of wh-movement, as Sauerland (1998) points out, Pseudo-gapping should not obviate the identity requirement that is imposed on the lexical content of A'-traces. Thus, the problem with meeting the identity requirement still remains to be resolved.

As mentioned before around (13), OS is impossible in English, so (18a,b), made of (1, 17b), respectively, are bad.

(18) a. *Others will lakes advise Mary to visit.

b. *Others will a picture of Suei tell heri to paint.

Note that Cond C is not invoked in (18b). So a question arises as to why impossible OS applies to derive the Pseudo-gapping remnant and VPE is forced to repair the previous wrong doing. As far as I can see, there seems to be no reasonable motivation for the Pseudo-gapping remnant movement whatever its mode may be. Recall also that some reconstruction facts from examples like (17a,b) above do require the remnants to appear on their home position as if they have not moved at all.

Another remaining question is whether the same OS should apply in the antecedent clause to meet the strict identity/parallelism requirement for VPE. If this happens, subsequent reordering is inevitable to achieve the original surface order in this clause, as illustrated below.

(19) While some people [[advised Mary to visit] [cities [VP <advise Mary

to visit> <cities>]]], others did [lakes [VP advise Mary to visit

<lakes>]]

Notice that what is moved is the non-constituent sequence [advise Mary to visit], which is prohibited. Alternatively, the whole VP constituent containing the trace/copy of the moved cities, namely, [advise Mary to visit <cities>], may be raised to recover the original surface order, as seen in (20).

(20) While some people [[VP advised Mary to visit <cities>] [cities

[VP advise Mary to visit <cities>]]], others did [lakes

[VP advise Mary to visit <lakes>]]

However, there still remains a question as to what prevents the verb from raising alone, as seen in (21a), which is actually observed in a simpler sentence like (21b).

Thoms (2016) recently claims that QR applies to the correlate in the antecedent clause at LF to meet the parallelism. Without the surface reordering in the antecedent clause, thus, he would get the parallel structure for (1) at LF, as seen below.

(i) While some people [cities [advised Mary to visit <cities>], others did [lakesi

[VP advise Mary to visit <lakes>]].    (LF)

But he provides the same pattern of example with different judgment, as cited below.

(ii) ?*Kathy wants John to study astronomy, but she doesn’t meteorology. (his (38b))

According to him, QR to astronomy is blocked over the ECM subject John. If (i) is good, this would then mean that QR is to be blocked in (i) as well, implying that (1) should be bad. Here, I assume with Sauerland (1998) that examples like (1) is basically good (see also Grano and Lasnik 2018, fn. (i) for this judgment). It also remains to be seen how Thoms’ LF QR approach can deal with the following example:

(iii) Kathy wants John to study astronomy, but meteorology she doesn’t.

It appears that QR to astronomy is allowed over the ECM subject John this time.

(21) a. *While some people [advised [cities [VP <advise> Mary to visit

<cities>]], others did [lakes [VP advise Mary to visit <lakes>]]

b. While some people [visited [cities [VP <visit> <cities>]], others

did [lakes [VP visit <lakes>]]

2.3. Other Approaches

A hybrid approach was proposed by Takahashi (2004) in such a way that the NP undergoes OS and the PP undergoes HNPS in (6b), repeated as (22).

(22) Although John would give a book to Mary, he wouldn't △

a paper to Susan.

Thus, (22) is derived as follows:

(23) Although John would give a book to Mary,

he wouldn't [a paper] [VP give <a paper> <to Susan>] [to Susan]

↑_________________｜         ｜_________↑

Object Shift                  HNPS

Attracting though this approach is, it was seen in the previous sections that both the OS analysis and the HNPS analysis do not work properly for several reasons. Here, I merely point out again that the remnant to Susan undergoes string vacuous HNPS and wonder if this movement is really motivated in view of output economy on word order.

That the PP, to Susan, can undergo HNPS is reported in an example like (i).

(i) Sue gave the book ti on Friday [to John]i.  (Takahashi 2004, (31))

But it seems that the right-dislocated Dative Object to John is not really heavy, and some of my informants actually found the example in (i) degraded.

