What Differentiates VP Ellipsis from Sluicing in Island Repair

Transcription

1 What Differentiates VP Ellipsis from Sluicing in Island Repair Jun Abe Abstract: In this paper, I argue for the in-situ approach to sluicing, proposed by Kimura (2010), by examining what differentiates sluicing from VPE in so-called island repair. I argue that the crucial key to the relevant distinction lies in whether a given elliptic construction involves movement of the remannt wh-phrase or not rather than island repairability in terms of the size of the elliptic sites involved, advocated by Fox and Lasnik (2003). Thus, sluicing is capable of island repair since no movement is involved, whereas VPE is not capable of island repair since the remnant wh-phrase undergoes overt movement. Keywords: VP ellipsis, sluicing, island repair, in-situ approach, fragment answers 1 Introduction This paper aims to address the question of what differentiates VP ellipsis (henceforce, VPE) from sluicing regarding the possibility of island repair. It has been well known since Chung, Ladusaw and McCloskey (1995) (henceforce, CLM) that while sluicing allows island repair, VPE does not, as witnessed by such a constrast as the following, provided by Merchant (2001): (1) They want to hire someone who speaks a Balkan language, but I don t remember which (*they do). (Merchant 2001:4-5) There are at least three approaches to account for such a contrast. One is what

2 may be called the copying vs. deletion approach, taken by CLM, according to which VPE involves PF deletion while sluicing involves LF copying. Under this approach, the sluiced wh-phrase which in (1) is base-generated in Spec-CP, and the empty TP is supplied with its content by LF copying of the relevant part in the antecedent clause. Since no movement is involved in this derivation, no island effects show up. In the VPE case, on the other hand, the surface form is derived by first applying overt movement to which from its base-position, i.e., the complement position of speaks in the relative clause island and then deleting the relevant VP at PF. Since overt movement is involved in this derivation, an island effect ensues. The second approach may be called the island repair approach, taken by Fox and Lasnik (2003), which crucially assumes, following Ross (1969), Chomsky (1971) and Merchant (2001, 2004, 2008), among others, that deletion is capable of island repair. Under this approach, the contrast shown in (1) is accounted for in terms of the difference with respect to the size of the elliptic sites involved. Since sluicing involves TP deletion, any node that will induce a violation of an island condition is erased by this deletion operation, hence no island effect. In VPE, on the other hand, there exists an intervening barrier in the sense of Chomsky (1986), TP or Asp(ectual)P, that remains after the relevant VP is deleted, which thus gives rise to an island effect. The third approach, which is less familiar and yet will be supported in this paper, may be called the in-situ approach, taken by Kimura (2010), according to which the remnant wh-phrase in sluicing does not undergo overt movement but rather stays in situ. Under this approach, the contrast shown in (1) follows immediately, as

3 Kimura claims; no overt movement is involved in sluicing whereas VPE involves such movement. This approach shares with the copying vs. deletion approach the idea that the contrast in question is derived by whether overt movement is involved or not and that there is no such thing as island repair by deletion. Despite this similarity, it overcomes the most serious problem of the latter approach: no unified operation is involved in the two elliptic constructions. 1 This said, the paper concentrates on comparing the island repair approach and the in-situ approach, arguing for the latter. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 outlines Fox and Lasnik s (2003) account of the contrast shown in (1), and points out some problems. Section 3 introduces the in-situ analysis of sluicing, proposed by Kimura (2010), and her approach to the contrast in question. I extend this analysis to capture a further difference between sluicing and VPE in terms of a LF identity condition. Section 4 discusses a consequence of the proposed analysis for those cases of sluicing and VPE that involve adjunct wh-remnants. Section 5 discusses fragment answers as an extension of the present analysis, and argues that they should be analyzed in the same way as sluicing under the in-situ approach. Section 6 concludes with a summary. 2 The Island Repair Approach: Fox and Lasnik (2003) As briefly mentioned above, Fox and Lasnik (2003) derive the contrast shown in (1) in terms of the size of the elliptic sites that are involved in sluicing and VPE. On the assumption that deletion makes island repair possible, they claim that such repair is possible in sluicing since every intermediate projection is deleted, and that in VPE

4 a smaller constituent is deleted, leaving one (or more) of the islands pronounced and consequently unrepaired. (p. 149) It should be noted here that by island repair they mean that barriers in the sense of Chomsky (1986) are erased rather than islands in its normal sense, hence becoming innocuous. This is based upon their observation that failure of repair in VPE occurs even when there is no island involved, as shown below: 2 (2) a. They said they heard about a Balkan language, but I don t know which Balkan language (they said they heard about). b. *They said they heard about a Balkan language, but I don t know which Balkan language they did. (3) a. They heard a lecture about a Balkan language, but I don t know which Balkan language (they heard a lecture about). b. *They heard a lecture about a Balkan language, but I don t know which Balkan language they did. (Fox and Lasnik 2003:148) Fox and Lasnik make crucial use of the following assumption: (4) In the relevant environments, the parallelism conditions on deletion (Parallelism) make intermediate landing sites unavailable. (ibid.:149) Note that in the elliptic constructions under consideration, the antecedent clauses include indefinte DPs (i.e., what CLM call inner antecedents) that correspond to the wh-remnants in the elliptic parts. They assume that such indefinites are licensed in situ by something like an existential closure à la Heim (1982) or a choice function à la Reinhart (1997). This then demands, according to Parallelism, that wh-movement

