The Syntax-Discourse Divide: Processing Ellipsis: Lyn Frazier and Charles Clifton, JR

Syntax 8:2, August 2005, 121–174
THE SYNTAX-DISCOURSE DIVIDE:

PROCESSING ELLIPSIS
Lyn Frazier and Charles Clifton, Jr.
Abstract. VP-ellipsis and sluicing are forms of ellipsis that can cross a sentence
boundary. We present a series of comprehension studies on these forms of ellipsis to
elucidate their processing and the relation of syntactic and discourse processing. One
set of studies examines the hypothesis that the representation of elided material is
syntactically structured. We present evidence supporting the hypothesis and
tentatively attribute the effects to sharing of the structure of the antecedent
constituent, with structure building or substitution of a variable for a constituent
permitted if it is licensed by the syntactic principles of the language. Another set of
studies tests the hypothesis that a new utterance is preferentially related to the main
assertion of the preceding utterance, which is typically a constituent high in the
syntactic tree. The results suggest that discourse processing differs from syntactic
processing, where the most accessible material is recent material found low in the
syntactic tree. A final set of studies examines the interplay of the syntactic processor,
which may not violate ‘‘islands,’’ and the discourse processor, which may, in the
processing of ellipsis sentences involving islands. A novel explanation is offered for
the observation (Ross 1967) that sluicing out of relative-clause islands is grammatical
except when sprouting is required.
1. Introduction
Speakers and writers often omit material when they produce language.
Listeners and readers must somehow cope with the elided (omitted)
material. In effect, they must parse and interpret silence. Understanding
how comprehenders interpret ellipsis is important for any theory of
language comprehension for practical reasons because ellipsis is pervasive
and for theoretical reasons because it is a challenge to specify how
listeners and readers get an interpretation even when there is no overt
material in the input. Indeed, in the linguistic literature there is a long-
standing debate whether ellipsis involves a purely semantic or discourse
relation between the ellipsis site and antecedent but no syntactic structure
in the ellipsis site (Dalrymple, Stuart, Shieber & Pereira 1991; Hardt 1993,
1999; Shieber, Pereira & Dalrymple 1999) or whether syntactic structure is
required in the ellipsis site, along with a syntactically (LF-) identical
antecedent (Sag 1976, Williams 1977, Fiengo & May 1994). A third
possibility is that syntactic structure is required at the ellipsis site, but
* This work has benefited from helpful discussion with numerous people, especially Chris
Kennedy, Bill Ladusaw, Jason Merchant; our colleagues Kyle Johnson, Angelika Kratzer, Chris
Potts, Lisa Selkirk; and many current and former students: Luis Alonso-Ovalle, Jan Anderssen,
Ana Arregui, Katy Carlson, Mike Walsh Dickey, Shawn Gaffney, Mako Hirotani, Helen
Majewski, and Paula Menendez-Benito. This work was supported by grants NIH HD-18708 and
NSF BCS-0090674 to the University of Massachusetts.
2005 The Author

Journal compilation 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
122 Lyn Frazier and Charles Clifton, Jr.
ellipsis is licensed by semantic identity (Merchant 2001, 2005; Rooth