Tanaka (2017) points out that the hybrid approach cannot account for the following examples in which the preposition of the PP remnant can be optionally deleted (Tanaka 2017, (10)).

(24) a. You cannot borrow a car from John, but you can △ from Mary.

b. ?You cannot borrow a car from John, but you can △ Mary.

Tanaka (2017) proposed that Pseudo-gapping remnants undergo covert Quantifier Raising (QR), regarded as A'-movement, in the single output model of syntax. That covert QR can apply to Mary in (24b) is illustrated in (25), where this object can outscope the Direct Object.

(25) John borrowed [a type of car] from [every professor].

(a>every, a<every) (Tanaka 2017, (20))

His point is further supported by the fact that preposition stranding is not allowed under HNPS or under A-movement, as seen below (Tanaka 2017, (12, 13)).

(26) a. *You can borrow a car from △ tomorrow [the female graduate

student of natural language processing].

b. *Mary was borrowed the car from △.

Under his proposal, Mary alone can undergo covert QR in (24b), so the stranded preposition from within VP can be deleted by VPE, as shown below.

(27) ?You cannot borrow a car from John, but you can [Maryi

[VP borrow a car from ti]]

This approach, however, will allow unwanted deletion of preposition by VPE in examples like those in (28). It would be quite difficult to impose any reasonable restriction on pied-piping when covert QR applies to yield the contrast between (24) and (28). In other words, this situation will eventually lead to a massive overgeneration in that covert QR should also be able to apply leaving behind the preposition to in (28).

But I am agnostic about the optional appearance of the preposition in (24) and the obligatory presence of the preposition in (28), which certainly awaits further investigation.

(28) a. Although John would give a book to Mary, he would a paper △

*(to) Susan.

b. John was introduced to the king, and Bill was △ *(to)

the queen.

c. Seymour relied on Herman, and Irving did △ *(on) Melvin.

The following Dative constructions indicate that the Dative Object QPs undergo QR, stranding the preposition behind, to take a wide scope over the Direct Object QP:

(29) a. This lighting gives every kind of headache to a different (type of)

person.                          (a>every)  (Bruening 2010)

b. A boy was introduced to every professor.

(a>every, a<every)  (Fox 2000: 43)

It is well-known that Pseudo-gapping does not license a parasitic gap (see Baltin 2003, Takahashi 2004, Tanaka 2017, among others), as seen in (30) (Tanaka 2017: (26)).

(30) a. ?Although John didn't kiss Mary, he did Sally △ without looking at her.

b. *Although John didn't kiss Mary, he did Sally △ without looking at pg.

Under Takahashi's approach, the remnant Sally undergoes OS, and thus, the resulting A-trace cannot license the parasitic gap. Under Tanaka's covert QR approach, however, the raised remnant leaves an A'-trace, so this approach faces a question of why this A'-trace does not license the parasitic gap under VPE. Tanaka (2017: 276) wrongly assimilates the ungrammaticality of (30b) to the ungrammaticality of (31b).

(31) a. No article did John ever file without reading pg.

b. *John filed no article without reading pg. (Tanaka 2017: 276, (25))

Under his covert QR approach, the real QP no article in (31a) has actually raised, leaving its trace, but this QP in (31b) is pronounced in its place, leaving no trace. Thus, this difference yields the contrast in licensing the parasitic gap in (31). In (30b), on the other hand, the remnant Sally appears as a result of VPE, which means that it has undergone covert QR leaving its trace, hence yielding the wrong prediction.

Tanaka (2017: 273) further advocated his covert QP approach by citing Baltin's (2000) examples showing that predicate NPs cannot be a remnant, compared to argument NPs, as seen in (i) (see also Levin 1978).

(i) a. The students did not date doctors, but they did ___ nurses.

b. *The students did not become doctors, but they did ___ nurses.

