1

In this talk, we are going to show that:
(i) Sluicing and fragments show identical behaviour with respect to island obviation
(contra Merchant 2004).
(ii) Whether any instance of clausal ellipsis shows island obviation depends on its relation with its correlate :
● contrastive remnants in clausal ellipsis cannot repair islands
● non-contrastive remnants in clausal ellipsis can repair islands
(iii) Behaviour in island repair in both cases is due to obligatory parallelism between remnant and correlate
(Fox and Lasnik 2003).
2

Interrogative fragment (usually referred to as sluicing)
(1) A: Someone hit John last night.
B: Who?
B’: Who <hit John last night>?
Declarative fragment (usually referred to as fragments)
(2) A: MARY hit John last night.
B: No, BILL.
B’: No, BILL <hit John last night>.
3

Interrogative fragments obviate strong islands
(Merchant 2001)
(3) A: They want to hire someone who speaks a Balkan language.
B: Which Balkan language?
B': * Which Balkan language do they want to hire someone who speaks?
Declarative fragments obey strong islands
(Merchant 2004)
(4) A: Does Abby speak the same Balkan language that BEN speaks?
B: * No, CHARLIE.
B’: No, Abby speaks the same Balkan language that CHARLIE speaks.
4

Both interrogative and declarative fragments are derived by movement of the remnant and PF-deletion (Merchant 2001, 2004)
(5) A: Someone hit John last night.
B: Really? Who
1 t
1 hit John last night?
B: Really? Who
1 t
1 hit John last night?
(6) A: MARY hit John last night.
B: No, BILL t
1
B: No, BILL t
1 hit John last night.
hit John last night.
Step 1: movement of who
Step 2: PF-deletion of TP

(1)
Merchant (2004), building on Lasnik (2001): i. All copies of island-violating wh-movement are *-marked, except the topmost copy ii. *-marked copies are uninterpretable to the PF component = they prevent convergence iii. However, if all *-marked copies are contained within an ellipsis site (which is deleted at PF), convergence can still occur
Required assumption : the remnant moves successive-cyclically by adjunction to every functional projection
6

(2)
(7) A: They want to hire someone who speaks a Balkan language.
B': * Which Balkan language do t
1
* they t
1
* want to t
1
* hire t
1
* someone t
1
* who t
1
* speaks t
1
* ?
B': Which Balkan language do t
1
* they t
1
* want to t
1
* hire t
1
* someone t
1
* who t
1
* speaks t
1
*?
7

(3)
Interrogative fragment Declarative fragment someone t
1
* who speaks t
1
*
A: They want to hire someone who speaks a Balkan language.
B: Which Balkan language do they t
1
* want to hire someone t
1
* who t
1
* speaks t
1
*?
language t
1
* that t
1
* speaks.
A: Abby speaks the same Balkan language that BEN speaks.
B': * (No,) CHARLIE t
1
* Abby t
1
* speaks t
1
* the same Balkan language t
1
* that t
1
* speaks.
8

Problems with the PF-deletion theory of islands (1)
Empirical problem I
Not all interrogative fragments are island-insensitive
Sprouting
(Chung, Ladusaw & McCloskey 1995)
(8) A: Sandy is trying to work out which student would speak.
B: * To whom
1 is Sandy trying to work out which student would speak t
1
?
‘Contrast’ sluicing
(Merchant 2008)
( 9) A: Abby wants to hire someone who speaks Greek.
B: * What OTHER languages does Abby want to hire someone who speaks t
1
?
9

Problems with the PF-deletion theory of islands (2)
Empirical problem II
Not all declarative fragments are island sensitive
(cf. also Valmala 2007)
(10) A: Does Abby speak the same Balkan language that someone in your syntax class speaks?
B: Yeah, Charlie
1 speaks .
Abby speaks the same Balkan language that t
1
(11) A: I imagine John wants a detailed list.
B: I’m afraid he does. Very detailed
1
John wants a t
1 list .
10

Problems with the PF-deletion theory of islands (3)
Empirical problem III
Languages where interrogative and declarative fragments are structurally identical (e.g. Hungarian) show the same pattern of island obviation as English.
Hungarian wh - and focus-fronting both target the same structural position, FocP
(Horváth 1986, É. Kiss 1987, Brody 1995)
(12) a.
Tegnap [
FocP kit [
TP hívott meg yesterday who.A
invited PV
‘Who did Mari invite yesterday?’
Mari ]]?
Mari b. Tegnap yesterday
[
FocP
PÉTERT [
TP
Péter.A
‘Mari invited PÉTER yesterday.’ hívta meg Mari ]].
invited PV Mari
11

