Deep properties of a surface anaphor: on the contextual restriction of sluicing sites

TROY MESSICK; MATTHEW BARROS; SAAB, ANDRÉS

Leiden

Workshop; Workshop in the memory of Luis Vicente; 2018

Based on certain semantic intuitions, Barros 2012 argues that we must concludethat ellipsis does not require structural isomorphism between elided structure and itsantecedent. We tackle this claim. Semantic intuitions cannot be a pointer to theanalysis of silent structure. We provide empirical evidence that raises the question ofto which extent our semantic intuitions about plausible articulable syntax mustinform our analysis of silent structure. Here we conclude the answer to such aquestion must be cross-linguistically informed. We conjecture that ellipsis introducesellipsis-specific interpretive mechanisms, so that intuitions about ?how the un-elidedstructure would be interpreted? are not empirically relevant