1992; Romero 1998; Kennedy 2003). In terms of linguistic theory, these
three positions are distinct. In terms of processing, however, the difference
between the latter two positions is less clear: if the processor needs to
construct syntactic structure at the ellipsis site from silence, presumably it
needs a syntactically identical antecedent in order to do so.1 Thus, in our
discussion, we are concerned primarily with whether syntactic structure is
present at the ellipsis site. Before leaving the issue, however, we should
note one further position in the literature. Kehler (2000) presents an
elegant theory of ellipsis in which a syntactically matching antecedent is
required only in cases of resemblance discourse-coherence relations, not in
cases of, say, causal discourse-coherence relations. We discuss the
discourse-coherence theory at length elsewhere and, for present purposes,
simply note that our experimental tests of the theory did not support it
(see Frazier & Clifton 2005; also see fn. 1).
In the present paper, we focus on forms of ellipsis such as VP-ellipsis
(John laughed. Bill did [] too.) and sluicing (Someone left. Tell me who
[].) that may occur within a sentence or across sentence boundaries. (For
the processing of other types of ellipsis, see Carlson 2001, 2002.) The goal
is not only to further the understanding of ellipsis and of processing ellipsis
but also to investigate the relation between syntactic and discourse
processing. Given that both syntactic and discourse processes contribute to
the comprehension of the types of ellipsis we study, they provide rich
grounds for developing and testing ideas about the syntax-discourse
interface.
We begin by presenting novel psycholinguistic evidence supporting our
representational assumptions about ellipsis. We then address our central thesis,
which is summarized in (1). This proposal highlights representational (1a–c)
and processing differences (1d,e) between the syntactic system and the
discourse system. The left-hand column of (1a–c) lists relatively uncontro-
versial assumptions about the nature of syntactic representations: they are
hierarchically organized projections of syntactic categories, forming a
sentence. The right-hand column of (1a–c) lists likely properties of discourse
representations: they are partly hierarchical structures that may include more
than one sentence and that include ‘‘information structure’’ properties (see
Birner & Ward 1998, Prince 1998, Vallduvi & Engdahl 1996 for discussion of
information structure).
1
Arregui, Clifton, Frazier, and Moulton (2005) present evidence that readers are willing to
accept examples of VP-ellipsis without a matching antecedent under certain circumstances. This is
attributed to the processor building the requisite VP antecedent at LF using the materials at hand
under conditions where the processor is repairing an error the speaker is likely to have made.
When the speaker is unlikely to have made the error (e.g., erroneously remembering an active
antecedent as a passive rather than the other way around), the processor is less likely to accept the
mismatch between antecedent and elided constituent.
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Syntax-Discourse Divide 123
(1) Syntax Discourse

a. vocabulary syntactic (NP, VP, etc.) information structure (given
new, main assertion)
b. structure fully hierarchical partly hierarchical (modal
contexts, telescoping, etc.)
c. domain within sentence across sentence
d. salience low in tree/recent ‘‘high’’ (due to information
structure)
e. islands sensitive insensitive
Turning to the processing characteristics in (1d,e), it is widely assumed in the
syntactic-processing literature that a general preference exists favoring recent
material, material low in the tree (Kimball 1973, Frazier 1978, Gibson 1998).2
It is also assumed that syntactic processing respects islands (see in particular
Traxler & Pickering 1996).
What we will try to establish is that discourse processing favors information
that is part of the main assertion, typically a constituent ‘‘high’’ in the tree, not a
constituent low in the tree. In short, operations on the discourse representation,
we propose, exhibit salience relations that are distinct from those in the syntactic
representation. We also examine sentences that contain an interrogative
constituent (e.g., what) followed by an elided clause. An example of such
‘‘sluicing’’ sentences is He won something but I don’t know what (see Chung,
Ladusaw & McCloskey 1995 and Merchant 2001 for the syntactic analysis of
sluicing; see Frazier & Clifton 1998a for experimental research on processing
sluicing). We focus on sentences that contain syntactic island violations. A
conventional example of an island violation is *What did they hire someone who
won?. It is not possible to extract the object (what) from the relative clause who
won what. However, such extraction may be possible in sluicing sentences, like
They hired someone who won something [but] I don’t know what (see Chung,
Ladusaw & McCloskey 1995, Merchant 2001, and experiment 8 for further
discussion). We suggest that, in sluicing, a dependency between the interrogative
and a variable might be formed by a nonmovement relation—in particular, a
relation that is identified by the discourse processor. We present evidence
suggesting that discourse processes operate in sluicing sentences and may
violate syntactic island conditions, thus examining how syntactic and discourse
processes jointly contribute to the processing of sentences with island violations.
The existing literature on processing ellipsis, especially verb phrase ellipsis
(VPE), contains extensive analysis of a phenomenon that is similar in some
respects to the phenomena we examine. Hankamer and Sag (1976) propose
2
We acknowledge that there has been substantial controversy about how syntactic processing
takes place and about whether there is in fact a sharp divide between syntactic and discourse
processing (see, e.g., MacDonald, Pearlmutter & Seidenberg 1994; Frazier 1995). There is less
controversy about the contrast between the structural properties of syntactic versus discourse
representations, which is central to our hypothesis. We wish to pursue the possibility that this clear
contrast is reflected in processing distinctions rather than prejudging the issue by assuming that no
such distinctions exist.
2005 The Author

that there is a basic distinction between surface anaphora, which requires a

linguistic antecedent, and deep anaphora, which takes a conceptual antecedent
(though see also Sag & Hankamer 1984).
(2) The garbage needed to be taken out.