5 takes place in one fell swoop in the elliptic parts, as stated in (4). This requirement does no harm to the cases of sluicing, since all intermediate projections are deleted. On the other hand, it causes a problem with VPE. Fox and Lasnik assume that VPE deletes VP and leaves Tense and Aspect pronounced. (p. 151) Thus, the elliptic part of (3b), for instance, has the following structure: (5) which Balkan language [ TP they Past [ AspP do [ VP hear a lecture about t]]] They claim that the unacceptability of VPE follows if we assume that (at least) one of the two maximal projections is an island that must be circumvented by an escape hatch or deletion. (p. 151) 2.1 Problems There are mainly two problems that come to mind. One has to do with the unclarity of the system of barriers Fox and Lasnik (2003) have in mind. They assume that either TP or AspP constitutes a barrier, but do not provide any definition of what constitutes a barrier. One conceivable way of making sense of their assumption will be to assume, following Takahashi (1994), that every maximal category constitutes a barrier. But it is not at all clear whether such an assumption is well-motivated under the current theory of movement. Note in paricular that when Takahashi makes such a proposal, he adopts the operation of Form-Chain, proposed by Chomsky (1993), so that each step of movement that is to void barrierhood of a maximal category needs no triggering feature as long as the whole chain serves to check such a feature. The most important motivation for Form-Chain is to resolve a paradox that arises from

6 incorporating two natural economy conditions: fewest steps vs. shortest steps. If a derivation tries to minimize steps, then each step will become longer, and vice versa. Such a case is instantiated by successive-cyclic movement of a wh-phrase, as illustrated below: (6) Which girl do you think that Fred said that I talked to t? Given these two economy conditions, how can we ensure that a wh-phrase undergoes successive-cyclic movement in such a case as (6)? Form-Chain is a key notion to answer this question: the fewest steps condition applies to Form-Chain as a whole while the shortest steps applies to each step of movement. Given the phase theory proposed by Chomsky (2000), however, we are obliged to abandon exploiting Form-Chain to guarantee successive-cyclic movement, since an operation must apply phase by phase. Thus, to the extent that the phase-based theory of movement is well-motivated in the current minimalist theory, there will be no place in which such a notion as Form-Chain can play any role. This in turn undermines Takahashi s (1994) theory of movement that tries to derive locality effects on the assumption that every maximal category is a barrier. 3 The second problem has to do with the assumption that intermediate traces of wh-movement must remain at the LF output, hence relevant for Parallelism. Recall that this assumption is crucial for the wh-remnant in sluicing and VPE to be forced to undergo one-fell-swoop movement; if intermediate traces could be deleted at LF, Parallelsim would be satisfied even if the wh-remnant underwent sucessive-cyclic movement and hence would be immnue from island effects. Thus, (6), for instance,

7 would have the following LF output, on the assumption made by Fox and Lasnik (2003) that choice function is involved in the semantics of a wh-chain: 4 (7) which g girl λg you think [g λg that Fred said [g λg that I talked to g (girl)]] However, it is dubious that such a LF output as (7) is a legitimate one, since the functions postulated in the intermediate Spec-CPs do not seem to play any role. Rather, it will make more sense to assume, following Chomsky (1993), that since intermediate traces of wh-movement do not contribute to the interpretation of the LF output, they are simply deleted at LF, 5 so that the LF output of (6) will be represented as follows: (8) which g girl λg you think [that Fred said [that I talked to g (girl)]] Once this assumption is established, Parallelism will not be violated even if the wh-remnant of sluicing and VPE undergo successive-cyclic movement. Hence Fox and Lasnik s account for the contrast between sluicing and VPE with respect to the possibility of island repair will not hold The Contrast Type of VP Ellipsis Despite the defects pointed out in the previous subsection, Fox and Lasnik s (2003) account for the impossibility of island repair in VPE gives rise to an interesting prediction: if the antecedent clause involves movement in a way parrallel to that of the wh-remnant in VPE, the resulting sentence should be possible unless no real island intervenes in the movements involved. Fox and Lasnik claim that this is in fact

8 borne out by the following contrast: (9) a. I know that John said that Mary read a certain book, but I don t know which one. b. *I know that John said that Mary read a certain book, but I don t know which one he did. (10) a. I know which book John said that Mary read, but YOU don t know which one. b.??i know which book John said that Mary read, but YOU don t know which one he did. (Fox and Lasnik 2003:151) (9) illustrates the point we have already seen: VPE does not allow wh-movement out of the elliptic site even if no island intervenes. Fox and Lasnik observe that the contrast observed in [9] is largely absent in [10]. (p. 151) 7 The grammaticality of (10b) follows under their system, since application of wh-movement in a successive-cyclic fashion in the antecedent clause allows parallel application of wh-movement in the elliptic part, which thus frees both applications of movement from locality violations. Notice that (10a), a sluicing counterpart of (10b), differs from (9a) in whether the sluiced wh-phrase has an inner antecedent in the preceding clause: in (9a), a certain book serves as the inner antecedent of the sluiced wh-phrase which one, thus this construction belonging to what CLM call the merger type, whereas no such inner antecedent exists in (10a). Rather, the latter example belongs to a different type, what may be called the contrast type, as indicated by the contrastive stress on YOU. In fact,

