On the Reparability of Island Violations

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to explain the reparability of island violations regarding the generalization that while violations of an island condition can be repaired by ellipsis in sluicing, but not in fragment answers (Merchant 2004). This paper discusses the validity of the generalization pointing to counterexamples: Sometimes sluicing does not repair island violations, while other times fragments do repair island violations. This paper looks for a solution to the confusing situation by dynamically defining phases along the track of den Dikken (2006, 2007), Bošković (2012, 2014, among others), and Kim (2013, 2014). It is also argued that the phase-based solution is better, in that it is derived from deeper linguistic principles, than other solutions that rely on semantic requirements (Barros et al. 2014 and Griffiths and Lipták 2014). This is not a simple solution which manipulates the size of ellipsis but a solution based on a better and more concrete generalization in terms of contrastivity under the dynamic definition of phases. This solution would shed light on the analysis of LBC violations which partly resist reparability dichotomy.