Tanaka's treatment to the above contrast follows from the assumption that while argument NPs can undergo QR, predicate NPs cannot. At the moment, I do not have a good account for the above contrast; nevertheless, I want to say that my informants judged examples like (ib) basically acceptable, if not perfect (see also Lee 2002). Further, it is well-known that (ib) is greatly improved in a comparative context, as seen below (see Levin 1978).

(ii) The students became doctors less fervently than they did ___ nurses.

Whatever the reason, this means that predicate NPs can actually move out of VP to be a remnant under the movement approaches. I leave this topic for another study.

Takahashi (2004) also introduces a contrast in licensing a parasitic gap.

(32) a.  Although John didn't give the boy a short paper, he did

[without reading pg] a long paper.

b. *Although John didn't give the tall boy a book, he did [without

looking at pg] the short boy.

The above contrast says that Direct Objects can undergo HNPS and their traces can license a parasitic gap while Indirect Objects cannot do so. Together with the contrast in (30), this contrast appears to support Takahashi's hybrid approach depicted in (23).

However, I would like to say that Takahashi's (2004) analysis is not really supported by the above sort of contrast. This is because the examples in (32) involve real instances of HNPS. As his analysis allows string vacuous rightward movement of the Direct Object, as seen in (33) below, it is expected that Pseudo-gapping in (34a) is also possible, as represented in (34b).

(33) a. Although John wouldn't give Bill the book, he would △

the paper. (=(10a))

b. Although John wouldn't give Bill the book, he would

[VP give Bill ti] [the paperi]

(34) a. *Although John didn't give the boy a short paper, he did a long

paper [without reading pg]

b.  Although John didn't give the boy a short paper, he did

[[VP give the boy ti] [a long paper]i] [without reading pg]

The result, however, is bad, contrary to expectation. Under Takahashi's analysis, the Direct Object the paper in (33b) undergoes HNPS, which I regarded as string vacuous rightward movement in section 2.1., since it cannot undergo OS across the Indirect Object Bill under his analysis. Although this movement is regarded as HNPS by Takahashi, it is not really so in that the paper is not sufficiently heavy in any respect and further the movement is string vacuous. Therefore, the same movement in (34b) should also be admitted under his analysis.

A reviewer points out that more of unacceptable instances of Pseudo-gapping should also be discussed. I thank him/her for referring me to Grano and Lasnik's (G&L, 2018) recent work, from which the following examples are cited:

(i) *John claims that Mark likes apples and [Bill does <claim that Mark likes>

oranges]      (G&L 2018: (6a), (65))

(ii) John claims to like apples and [Bill does <claim to like> oranges]

(G&L 2018: (7a))

The above contrast can be attributed to the difference in finiteness in the clause that the verb claim takes. The gist of G&L's proposal is that the finite clause in the elliptic site in (i) forms a phase, so that remnant raising is not allowed; on the other hand, the non-finite clause in the elliptic site in (ii) does not, so that remnant raising is allowed. To me, however, it is not clear if G&L's approach can really make a distinction between the two in that the object in the context of (ii) can normally undergo A'-movement out of the embedded that-clause being regarded as a non-island (recall that Pesudo-gapping involves A'-movement). In this paper, I am more concerned with basic examples of Pseudo-gapping found in single clauses and clauses containing non-finite clauses (e.g., (1), (ii)).

3. Proposal

It has so far been seen that movements such as HNPS, OS, the combination of the two, or covert QR are not appropriate operations in deriving Pseudo-gapping remnants in English. The major point was that Indirect Objects, which do not undergo HNPS, can be a Pseudo-gapping remnant, and that OS, which applies to derive Pseudo-gapping remnants, is in fact impossible in English. In addition, it remains controversial whether the remnant raising is A- or A'-movement. In this section, I elaborate an alternative idea, alluded to in section 1, that the Pseudo-gapping remnants do not move and can be phonetically resurrected within the ellipsis site at PF due to their Focus.

