What Divides, and What Unites, Right-Node Raising

We argue, following Barros and Vicente (2011), that right-node raising (RNR) results from either ellipsis or multidominance. Four considerations support this claim. (i) RNR has properties of ellipsis and of multidominance. (ii) Where these are combined, the structure results from repeated RNR: a pivot created through ellipsis contains a right-peripheral secondary pivot created through multidominance. (iii) In certain circumstances, one or the other derivation is blocked, so that RNR behaves like pure ellipsis or pure multidominance. (iv) Linearization of RNR-as-multidominance requires pruning. The same pruning operation delivers RNR-as-ellipsis, which explains why the two derivations must meet the same ordering constraints.

Ellipsis in Languages of the Caucasus

This chapter deals with ellipsis, a phenomenon whereby some expected material goes missing in an utterance. The chapter overviews types of ellipsis frequently addressed in the literature: ellipsis in the noun phrase; argument omission; VP ellipsis; modal complement ellipsis; ellipsis in complex predicates; gapping, pseudogapping, and right node raising; ellipsis in comparative constructions, stripping; and ellipsis involving negation, sluicing and its generalizations, and fragment answers. It proceeds to review the occurrence of, and peculiarities exhibited by, these ellipsis varieties in a sample of the languages of the Caucasus. A number of ellipsis varieties that have not been earlier discussed in the literature but are present in some languages of the Caucasus are addressed as well. The data show that the languages of the Caucasus do not show a uniform typological profile as far as ellipsis is concerned. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the relevance of the presented data for theories of ellipsis.

On Certain Adjacency Effects in Ellipsis Contexts

In this article, I show that crosslinguistically, there is a recurring pattern in various ellipsis constructions (e.g., fragment answers, right-dislocation, right-node raising, VP-ellipsis), to the effect that parts of a remnant can be additionally deleted under adjacency to a deletion site, often ignoring constituency. I argue that the phenomenon in question follows from the fact that PF deletion, being an operation in the component determining linear order, targets linearized strings, similarly to the fact that movement, being an operation in the component determining hierarchical relations, targets constituents.

Dutch

This chapter discusses ellipsis in Dutch and the dialects of Dutch. It provides detailed information on the major types of ellipsis as they have been presented in Part III of this handbook: gapping and stripping, predicate ellipsis (VP-ellipsis and pseudogapping), Conjunction Reduction and Right-Node Raising, sluicing, fragments, nominal ellipsis, Comparative Deletion, and Null Complement Anaphora. It discusses the main insights from the literature as well as new observations with respect to these constructions. The final section shows that the Dutch dialects display an enormous amount of variation concerning ellipsis constructions. In particular, it examines the variation in NP-ellipsis with possessive, demonstrative, and adjectival remnants and variation with respect to sluicing.

Japanese

This chapter provides an overview of, while examining various proposals for, ellipsis in Japanese. Fragments are examined, and it is claimed to be reasonable to assume that stripping, sluicing, and ellipsis in comparatives are a uniform phenomenon while short answers are distinct. It is also argued that the properties of Right-Node Raising can be best captured by a non-constituent string deletion analysis. Three approaches to null arguments are examined, and shortcomings in each are discussed. N’-deletion is then explored and claimed to be ambiguous between two structural possibilities: ellipsis and non-ellipsis. VP-ellipsis, gapping, and pseudo-gapping are also touched upon. One significant aspect of the ellipsis phenomena in Japanese illustrated in this chapter is that the presence and absence of a case-marker plays a crucial role, with case-marked and non-case-marked fragments being analyzed as instances of surface anaphora and deep anaphora, respectively. This indicates the importance of focusing on case-marked versions in the syntactic investigation of these phenomena.

Kiswahili and Shingazidja

This chapter is a detailed discussion of ellipsis in Kiswahili and Shingazidja, two languages belonging to the G.40 group of Bantu languages. Building upon various arguments, including the use of tests established by Ngonyani (1996, 1998) and Greenberg (2005) and the examination of prosodic patterns, it is shown that several kinds of ellipsis are possible in these languages: clausal ellipses (gapping, stripping, argument cluster coordination), sluicing and fragments, comparative ellipsis, N-deletion, etc. Special attention is given to gapping and V-stranding VP-ellipsis, a structure that has previously been discussed in the literature on Bantu languages. The differences between the two languages, such as the fact that right-node raising is only possible in Shingazidja, are also addressed. The final section discusses the absence of two types of predicate ellipsis in these languages, namely English-like VP-ellipsis and English-like pseudogapping.