Problems with the PF-deletion theory of islands (4)
The same position, FocP, is targeted by the remnants in clausal ellipsis:
(13) A: Mari meghívott valakit.
B: [
Mari PV.invited someone.A
‘Mary invited somebody.’
FocP
Kit [
TP hívott meg Mari ]] ?
interrogative fragment who.A
‘Who?’ invited PV Mari
(14) A: Kit hívott meg
Mari?
B: [ who.A
FocP
Péter.A
invited PV
PÉTERT [
TP
Mari hívta meg Mari]] .
declarative fragment invited PV Mari
‘Mari invited PÉTER yesterday.’
12

Problems with the PF-deletion theory of islands (5)
FocP is one functional projection higher than TP. Consequently, no *-marked traces should escape PF-deletion, either in the case of interrogative fragments or declarative ones.
Thus, the PF-island approach predicts that all Hungarian fragments should obviate islands.
13

Problems with the PF-deletion theory of islands (6)
However, just like in English, island-obviation is permitted in interrogative fragments and prohibited in declarative fragments.
(15) Keresnek valakit aki beszél egy bizonyos szláv nyelvet, search.PL somebody.A REL speaks a certain Slavic language.A de nem tudom, melyiket.
but not know which.A
‘ They are looking for someone who speaks a certain Slavic language but I don't know which one.’
(16) A: OLYAN KUTATÓT keresnek, aki az OROSZT beszéli?
such researcher.A search.PL
REL the Russian.A speaks
‘ Are they looking for a researcher who speaks RUSSIAN?’
B: *Nem, a KÍNAIT.
no the Chinese.A
‘No, Chinese.’
14

Types of fragments (1)
Contrastive vs. non-contrastive remnants: contrast = relation with respect to the correlate in the antecedent
●
Contrastive fragments
(17) A: Did John eat A PIZZA for dinner?
B: No, a SALAD.
(18) A: John ate A PIZZA for dinner.
B: No, a SALAD.
●
Non-contrastive fragments
(19) A: What did John eat for dinner?
B: A salad.
(20) A: John ate something for dinner.
B: Indeed, a salad.
(salad ↔ pizza )
(salad ↔ pizza )
(salad
 what )
(salad
 something )
15

Types of fragments (2)
Important notes:
● contrastivity of a remnant ≠ contrastive focus on the remnant
(21) A: What did John eat for dinner?
( non-contrastive fragment)
B: A SALAD, and not a steak.
● contrastive remnants always have the information structural role of contrastive focus
(22) A: John eat a PIZZA for dinner.
(contrastive fragment)
B: No, A SALAD.
16

Types of fragments (3)
Fragment
IS role of fragment some illustrative examples contrastive contrastive focus
● corrections
A: The PIZZA was cold.
B: No, the STEAK .
● answers to yes/no questions
A: Was the PIZZA cold?
B: No, the STEAK .
● contrast sluices
I know how many PIZZAS John ate, but I don’t know how many SALADS.
non-contrastive information focus or contrastive focus
● elaborative fragments
A: You have eaten something.
B: Yeah, a pizza.
● answers to wh-questions
A: What did you eat?
B: A pizza.
● tag-questions
What did you eat, a pizza?
17

The correct generalization on island obviation (1)
English non-contrastive remnants show island obviation
(23) A: I heard that a biography of one of the Marx brothers is going to be published this year.
B: Yeah, of Groucho. / B': Excellent. Of which / whom?
(24) A: I imagine John wants a detailed list .
B: I'm afraid he does. Very detailed. / B': How detailed?
(25) A: I heard that Irv and a certain someone from your syntax class were dancing together last night.
B: Yeah, Bill. / B': Really? Who?
(26) A: I heard they hired someone who speaks a Balkan language fluently.
B: Yeah, Serbo-Croatian. / B': Really? Which?
(27) A: I hear that Abby is likely to get mad if Ben speaks to one of the guys from your syntax class.
B: Yeah, John. / B': Really? Who?
18