a. John did it.
b. *John did.
Someone took out the garbage.
c. John did it.
d. John did.
The deep anaphor did it in (2a) is acceptable even though no linguistically

parallel antecedent is present. But the surface anaphor (VPE) in (2b) is not
acceptable because a linguistically parallel antecedent is not available.
Tanenhaus and Carlson (1990) report a series of experiments on discourses
like those in (2). Whereas comprehension times generally were shorter for
‘‘anaphors’’ with parallel antecedents than for those with nonparallel
antecedents, acceptability judgments (the percentage of acceptable responses)
showed a larger effect of parallelism for surface anaphors than for deep
anaphors (see also Simner, Garnham & Pickering 2003).
Treating VPE as distinct from deep anaphora fits well with the present
proposal. Although as mentioned previously VPE is at times treated as a
purely semantic or discourse process (Hardt 1993, 1999; Dalrymple et al.
1991; Shieber, Pereira & Dalrymple 1999; Ginzburg & Sag 2000), we
assume—and will attempt to show—that there is syntactic structure present at
the ellipsis site. This suggests that VPE is not simply a form of anaphora. The
findings of Ward, Sproat, and McKoon (1991) reinforce this conclusion. They
explored the anaphoric-island condition (Postal 1969), which bans anaphora
into (or out of) a word, as illustrated in (3).
(3) a. Hunters of deer tend to like them. (them ¼ deer)

b. *Deer hunters tend to like them. (them ¼ deer)
In self-paced reading experiments, they tested pronouns (they) referring back

to an object NP (deer in hunted deer) or to a word inside a compound noun
(deer in deer hunting) under circumstances where the antecedent (deer) was
salient in discourse (topical) or not (nontopical). They found that discourse
salience, not the syntactic form of the antecedent, mattered. By contrast, for
surface ‘‘anaphors’’ (do so), the syntactic form of the antecedent, not discourse
salience, mattered. Of course, the deep and surface anaphora distinction is not
the same as the distinction between semantic and syntactic accounts of ellipsis.
However, the finding that surface ‘‘anaphors’’ involving VPE show strong
syntactic parallelism effects does fit well with syntactic accounts of ellipsis.
In early psycholinguistic work, the emphasis was on studying examples of
unambiguous ellipsis, usually comparing discourses containing a parallel
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antecedent with those lacking a parallel antecedent. In what follows, we first

