Processing Elided Verb Phrases with Flawed Antecedents: the Recycling Hypothesis

Abstract

Traditional syntactic accounts of verb phrase ellipsis (e.g. "Jason laughed. Sam did [ ] too.") categorize as ungrammatical many sentences that language users find acceptable (they "undergenerate"); semantic accounts overgenerate. We propose that a processing theory, together with a syntactic account, does a better job of describing and explaining the data on verb phrase-ellipsis. Five acceptability judgment experiments supported a "VP recycling hypothesis," which claims that when a syntactically-matching antecedent is not available, the listener/reader creates one using the materials at hand. Experiments 1 and 2 used verb phrase ellipsis sentences with antecedents ranging from perfect (a verb phrase in matrix verb phrase position) to impossible (a verb phrase containing only a deverbal word). Experiments 3 and 4 contrasted antecedents in verbal versus nominal gerund subjects. Experiment 5 explored the possibility that speakers are particularly likely to go beyond the grammar and produce elided constituents without perfect matching antecedents when the antecedent needed is less marked than the antecedent actually produced. This experiment contrasted active (unmarked) and passive antecedents to show that readers seem to honor such a tendency.

Figure 1

Mean ratings, Experiment 2. Error bars indicate 95% confidence interval of difference between two means.

Figure 2

Assumed syntactic structures of nominal and verbal gerunds.

Figure 3

Mean ratings, Experiment 4. Data presented for verbal and nominal gerunds, with and without modifiers. Error bars indicate 95% confidence interval of difference between two means.

Figure 4

Mean ratings, Experiment 5. Data presented separately for items with and without temporal (already, previously) and “too” presupposition triggers. Error bars indicate 95% confidence interval of difference between two means.