Not voice but case identity in VP ellipsis of English

Abstract

This paper develops a Case/case-theoretic acco unt for what Merchant (2008) calls voice mism atch in ellipsis constructions of English. Merch ant (ibid.) reports that VP ellipsis as an elision o f smaller size VP allows voice mismatch, but Ps eudogapping and Sluicing as an elision of bigge r size vP/TP do not. However, Tanaka (2011) ar gues against Merchant's dichotomy in voice mis match between VP ellipsis and Pseudogapping, reporting that voice mismatch in both types of e llipsis is permissible or not while interacting wi th what Kehler (2000) calls discourse coherence relations between ellipsis and antecedent clause s. Departing from Kehler's (2000) insight, we s uggest that vP undergoes ellipsis in a resemblan ce discourse relation, but VP does so in a cause/ effect discourse relation. Given the asymmetry i n the size of ellipsis in tandem with discourse re lations, we argue that since Accusative as well as Nominative Case is checked outside VP, the VP to be elided can meet the identity condition on ellipsis with its antecedent VP as the object element in the former and the subject one in the latter or vice versus have not been Case-checke d yet, thus being identical in terms of Case-feat ure at the point of derivation building a VP.