9 Schuyler (2001) observes that such a VPE case as (10b) that involves contrastive focus allows wh-movement out of the VP elliptic site rather freely unless the movement in question induces an island violation. 8 Compare (i) in fn. 2 and (3b), which are both reproduced below in (11), with the examples in (12), cited from Schuyler (2001): (11) a.??they studied a Balkan language, but I don t know which Balkan language they did. b. *They heard a lecture about a Balkan language, but I don t know which Balkan language they did (12) a. I don t know which puppy you SHOULD adopt, but I know which one you SHOULDN T. b. I know which woman HOLLY will discuss a report about, but I don t know which woman YOU will. Further, as Fox and Lasnik (2003) observe, this holds true even when the antecedent clause does not involve overt movement, as shown below: (13) a. He likes ABBY, but I don t know who else (?he does). b. He said he likes ABBY, but I don t know who else (??he did). They comment on these examples as follows: to our ears they are similar in status to [10b]. (p. 153) They suggest that the degraded status of these examples should be attributed to an independent condition such as MaxElide. This said, they capture the grammaticality of these examples by assuming that covert movement applies to the element in the antecedent clause that carries contrastive focus. Thus, in (13a, b),

10 ABBY undergoes covert movement to the top of the antecedent clauses, hence giving rise to the LF structures that satisfy Parallelism. We have then reached the following conclusion: (14) VPE tolerates wh-extraction only under contrast readings. In the next section, I propose an alternative to Fox and Lasnik s (2003) island repair approach while maintaining their insight on Parallelism in such a way that this requirement is satisfied most straightforwardly when VPE involves contrastive focus. 3 Alternative: The In-Situ Approach 3.1 The In-Situ Approach of Sluicing: Kimura (2010) In this subsection, I outline the in-situ approach of sluicing, proposed by Kimura (2010), according to which the sluiced wh-phrase in this construction stays in situ. Kimura adopts Agbayani s (2006) theory of movement, in which this operation is factored into two sub-operations, following Chomsky (1995): Move-F and Pied-Pipe. Agbayani follows Chomsky in assuming that Pied-Pipe functions as a repair operation that recovers isolated features created by Move-F. Further, he proposes a new condition as to how such isolated features are recovered, which Kimura calls PF Adjacency Condition, as stated below: (15) PF Adjacency Condition Features isolated by movement and the remnant wh-category must be phonologically adjacent. This PF condition does a special job when extraction of a subject wh-phrase is

11 involved. Consider sentence (16), whose derivation is given in (17). (16) Who has fixed the car? (17) a. C Q [who has fixed the car] b. wh+c Q [who has fixed the car] At the stage of (17b), the wh-feature of who umdergoes Move-F to be checked upon Q in the C head, and yet the remnant category of who that is deprived of its wh-feature does not have to undergo Pied-Pipe to meet condition (15) since it is already adjacent to the isolated wh-feature without such an operation. In this way, Agbayani s system of movement derives the vacuous movement generalization defended by George (1980) and Chomsky (1986). 9 At the same time, this system of movement solves what Agbayani calls VMH paradox; that is, considerations of selection and scope seem to demand that even wh-subjects that do not undergo Pied-Pipe behave as if they occupied Spec-CP. Such a fact can be naturally attributed to the Move-F part of the whole operation. Thus, in (17b), even though the wh-subject stays in Spec-TP, the fact that the whole sentence is interpreted as interrogative as well as the fact that the wh-subject takes scope over the whole sentence is indicated by the movement of the wh-feature to the C head. Given the above mechanism of movement, Kimura (2010) claims that not only Pied-Pipe but also Delete can be exploited to meet the PF condition (15), and that sluicing is exactly a case where this condition is satisfied by deletion. Thus, the sluice of (18), for instance, has the derivation given in (19): (18) She s reading something, but I can t imagine what. (CLM:241)

12 (19) a. I can t imagine C Q [she s reading what] b. I can t imagine wh+c Q [she s reading what] c. I can t imagine wh+c Q [she s reading what] At the stage of (19b), what must undergo Pied-Pipe so as to be adjacent to the isolated wh-feature if the intervening material is not deleted. On the other hand, if it is, what does not have to undergo Pied-Pipe, as indicated in (19c), since it is adjacent to the isolated wh-feature even if it stays in its original position. 10 This is how the in-situ analysis of sluicing works under the mechanism of movement advocated by Agbayani (2006). 11 Notice that the above analysis crucially relies on the assumption that non-constituent deletion is in principle possible. In order to address the question of what makes this option possible in sluicing, let us first note that what survives deletion under the in-situ approach is exactly a wh-phrase that can undergo Pied-Pipe in Agbayani s (2006) sense. Ross (1969) observes that a possible wh-remnant of a sluice corresponds with a phrase that can undergo wh-movement in regular wh-question formation; compare the possible sluices in (20) with the legitimate wh-phrases in (21): (20) I know he has a picture of somebody, but I don t know who/of whom/*a picture of whom. (21) I don t know who he has a picture of/of whom he has a picture/*a picture of whom he has. (Ross 1969:262) Suppose, following Abe (2005), that a wh-phrase needs to be licensed in the

13 following way: (22) a. It carries or includes a wh-feature. b. It is assigned a [Focus]-feature. c. The wh-feature is merged into the [Focus] feature via percolation. A wh-feature is inherently carried by a wh-item such as who, what, which, etc. whereas a [Focus]-feature is not the kind of feature that is carried by a lexical item but rather is assigned to a phrase. (22c) then requires that a wh-feature must be percolated up to a phrase that a [Focus]-feature is assigned to. With these assumptions, the acceptability of of whom and a picture of whom in the regular wh-question in (21) is accounted for in the following way: in of whom, the wh-feature of whom is successfully percolated up to the whole phrase of of whom, to which a [Focus]-feature is assigned, whereas in a picture of whom, the percolation of the wh-feature carried by whom up to the whole phrase fails. Given this mechanism of licensing a wh-phrase, we can formulate the way deletion applies in sluicing as follows: (23) Deletion applies to a given E(llipsis)-site except the phrase carrying [Focus] where an E-site is a target for deletion. What is intended with this formulation is that a target of deletion is a constituent and yet an actual deletion operation applies to it in such a way that a phrase carrying [Focus] evades such an operation. Let us then consider the derivation of the sluice of (20) with of whom as its wh-remnant. Under the present assumptions, it will have the following derivation:

