Contradiction and ellipsis licensing with voice mismatch and symmetry

Abstract

Previous research has attributed differences in the acceptability of verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) with voice mismatch to processing effects (Arregui et al., 2006; Grant et al., 2012). This paper argues that they can instead be accounted for in terms of a standard, focus-based (Rooth, 1992a) condition on ellipsis (Rooth, 1992b), supplemented with the principle that ellipsis licensing cannot be contradictory. This perspective is compatible with voice-mismatched VPE being fundamentally grammatical (Merchant, 2013; cf. Hardt, 1993) rather than ungrammatical (e.g., Kim and Runner, 2018). It also encompasses other focus-based factors modulating voice-mismatched VPE, leading to conclusions regarding the interaction of implicit arguments with VPE (Overfelt to appear), and extends to an instance of VPE with symmetrical predicates (Stockwell, 2017, 2020).