SPEAKER: Ivan Sag — Stanford University
TIME: 3:30 PM, Friday 10/07
LOCATION: 32-141
TITLE: Sluicing without Ellipsis
Abstract:
This talk examines various arguments that have been made by Merchant (2001, 2004, 2008, to appear) against the direct-interpretation theory of Sluicing and Bare Argument Ellipsis put forth by Ginzburg and Sag (2000) [GSOO] (see also Culicover and Jackendoff, 2005). With more careful examination of GS00’s proposal, however, specifically in relation to the role of salient utterance (SAL-UTT) and the maximal question under discussion (MAX-QUD) supplied by context, the arguments made against the direct-interpretation approach are seen to lose their force. We also examine data from a number of languages which are problematic for any deletion-based analysis of Sluicing, showing how the direct-interpretation approach avoids these difficulties. Finally, we show how GS00’s analysis interacts with Ginzburg’s (in press) theory of dialogue to provide an account of `sprouting’ that answers the arguments against GS00 offered in Chung, Ladusaw, and McCloskey, to appear.