14 (24) a. I don t know C Q [he has a picture of whom] assignment of [Focus] b. I don t know C Q [he has a picture [ Focus of whom]] percolation of the wh-feature c. I don t know C Q [he has a picture [ Focus+wh of whom]] movement of the wh-feature d. I don t know wh+c Q [he has a picture [ Focus of whom]] deletion e. I don t know wh+c Q [he has a picture [ Focus of whom]] The unacceptability of (20) with a picture of whom as its remnant is due to the fact that the percolation of the wh-feature carried by whom up to the whole phrase a picture of whom fails. Along the lines of Lobeck (1990) and Saito and Murasugi (1990), I assume that the E-site of the sluicing construction must be licensed by a [+wh] C that enters into an agreement relation with a wh-phrase in a broad sense; in this case, Move-F can establish such an agreement relation. Thus, in (24), the E-site TP is licensed by C Q, which is in agreement with of whom. 12 Note that under the present system of licensing, for a phrase to be licensed as an E-site does not entail that the whole phrase undergoes deletion, though the target of deletion must be confined to an E-site. Thus, in (24), the TP complement of the C Q head is licensed as an E-site and deletion applies to this site, leaving the wh-phrase of whom intact, since the latter carries the [Focus] feature.

15 This in-situ analysis straightforwardly explains the island insensitivity of the type of sluicing under consideration, as illustrated below: (25) a. They want to hire someone who speaks a Balkan language, but I don t remember which language. (Merchant 2001:87) b. Ben will be mad if Abby talks to one of the teachers, but she couldn t remember which. (ibid.:88) Since the wh-remnants of the sluices in these examples stay in situ, thanks to deletion applying to the material intervening between the isolated wh-features and these wh-remnants, they are free from island conditions, just like in-situ wh-arguments in English multiple wh-questions, as illustrated below: (26) a. Who wants to hire someone who speaks which language? b. Who will be mad if Abby talks to which teacher? One of the significant predictions of this in-situ analysis is that unlike wh-arguments, wh-adjuncts should exhibit island sensitivity when they function as remnant wh-phrases in sluicing. This is because it has been standardly observed since Huang (1982) that in-situ wh-adjuncts differ from in-situ wh-arguments in showing island sensitivity, as illustrated by the following contrast from Chinese: 13 (27) a. [shei xie de shu] zui youqui? who write DE book most interesting lit. Books that who wrote are the most interesting? (Huang 1982:526) b. *[ta weisheme xie de shu] zui youqui? he why write DE book most interesting

16 lit. Books that he wrote why are the most interesting? (ibid.:527) (27a) shows that the in-situ wh-argument shei who is insensitive to the relative clause island, whereas (27b) shows that the in-situ wh-adjunct weisheme why is sensitive to this island. The type of sluicing under consideration also exhibits island sensitivity when the remnant wh-phrase is an adjunct, as predicted: 14 (28) a. Sandy is very anxious to see if the students will be able to solve the homework problem in a particular way, but she won t tell us (in) which (way)/*how. (Sauerland 1996:303) b. He wants to interview someone who works at the soup kitchen for a certain reason, but he won t reveal yet?what reason/*why. (Merchant 2001:129) These facts will be captured under the assumption, made by Abe (1993) and Tsai (1994), that while argument wh-phrases in situ can be licensed by way of binding, hence not exhibiting island effects, adjunct wh-phrases in situ do not have access to such a licensing and instead must undergo covert movement to Spec-CP to be licensed. Thus, the sluice of (28a) with the remnant wh-phrase how, for instance, will have roughly the following derivation: (29) a. she won t tell us [ CP C Q [ TP she is very anxious to see if the students will be able to solve the homework problem how]]] b. she won t tell us [ CP <how> C Q [ TP she is very anxious to see if the students will be able to solve the homework problem how]]] (29b) is derived from the underlying structure (29a) by (i) deleting the embedded TP except how and (ii) applying covert movement to this wh-phrase (here the head of the

17 how-chain is marked with angled brackets to indicate that the movement in question is covert). This covert movement induces a violation of the wh-island constraint; hence the ungrammaticality of (28a) with the remnant wh-phrase how. On the other hand, when (in) which (way) is involved in (28a) instead of how, the argument wh-phrase whcih (way) is licensed by way of binding rather than movement, hence immune to the wh-island constraint. The correctness of this line of reasoning is confirmed by the observation that such a PP phrase as in what way can stay in situ in multiple wh-questions in English, unlike such a true adjunct as how, as shown below: 15 (30) Who is very anxious to see if the students will be able to solve the homework problem in which way. Another significant prediction of the in-situ analysis is, Kimura (2010) claims, that though the type of sluicing under consideration shows island insensitivity, 16 the VPE counterpart should show island sensitivity, since in such a case, the PF adjacency condition given in (15) is not met when the remnant wh-phrase sits in situ, hence requiring it to undergo overt movement. This is borne out by such an example as (1), reproduced below: (31) They want to hire someone who speaks a Balkan language, but I don t know which (*they do). The VPE case will have the following derivation: (32) a. I don t know [ CP C Q [ TP they do [ VP want to hire someone who speaks which]]] b. I don t know [ CP wh+c Q [ TP they do [ VP want to hire someone who speaks