The correct generalization on island obviation (2)
English contrastive remnants show no island obviation
(Merchant 2004)
(28) A: I heard that a biography of the youngest Marx brothers is going to be published this year.
B: * No, of the OLDEST.
(29) A: I imagine John wants a short list.
B: * No, LONG.
(30) A: I heard that Irv and John were dancing together last night.
B: * No, BILL.
(31) A: I heard they hired someone who speaks Bulgarian fluently.
B: * No, SERBO-CROATIAN.
(32) A: I hear that Abby is likely to get mad if Ben speaks to Mary.
B: * No, BILL.
(33) A: Abby wants to hire someone who speaks Greek .
B: * What OTHER languages?
19

The correct generalization on island obviation (3)
Chinese
(34) A: ni renshi [yi-ge jiang shenme wen de ren]?
you know one-cl speak what language de person lit.
‘You know someone who speaks what language?’
B: E-wen.
Russian
‘Russian’
(35) A: ta renshi [yi-ge jiang e-wen de ren] he know one-cl speak Russian de person
‘He knows someone who speaks Russian.’
B: * bushi, ri-wen not.be Japanese
‘No, Japanese.’
20

The correct generalization on island obviation (4)
Turkish
(36) A: Hasan [ kim-i görece ğ iz diye ] bir ekmek daha almış?
Hasan who-A will.see for one bread more bought lit. ‘Hasan bought another loaf of bread because he will see who?’
B: Mehmed-i.
Mehmed-A
‘Mehmed.’
(37) A: Hasan [ Mehmed-i görece ğ iz diye ] mi bir ekmek daha almış?
Hasan Mehmed-A will.see for Q one bread more bought lit. ‘Hasan bought another loaf of bread because he’ll see Mehmed?’
B: ?* Hayır, Ali-yi.
no Ali-A
‘
No, Ali.
’
21

The correct generalization on island obviation (5)
(38)
22

Parallelism in fragments
Hint: behaviour of non-contrastive remnants in wh-in-situ languages
(Chinese, Turkish)
(39) A: ni renshi [yi-ge jiang shenme wen de ren]? you know one-cl speak what language de person lit. ‘You know someone who speaks what language?’
B: E-wen.
Russian
‘Russian’
(40) A: [
CP
B: [
CP wh i
… fragment i
[ island node
… [ island node
… t i
… t i
…]]?
… ]]
LF of question
LF/PF of answer
→ Scopal parallelism (Fox 2000, Fox and Lasnik 2003)
Variable in the antecedent and the elided clause are bound from parallel position.
23

Parallelism in non-contrastive fragments
Scopal parallelism at work in English interrogative fragments (see also Merchant 2001)
(40) A: Mary kissed someone last night.
B: Who
1
<Mary kissed t
1 last night>?
LF: A: [someone
1
B: [who
1
λx ([
TP
λx ([
TP
Mary kissed x
1
Mary kissed x
1 last night]) last night]) declarative fragments
(41) A: Mary kissed someone last night.
B: Yeah, Bill
1
<Mary kissed t
1 last night>.
LF: A: [someone
1
B: [Bill
1
λx ([
TP
λx ([
TP
Mary kissed x
1
Mary kissed x
1 last night]) last night])
24

Parallelism in contrastive fragments (1)
Observation 1 : A well-formedness condition on contrastive fragments
(42) A: John was tired and hungry. He had a pizza in his favourite restaurant on his way home.
B: * No, a SALAD.
(43) A: Of all the people who were hungry, JOHN had a pizza in his favourite restaurant on his way home.
B: * No, a SALAD.
(44) A: Of all the things he likes, John had a PIZZA in his favourite restaurant on his way home.
B: No, a SALAD.
→ Felicity condition on contrastive fragments
Contrastive fragments are only felicitous if their correlate is contrastively focused .
25

Parallelism in contrastive fragments (2)
Observation 2 :
Contrastive focus is island-sensitive (Drübig 1994, Rooth 1997, Krifka 2006)
(45) John was only happy [when JILL arrived].
‘there is a set of times when someone arrived (when α arrived, when β arrived, etc.), and John was happy when one of these arrived'.
LF: John (only) [[Jill arrived]
1
* John (only) [Jill
1
λx ([ vP
λx ([ vP was happy at (time point) x
1
])]. was happy at (time point) x
1 arrived])].
26

