DP Ellipsis as Independent Phenomena from pro in pro-drop Languages

Abstract

Lee, Wooseung & Kim, Jihyun. 2010. DP Ellipsis as Independent Phenomena from pro in pro-drop Langauges. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 35-4, 1009-1029. Previous studies proposed that there is no CP ellipsis in English (Kennedy and Merchant 2000) and Korean (Ahn and Cho 2009, 2010, cf. Park 2009). In particular, Ahn and Cho (2009, 2010) suggested that apparent CP ellipsis in Korean be in fact DP ellipsis (null realization of DPs in more neutral terms), which is subsumed to pro-drop in Korean. Specifically, Ahn and Cho (2010) make it clear that there is no genuine DP ellipsis in Korean and apparent DP ellipsis is explained with pro. However, close examination of other data reveals that this is not always the case; considering sentences with reflexives, NPIs, indefinite DPs and free choice DPs, we claim that Korean has both pro with no internal structure and DP ellipsis with an internal structure in the ellipsis site, which explain frequent zero realization of argument DPs in many constructions. We propose that the DP contained in the target clause undergoes partial deletion - the DP is stripped of phonological and semantic features only - when it is identical with the one in the antecedent clause. That is, the internal structure remains intact in the ellipsis site. As to the interpretation of the null argument, we propose that the ellipsis site is filled in with semantic features by overt nominals in the antecedent clause and obtains interpretation at LF (cf. Oku 1998, Saito 2007). (Korea University)