18 which]]] c. I don t know [ CP which wh+c Q [ TP they do [ VP want to hire someone who speaks <which>]]] At the stage of (32c), which needs to move overtly to the embedded Spec-CP even though the material in VP gets deleted; otherwise, it cannot satisfy the PF adjacency condition. Since this movement crosses the relative clause island, it induces ungrammaticality. 17 Though this account is very attractive, it does not cover the whole story on the difference between sluicing and VPE with respect to the possibility of island repair Fox and Lasnik (2003) dealt with. We need to address the question of why the generalization given in (14), reproduced below, holds true. (33) VPE tolerates wh-extraction only under contrast readings. We now turn to this question in the following subsection. 3.2 Proposal We have seen that VPE does not allow wh-extraction when it is of the merger type, i.e., it has an inner antecedent (cf. (2b), (3b), (11)). To address the question of why this is so, let us first consider how the elliptic site of this type of sluicing is identified with the corresponding part of its antecedent clause. I first outline CLM s theory of identification for this type of sluicing and then discuss how it is adapted under the in-situ analysis of sluicing. CLM adopt the LF copy theory for the derivation of sluicing. Thus, the

19 underlying structure of the sluice in (18), for instance, which is reproduced below, is something like (35): (34) She s reading something, but I can t imagine what. (35) I can t imagine what [ TP e] They claim that from this underlying structure, a LF representation appropriate for interpretation is derivable simply by copying (or recycling, in their terms) the antecedent TP. Thus, the final LF representation looks like the following: (36) I can t imagine [ CP what [ TP she s reading something]] In order to get a proper interpretation from this LF representation, it is necessary for something to be taken as a variable of the operator what. CLM then propose a process called merger, which combines the indefinite part of a wh-phrase with the indefinite in its original position to make them serve together as a variable bound by the wh-operator. In a simple case like (34), the indefinite part of what, which amounts to something, is totally merged into the inner antecedent by this process, and hence the domain of the wh-operator is unchanged. However, in a more complex case such as the following: (37) She s reading a book by Chomsky, but I can t imagine what. the merger of what with its inner antecedent a book by Chomsky after recycling yields the interpretation in which the domain of the wh-operator is restricted to the books by Chomsky. CLM demonstrate that in order for merger to succeed, inner antecedents must be indefinites, providing such examples as the following: 18 (38) a.?*i know that Meg s attracted to Harry, but they don t know who.

20 b.?*since Jill said Joe had invited Sue, we didn t have to ask who. (39) a. *She said she had spoken to everybody, but he wasn t sure who. b. *She s read most books, but we re not sure what/which. The ungrammaticality of these sentences is attributed, according to their theory, to the fact that the inner antecedents of the remnant wh-phrases are not indefinites (proper names in (38) and generalized quantifiers in (39)) and hence merger fails. In order to capture such a restriction on inner antecedents under the in-situ analysis of sluicing, we need to adapt CLM s theory of merger into one that assumes deletion rather than recycling as a process involved in ellipsis. Abe (2008) proposes the following as an identity requirement on the merger type of sluicing: (40) An E-site is identified with its antecedent only if the remnant phrase and its inner antecedent can undergo the process of merger. Thus, the TP E-sites of (34) and (37) satisfy this requirement since something and a book by Chomsky can successfully undergo merger with the indefinite part of what, while those of (38) and (39) do not, due to the failure of this process. Given this, the fact that VPE does not allow wh-extraction when it is of the merger type is naturally attributed to the failure of merger in the case in which the wh-movement involved is overt. Thus, I hypothesize the following: (41) An inner antecedent cannot undergo merger with the trace of the corresponding wh-phrase. Let us consider (3) for illustration, which is repeated below: (42) a. They heard a lecture about a Balkan language, but I don t know which Balkan

21 language (they heard a lecture about). b. *They heard a lecture about a Balkan language, but I don t know which Balkan language they did. The elliptic parts of these examples have the following representations under the present assumptions: (43) a. I don t know [ CP wh+c Q [ TP they did [ VP hear a lecture about which Balkan language]]] b. *I don t know [ CP which Balkan language i wh+c Q [ TP they did [ VP hear a lecture about t i ]]] In (43a), which Balkan language does not need to undergo Pied-Pipe to satisfy the PF adjacency condition thanks to deletion applying to the intervening material. In (43b), on the other hand, which Balkan language does need to undergo Pied-Pipe to satisfy this PF condition, since it is not adjacent to the wh-feature attached to C Q when in its original position. (43a) satisfies the LF identity condition given in (40) since which Balkan language is able to undergo merger with its inner antecedent a Balkan language. (43b), on the other hand, cannot satisfy this identity condition due to the restriction on merger given in (41), since a Balkan language is not able to undergo merger with the trace of which Balkan language. 19 Let us now turn to the contrast type of sluicing and VPE and consider how such cases satisfy a LF identity condition. The relevant notion in this case is Parallelism in the sense of Fox and Lasnik (2003). Consider (12a), reproduced below: (44) I don t know which puppy you SHOULD adopt, but I know which one you