address the question of whether psycholinguistic evidence supports the claim
that there is syntactic structure at the ellipsis site using different sorts of tests.
Then we investigate the preferred interpretation of ambiguous ellipses and the
underlying reasons for the preferred interpretations. Our work differs from
earlier work, which has focused on the nature of the antecedent for the ellipsis
and not on the nature of the ellipsis site itself. If ellipsis is really a form of
anaphora on a par with pronominal anaphora, then we would not expect
internal syntactic structure at the ellipsis site. However, on approaches where
ellipsis results from not phonologically pronouncing (or parsing) a constituent
(the VP in VPE, a clause in sluicing; Merchant 2001, in press) the syntactic
structure of the elided constituent is present. Indeed on this latter approach, the
nonphonological representation of the elided constituent is on a par with the
representation of its pronounced counterpart. Finally, with respect to islands,
we examine well-studied islands for extraction, such as relative clauses and
subjects. The reason for examining island violations is that they enable us to
assess the respective contributions of syntactic processes and discourse
processes in comprehending ellipsis.
We are obviously not the first to examine the relation between syntactic and
discourse processing. However, we do believe that our approach of attempting
to identify distinct representations and different processes in syntactic and
discourse processing, and the coordination of these representations and
processes, is novel. Some lines of very relevant research do exist, such as the
work by Ward, Sproat, and McKoon (1991) discussed earlier, and the attempt to
analyze how different connectives between clauses affect how linguistic
material is held in memory and processed (Bever & Townsend 1979, Townsend
& Bever 2001). A substantial body of research attempts to demonstrate that
discourse-based decision processes are actually responsible for phenomena that
have been attributed to syntactically based processes (research on issues of
referential relations among noun phrases and presupposition violations; Crain &
Steedman 1985 and much subsequent work in Referential Theory). But it
appears that the vast majority of research on discourse processing simply does
not address the issues we raise. It addresses legitimate issues—for example, the
nature of inferences made to connect together the isolated propositions
introduced by individual sentences, the nature of the memory processes that
serve to ‘‘reinstate’’ backgrounded information when it is needed, and the
processes by which readers and listeners identify the structure that underlies a
coherent text—but these issues are not the ones we raise in the present paper.
The experimental portion of the present paper contains three distinct
sections. Section 2 presents evidence that syntactic structure is present for
elided material. In earlier work (Frazier & Clifton 2001) we argued that the
amount of syntactic structure at the ellipsis site does not influence processing
complexity. We attributed this to an essentially cost-free copying mechanism
and integrated it into an account of ellipsis where it is assumed that the elided
constituent has internal syntactic structure. However, one might worry that the
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result is also expected on an alternative view where the ellipsis site is like a
pronoun and has no internal syntactic structure. Obviously, in this case,
comprehenders would not construct syntactic structure at the ellipsis site. The
studies described in section 2 argue against this possibility.
Section 3 reports several studies testing the hypothesis that there is a
preference for discourse processes to favor relations involving the main
assertion of the first sentence, contrasting with a recency preference in
syntactic processes. The studies in this section generally induce discourse
processes by presenting a reader with a two-sentence discourse. The basic idea
is that whatever preference is observed for an antecedent within a sentence, a
comparable two-sentence discourse will typically result in more high (main
assertion) antecedents than the one-sentence counterpart. At the outset we
should note that the one- versus two-sentence manipulation is used for
practical purposes. In fact, along with others (Kamp & Reyle 1993), we
believe that a discourse representation exists even for a single sentence (see
Frazier & Clifton 2002). What we think changes across a sentence boundary is
not the existence of a discourse representation but the accessibility of the
syntactic representation relative to the discourse representation.
These studies thus set the stage for section 4, which examines the respective
contributions of syntactic and discourse processes in comprehending various
kinds of sluicing sentences with island violations. This section addresses the
question of how syntactic structure can be built and how dependencies
involving variables can be assigned. Specifically, we suggest that discourse
processing is relatively insensitive to the presence of syntactic ‘‘islands’’ (e.g.,
complex NPs), in contrast to syntactic processing. The discourse processor, we
argue, can go inside an island to find the antecedent of a ‘‘sluice,’’ whereas the
syntactic processor cannot. The proposed division of labor would help to
explain why island violations are acceptable for one class of sluicing sentences
but not another.
2. Syntactic Structure for the Elided Material

In earlier work (Frazier & Clifton 2001) we argued that the cost of copying a
syntactic (Logical Form [LF]) constituent does not depend on the size of the
constituent per se—for example, the size of the VP antecedent for VP-ellipsis.
This may be modeled by either a copying mechanism, an operation whose cost
is not dependent on the amount of structure copied, or by structure-sharing,
whereby the structure of the antecedent is shared and serves as the missing
constituent at the ellipsis site, modulo any syntactic changes required for
grammatical well-formedness (e.g., introducing a variable where a binder
requires one). However, the absence of complexity effects due to the size of the
copied or shared constituent raises the question of whether in fact a different,
purely semantic view of ellipsis might be correct. We take up that possibility
here and present evidence against a purely semantic account of ellipsis that
does not postulate the existence of syntactic structure for the elided constituent.
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One argument that syntactic structure is present for the elided constituent is
derived from the intuitive perception of the ungrammaticality of sentences like
(4a). Despite the fact that buy takes a goal and that to may express a Goal, (4a)
is ungrammatical.
(4) a. *Max bought some presents and Fred did to Mary.

