Journal article
Contrast and verb phrase ellipsis: the case of tautologous conditionals
- Abstract:
- This paper argues that verb phrase ellipsis requires contrast. The central observation is that ellipsis is ungrammatical in tautologous conditionals; e.g., *If John wins, then he does. Ellipsis is correctly ruled out by a focus-based theory of ellipsis (Rooth 1992a,b), but one that crucially imports focus’s requirement for contrast: an elliptical constituent must have an antecedent that is not merely an alternative to it, but a ‘proper’ alternative. An explanation in terms of contrast failure proves superior to alternative explanations in terms of triviality and matching form. Showing as much catalogues what counts for contrast in ellipsis, encompassing negation, questions, and intensionality. Subjecting ellipsis to a contrast requirement is in direct conflict with the traditional analysis of MaxElide effects (Takahashi and Fox 2005), favouring alternative explanations (e.g., Jacobson 2019a,b), perhaps in terms of contrast itself (Griffiths 2019). Overall, this paper establishes that contrast has explanatory power in ellipsis licensing.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 1.1MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s11050-022-09189-3
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Natural Language Semantics More from this journal
- Volume:
- 30
- Pages:
- 77-100
- Publication date:
- 2022-03-17
- Acceptance date:
- 2022-02-25
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1572-865X
- ISSN:
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0925-854X
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1222795
- Local pid:
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pubs:1222795
- Deposit date:
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2021-12-09
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Richard Stockwell
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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