22 SHOULDN T. Under the present assumptions, (44) will have the following representation: (45) I don t know which puppy i you SHOULD [ VP adopt t i ], but I know which one j you SHOULDN T [ VP adopt t j ] Given that traces are regarded as free variables when they lack their antecedents in given domains, hence non-distinct with each other for the purpose of LF identification, the antecedent VP is taken to be identical to the elliptic VP in (45). We have observed those cases of the contrast type of sluicing and VPE in which the antecedent clauses do not involve overt movement, as shown in (13), reproduced below: (46) a. He likes ABBY, but I don t know who else (?he does). b. He said he likes ABBY, but I don t know who else (??he did). For these cases, Fox and Lasnik (2003) propose that the focused phrases in the antecedent clauses undergo covert movement to satisfy Parallelism. Thus, the VPE case of (46a) will have the following representation, on the assumption that the focused phrase ABBY is adjoined to TP (the angled brackets put in ABBY indicate that the movement involved is covert): (47) [ TP <ABBY i > [ TP he Pres [ VP like t i ]]], but I don t know [ CP who else j [ TP he does [ VP like t j ]]] Thanks to covert focus movement applying to ABBY, the antecedent VP is now regarded as identical to the elided VP, since the traces involved function as alphabetical variants of free variables.

23 As for the sluicing cases in (46), we are naturally led to the claim that the remnant wh-phrases undergo movement to Spec-CP to satisfy the LF identity condition. Thus, the sluicing case of (46a) will have the following representation: (48) [ TP <ABBY i > [ TP he Pres [ VP like t i ]]], but I don t know [ CP who else j [ TP he Pres [ VP like t j ]]] Here, the antecedent TP is identical to the elided TP, hence satisfying the identity condition. Recall that we have advocated the in-situ analysis of sluicing proposed by Kimura (2010) but that her arguments for it are based exclusively on the merger-type of sluicing. That the contrast type of sluicing involves movement, unlike the merger type, is supported by the fact that the former type is island-sensitive, unlike the latter, as shown by Fox and Lasnik (2003) and Merchant (2008): (49) a. *The detective ruled out the possibility that Fred killed ABBY, but I don t know who else i [the detective ruled out the possibility that Fred killed t i ]. (Fox and Lasnik 2003:152) b. *Abby wants to hire someone who speaks GREEK, but I don t remember what other languages i [she wants to hire someone who speaks t i ]. (Merchant 2008:148) The ungrammaticality of these sentences is attributed to a violation of island conditions caused by the covert focus movement of ABBY and GREEK and/or the overt movement of the corresponding wh-remnants. 20 To sum up, the fact that the distribution of the merger type of VPE is more restricted than is expected if it is constrained solely by island conditions is attributed

24 to the failure of merger in CLM s sense in the case where the remnant wh-phrase undergoes overt movement. In this way, the generalization given in (33) falls into place. Given the in-situ analysis of the merger type of sluicing, the standard observation that sluicing is capable of island repair whereas VPE is not is only apparent. Rather the crucial distinction between sluicing and VPE lies in the fact that the wh-remnant in the merger type of sluicing sits in situ while that of VPE undergoes overt movement, as originally claimed by Kimura (2010). 4 A Consequence: Adjunct Wh-Remnants Recall that we saw in Section 3.1 that the in-situ analysis of sluicing brings a nice consequence with respect to those cases of the merger type that involve adjunct wh-remnants; that is, such cases show island sensitivity, as illustrated in (28), reproduced below: (50) a. *Sandy is very anxious to see if the students will be able to solve the homework problem in a particular way, but she won t tell us how. b. *He wants to interview someone who works at the soup kitchen for a certain reason, but he won t reveal yet why. We captured these facts on the assumption that adjunct wh-phrases in situ must undergo covert movement to Spec-CP to be licensed. Thus, the sluice of (50a), for instance, has roughly the following derivation: (51) a. she won t tell us [ CP C Q [ TP she is very anxious to see if the students will be able to solve the homework problem how]]]

25 b. she won t tell us [ CP <how i > C Q [ TP she is very anxious to see if the students will be able to solve the homework problem t i ]]] This immediately raises the question of how such simple cases of sluicing as illustrated below satisfy the LF identity condition stated in (41), which is repeated as (53) for ease of reference: (52) a. A student solved the problem somehow, but I am not sure exactly how. b. John left for some reason, but I don t know exactly why. (Lasnik 2008:23) (53) An inner antecedent cannot undergo merger with a trace of the corresponding wh-phrase. Under the present assumptions, the sluice of (52a), for instance, will have the following representation: (54) I am not sure exactly [ CP <how i > C Q [ TP a student solved the problem t i ]] This representation clearly violates the LF identity condition in question since the inner antecedent somehow cannot undergo merger with the trace of the sluiced wh-phrase how. What makes such cases as in (52) possible, then? I propose, along the lines of Rizzi (1990), that in such cases, the adjunct wh-remnants are base-generated in Spec-CP. Thus, the sluice of (52a) has the following representation instead: (55) I am not sure exactly [ CP how C Q [ TP a student solved the problem]] Thus, such cases do not really involve merger for satisfaction of identity but rather involves non-distinctness in the sense of Chomsky (1965); in the embedded TP of (55), the means by which a student solved the problem is simply unidentified, hence

