Features of French clausal ellipsis
Evidence is provided that there is a use of the French clitic le (coined special le) that co-occurs with clausal ellipsis. I argue against extending Elbourne's (2001) analysis of E-type pronouns as definite determiners followed by ellipsis to special le and suggest instead that it is best analy...
| Autor: | |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ddd.uab.cat:317452 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://ddd.uab.cat/record/317452 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.5565/rev/isogloss.483 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Antecedent contained deletion Clausal ellipsis CP-recursion E-feature French |
| Sumario: | Evidence is provided that there is a use of the French clitic le (coined special le) that co-occurs with clausal ellipsis. I argue against extending Elbourne's (2001) analysis of E-type pronouns as definite determiners followed by ellipsis to special le and suggest instead that it is best analyzed as the optional phonological realization of an E-feature. I further establish the existence of two distinct types of clausal ellipsis: type 1, which may, but need not, co-occur with wh-extraction out of the ellipsis site and type 2, which must involve wh-extraction of an ellipsis remnant to be licensed. I propose an account of type 1 (a.k.a. modal) ellipsis that correctly predicts that it is only licensed by those modal verbs that take phasal complements. I then turn to type 2 ellipsis and argue that it involves the pairing of an E-feature and an EPP feature with the higher C-projection of a CP-recursive structure selected by verbs embedding a speech act such as bridge verbs. Finally, I show that type 2 ellipsis is licensed in ACD relatives but not in standard relatives. I provide a tentative explanation for this based on Koster-Moeller & Martin Hackl's (2008) derivational theory of ACD relatives. |
|---|