Verb phrase ellipsis

Last updated

In linguistics, verb phrase ellipsis (VP-ellipsis or VPE) is a type of elliptical construction and a type of anaphora in which a verb phrase has been left out (elided) provided that its antecedent can be found within the same linguistic context. For example, "She will sell sea shells, and he will <sell sea shells> too" is understood as "She will sell sea shells, and he will sell sea shells too". VP-ellipsis is well-studied, [1] [2] [3] particularly with regard to its occurrence in English, [4] although certain types can be found in other languages as well. [5]

Contents

VP ellipsis in English

Elided VP introduced by auxiliary verb or infinitive particle

With English grammar, VP ellipsis must be introduced by an auxiliary verb (be, can, do, don't, could, have, may, might, shall, should, will, won't, would, etc.) or by the infinitive particle to. [6] In the examples below, the elided material of VP ellipsis is indicated using subscripts, strikethrough represents that the material has been moved, the antecedent to the ellipsis is bolded, and asterisk (*) signals an ungrammatical sentence:

VP ellipsis of the verb "laugh" in English She will not laugh but he will.png
VP ellipsis of the verb "laugh" in English
  (1a) You might do it, but I won't <do it>.
  (1b) *You might do it, but I <do it>.
  (2a) She will not laugh, but he will <laugh>.
  (2b) *She will not laugh, but he <laugh>.
  (3a) Susan has been cheating, and Fred has <been cheating> too.
  (3b) *Susan has been cheating, and Fred <been cheating> too.
  (4a) Larry is not telling the truth, neither is Jim <telling the truth>.
  (4b) *Larry is not telling the truth, neither Jim <telling the truth>.

Attempts at VP ellipsis that lack an auxiliary verb fail, unless the infinitive particle to is retained:

VP ellipsis requiring the infinitive particle "to" Infinitive particle to.png
VP ellipsis requiring the infinitive particle "to"
  (6a) Sam wants to eat, and Fred wants to <eat> also.
  (6b) *Sam wants to eat, and Fred wants <to eat> also.
  (7a) Josh likes to sleep late, and Hillary likes to <sleep late> also.
  (7b) *Josh likes to sleep late, and Hillary likes <to sleep late> also.

A particularly frequent construction in which VP ellipsis (obligatorily) occurs is in tag questions:

VP ellipsis in a tag question Jeremy likes beer doesn't he.png
VP ellipsis in a tag question
  (8a) Jeremy likes beer, doesn't he <like beer>?
  (8b) Susan will write the paper, won't she <write the paper>?

Apparent exceptions to the restriction that VP ellipsis can only occur in the context of an auxiliary verb or infinitive particle are analyzed as instances of null complement anaphora:

VP ellipsis analyzed as null complement anaphora Null complement anaphora.png
VP ellipsis analyzed as null complement anaphora
  (9)   Question: Did you refuse to be promoted?
         Answer: Yes, I refused <to be promoted>.

English VP ellipsis operates forwards or backwards

VP ellipsis can be said to operate either forwards or backwards: it operates forwards when the antecedent to the ellipsis precedes the ellipsis (as in the above examples) and backwards when the antecedent follows the ellipsis. It can also be said to operate either upwards or downwards (or neither). It operates upwards when the antecedent appears in a clause that is subordinate to the clause containing the ellipsis, and downwards when the ellipsis appears in a clause subordinate to the clause containing the antecedent. In the above examples, the two clauses are coordinated, so neither is subordinate to the other, and hence the operation of the ellipsis is neither upward nor downward.

Combinations of these directions of operation of ellipsis are illustrated with the following examples. In these examples, the subordinate clause who say they will help is a relative clause that modifies the noun people. This relative clause is extraposed out of the subject in examples (11a) and (11b) in order to illustrate the remaining combinations:

(10a) The people who say they will help never do <help>.- Forwards and upwards
(10b) The people who say they will <help> never do help. - Backwards and downwards
(11a) The people never do help who say they will <help>. - Forwards and downwards
(11b) *The people never do <help> who say they will help. - Backwards and upwards

Three of the four combinations are acceptable. However, as the fourth example shows, VP ellipsis is impossible when it operates both backwards and upwards.

English antecedent-contained ellipsis

An aspect of VP ellipsis that has been the subject of much theoretical analysis occurs when elided VP appears to be contained inside its antecedent. The phenomenon is called antecedent-contained ellipsis or antecedent-contained deletion (ACD). This is displayed in both examples below where the antecedent is represented by bolded font. Canonical cases of antecedent-contained ellipsis occur when the elided material appears inside a quantified object NP. This can be seen in the second example where the quantified object NP is underlined. Quantifiers (ex. every) attach to nouns (ex. thing) to specify a subgroup. [7] The elided material is represented in the same format as previous examples.