As I see, the constituent ellipsis hypothesis has been applied too strongly in the existing approaches. As for one or more remnants rescued from Pseudo-gapping, it is presupposed that the remnants must escape the VP before VPE applies, which is apparently a kind of look-ahead. From the current non-movement perspective, on the other hand, the remnants can be proposed to be rescued within the elliptic site later at PF due to their Focus (cf. Abe's 2016 in situ deletion approach). Call this "phonetic resurrection." Under this proposal, I offer representations in (35) and (36) instead of those in (15) and (17b), respectively, in terms of phonetic resurrection without positing a remnant movement. In (35, 36) below, E-feature assignment is intended to signal the upcoming ellipsis of a constituent with this feature as in the (a) examples; as the focused elements are not to be erased, they are later phonetically resurrected at PF as in the (b) examples. Therefore, the constituent ellipsis hypothesis is observed, as seen in the (a) examples.

In Merchant (2001), the E-feature is placed on the licensing head; in this paper, the E-feature is assigned to the elliptic site (see also Tomioka 2008 for this stance). I assume that the two positions are not essentially different from each other.

The current analysis is apparently similar to Abe's (2016) in situ deletion approach. However, I will point out one crucial difference in the next section.

(35) a.  While some people advised Mary to visit cities, others did

E[VP advise Mary to visit [lakes]F]

b. ..........., others did E[VP advise Mary to visit [lakes]F]

(phonetic resurrection)

(36) a. *While some told heri to paint a portrait of John, others did

E[VP tell heri to paint [a picture of Suei]F]

b. .........., others did E[VP tell heri to paint [a picture of Suei]F]

(phonetic resurrection)

Thus, the E-feature assignment to a constituent does not necessarily mean that all the elements in this constituent directly lead to literal silence exhaustively, but that there may still be room for phonology to moderate syntactic overstepping through a process called phonetic resurrection, as illustrated above. Now if remnants do not undergo raising, the ungrammaticality of (36) can be directly ascribed to a violation of Cond C without recourse to reconstruction. Consequently, whether the remnant undergoes A- or A'-movement becomes out of the question, and the controversial reordering issue in (19), repeated below, does not arise any longer.

(19) While some people [advised Mary to visit] [cities [VP <advise Mary

to visit> <cities>]], others did [lakes [VP advise Mary to visit <lakes>]]

Going back to the identity requirement issue, now, this requirement obviously appears to be obviated by focus involved in the contrasting Pseudo-gapping remnant, as seen in (35), for instance. In other words, focus makes the object remnant invisible to the identity requirement. Under the current system, the remnant lakes in (35) is Focus-marked as it receives a contrastive focus (cf. Rooth 1985, Selkirk 1995, Sauerland 1998, and others), and it survives VPE through phonetic resurrection, as seen in (37).

(37)  While some people advised Mary to visit cities,

others did E[VP advise Mary to visit [lakes]F]

Focus

As the lexical element staying in the object position in the elliptic clause obtains Focus-marking (i.e., [lakes]F), the antecedent VP and the elided VP can be made identical if the F-marked [lakes]F in the elided VP can be replaced with its corresponding alternative antecedent [cities] to achieve identity in the framework of alternative focus semantics (cf. Rooth 1985, Kratzer 1991, Sauerland 1998, and others). Thus, the current analysis, as reflected in (37), obviates the need for a process like Focus-inheritance proposed by Sauerland (1998) in the case of Pseudo-gapping, in which Focus-marking is inherited from the raised remnant to the copy in the trace position.

Of course, this Focus-inheritance process will be needed in the case of wh-movement, as seen in (i), which is legitimate, unlike Object Shift, in English.

(i)  a. I know which cities Mary visited, but I have no idea which lakes she did.

b. I know which cities Mary visited, but I have no idea

[[WHICH LAKes]F [she did [VP visit <lakes>F]]]

｜_________________________↑

Focus inheritance

Another case in point comes from the parasitic gap construction in (32a) (Takahashi 2004: (44)):

(ii)  a. Although John didn't give the boy a short paper, he did △ [without reading

pg] a long paper.

b. Although John didn't give the boy a short paper, he did

[VP give the boy <a long paper>F] [without reading pg] [a LONG PAPER]F

↑_____________________________________｜

Focus inheritance

Since the above example involves real HNPS, Focus will be inherited from the moved remnant to the copy within the elliptic site. The current non-movement approach remains unaffected by the above two cases in (i) and (ii) because they do not involve string vacuous unmotivated movement but real instances of legitimate wh-movement and HNPS, respectively.