b. Max bought some presents and Fred did for Mary.
This follows immediately from the fact that buy requires its goal to be marked
by for, as in (4b), if syntactic structure is present for the elided material. It is
not clear how to explain this fact if syntactic structure is not present and only a
semantic or inferential relation exists. Of course, this argument assumes that
the difference between goals marked by to and those marked by for is largely
idiosyncratic and not due to subtle semantic variation. As a reviewer pointed
out to us, the ability of both to- and for-marked goals to occur as the first
object of double-object verbs weighs against the semantic account. We note,
however, that this argument, like most of the arguments we present in this
paper, presents a challenge to views in which no syntactic structure is present
at the ellipsis site rather than showing that such accounts are impossible.
Another linguistic argument for the presence of syntactic structure at the
ellipsis site derives from crosslinguistic facts about sluicing. Merchant (2001)
points out the existence of a correlation across languages. If a language permits
preposition stranding in questions, as in (5) (e.g., English, Swedish, Icelandic),
then it allows preposition stranding in sluicing, as in (6) where the ‘‘vbl’’ (the
variable bound by the interrogative who) occurs in a prepositional phrase.
(5) Whoi did John go fishing with ti?
(6) John went fishing with someone but I don’t know who [John went
fishing with vbl].
Languages that do not permit preposition stranding in questions (e.g., German,

Dutch, Greek, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian) do not permit preposition stranding
in sluicing. It is not clear how the correlation would be explained if there were
not syntactic structure for the elided material.
In this work we report psycholinguistic evidence that syntactic structure is
present for the elided constituent.
2.1 Experiment 1a
The processing of conjunction appears to allow either the entire conjoined
phrase to be processed or just the closer conjunct, but not just the more distant
conjunct. We dub this the ‘‘conjunction domain hypothesis.’’ Extraction facts
support the idea that the analysis of conjunction phrases permits the entire
phrase to be available for extraction (as in 7a) or only the closest conjunct (the
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first conjunct, given a dependence to the left, as in the marginally acceptable

(7b)). However, extraction from just the distant conjunct (7c) seems
impossible.
(7) a. Who did John see _ at the party and Mary see _ at the office?
b. ?Who did John see _ at the party and Mary see him at the office?
c. *Who did John see him at the party and Mary see _ at the office?
In experiment 1, sluicing is examined. Consider (8), where the interrogative

constituent what must bind a variable corresponding to the object of the verb
studied in the elided clause.
(8) Michael studied but I don’t know what [Michael studied vbl].
Imagine that studied is now placed inside a conjoined VP as in (9a,b) or a

conjoined clause as in (9c,d) that contains an intransitive verb (sleep) and
therefore no position from which the interrogative might have been extracted.
This enables us to use the conjunction domain hypothesis to determine
whether there is syntactic structure for the elided constituent in sluicing. Given
that only the nearest conjunct is available in the syntax for extraction if
extraction is out of only one conjunct, then we expect an asymmetry between
the near conjunct and the far conjunct conditions on the syntactic view of the
ellipsis.
(9) a. Michael slept and studied but he didn’t tell VP, near conjunct
me what.
b. Michael studied and slept but he didn’t tell VP, far conjunct
me what.
c. Michael slept and he studied but he didn’t S, near conjunct
tell me what.
d. Michael studied and he slept but he didn’t S, far conjunct
tell me what.
On the other hand, if there is only a semantic or discourse representation of the

