Mismatches under ellipsis: Syntactic identity and theories of features

Abstract:

In this talk, I'll examine apparent voice mismatches in TP ellipsis in the Mayan language K’iche’. Antecedents of TP ellipsis in K’iche’ can contain a verb in the so-called absolutive antipassive (AP) form in contexts where the elided verb must be active transitive. I'll show that the K’iche’ AP differs from the active transitive verb form not in Voice specification, but in that it completely lacks the internal argument. The observed mismatch bears directly on the formulation of the Syntactic Identity Condition on ellipsis. Specifically, the data at hand can be accounted for under an approach to ellipsis which requires featural non-distinctness between the antecedent and the elided material, but not under the various stricter approaches which require syntactic identity. I'll discuss the purported ban on argument structure mismatches in ellipsis, arguing that they are banned only in cases which demonstrably contain a feature-clash. Finally, I'll explore the ramifications of the present work for theories of syntactic features. Notably, if the SIC argued for in this talk is correct, privative features are necessary, but cannot be the only type of feature employed by the syntax.