However, there are still more complicated examples that require intricate analyses, for which I do not intend to go into any theoretical, semantic details here (see, e.g., Sauerland 1998: Chap 3).

As for the example in (34a), repeated as (38), the current non-movement approach can say that there is no A'-trace that can license the parasitic gap. The example in (30b), repeated as (39), can receive the same treatment.

(38) *Although John didn't give the boy a short paper, he did △ a long

paper [without reading pg].

(39) *Although John didn't kiss Mary, he did △ Sally without looking at

pg.

The current analysis applies to derive multiple Pseudo-gapping remnants in (6b), repeated as (40a), in a simple manner, as roughly represented in (40b).

(40) a. Although John would give a book to Mary, he wouldn't △

a paper to Susan.

b. Although John would give a book to Mary, he wouldn't

E[VP give [a paper] [to Susan]]

It was shown before that the existing analyses do not account for multiple remnants properly. Interestingly, the current approach can also account for (24a,b) in a simple manner, as represented below.

(41) a.  You cannot borrow a car from John, but you can E[VP borrow

[a car] [from Mary]]

b. ?You cannot borrow a car from John, but you can E[VP borrow

[a car] [from Mary]]

In (41a) the PP is phonetically resurrected from the VPE site; in (41b) only Mary is phonetically resurrected, with the preposition from phonetically unrealized.

The current phonetic resurrection approach looks like a flipside of An's (2016) Extra Deletion approach. I will return to this matter in the next section.

In sum, the current approach can avoid all the problems found in other existing approaches involving OS, HNPS, QR, or combination of OS and HNPS. The remaining task is how to account for the contrast in deletability of the preposition in the remnant PP between (24) and (28). I might speculate on a possibility that there is some kind of semantic relationship between the 'verb + preposition' (covert) complex and the remnant (cf. Ihm 2017), under which a certain preposition may or may not undergo (covert) reanalysis to the preceding verb. Whatever this relation turns out to be, the current non-movement analysis can exploit it while the covert QR approach cannot. This topic requires further study in another paper.

Although the HNPS analysis can do so, it is not considered an option (see section 2.1. and section 2.3.).

Although I set aside unacceptable instances of Pseudo-gapping, as introduced in fn. 6 and repeated in (i) below, I would like to hint a way to handle this example under the current non-movement analysis. For discussion, an acceptable example is also repeated in (ii).

(i) *John claims that Mark likes apples and [Bill does <claim that Mark likes>

oranges]      (G&L 2018: (6a), (65))

(ii) John claims to like apples and [Bill does <claim to like> oranges]

(G&L 2018: (7a))

With the supposition that the licensor (here, the auxiliary does) forms a certain relation or a chain with the remnant at LF, I might rely on G&L's insight; that is,  the chain is broken by the phase formed by the finite clause in the elliptic site in (i); on the other hand, it is not in (ii) since the non-finite clause in the elliptic site in (ii) does not form a phase. Or the distinction between finiteness and non-finiteness may be manifested in a different manner in such a way that a focus-binder (e.g., Mark in (i)) must not break the relation or the chain mentioned above. I leave this matter for further study.

4. Differences from Abe (2016) and An (2016)

The current analysis is apparently similar to Abe's (2016) in situ deletion approach. However, Abe's approach would directly get the representations in (35b) and (36b) by bypassing the remnants under ellipsis, and thus, it assumes a non-constituent ellipsis. In fact, Abe's (2016) in situ deletion approach was originally proposed to derive (multiple) right-dislocated elements and fragments in Japanese (and it can be assumed to apply to Korean as well); his approach is not purely an in situ deletion approach since it involves adjunction of the post remnant(s) to the initial remnant via an operation named Oblique Movement in order for only adjacent remnants to form a cluster. Thus, unfortunately, there obtains a situation in Japanese and Korean in which the second remnant has to move out of an island to adjoin to the initial remnant, thereby undesirably yielding an island violation, which is not repaired by ellipsis in Abe's system. The following Korean examples from Ihm (2016, (11A)) illustrate this point:

(42) Q: [Nwu-ka    [etten os-ul      ipkoissnun]  yehaksayng-ul

who-NOM  what dress-ACC wear        girl student-ACC

cohaha-ni?

like-Q

'Lit. Who likes a girl student who wears a dress which is what?'

