2024-03-29T10:12:40Z
https://nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp/oai
oai:nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp:00028112
2023-01-16T04:20:28Z
326:521:2321:2409
VP Ellipsis in Poss-ing
Poss-ing における動詞句削除
中川, 聡
91528
Nakagawa, Satoshi
91529
2011-11-30
This paper focuses on VP ellipsis in verbal gerunds with possessive subjects (henceforth, Poss-ing). This type of VP ellipsis is discussed in Anderson (2007) and Cara (2009), but they do not provide a satisfactory account of the phenomenon. In addition, VP ellipsis in Poss-ing has not been paid attention to by previous studies on VP Ellipsis. Cara (2009) points out that VP ellipsis in Poss-ing has at least two problems to be addressed. The first problem is that VP ellipsis can be only licensed in Poss-ing when the antecedent of elided VP constitutes the VP complement of D with a possessive DP in its Spec position. The second problem is that in some cases, VP ellipsis in Poss-ing is less accepted or completely unaccepted. There have been many analyses of VP ellipsis made by previous studies. Among them, Emoto (2007) proposes that VP Ellipsis is triggered by the feature which is called "silence feature". However, this proposal predicts that all examples of VP ellipsis in Poss-ing are grammatical, and therefore cannot account for them properly. Furthermore, Cara (2009) attempts to explain VP ellipsis in Poss-ing in terms of Case morphology of the relevant elements. This analysis, however, faces the same problem as Emoto (2007). In order to solve the problems with VP ellipsis in Poss-ing, this paper adopts Lasnik (1999), where VP ellipsis is assumed to be related to verbal morphology. Lasnik (1999) argues that lexical verbs enter into the derivation without inflectional affixes, and auxiliary verbs are fully inflected in the lexicon. He further argues that VP ellipsis is possible under morphological identity between elided VPs and their antecedents in PF component. Furthermore, this paper analyses the internal structure of Poss-ing, arguing that the affix -ing is a kind of inflectional affix and base-generated on v in Poss-ing by observing the historical development of verbal gerunds. Based on Lasnik’s analysis of VP ellipsis and the argument that the affix -ing appears in v, the problems with VP ellipsis in Poss-ing can be straightforwardly explained. VP ellipsis in Poss-ing cannot be accepted when the elided VP is not morphologically identical to its antecedent VP. Furthermore, by assuming that either vP or VP in Poss-ing counts as an antecedent, the shaky acceptability of a particular VP ellipsis case can be accounted for in which the antecedent constitutes the VP constituent of Poss-ing. If the former is chosen, VP ellipsis will not be licensed, while if the latter is chosen, it can be. Although there have been many kinds of previous analyses of VP ellipsis, the present argument provides support for those of VP ellipsis in terms of verbal morphology.
departmental bulletin paper
名古屋大学英文学会
The society of english literature and linguistics Nagoya University
2011-11-30
IVY
44
37
58
0914-2266
jpn