26 the content of that TP is non-distinct with that of the antecedent clause. Under this analysis, then, it will be more appropriate to treat such cases as in (52) as special species of what CLM call the sprouting type, which lacks the antecedents corresponding to the sluiced wh-phrases, as shown below: (56) a. A student solved the problem, but I am not sure exactly how. b. John left, but I don t know exactly why. (Lasnik 2008:23) Given the option in which such wh-adjuncts as how and why are base-generated in Spec-CP, these cases may involve strict identity between the elided TPs and their antecedent TPs. Under this analysis, it is predicted that the VPE counterparts of the wh-adjunct remnant cases of sluicing should also be possible since they do not involve merger, hence immune to the identity condition given in (53). That this is in fact the case is shown by the fairly acceptable status of the relevant example, given below: (57) a.?a student solved the problem (somehow), but I m not sure exactly how he/she did. b.?john left (for some reason), but I don t know exactly why he did. Given that such adjuncts as how and why can be base-generated in Spec-CP, the LF identity condition in question is met with these examples in exactly the same way as with (52) and (56). 21 Notice that such cases of the sprouting type as in (56) and (57) have derivations other than the ones that involve base-generation of the wh-remnants in Spec-CP, that is, those that involve movement of the wh-remnants to Spec-CP. Thus, the sluice of

27 (56a) can have a representation like (54), which is reproduced below: (58) I am not sure exactly [ CP <how i > C Q [ TP a student solved the problem t i ]] The condition in (53) is irrelevant here, since no inner antecedent is involved in this type of sluicing and VPE. The LF identity condition is met with the notion of non-distinctness, as in the case of (55), but in the opposite direction in the present case: in the antecedent TP for (58), the means by which a student solved the problem is simply unidentified, whereas the trace of how in (58) marks the slot that specifies the means in question. Such a way of satisfaction of the LF identity condition is independently necessary for explaining the grammatically of such a typical case of the sprouting type of sluicing: (59) She s reading. I can t imagine what (she s reading). In this case, the object of reading is added in the elided TP. So far we have seen that the merger type of sluicing and VPE allows the wh-adjunct remnant to be only base-generated in Spec-CP due to the prohibition on merger stated in (53), and that the sprouting type allows it to move up to Spec-CP as well. Now a prediction: in the merger-type, the wh-adjunct remnant should allow only a local reading and prohibit long-distance readings. This is exactly the observation reported by Lasnik (2008) for the sluicing case, who attributes it to Benjamin Bruening: (60) a.?*mary claimed that John left for some reason, but I don t know exactly why Mary claimed [that John left t]. b.?*bob thinks that Mary fixed the car somehow, but I don t know exactly how

28 Bob thinks that [Mary fixed the car t]. (Lasnik 2008:23) In these cases, the wh-adjuncts cannot be interpreted as modifying into the embedded clauses. The same thing holds true for the VPE case: (61) a. *Mary claimed that John left for some reason, but I don t know exactly why she did claim [that John left t]. b. *Bob thinks that Mary fixed the car somehow, but I don t know exactly how he does think that [Mary fixed the car t]. How about the sprouting type? What Lasnik (2008) reports on (60) is in fact more than I just stated: the data given in (60) hold the same even if the inner antecedents for some reason and somehow are dropped. This comes down to the question of what prohibits why and how from being base-generated in the lower clause and moving to the higher Spec-CP in the sprouting varieties of (60a, b). I suggest, along the lines of Nakao and Yoshida (2007) and Nakao (2009), that such a derivation is excluded in terms of Parallelism à la Fox and Lasnik (2003); that is, in order to observe Parallelism, why and how cannot move in a successive-cyclic fashion, which thus induces an ECP violation. Although this account leaves it open exactly what conditions are responsible for guaranteeing the locality of wh-adjuncts, it suggests that Fox and Lasnik s (2003) account in terms of Parallelism is valid for the wh-adjunct remnant cases of sluicing and VPE. 5 A Further Extension: Fragment Answers Merchant (2004) raises the question why fragment answers such as (62) below cannot

29 repair island violations, unlike sluicing: 22 (62) a. Who did she see? b. John. Merchant notes that with a language such as English that demands an overt wh-movement, testing island sensitivities in fragment answers is not simple, however, since the simple questions that would test for them are themselves island violations. (p. 687) As one strategy of avoiding this difficulty, he exploits fragment answers to implicit salient questions, such as the following: (63) a. Does Abby speak Greek fluently? b. No, Albanian. He claims that in (63), the answer can take it that the questioner may be interested in the answer to the question What language(s) does Abby speak?, in addition to the narrower answer to the yes-no question. (p ) Under this assumption, it is the implicit constituent question that serves as the antecedent clause of such a fragment answer as (63b). That said, Merchant demonstrates that such a pair as in (63) exhibits island sensitivity, but not clause-boundedness, as shown below: (64) a. Did Abby think Ben wrote the letter? b. No, Charlie. (65) a. Does Abby speak the same Balkan language that Ben speaks? b. * No, Charlie. (66) a. Did Ben leave the party because Abby wouldn t dance with him? b. *No, Beth.