A: Chelswu-ka    hwasaha-ko  yeppun.

Chelswu-NOM bright   and pretty

'Lit. Chelswu  which is bright and pretty.'

The fragment string hwasaha-ko yeppun 'which is bright and pretty' in (42Q) is a relative clause, and this clause will undergo Oblique Movement to the preceding Chelswu-ka to produce the fragment answers (FAs) in (42A), as represented below.

(43) [[Chelswu-ka   [hwasaha-ko yeppun]] [Island [<hwasaha-ko  yeppun>

Chelswu-NOM bright and pretty             bright   and pretty

os-ul       ipkoissnun] yehaksayng-ul]   cohaha-e]

dress-ACC wear        girl student-ACC like-DEC

'Lit. Chelswu likes a girl student who wears a dress which is

bright and pretty?'

This movement produces an island violation, which Abe (2016) assumes is not repaired in his system. By contrast, the current non-movement approach does not face this problem.

Abe’s (2016) system allows only arguments to participate in Oblique Movement, so it needs to be stretched out to involve non-argumental remnants such as relative clauses.

Abe’s (2016) Oblique Movement approach is intended to exclude non-adjacent remnants, not discussed here. Thus, the current non-movement should also be able to do that to the effect that phonetic resurrection does not apply to non-adjacent remnants, as initially attempted in Lee (2017b), which requires further refinement.

Interestingly, the current phonetic resurrection approach also looks like a flipside of An's (2016) Extra Deletion approach, under which PF-deletion operates on an unbroken contiguous string, and thus, it can additionally delete a case marker (up to recoverability) on an ellipsis remnant in Korean, for example, the FA in (44b), beyond TP-ellipsis in (44a), both being possible FAs to the question (44Q). It is noted that An's (2016) analysis assumes movement followed by Focus excluding deletion (FED), as seen below.

(44) Q: [Ne-nun [[e Chelswu-eykey mwues-ul  ponayn] salam-ul]

you-TOP   Chelswu-DAT  what-ACC sent     man-ACC

manna-ass-ni]?

meet-PAST-Q

'Lit. You met the man who sent Chelswu what?'

A:  [Sacin-ul]i [TP ...... [island ..... ti .....] .....]   (FED)

picture-ACC

B:  [Sacin-ul]i [TP ..... [island ..... ti .....] .....]   (Extra Deletion)

picture-ACC

Thus, the result of the ellipsis in (41b) from English, repeated below, is reminiscent of An's Extra Deletion analysis in that further to the ellipsis of [VP borrow a car], the preposition from is additionally deleted.

(41) b. ?You cannot borrow a car from John, but you can E[VP borrow

[a car] [from Mary]]

However, An's analysis has to assume the HNPS analysis so that the deletion can extend to the preposition in the contiguous string, namely, [[VP borrow a car ti] [from Mary]i]. In section 2.1. and section 2.3., however, it was revealed that the HNPS approach has some inadequacies. Under the current non-movement analysis, on the other hand, phonetic resurrection may apply to [from Mary] or simply [Mary].

5. An Extension to Korean Pseudo-gapping

This section briefly discusses applicability of the current analysis to a null complement phenomenon in Korean which looks very much like Pseudo-gapping discussed in the previous sections.

Kim (1999: 259, (8)) advocates the NP-ellipsis (hereafter NPE) analysis for the following ellipsis from Korean:

(45) a. Jerry-nun [caki-uy  ai]-lul      phal-ul   ttayli-ess-ta.