Antecedent-contained deletion (ACD) He is thinking the same thing I am.png
Antecedent-contained deletion (ACD)
Antecedent-contained deletion (ACD) with quantified object NP They said everything that we did.png
Antecedent-contained deletion (ACD) with quantified object NP
(12)   He is thinking the same thing I am <thinking>.
(13)   They said every thing that we did<say>.

ACD unfortunately gives rise to 2 issues. The first is that the elided VP must be parallel, or identical, in form with the antecedent. The second is that since the antecedent contains the VPE site, whenever the antecedent is copied in, the VPE is automatically also included. Combined, these two factors result in an infinite regress: [8]

ACD giving rise to infinite regress Infinite regress.png
ACD giving rise to infinite regress
(14)   Eventually, Daisy [VP knew how to prepare every dish that her dad did [<know how to prepare every dish that her dad did> [<know how to prepare every dish that her dad did>...]]]

One means of addressing ACD infinite regress that is pursued in some phrase structure grammars is to assume quantifier raising (QR). [9] [10] Quantifier raising involves moving a quantifier to a higher position in the structure, leaving behind a trace which it binds to. Crucially, the landing site of QR in ACD sentences must be below the subject position. [8] It is seen as a covert process because it leaves the spoken word order unchanged. [11] An alternative explanation, pursued in dependency grammars, is to assume that the basic unit of syntax is not the constituent, but rather the catena. [12] With this analysis, the antecedent to the ellipsis does not need to be a complete constituent (an entire verb phrase), but can be merely a catena (the verbs say and thinking in the above examples), which need not contain the ellipsis.

English argument contained ellipsis

As noted above, VP ellipsis is generally impossible if it would operate both backwards and upwards. There are also certain other restrictions on the possibility of ellipsis, although a complete theoretical analysis may be lacking. Two examples of environments in which ellipsis fails are now given: [13]

(15)   *A proof that God exists does <exist>. - Failed upward ellipsis
(16)   *A proof that God does <exist>exists.- Failed argument-contained ellipsis

The inability of VP ellipsis to occur in these cases has been explored in terms of so-called argument contained ellipsis. [14] The ellipsis appears inside an argument of the predicate represented by the antecedent to the ellipsis. A satisfactory account of the inability of VP ellipsis to occur in these sentences is lacking.

VP ellipsis in language acquisition

Language acquisition often refers to a child learning to speak their first language, which is most often the language of their caregivers. Language acquisition involves many stages of learning—some of which are required before mastery of new information may occur.

Children acquiring VP ellipsis typically go through two stages: in stage one, they use a full sentence; in stage two—after they have mastered intonation and modal auxiliaries—they are able to use VP ellipsis. [15]

Full sentences

Intonation or inflection on the edge of the phrase marks where the elided material has been deleted from the phonological form: until children master where and how to use intonation in a sentence to mark the elided material, they respond in full sentences. [15]

Full sentence I like Linda's cookies full sentence.png
Full sentence
(21)   I like Linda's cookies and Rebecca likes Linda's cookies too.

Verb phrase ellipsis mastery

Children master the use of modal auxiliaries before they effectively use verb phrase ellipsis because modal auxiliaries license ellipsis. [15]

VP ellipsis mastery I like Linda's cookies VP ellipsis.png
VP ellipsis mastery
(22)   I like Linda's cookies, and Rebecca does<like Linda's cookies> too.

The above sentence shows the use of both intonation (bold italicized font) and the modal auxiliary (does)--both of which are required for English verb phrase ellipsis.

Intonation on the modal auxiliary marks the edge of the phrase, from which the elided material has been deleted from the phonological form: that is, although the elided material remains in the logical form, it is not in the phonological form. [15]

Despite using fewer words than a complete sentence, a sentence which employs verb phrase ellipsis requires more steps to be understood. [16] This complexity is due to the processing challenges involved with referring back to the unpronounced syntactic structure. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syntax</span> System responsible for combining morphemes into complex structures

In linguistics, syntax is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). There are numerous approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals.

English grammar is the set of structural rules of the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and whole texts.

In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb with any objects and other modifiers. However, the subject is sometimes unvoiced if it is retrievable from context, especially in null-subject language but also in other languages, including English instances of the imperative mood.

In general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well as positive and superlative degrees of comparison.

In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of a verb and its arguments except the subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence A fat man quickly put the money into the box, the words quickly put the money into the box constitute a verb phrase; it consists of the verb put and its arguments, but not the subject a fat man. A verb phrase is similar to what is considered a predicate in traditional grammars.

