Antecedent-contained deletion
Encyclopedia
Antecedent-contained deletion is a phenomenon found in Verb phrase ellipsis
contexts containing a quantifier. To understand the issue involved, it is necessary to understand how VP-elision works. Consider the following examples, where the expected, but missing, VP is represented with the symbol Δ.
John washed the dishes, and Mary did Δ, too. John washed the dishes on Tuesday, and Mary did Δ, too.
In both of these sentences, the VP has been elided in the second half of the sentence ("and Mary did, too"). In both cases, the elided VP must be identical to the antecedent in the first clause. That is, in (1), the missing predicate can only mean "wash the dishes" and in (2), the missing predicate can only mean "wash the dishes on Tuesday."
Assuming that the missing VP must be identical to an antecedent VP leads to a problem, first noticed by Bouton 1970. Consider the following sentence:
John read every book Mary did Δ.
First, consider the VP that Δ takes as its antecedent. Assuming that the elided VP must be identical to its antecedent, that is, it must be the same exact VP that is predicated of John, we get:
Δ = "read every book that Mary did Δ"
But we see that this VP contains an elided VP itself, so we replace that elided VP with its referent:
Δ = "read every book that Mary did read every book that Mary did Δ"
The reader can easily verify at this point that this sentence leads to infinite regress
. To avoid this problem, Sag 1976 proposed that the NP "every book that Mary did" undergoes quantifier raising (QR) to a position above the verb.
[every book that Mary did Δ]i John read ti.
Now the reference for the elided VP is simply the following:
read ti
If we replace the elided VP in (6), Δ, with (7), we get the following
[every book that Mary did read ti]i John read ti.
The problem of infinite regress is now avoided.
Verb Phrase Ellipsis
In linguistics, verb phrase ellipsis is an elliptical construction in which a verb phrase has been left out . Examples of verb phrase ellipses in English include:...
contexts containing a quantifier. To understand the issue involved, it is necessary to understand how VP-elision works. Consider the following examples, where the expected, but missing, VP is represented with the symbol Δ.
John washed the dishes, and Mary did Δ, too. John washed the dishes on Tuesday, and Mary did Δ, too.
In both of these sentences, the VP has been elided in the second half of the sentence ("and Mary did, too"). In both cases, the elided VP must be identical to the antecedent in the first clause. That is, in (1), the missing predicate can only mean "wash the dishes" and in (2), the missing predicate can only mean "wash the dishes on Tuesday."
Assuming that the missing VP must be identical to an antecedent VP leads to a problem, first noticed by Bouton 1970. Consider the following sentence:
John read every book Mary did Δ.
First, consider the VP that Δ takes as its antecedent. Assuming that the elided VP must be identical to its antecedent, that is, it must be the same exact VP that is predicated of John, we get:
Δ = "read every book that Mary did Δ"
But we see that this VP contains an elided VP itself, so we replace that elided VP with its referent:
Δ = "read every book that Mary did read every book that Mary did Δ"
The reader can easily verify at this point that this sentence leads to infinite regress
Infinite regress
An infinite regress in a series of propositions arises if the truth of proposition P1 requires the support of proposition P2, the truth of proposition P2 requires the support of proposition P3, .....
. To avoid this problem, Sag 1976 proposed that the NP "every book that Mary did" undergoes quantifier raising (QR) to a position above the verb.
[every book that Mary did Δ]i John read ti.
Now the reference for the elided VP is simply the following:
read ti
If we replace the elided VP in (6), Δ, with (7), we get the following
[every book that Mary did read ti]i John read ti.
The problem of infinite regress is now avoided.