Jerry-TOP self-GEN child-ACC arm-ACC hit-PAST-DEC

'Jerry hit his child on the arm.'

b. Kulena Sally-nun  [ e ]  tali-lul   ttayli-ess-ta

but    Sally-CON        leg-ACC hit-PAST-DEC

'But Sally did [ e ] on the leg'

According to him, the gap in (45b) is simply derived by NPE of the possessor NP, caki-uy ai-lul 'self's child'. Relying on the fact that tali 'leg' is not allowed to move out of VP, as seen in (46a), he further excluded the otherwise possible derivation under Verb-stranding VPE (hereafter VVPE), as given in (46b) or (46c).

The VVPE analysis was proposed for Korean (and Japanese) by Otani and Whitman (1991), whose main idea can be attributed to Huang (1991).

(46b) reflects the PF-deletion approach; (46c) does the LF-copying approach. Kim (1999) only considered (46c). In this case, the contrastive particle -nun 'by contrast' appears, and a contrasting element, here, tali 'leg', corresponding to the correlate phal 'arm', is required (see Lee 2017a for this kind of Contrastive VPE in more detail).

(46) a. *Kulena Sally-nun talii-lul  [VP [NP caki-uy   ai]-lul  ti  tj]

but    Sally-TOP leg-ACC          self-GEN child-ACC

ttaylij-ess-ta

hit-PAST-DEC

b.  Kulena Sally-nun talii-lul  [VP [NP caki-uy  ai]-lul  ti  tj]

but    Sally-TOP leg-ACC         self-GEN child-ACC

ttaylij-ess-ta

hit-PAST-DEC

c.  Kulena Sally-nun talii-lul  [VP e ] ttaylij-ess-ta

but    Sally-TOP leg-ACC        hit-PAST-DEC

Kim points out that under VPE, caki-uy ai 'self's child' and the trace of the verb, tttayli-, from (45a) need to be copied onto the empty VP in (46c) at LF to get [VP [caki-uy ai] [tali] tttayli-], but that they are not copiable, being a discontinuous sequence with tali in between.

Interestingly, this situation looks similar to the English Pseudo-gapping discussed in the previous sections. Although the body part tali 'leg' cannot precede its possessor on the surface, as seen in (46a), it may move out of VP, as tali 'leg' carries focus with it contrastively with its correlate phal 'arm', its movement can be motivated, before VPE applies, as seen in (46b). Since Otani and Whitman (1991), however, VVPE in Korean has been denied by most of the researchers (i.e., NPE/Argument-ellipsis(AE)/pro by Park 1994, Kim 1999, Goldberg 2005, Ahn and Cho 2009, Moon 2015, among others). Therefore, the existence of Pseudo-gapping in Korean could not have been imagined, either. Here, I claim that Pseudo-gapping may stand as an independent process in Korean, thus indicating the presence of VPE in Korean. Crucially, phonetic resurrection will be invoked in deriving the Pseudo-gapping remnant.

Now if the resulting fault in (46a) can be remedied by the so-called 'repair by ellipsis', the VP containing the possessor NP and the verbal trace can be elided, as seen in (46b). On the other hand, Kim (1999) obviously does not assume 'repair by ellipsis'.

Away from the issue of applicability of ‘repair by ellipsis’, the current phonetic resurrection approach can alternatively derive the surface of (45b) by VPE. As tali 'leg' carries contrastive focus, it can be phonetically maintained via phonetic resurrection after VPE, as shown below.

(47)  Kulena Sally-nun  E[VP [caki-uy  ai-lul]     [tali-lul]F  tttayli-]

but    Sally-CON       self-GEN child-ACC leg-ACC

ttayli-ess-ta

hit-PAST-DEC

The above VPE analysis assumes verb raising in Korean (see Choi 2003). However, whether verb raises or not has not been satisfactorily settled down in Korean syntax. In what follows, independently of the verb raising issue, I present an instance of substantial VPE in Korean, as offered below.

(48) a.  Jerry-nun [caki-uy  ai]-lul      phal-ul   swuswul.ha-ess-ta.