In linguistics, anaphora is the use of an expression whose interpretation depends upon another expression in context. In a narrower sense, anaphora is the use of an expression that depends specifically upon an antecedent expression and thus is contrasted with cataphora, which is the use of an expression that depends upon a postcedent expression. The anaphoric (referring) term is called an anaphor. For example, in the sentence Sally arrived, but nobody saw her, the pronoun her is an anaphor, referring back to the antecedent Sally. In the sentence Before her arrival, nobody saw Sally, the pronoun her refers forward to the postcedent Sally, so her is now a cataphor. Usually, an anaphoric expression is a pro-form or some other kind of deictic expression. Both anaphora and cataphora are species of endophora, referring to something mentioned elsewhere in a dialog or text.

In linguistics, a pro-verb is a verb or partial phrase that substitutes for a contextually recognizable verb phrase, obviating the need to repeat an antecedent verb phrase. A pro-verb is a type of anaphora that falls within the general group of word classes called pro-forms.

In syntax, sluicing is a type of ellipsis that occurs in both direct and indirect interrogative clauses. The ellipsis is introduced by a wh-expression, whereby in most cases, everything except the wh-expression is elided from the clause. Sluicing has been studied in detail in the early 21st century and it is therefore a relatively well-understood type of ellipsis. Sluicing occurs in many languages.

In generative grammar and related approaches, the logical form (LF) of a linguistic expression is the variant of its syntactic structure which undergoes semantic interpretation. It is distinguished from phonetic form, the structure which corresponds to a sentence's pronunciation. These separate representations are postulated in order to explain the ways in which an expression's meaning can be partially independent of its pronunciation, e.g. scope ambiguities.

In linguistics, ellipsis or an elliptical construction is the omission from a clause of one or more words that are nevertheless understood in the context of the remaining elements. There are numerous distinct types of ellipsis acknowledged in theoretical syntax. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis seek to explain its syntactic and semantic factors, the means by which the elided elements are recovered, and the status of the elided elements. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis can vary greatly depending in part upon whether a constituency-based or a dependency-based theory of syntactic structure is pursued.

Antecedent-contained deletion (ACD), also called antecedent-contained ellipsis, is a phenomenon whereby an elided verb phrase appears to be contained within its own antecedent. For instance, in the sentence "I read every book that you did", the verb phrase in the main clause appears to license ellipsis inside the relative clause which modifies its object. ACD is a classic puzzle for theories of the syntax-semantics interface, since it threatens to introduce an infinite regress. It is commonly taken as motivation for syntactic transformations such as quantifier raising, though some approaches explain it using semantic composition rules or by adoption more flexible notions of what it means to be a syntactic unit.

In linguistics, gapping is a type of ellipsis that occurs in the non-initial conjuncts of coordinate structures. Gapping usually elides minimally a finite verb and further any non-finite verbs that are present. This material is "gapped" from the non-initial conjuncts of a coordinate structure. Gapping exists in many languages, but by no means in all of them, and gapping has been studied extensively and is therefore one of the more understood ellipsis mechanisms. Stripping is viewed as a particular manifestation of the gapping mechanism where just one remnant appears in the gapped/stripped conjunct.

A bound variable pronoun is a pronoun that has a quantified determiner phrase (DP) – such as every, some, or who – as its antecedent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sloppy identity</span> Concept in linguistics

In linguistics, sloppy identity is an interpretive property that is found with verb phrase ellipsis where the identity of the pronoun in an elided VP is not identical to the antecedent VP.

In linguistics, a catena is a unit of syntax and morphology, closely associated with dependency grammars. It is a more flexible and inclusive unit than the constituent and its proponents therefore consider it to be better suited than the constituent to serve as the fundamental unit of syntactic and morphosyntactic analysis.

Pseudogapping is an ellipsis mechanism that elides most but not all of a non-finite verb phrase; at least one part of the verb phrase remains, which is called the remnant. Pseudogapping occurs in comparative and contrastive contexts, so it appears often after subordinators and coordinators such as if, although, but, than, etc. It is similar to verb phrase ellipsis (VP-ellipsis) insofar as the ellipsis is introduced by an auxiliary verb, and many grammarians take it to be a particular type of VP-ellipsis. The distribution of pseudogapping is more restricted than that of VP-ellipsis, however, and in this regard, it has some traits in common with gapping. But unlike gapping, pseudogapping occurs in English but not in closely related languages. The analysis of pseudogapping can vary greatly depending in part on whether the analysis is based in a phrase structure grammar or a dependency grammar. Pseudogapping was first identified, named, and explored by Stump (1977) and has since been studied in detail by Levin (1986) among others, and now enjoys a firm position in the canon of acknowledged ellipsis mechanisms of English.