Parallelism in contrastive fragments (3)
The island sensitivity of contrastive focus can be evidenced in Hungarian: when an island contains contrastive focus, the entire island must be pied-piped to the preverbal FocP:
(46) János was (only) happy when JULI arrived.
overt focus movement of JULI : bad result
* JULI
Juli
1
örült János [ isl was.happy János amikor when t
1 megjött arrived
].
island in-situ (the English pattern): bad result
* Örült János [ isl amikor JULI jött meg].
was.happy János when Juli arrived PV island pied-piped to focus position : fine result
örült János was.happy János
[ isl amikor JULI jött meg ] when Juli arrived PV
27

Parallelism in contrastive fragments (4)
Taking stock so far: we have established two things
(1) Felicity condition on contrastive fragments
Contrastive fragments are only felicitous if their correlate is contrastively focused.
(2) Contrastive focus is island sensitive.
When contrastive focus finds itself in an island, the entire island is interpreted contrastively.
→ If a contrastive fragment has a correlate inside an island, the whole island is interpreted contrastively.
28

Parallelism in contrastive fragments (5)
(47) A: [ isl
Amikor JULI jött meg]
1 when Juli arrived PV
‘Was János happy when JULI arrived?’
örült János t
1 was.happy János
?
Long answer
B: Nem, [ isl amikor BEA jött meg]
1 no when Bea arrived PV
‘No, when BEA arrived.’
[
TP
örült János was.happy János t 1 ] .
Short answer
B’: * Nem, BEA.
no Bea
‘No, Bea.’
29

Parallelism in contrastive fragments (6)
Long answer
(47) A: [ isl
Amikor JULI jött meg]
1
örült János when Juli arrived PV happy.was
János t
1
?
‘Was János happy when JULI arrived?’
B: Nem, [ no isl amikor BEA when Bea
‘No, when BEA arrived.’ jött meg]
1 arrived PV
[
TP
örült János was.happy János t
1
] .
→ Overt movement of the island in A’s question is parallel to the overt movement of the island in B’s answer.
30

Parallelism in contrastive fragments (7)
Short answer
(47) A: [ isl
Amikor JULI jött meg] örült János t
1 when Juli arrived PV happy.was
János
‘Was János happy when JULI arrived?’
?
B’: * Nem, BEA
1
[ isl
örült János amikor t
1 no Bea was.happy János when
‘No, BEA.’ megjött ] arrived
→ Overt movement of the island in A’s question is not parallel to the island obviating short answer in B’s answer.
These data show that obligatory parallelism with the correlate requires overt movement of the island in the answer.
31

Parallelism in contrastive fragments (8)
→ Contrastive remnants also observe scopal parallelism.
The variable in the antecedent and the elided clause are bound from parallel position.
(i) Overt focus-movement languages (Hungarian): parallelism holds at PF/LF.
(ii) Covert focus-movement languages (English): parallelism holds at LF.
English: Long answer pattern
(48) A: Was John happy when JILL arrived?
B: No, when BEATA arrived.
A: [[when JILL arrived]
1
B: [[when BEATA arrived]
1
λx ([ vP
λx ([ vP
John was happy at (time point) x
1
])]?
John was happy at (time point) x
1
])]?
→ in this scenario, LF parallelism is satisfied
32

Parallelism in contrastive fragments (9)
Short answer pattern
(49) A: Was John happy when JILL arrived?
B: * No, BEATA.
A: [[when JILL arrived]
1
B: [[BEATA]
1
λx ([ vP
λx ([ vP
John was happy at (time point) x
1
])]?
John was happy at (time point) x
1 arrived ])].
→ in this scenario, LF parallelism not satisfied
33

Parallelism in contrastive fragments (10)
Conclusion
Island sensitivity in contrastive fragments is solely determined by scopal parallelism.
Short answers: Parallelism violated → island repair does not obtain
(50) A: [[ island node
B: *[ fragment
1
…
… correlate ]
1
[
[ …t
1 island node
…t
1
… ]] (LF)
…]]
Long answers: Parallelism satisfied
(51) A: [[
B: [[ island node island node
… correlate ]
1
… fragment]
1
[… t
[ … t
1
1
…]]
…]]
(LF)
34

Consequences for the PF-theory of islands
The concept of PF-interpretable traces is no longer required to explain strong island-sensitivity in fragments
A simpler description of strong islands:
Chomsky (1973): Subjacency
(53) * [ XP
1
[
BN
… YP … [
BN
… t
1
…]].
NB:
• (53) is a PF constraint: it can be obviated if the BNs are rendered unpronounced.
• LF constraints (such as parallelism) must also be obeyed to obviate strong islands.
35