30 From this observation, he concludes that fragment answers are island-sensitive. He then tries to answer the question raised at the beginning of this section, basically in a manner similar to Fox and Lasnik s (2003) way of capturing the difference between sluicing and VPE with respect to island repair. On the assumption that island-inducing features are attributed not to barriers but rather to all the traces of a phrase that crosses an island, Merchant claims that while in sluicing, all the traces that carry island-inducing features are deleted, hence inducing no island effects, in fragment answers, one in an intermediate projection that is on the path of movement of a fragment phrase remains, hence causing island effects. He assumes the following structure for a fragment answer: (67) [ FP fragment XP i [ CP t i [ TP t i ]]] In this structure, XP is moved from its original position to the Spec-FP and crucially it is assumed to pass through the Spec-CP on its way. With the unmotivated assumption that it is TP rather than CP that undergoes deletion, Merchant claims that when XP crosses an island, all its traces bear island-inducing features and the one in Spec-CP survives deletion, hence inducing island effects. It is obvious that Merchant s account of the island sensitivity of fragment answers is based upon rather ad hoc assumptions, hence far from a real explanation. Furthermore, the claim that fragment answers are island-sensitive is doubtful. Nishigauchi and Fujii (2006) observe that fragment answers in Japanese, a wh-in-situ language, show island insensitivity:

31 (68) a. Minna-ga [Akira-ga doko-de totta] syasin-o mita ka osiete. everyone-nom -NOM where took picture-acc saw Q tell Lit. Tell me Q everyone saw a picture [Akira had taken where]. b. Tokyo-de desu. -in be It is in Tokyo. (Nishigauchi and Fujii 2006:4) (69) a. Hanako-wa [Akira-ga nani-o nusunda kara] okotteiru no? -TOP -NOM what-acc stole because be-angry Q Lit. Hanako is angry [because Akira stole what]? b. Tokei-o desu. watch-acc be It is a watch. Notice that in the questions given in (68a) and (69a), the wh-phrases are embedded within islands, a relative clause island in (68a) and an adjunct island in (69a), and these sentences are fine. Then, the acceptability of the fragment answers given in (68b) and (69b) clearly demonstrate that this construction is island-insensitive. This fact will be accommodated by the in-situ analysis of fragment answers in the same way as the island insensitivity of sluicing is accommodated by such an analysis. Thus, under this analysis, (62b), for instance, will have the following derivation: (70) a. [ FP [ TP she saw JOHN]] deletion of TP except the focused phrase JOHN

32 b. [ FP [ TP she saw JOHN]] This will make sense if we consider what kind of identity requirement is involved in fragment answers. Recall that we have adopted (40), repeated below, as an identity requirement on the merger type of sluicing: (71) An E-site is identified with its antecedent only if the remnant phrase and its inner antecedent can undergo the process of merger. In this case, the process of merger is successfully undergone on the condition that the antecedent clause serves as a presupposition of the sluiced clause. Thus, in the following sentence: (72) She saw someone, but I don t know who. the sluice has the following representation: (73) [ CP C Q [ TP she saw WHO]] Here the first clause of (72), i.e., the antecedent clause of the sluice, serves as a presupposition of what is represented in (73). In this way, the E-site of the sluice is identified with its antecedent clause. In the case of fragment answers, it is obvious that the remnant phrase must be a possible answer to the corresponding question; in particular, it must be among the set of possible answers presupposed by the corresponding wh-phrase. Then, it may be said that the relationship between the antecedent clause and the E-site in fragment answers is opposite, in a sense, to that in sluicing: fragment answers serve as satisfiers of the truth conditions of their corresponding questions. We can then extend the notion of merger in the following way:

33 (74) α and β undergo the process of merger if (i) α constitutes a presupposition of β or (ii) β is a satisfier of the truth condition of α. With this characterization, fragment answers and the merger type of sluicing can be seen to constitute a natural class regarding the identity requirement involved, hence amenable to the in-situ analysis. Having established that fragment answers are island-insensitive, we need to go back to Merchant s (2004) cases of fragment answers to implicit salient questions, whose example is repeated below: (75) a. Does Abby speak Greek fluently? b. No, Albanian. As one reviewer suggests, it is more plausible to analyze such a pair on a par with the so-called stripping construction, whose example is given below: (76) Abby speaks Albanian fluently, not Greek. As Reinhart (1991) observes, this construction exhibits island sensitivity rather than clause-boundedness, as shown below: (77) a. Lucie will admit that she stole the diamonds if you press her, but not the car. b. *We have interrogated the burglar who stole the car already, but not the diamonds. (Reinhart 1991:374) Based upon such a fact, Abe and Hoshi (1997) propose that this construction involves leftward movement of the remnant phrase in the elliptic site as well as of its corresponding phrase in the antecedent clause. Thus, (76) will have the following representation:

34 (78) [ FP ALBANIAN [ TP Abby speaks <Albanian> fluently]], not [ FP GREEK [ TP Abby speaks <Greek> fluently]] Since leftward movement is involved in this derivation, it is correctly predicted that stripping is sensitive to island conditions, but not clause-bound. Note that in this case, the identity requirement to license deletion of the TP of the second clause cannot be the one in terms of the merger given in (74). Rather, this construction involves contrastive focus, and hence the identity requirement in question is more appropriately characterized in terms of Parallelism. Given this characterization of stripping, it is quite natural to take such a fragment answer as (75b) as having the following representation: (79) No, [ FP ALBANIAN [ TP Abby speaks <Albanian> fluently]] Here, Albanian bears contrasted focus along with Greek, hence undergoing leftward movement to create the semantic formula [λx. Abby speaks x fluently]. By applying the same operation to the structure of (75a), thereby obtaining the same semantic formula, we are entitled to delete the TP of (79) under the identity requirement in terms of Parallelism. Then the paradigm of (64)-(66) falls into place under the present analysis. Importantly, we are then led to the conclusion that the type of fragment answers given in (75) is not the same species as those standard fragment answers that can be dealt with under the in-situ approach. Thus, the strategy under consideration adopted by Merchant (2004) to test island sensitivity of fragment answers seems to be ill-advised. 23