Overview

This Handbook is the first volume to provide a comprehensive, in-depth, and balanced discussion of ellipsis phenomena, whereby the meaning of an utterance is richer than would be expected based solely on its linguistic form. Natural language abounds in these apparently incomplete expressions, such as I laughed but Ed didn't, in which the final portion of the sentence, the verb 'laugh', remains unpronounced but is still understood. The range of phenomena involved raise general and fundamental questions about the workings of grammar, but also constitute a treasure trove of fine-grained points of inter- and intralinguistic variation. The volume is divided into four parts. In the first, authors examine the role that ellipsis plays and how it is analysed in different theoretical frameworks and linguistic subdisciplines, such as HPSG, construction grammar, inquisitive semantics, and computational linguistics. Chapters in the second part highlight the usefulness of ellipsis as a diagnostic tool for other linguistic phenomena including movement and islands and codeswitching, while part III focuses instead on the types of elliptical constructions found in natural language, such as sluicing, gapping, and null complement anaphora. Finally, the last part of the book contains case studies that investigate elliptical phenomena in a wide variety of languages, including Dutch, Japanese, Persian, and Finnish Sign Language.

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9780192865045

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Jeroen van Craenenbroeck is Associate Professor of Dutch Linguistics at KU Leuven, where he is also vice-president of the Center for Research in Syntax, Semantics, and Phonology (CRISSP). He is the author of The Syntax of Ellipsis (OUP, 2010) and general editor of the journal Linguistic Variation. His research interests include ellipsis (sluicing, swiping, spading, VP-ellipsis), expletives, verb clusters, and the left periphery of the clause. Tanja Temmerman is Assistant Professor of Dutch Linguistics at Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles (Belgium). She also teaches English and Scientific Research Methodology. She obtained her Ph.D. from Leiden University in 2012 with a dissertation entitled 'Multidominance, ellipsis, and quantifier scope'. Her research focuses principally on (generative) syntax, issues at the syntax-phonology and syntax-semantics interfaces, Dutch dialectology, and comparative Germanic syntax. Specific topics of interest include ellipsis, the internal and external syntax of idioms, phase theory, long distance dependencies, island effects, phrase structure, modals, and negation.

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