Verb-second and the verb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis debate

Abstract

Verb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis (VPE), when a verb is stranded outside of the VP-sized ellipsis site in which it originated, has been identified in a number of languages (Irish, McCloskey 1991; Hebrew, Doron 1991, Goldberg 2005; Greek, Merchant 2018; Uzbek, Gribanova 2019, i.a.), and has been invoked productively in analyses investigating the position to which verbs move and the timing of verb movement in the grammar. Recently, Landau (2018, 2019, to appear) proposes a phase-based negative licensing condition on head-stranding ellipsis that precludes verb-stranding VPE altogether. He claims that apparent verb-stranding VPE must be reanalyzed either as Argument Ellipsis (Oku 1998; Kim 1999; Takahashi 2008), or a clause-sized ellipsis that strands main verbs (Gribanova 2017). This article approaches this debate through an analysis of head movement and head-stranding ellipsis in the Indic verb-second (V2) language Kashmiri, arguing that Landau’s phase-based approach encounters empirical challenges in accounting for variation in the presentation of ellipsis in V2 languages and requires an unconventional approach to V2, at odds with recent accounts of Kashmiri V2 (Bhatt 1999; Munshi and Bhatt 2009; Manetta 2011) and mainstream views of V2 generally (e.g. Holmberg 1986; Travis 1991; Vikner 1995; Zwart 1997). While the present article argues in favor of the standard account of ellipsis (Merchant 2001, 2008), we affirm the important contribution of Landau’s work in identifying challenges facing any account of head-stranding ellipsis licensing. At issue is the larger question of whether and how verb-stranding ellipses can be used to better understand head movement.