Answer fragments
Timothy Osborne, Thomas Groß · The Linguistic Review · 2017
Abstract This manuscript presents a dependency grammar (DG) theory of answer fragments. The ellipsis mechanism implicated in answer fragments is calledfragment ellipsis. The potential of a DG account based on thecatenaunit is probed, but found to be insufficient because it fails to account for certain cases involving in-situ focusing, e.g.Institutionalwhatis hindering progress? – Authority. Therefore, an alternative account is produced, one that identifies four constraints on answer fragments, two that pertain to the elided material and two that pertain to the remnants that survive ellipsis. These four constraints then predict the shape of answer fragments to a large extent.