Bare argument ellipsis and information structure
Marina Kolokonte · OpenGrey (Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique) · 2008
This dissertation presents a cross-linguistic study of three elliptical predicate constructions: (a) stripping, (b) negative-contrast, and (c) yes/no ellipsis, which are all argued to fall under the scope of a more general type of ellipsis, Bare Argument Ellipsis. From an interpretive point of view, in all three constructions, the constituent that is present in the second conjunct ('the remnant') has a characteristic information role. In yes/no ellipsis, the remnant functions as a contrastive topic whereas in stripping and negative-contrast the remnant is a focused constituent. The latter two constructions are further differentiated with regard to the semantic characteristics of us. Based on the assumption that Focus is not uniform, it is shown that stripping involves narrow information focus whereas negative-contrast involves contrastive focus.