Topics in Ellipsis

This book looks at some central problems and questions in the study of ellipsis, whereby certain portions of a sentence are unspoken.

Kyle Johnson (Edited by)

9780521815086, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 January 2008

308 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.64 kg

Ellipsis occurs when certain portions of a sentence are not spoken - for example 'Mary has read more books than Bill has [read books]' and 'Jack called, but I don't know where [he called] from'. These constructions interest linguists because the meaning of the sentence cannot be traced directly to the words it contains. This volume brings together a team of leading syntacticians to propose new and original solutions to some key questions in the study of ellipsis: What characterises ellipsis? Under what conditions is it possible? What kinds of meanings are allowed to go unspoken? Drawing on a variety of authentic constructions, they examine ellipsis in the context of a range of syntactic phenomena such as binding, raising, anaphora, movement and scrambling. Making significant progress towards solving some central problems in syntactic theory, this volume will be of key interest to anyone working on theoretical syntax, semantics and psycholinguistics.

1 Introduction Kyle Johnson
2. VP Ellipsis and constraints on interpretation Daniel Hardt
3. Direct compositionality and variable-free semantics: the case of antecedent contained deletion Pauline Jacobson
4. The view of QR from ellipsis Kyle Johnson
5. Argument contained ellipsis Chris Kennedy
6. Variable island repair under ellipsis Jason Merchant
7. On binding scope and ellipsis scope Winfried Lechner
8. The silent content of bound variable pronouns Uli Sauerland
9. A step-by-step guide to ellipsis resolution Satoshi Tomioka
10. Shared constituents and linearisation Chris Wilder.

Subject Areas: Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Language acquisition [CFDC], Psycholinguistics [CFD], Linguistics [CF]