Revisiting rebinding: an alternative to MaxElide

Authors

  • James Griffiths University of Konstanz

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/12.4193

Keywords:

alternative semantics, A′-movement, ellipsis, focus, MaxElide, rebinding

Abstract

Using Takahashi & Fox (2005) as an exemplar, this paper argues that analyses of English ellipsis that make recourse to a MaxElide constraint (or a theoretical reduction thereof) are misguided, and that one must look past MaxElide to explain the distribution of acceptability in the elliptical rebinding constructions that MaxElide was originally invoked to explain. A novel analysis is outlined which attributes the unacceptability observed in the rebinding dataset to an inability to satisfy a more restrictive, reflexive version of Takahashi & Fox's (ibid.) Parallelism condition on ellipsis recoverability.

Author Biography

James Griffiths, University of Konstanz

Zukunftskolleg and Department of Linguistics, Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow

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Published

2019-03-19