Null Complement Anaphora in Romance

Abstract

Hankamer and Sag (1976) and Sag (1980) proposed a distinction between two types of elliptical constructions based on the two ways anaphoric elements could be assigned interpretations: VXUIDFH DQG GHHS DQDSKRUD. While deep anaphora would be inserted in the underlying syntactic representations, surface anaphora would be originated by the deletion of syntactic structures resulting from the application of previous operations. Two properties, taken as related, were assumed to crucially distinguish these two types of anaphora: deep anaphora might be recovered by the situational context and not exhibit internal structure in Syntax, as opposed to surface anaphora, which requires a linguistic antecedent and presents internal structure. Hankamer and Sag attributed these differences to the interpretative devices involved: a deep anaphor would be assigned interpretation by a rule of semantic interpretation relating it to a salient situational or linguistic context 1 , while surface anaphora results from the deletion of a linguistic expression under identity (or non-distinctness) with a linguistic antecedent. Based on its behaviour with respect to these properties, Hankamer and Sag characterized 1XOO &RPSOHPHQW $QDSKRUD (NCA) in English as deep anaphora. * We acknowledge the audience of the *RLQJ 5RPDQFH &RQIHUHQFH , for valuable comments on this paper. We are particularly indebted to Ana Bartra, Denis Delfitto, Ana Martins, Jairo Nunes and Carme Picallo, and especially to two anonymous reviewers of a previous version of this paper. 1 Hankamer and Sag (1976) suggest that deep anaphora phenomena are inserted in deep structure and assigned a semantic interpretation by a projection rule, or alternatively, that they are inserted in more abstract structures that represent semantic interpretation. Sag (1980), reviewing this analysis in terms of Chomsky's (1976) framework, claims that deep anaphora is interpreted by an interpretative rule applying at LF.

15 VP and TP ellipsis: Sentential polarity and information structure

“…See also Rouveret (1989) and Johnson (2013). 14 For a different type of TP ellipsis, referred to as Modal Ellipsis or Null Complement Anaphora (NCA), see Dagnac (2010) for French, Spanish and Italian, Brucart (1999) for Spanish, Depiante (2000; for Spanish and Italian, Cyrino/Matos (2006) and Gonçalves/Matos (2009), for Portuguese. See also Saab (2008; for a thorough discussion of TPE and references.…”

How much syntax is there in metalinguistic negation?

“…26 As expected, MN declaratives with lá allow other kinds of ellipsis, in which strict parallelism is not a licensing requirement. This is the case of Null Complement Anaphora (NCA), which is not subject to lexical nor structural parallelism between the ellipsis clause and the antecedent clause (Hankamer andSag 1976, Depiante 2001;Cyrino and Matos 2006;Gonçalves and Matos 2009 (ii) Disseram-lhes para limpar o jardim, mas eles {sabem/querem} lá. told-3PL-them to clean the garden but they {know-want} MN marker 'They were told to clean the garden, but no way they {know how/wish to}.…”

Null Objects and VP Ellipsis in European and Brazilian Portuguese

“…This characterization of VPE and NCA has been accepted in several works, and developed to account for EP and BP (see Matos & Cyrino 2001, Cyrino & Matos 2002, 2005 for VPE), (Cyrino & Matos 2006, Gonçalves & Matos 2009, for NCA).…”