Summary of findings
Clausal ellipsis (TP-deletion) can leave behind two types of remnants: contrastive and non-contrastive ones.
Both types obey the parallelism requirement on ellipsis.
Contrastive remnants can never give rise to island obviation because:
- their correlate is contrastively focused
- when the correlate finds itself in an island, the island is contrastively focused as well
- parallelism with the correlate forces that the entire island is spelled out in the remnant, obligatorily giving rise to long answers/remnants
36

Results
(i) Due to parallelism, contrastive remnants do not obviate islands.
→ We do not need a syntactic theory to account for lack of island obviation with contrastive remnants.
The syntactic theory of island obviation can be hugely simplified.
(ii) Sluicing and fragment (answers) are the same phenomena: TP ellipsis.
→ We move away from a construction-specific study of ellipsis.
(iii) Contrastivity plays a role in determining properties of ellipsis.
(see also results of
Winkler 2005)
37

References
Bródy, M. 1995. Focus and Checking Theory. In I. Kenesei (ed), Approaches to Hungarian 5, Szeged: JATE
Press, 29-44.
Chung. S, W. A. Ladusaw and J. McCloskey. 1995. Sluicing and logical form. Natural Language Semantics
3: 239-282.
Drübig, H.B. 1994. Islands Constraints and the Nature of Focus and Association with Focus, Technical Report,
Arbeitspapiere des Sonderforschunsbereichs , 340, IMS Stuttgart.
É. Kiss, K. 1987.
Configurationality in Hungarian
. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
Fox, D. 2000. Economy and semantic interpretation . Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Fox, D. and H. Lasnik. 2003. Successive-cyclic movement and island repair: the difference between sluicing and VP-ellipsis. Linguistic Inquiry 34: 143-154
Horvath, J. 1986. Focus in the Theory of Grammar and the Structure of Hungarian . Dordrecht: Foris.
Krifka, M. 1996. Frameworks for the representation of focus. In G.-Jan M. Kruijff, R. T. Oehrle, and G. Morrill
(eds), ESSLLI 96: Formal grammar. Universitat des Saarlandes, Department of Computational
Linguistics and Phonetics.
Lasnik, H. 2001. When can you save a structure by destroying it? In Kim, M. and Strauss, U. (eds.)
Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 31. Amherst, MA: GLSA. 301-320.
Merchant, J. 2001. The syntax of silence. Oxford studies in theoretical linguistics 1. Oxford: OUP.
Merchant, J. 2004. Fragments and ellipsis. Linguistics and Philosophy 27, 661-738.
Merchant, J. 2008. Variable island repair under ellipsis. In K. Johnson (ed.), Topics in ellipsis . Cambridge:
CUP.
Rooth, M. 1997. Focus. In S. Lappin (ed) Handbook of contemporary semantic theory . Oxford, Blackwell 271–
297.
Ross, J.R. 1969. Guess who? Chicago Linguistics Society 5. Chicago, Illinois. 252-286.
Valmala, V. 2007. The syntax of little things . Paper presented at the 17th Colloquium on Generative Grammar.
Girona, June 2007.
Winkler, S. 2005. Ellipsis and focus.
Mouton de Gruyter.
38

Appendix: fronting in clefts and copula clauses (1)
A problem: the reparative effect of ellipsis on LF violations?
(54) A: Who does every syntactician admire?
B: Nobody.
B’: * Nobody
1 does every syntactician admires t
1
.
(55) * Every syntactician admires nobody.
(Valmala 2007)
(Valmala 2007)
Solution : (54B) derived from a copula clause.
(56) Nobody
1 there is t
1 that every syntactician admires.
(57) There is nobody that every syntactician admires.
(i.e. there is not anybody that every syntactician admires)
39

Appendix: fronting in clefts and copula clauses (2)
(56) A: Which lawyer i did even his i clients hate?
B: Bob Anderson i
.
B’: * Bob Anderson i
B’’: # Even his i even his i clients hated clients hated Bob Anderson t i
1
. (WCO)
.
(Valmala 2007:11)
Solution : (56B) is derived from a copula clause.
(57)Bob Anderson
1 it’s t
1 that even his i clients hate .
(58) It’s Bob Anderson i that even his i clients hate.
40