Jerry-TOP self-GEN child-ACC arm-ACC operation.do-PAST-DEC

'Lit. Jerry did a surgery on his child on the arm.'

b.  Kulena Sally-nun  △  tali-lul  △  ha-ess-ta.

but    Sally-CONT    leg-ACC    do-PAST-DEC

'Lit. But Sally did [ e ] on the leg.'

c. ??/?*Sally-to  △  phal-ul  △ ha-ess-ta.

Sally-also    arm-ACC   do-PAST-DEC

'Lit. Sally did [ e ] on the arm, also.'

The ellipsis in (48b) involves deletion of the possessor object [NP caki-uy ai-lul] and the nominal verb swuswul 'operation' except the contrasting body-part NP tali 'leg' and the light verb ha- 'do'. I regard swuswul as basically verb in that it assigns Accusative Case to its complements. If it were a noun, its complements would have to take Genitive Case markers: [[caki-uy ai]-uy(Gen) phal-uy(Gen) [N swuswul]]. Thus, this ellipsis looks quite parallel to Pseudo-gapping in English.

Kim's (1999) NPE analysis cannot derive the elliptic clause in (48b) because the two gaps are separated and form a discontinuous sequence. In passing, other analyses such as AE/pro cannot apply to it, either. To derive the discontinuous gaps, these analyses may have to assume a separate operation deleting the nominal verb swuswul 'operation' individually. Unlike in the contrastive context in (48b), however, individual ellipsis of this nominal verb is not allowed when the possessor NP is elided in the additive context in (48c). This situation thus points to the VPE analysis, by which (48b) can be simply derived, as illustrated below.

(49) Sally-nun E[VP [caki-uy  ai]-lul     [tali-lul]F  swuswul] ha-ess-ta

Sally-TOP      self-GEN child-ACC leg-ACC  operation do-PAST-DEC

In (49), the nominal verb swuswul 'operation' undergoes deletion together with the possessor object caki-uy ai-lul 'self's child' under VPE, but the body-part object tali 'leg' can be phonetically resurrected due to its Focus. In (48c), by contrast, the phonetic resurrection of the body-part object is not motivated since it does not bear focus in the context of 'Subject-to VPE', alias Additive VPE (Lee 2017a).

There is a relatively clear contrast between (48b) and (48c). To me, (48c) is at best marginal. This seems to be due to the fact that in this example, the body-part phal-ul 'arm', an old information, is redundantly repeated (cf. Sally-to △ ha-ess-ta.). For some speakers, (48c) may not be completely bad. If the body-part in question is phonologically reduced or stressed for emphasis, ellipsis seems to be allowed, in which case the body-part can be suggested to be phonetically resurrected.

It is seen that the current analysis helps maintain the VPE analysis in Korean, arguing against other alternative analyses involving operations such as NPE/AE/pro replacement. The main proposal is that Pseudo-gapping remnants do not move and their phonetic content is resurrected within the elliptic site due to their Focus. Again, this focus makes the remnant invisible to the identity requirement.

6. Conclusion

This paper proposes that English Pseudo-gapping remnants not raise and be phonetically resurrected from the VP-ellipsis site later at PF due to their Focus. Thus, ellipsis may allow phonology to finally adjust the phonetic output through a process called phonetic resurrection. This proposal was supported by showing that the existing approaches involving operations such as Object Shift, Heavy NP Shift, or combination of the two do not satisfactorily deal with Pseudo-gapping phenomena, and that it can offer alternative solutions to the problems that they face. In addition, the proposed analysis is also shown to apply to Korean Pseudo-gapping, which reveals that VPE possibly exists VPE in Korean by way of verb raising. The results of the discussion show that the concept of phonetic resumption can serve as a useful window that helps look into how phonology moderates overstepping of syntax more extensively.

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Jeong-Shik Lee

Professor

Department of English Language and Literature

College of Humanities, Wonkwang University

460 Iksan-daero, Iksan 54538, South Korea

Phone: +82-63-850-6873

Email: jslee@wku.ac.kr

Received on October 29, 2018

Revised version received on December 9, 2018

Accepted on December 31, 2018