Stripping or bare argument ellipsis is an ellipsis mechanism that elides everything from a clause except one constituent. It occurs exclusively in the non-initial conjuncts of coordinate structures. One prominent analysis of stripping sees it as a particular manifestation of the gapping mechanism, the difference between stripping and gapping lies merely with the number of remnants left behind by ellipsis: gapping leaves two constituents behind, whereas stripping leaves just one. Stripping occurs in many languages and is a frequent occurrence in colloquial conversation. As with many other ellipsis mechanisms, stripping challenges theories of syntax in part because the elided material often fails to qualify as a constituent in a straightforward manner.

Noun ellipsis (N-ellipsis), also noun phrase ellipsis (NPE), is a mechanism that elides, or appears to elide, part of a noun phrase that can be recovered from context. The mechanism occurs in many languages like English, which uses it less than related languages.

In linguistics, the term right node raising (RNR) denotes a sharing mechanism that sees the material to the immediate right of parallel structures being in some sense "shared" by those parallel structures, e.g. [Sam likes] but [Fred dislikes] the debates. The parallel structures of RNR are typically the conjuncts of a coordinate structure, although the phenomenon is not limited to coordination, since it can also appear with parallel structures that do not involve coordination. The term right node raising itself is due to Postal (1974). Postal assumed that the parallel structures are complete clauses below the surface. The shared constituent was then raised rightward out of each conjunct of the coordinate structure and attached as a single constituent to the structure above the level of the conjuncts, hence "right node raising" was occurring in a literal sense. While the term right node raising survives, the actual analysis that Postal proposed is not widely accepted. RNR occurs in many languages, including English and related languages.

References

  1. ↑ Hankamer, J. and I. Sag 1976. Deep and surface anaphora. Linguistic Inquiry 7, 391–428.
  2. ↑ Hardt, D. F. (1993). Verb phrase ellipsis: Form, meaning, and processing
  3. ↑ Johnson, Kyle (2001), "What VP Ellipsis Can Do, and What it Can't, But Not Why", The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory, Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, pp. 439–479, doi:10.1002/9780470756416.ch14, ISBN   978-0-470-75641-6 , retrieved 2021-04-05
  4. ↑ Bos, Johan; Spenader, Jennifer (2011-02-25). "An annotated corpus for the analysis of VP ellipsis". Language Resources and Evaluation. 45 (4): 463–494. doi: 10.1007/s10579-011-9142-3 . ISSN   1574-020X.
  5. ↑ Goldberg, L. 2005. Verb-stranding VP ellipsis: A cross-linguistic study. Doctoral Dissertation, McGill University, Montreal.
  6. ↑ Kroeger, Paul R. (2004-04-08). Analyzing Syntax. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511801693. ISBN   978-0-521-81623-6.
  7. ↑ "Generalized Quantifiers".
  8. 1 2 Cummins, C., & Syrett, K. (03/19/2019). Oxford handbook of experimental semantics and pragmatics Oxford University Press. doi : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198791768.013.34
  9. ↑ Kennedy, C. 1997. Antecedent-contained deletion and the syntax of quantification. Linguistic Inquiry 28/4, 662-688.
  10. ↑ Wilder, C. 2003. Antecedent containment and ellipsis. In The interfaces: Deriving and interpreting omitted structures, ed. by K. Schwabe and S. Winkler, 79-119. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  11. ↑ May, Robert. (1977) "Logical Form and Conditions on Rules." In Kegl, J. et al. eds. Proceedings of NELS VII, pp. 189 - 207. MIT, Cambridge, Mass.
  12. ↑ Osborne, Timothy (2019-07-15). A Dependency Grammar of English: An introduction and beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi:10.1075/z.224. ISBN   978-90-272-0345-8. S2CID   198331442.
  13. ↑ Wasow, T. 1972. Anaphoric relations in English. Doctoral dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.
  14. ↑ Kennedy, Christopher (2001-01-01), Johnson, Kyle (ed.), "Argument Contained Ellipsis", Topics in Ellipsis (1 ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 95–131, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511487033.005, ISBN   978-0-521-81508-6 , retrieved 2021-04-05
  15. 1 2 3 4 Thornton, Rosalind (2010). "Verb Phrase Ellipsis in Children's Answers to Questions". Language Learning and Development. 6 (1): 1–31. doi:10.1080/15475440903328146. S2CID   143090260 – via www.tandfonline.com.
  16. 1 2 Xiang, Ming; Grove, Julian; Merchant, Jason (2019-06-21). "Structural priming in production through 'silence': An investigation of verb phrase ellipsis and null complement anaphora". Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics. 4 (1): 67. doi: 10.5334/gjgl.726 . ISSN   2397-1835.

Notes

      This page is based on this Wikipedia article
      Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
      Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.