On “sluicing” with apparent massive pied-piping

Abstract

This paper provides the first detailed description of a type of elliptical whquestion first noted in a footnote in Ross's seminal paper on sluicing. Under certain, very restricted circumstances, sluicing appears to be able to tolerate wh-phrases with massive pied-piping. I propose to analyze this pattern in terms of (recursive) contrastive left-dislocation accompanied by clausal ellipsis. While it has long been known that contrastive left-dislocation can be recursive, the particular ellipsis pattern observed here has not been described in detail before. The proposed analysis capitalizes on the striking distributional similarities between the apparent sluicing pattern and the pattern of clausal ellipsis with contrastive left-dislocation. At a theoretical level, the paper provides a defense of wh-move-and-delete approaches to sluicing by removing Ross's nagging counterexample to the generalization that only wh-movable constituents can be sluicing remnants. Keywords Ellipsis • Sluicing • In-situ theory of ellipsis • Contrastive left-dislocation • German • English • Move-and-delete theory of ellipsis 2 This is not the place to decide what the correct analysis of apparent P-stranding under sluicing is.

The present paper investigates the Hijazi Arabic (HA) morphosyntactic properties of the widely known linguistic phenomenon of sluicing from a generative perspective, taking into account the latest advancements of the Minimalist Approach (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2001). In this paper, sluicing is a linguistic phenomenon of deleting an entire TP clause, leaving only a wh-remnant. Adopting the Structural PF-Deletion approach, we argue that HA employs sluicing and that the ellipsis site contains a fully-fledged syn

“…Because this approach argues for a hidden/ null unpronounced structure, it analyzes such a structure as a full unpronounced constituent and uses a number of theories including the LF-Copying theory and the PF-Deletion theory to account for its claims. This structural approach is supported by the majority of linguists (Abels, 2018;Aelbrecht, 2010;Chung, 2006;Chung et al, 1995;Leung, 2014a;Merchant, 2001Merchant, , 2004Merchant & Simpson, 2012;van Craenenbroeck, 2010), to mention a few.…”

“…Linguists have shown interests in uncovering this linguistic phenomenon of ellipsis, such as Merchant (2001;2003;2004;, 2006a, 2006b, 20132012), McShane (2005;, Kolokonte (2008), Aelbrecht (2010), and Abels (2018), to mention a few. Merchant (2001) describes ellipsis as the 'syntax of silence': a description suggesting that there are syntactic properties of the unpronounced structures.…”

The Syntax of Sluicing in Omani Arabic

“…The second is the structural approach which argues for a structure in the elided material, and it is represented by most of the analyses (Ross, 1969;Chung, Ladusaw, & McCloskey, 1995;Chung, 2006;Merchant, 2001Merchant, , 2008Merchant, , 2019Aelbrecht, 2010;Craenenbroeck, 2010a;Leung, 2014b;Abels, 2018). However, there is disagreement as to whether or not the unpronounced material contains lexically null elements.…”

“…The former assumes a null category filled by copying the semantic component of the antecedent clause at LF (Chung, Ladusaw, & McCloskey, 1995;Lobeck, 1995). The latter argues for a syntactic structure within the null TP which is deleted after a wh-movement operation has taken place (Lasnik, 2007;Merchant, 2001Merchant, , 2008Aelbrecht, 2010;Craenenbroeck, 2010a;Leung, 2014b;Abels, 2018).…”

Resumption as a sluicing source in Saudi Arabic: Evidence from sluicing with prepositional phrases

“…This approach predicts Merchant's (2001) second form identity generalization: 'language L will allow preposition stranding, under sluicing iff L allows preposition stranding under regular wh-movement' (Merchant 2001: 92). This is so because, under Ross's account, constraints on pied-piping, and in particular pied-piping of prepositions, are enforced under sluicing (Abels 2019). A theory of sluicing without structure at the ellipsis site makes no such prediction (Sag & Nykiel 2011;Nykiel 2013;Kim 2015): whether the preposition appears or does not appear in the sluice is independent of syntactic constraints on pied-piping and determined by other factors.…”