antecedent, then there is no reason to expect an asymmetry.3
Sixteen sluicing sentences like those in (9) were included in a written
acceptability judgment questionnaire. In two forms (9a,b), conjoined VPs
occurred in the first clause, whereas in two forms (9c,d) conjoined clauses
occurred. One verb (studied) can be transitive and thus takes an (implicit)
3
In principle, the nearest conjunct might be determined with respect to either the surface
position of the conjoined phrase, as we have done in the text, or the position of the copied VP in
the elided clause (which would thus favor (9b,d) over their counterparts (9a,c)). If the surface
position of the verb matters, this might be taken as evidence for the structure-sharing view of
ellipsis, where the what is related to the material to its left, as opposed to a copying view where
what is related to copied material to its right.
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object, which can serve as the inner antecedent for the interrogative (the
constituent in the antecedent clause that corresponds to the position of the
variable in the sluiced clause). The other verb (slept) is intransitive and thus
cannot take an object. In two forms (9a,c) the inner antecedent for the
interrogative occurred in the second conjunct. In two forms (9b,d) the inner
antecedent occurred in the distant/first conjunct.
Given the conjunction domain hypothesis, the near-conjunct examples
(9a,c) should be rated more acceptable than the distant-conjunct examples
(9b,d). If this expectation is confirmed, it implies the existence of syntactic
structure at the ellipsis site: the inner antecedent for the variable is available in
the closer conjunct in the syntactic representation. If there were no syntactic
structure in the elided clause, a distance effect would be surprising. If only a
semantic or inferential relation existed between studied and the interrogative,
it is unclear why distance in the syntactic representation should matter. Of
course, one might hypothesize that access to the discourse representation in
ellipsis is mediated by the syntactic form of the antecedent—end of story. As
discussed later, this account would not explain why in experiment 6 no order
or recency effect is observed for main clause–subordinate clause sentences.
There too syntactic form should have mediated access to the discourse
representation, leading to facilitation for antecedents contained in the most
recent clause.
2.1.1 Method
Sixteen sluiced sentences like those in (9) were constructed, with four versions
of each. All items appear in Appendix F. These were included in a written
questionnaire that also contained 52 other sentences of varying forms
(including 12 sentences that were clearly unacceptable, as catch sentences to
eliminate any participants who were obviously not following instructions).
Four counterbalanced forms of the questionnaire were constructed, with four
sluiced sentences in each of the four versions illustrated in (9). One
randomization was made of each form.
Forty-eight University of Massachusetts undergraduates completed the
printed questionnaire, working individually. They were instructed to rate each
sentence on a 5-point scale, where 1 was to mean ‘‘unacceptable’’ and 5 to
mean ‘‘acceptable and natural.’’ They were further instructed to assign a 1 to a
sentence that they would not expect a native speaker of English to say, and 5
to a sentence that they could easily imagine themselves saying or hearing
without noticing anything odd about it. They were told to try to use the whole
5-point scale.
2.1.2 Results and discussion

The mean ratings appear in Table 1. Sentences in which the implicit inner
antecedent appeared in the near conjunct were rated as significantly more
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Table 1. Mean ratings for sluicing sentences, experiment 1a: 5 ¼ natural,

1 ¼ unnatural; mean reading times, both unadjusted and adjusted (ms), experiment 1b
Reading times (1b)
Conjoined Inner Ratings Unadjusted Adjusted
phrases antecedent (1a) Segment 1 Segment 2 Segment 1 Segment 2
VP Near 3.30 1,896 1,423 –67 –202
VP Far 2.69 2,016 1,548 –1 –53
S Near 3.41 2,247 1,437 105 –202
S Far 2.40 2,326 1,534 301 –50
acceptable than sentences in which the inner antecedent appeared in the far
conjunct (F1(1, 47) ¼ 57.79, p < .001; F2(1, 15) ¼ 40.04, p < .001). This
difference was significantly greater for the S conjunction items than for the
VP conjunction items (F1(1,47) ¼ 13.30, p < .001; F2(1,15) ¼ 6.03,
p < .03), but there was no overall difference between S and VP conjunction
items (F1(1,47) ¼ 1.49, p > .23; F2 < 1). The results are as predicted by
the conjunction domain hypothesis and the assumption that syntactic
structure is available for the elided clause, with evidence that the
conjunction domain effect is more pronounced for S than for VP
conjunction.
2.2 Experiment 1b
In experiment 1b, the experimental materials from experiment 1a were tested
in a self-paced reading study.
2.2.1 Method
2.2.1.1 Materials. Four versions of each of the 16 sentences illustrated in
(9) were assigned to four counterbalanced forms, where they were combined
with 104 other items (some fillers, some from other experiments), resulting
in four 120-item lists. Each experimental sentence was divided for
presentation into two segments, as illustrated in Appendix A. Half the items
were followed by two-choice questions, which tested various pieces of
information from the sentence and were intended simply to encourage careful
reading.
2.2.1.2 Subjects and procedures. Forty-eight University of Massachusetts
undergraduates were tested in individual half-hour sessions. On each trial, a
ready signal appeared on a computer-controlled video screen. When the
subject pulled a response lever, a preview of where letters would appear
was presented as underscore marks on the screen. The next pull of the lever
then caused the first sentence to appear in place of the underscores, while
the next pull caused the displayed sentence to disappear and be replaced by
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underscores and the second presentation segment to appear (the final

