1 GAPS, GHOSTS AND GAPLESS RELATIVES IN ... - ling.auf.net

(like other deletion operations such as VP Ellipsis and Sluicing) can serve to repair
structures which would otherwise induce constraint violations. In §7, we considered (but
argued against) a range of potential objections to the Ghosting analysis.
Our research has led to important descriptive and theoretical conclusions. The main
descriptive conclusion to be drawn from it is that gapless relatives are not in fact gapless,
but rather the relative pronoun in such structures serves as the complement of a ghosted
preposition.
At a theoretical level, we have provided a new source of evidence for a deletion
operation called Ghosting which is defined as deletion not requiring the presence of an
antecedent. In Collins and Postal (2012), all the evidence for ghosting was given in terms of
syntactic conditions on pronominal agreement. In this paper, we provide independent
evidence for ghosting in terms of gapless relatives in spoken English.
To the extent that Ghosting (i.e. deletion in the absence of an antecedent) is
possible, many issues in the syntax-semantics interface (such as interpreting “begin the
book” as “begin reading the book”) will have to be rethought. In considering cases where
some constituent is understood to be present semantically, we cannot automatically infer
from the mere absence of an antecedent that deletion has not taken place.
References
AOUN, J. & LI, Y.A. 2003. Essays on the Representational and Derivational Nature of
Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
BENINCÀ, P. 2001 The position of Topic and Focus in the left periphery. Current Studies in
Italian Syntax: Essays Offered to Lorenzo Renzi, ed. G. Cinque & G. Salvi, 39 - 64.
Amsterdam: Elsevier-North Holland.
BENINCÀ, P. 2001. A detailed map of the Left Periphery of Medieval Romance.
Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics, ed. R. Zanuttini et al., 53 - 86.
Washington: Georgetown University Press.
BENINCÀ, P. 2010a. Lexical complementisers and headless relatives. Draft paper, University
of Padova. (To appear in Functional Heads, ed. L. Brugè et al. Oxford: Oxford University
Press).
BENINCÀ, P. 2010b. La periferia sinistra. Grammatica dell’italiano antico, ed. G. Salvi & L.
Renzi, 27 - 59. Bologna: Il Mulino.
BENINCÀ, P. & POLETTO, C. 2004. Topic, focus and V2: Defining the CP sublayers. The
structure of CP and IP, ed. L. Rizzi, 52-75. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
BIANCHI, V. 1995. Consequences of Antisymmetry for the Syntax of Headed Relative
Clauses. PhD dissertation, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa.
BIANCHI, V. 1999 Consequences of Anti-symmetry: Headed Relative Clauses. Berlin:
Mouton de Guyter.
BIANCHI, V. 2000. The raising analysis of relative clauses: A reply to Borsley. Linguistic
Inquiry 31, 123 - 40.
BOCCI, G. 2004. Contrastive Focalisation on Topics and Preverbal Subjects in Italian.
Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 29, 3 - 60.
BOECKX, C. & LASNIK, H. 2006. Intervention and Repair. Linguistic Inquiry 37, 150 -
155.
28