An Asymmetry in Voice Mismatches in VP-Ellipsis and Pseudogapping

VP-ellipsis and pseudogapping in English show a previously unnoticed asymmetry in their tolerance for voice mismatch: while VP-ellipsis allows mismatches in voice between the elided VP and its antecedent, pseudogapping does not. This difference is unexpected under current analyses of pseudogapping, which posit that pseudogapping is a kind of VP-ellipsis. I show that this difference falls out naturally if the target of deletion in the two cases differs slightly: in VP-ellipsis, a node lower than [voi(ce)] is deleted, while in pseudogapping a node containing [voi] is deleted. Moreover, this analysis accounts for a new observation concerning the distribution of floating quantifiers in these two constructions.

1 Voice Mismatches

It is well known that VP-ellipsis in English tolerates mismatches between the voice of the elided constituent and that of its antecedent, in both directions. Typical examples are those in (1) and (2). (The (a) examples are from Kehler 2002:53; see also Sag 1976:17, 75, Hardt 1993, Johnson 2001, and Arregui et al. 2006 for further examples, discussion, and qualifications.)

(1) Passive antecedent, active ellipsis

1. a. This problem was to have been looked into, but obviously nobody did. 〈look into this problem〉

2. b. The system can be used by anyone who wants to. 〈use it〉

(2) Active antecedent, passive ellipsis

1. a. Actually, I have implemented it [= a computer system] with a manager, but it doesn't have to be. 〈implemented with a manager〉

2. b. The janitor must remove the trash whenever it is apparent that it should be. 〈removed〉

What has escaped previous notice, however, is that pseudogapping contrasts in this respect with VP-ellipsis in not permitting such voice mismatches (aligning with sluicing, fragment answers, stripping, and gapping).¹

(3) Passive antecedent, active ellipsis

1. a. *Roses were brought by some, and others did lilies. 〈bring〉

2. b. *Klimt is admired by Abby more than anyone does Klee. 〈admire〉

3. c. *Hundertwasser's ideas are respected by architects more than most people do his work. 〈respect〉

4. d. *More people were invited to Beth's reception by her mother than Beth herself did to her wedding! 〈invite〉

(4) Active antecedent, passive ellipsis

1. a. *Some brought roses, and lilies were by others. 〈brought〉

2. b. *Abby admires Klimt more than he is by anyone else. 〈admired〉

3. c. *Laypeople respect Hundertwasser's work more than his ideas are by architects. 〈respected〉

4. d. *Beth's mother invited more people to her wedding than were by Beth herself! 〈invited〉

This difference is the puzzle to be solved.

2 Voice Heads and Ellipsis Sites

2.1 Permitting Voice Mismatches in VP-Ellipsis

I propose that VP-ellipsis consists of deletion of the phrasal complement to the v head, which determines the voice properties of the clause (v[voi]; see Kratzer 1996 and Collins 2005 for discussion). Ellipsis is implemented as a result of a feature, [E], present on the head whose complement is elided; this [E] feature (taken from Merchant 2001) triggers PF nonparsing ("deletion") of the complement of its host head, and furthermore is the locus of morphosyntactic and semantic "identification" requirements. I will notate the presence of an [E] feature on a head by appending [E] (e.g., v[E]). For a simple example such as (5a), the structure is that shown in (5b), where angle brackets indicate the elided material, and the superscript t on a node indicates that that node is a "trace" copy of moved material.

(5)

1. a. Bill shouldn't remove the trash—the janitor should.

2. b.

One major research tradition posits that ellipsis is subject to a syntactic identity condition (possibly in addition to semantic and other containment conditions) requiring that an elided XP have a syntactically identical antecedent XP', modulo contrastive elements; works in this general approach include Sag 1976, Kitagawa 1991, Fiengo and May 1994, Chung, Ladusaw, and McCloskey 1995, Fox 2000, Chung, to appear, and many others (works that argue against a syntactic isomorphism requirement include Dalrymple, Shieber, and Pereira 1991, Hardt 1993, Prüst, Van den Berg, and Scha 1994, Ginzburg and Sag 2000, Merchant 2001, Culicover and Jackendoff 2005, and Potsdam, to appear). If VP-ellipsis is in fact ellipsis of VP, and if the...