sentence, or in versions b and d, the final two sentences, including the
elliptical sentence). Half of the sentences were followed by a comprehen-
sion question with two alternative answers, and subjects were instructed to
pull a response lever under the answer that they considered correct. The
times to read each presentation segment and to answer the question were
recorded.
An experimental session began with a practice list of eight sentences. It
continued with an individually randomized presentation of the 120 experi-
mental sentences.
2.2.2 Results
The reading times for each presentation segment appear in Table 1 (after
eliminating times over 8,000 or under 100 ms; less than 1%). The table
shows both unadjusted reading times (in ms) and times corrected for
length using individual linear regression equations (Ferreira & Clifton
1986; see also Trueswell, Tanenhaus & Garnsey 1994). Both showed the
same pattern of effects, but the significance levels were higher for the latter
measure because of reduced between-item variability and will therefore be
reported.
Reading times for the final clause of the sentences (but he didn’t tell
me what) were longer for the distant conjunct (9b,d) example than for
the near conjunct (9a,c) examples (F1(1,47) ¼ 17.81, p < .001;
F2(1,15) ¼ 7.08, p < .02). The effects of VP versus S conjunction and
the interaction of type and order of conjunction were nonsignificant
(F < 1).
2.2.3 Discussion
The results of studies 1a and 1b support the conjunction domain
hypothesis: sluicing sentences with inner antecedents in the near conjunct
were rated more acceptable, and processed faster, than those with distant
conjunct inner antecedents. This strengthens existing evidence that syntactic
structure is present at the ellipsis site. Of course, one might still try to
develop an account based on anaphora. However, we do not think an
anaphoric account is particularly promising for several reasons. In general,
anaphoric dependencies can span rather large distances without incurring
any processing penalty (Clifton & Ferreira 1987, for example). Also,
McKoon, Ward, Ratcliff, and Sproat (1993) compared ellipsis (do so) with
anaphora (do it), finding effects that dissociated the two: for anaphora,
topicality mattered, as in the Clifton and Ferreira study and other studies of
anaphora, whereas for ellipsis, it was syntactic parallelism that mattered,
not topicality. Indeed, if the order of conjuncts matters at all for purposes
of finding an antecedent for a pronoun, it is the first, not the second,
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conjunct that seems to be favored (Gernsbacher 1989, but also Gordon &
Hendrick 1998).4
One discrepancy between experiments 1a and 1b is the significant
interaction present only in 1a. In acceptability judgments, the distance effect
was larger for conjoined clauses than for conjoined VPs, whereas in reading
times the effect is equally large for conjoined clauses and conjoined VPs. We
suspect that all constituents of the most recent clause are relatively accessible,
which may give rise to a slightly weaker distance effect within the most recent
clause, detectable in ratings but not in reading times.
2.3 Experiment 2
One of the classic problems in an account of VP-ellipsis is the regress problem
in antecedent-contained deletion (ACD). Consider (10).
(10) Dulles suspected everyone who you did [e].
If the elided VP in (10) were interpreted with respect to the underlined VP, the
resulting interpretation would be: Dulles suspected everyone who you did
(suspect everyone who you did [suspect everyone…]). In short, an infinite
regress would occur.
May (1985) proposed that the infinite regress problem should be solved by
quantifier raising (QR), as in (11).
(11) Dulles [AgrO [DPi everyone who you did [VP [e]][VP suspected ti]]
After QR raises the DP, the VP suspected ti can serve as the antecedent for the
elided VP at LF. No regress occurs.5
The mere existence of ACD is a challenge to purely semantic or discourse
accounts of ellipsis (May 1985, Kennedy 1997). Thus we think linguistic
arguments favor an account of ellipsis that depends on syntactic representa-
tion. We wish to further bolster such arguments by showing that an account of
the complexity of processing ACD is readily available on the assumption that
4
One reviewer, concerned about the anaphora possibility, pointed out to us that sentences like
those below might also show a distance effect, in the absence of ellipsis.
(i) Michael slept and studied (something) but he didn’t tell me what he studied.
(ii) Michael studied (something) and slept but he didn’t tell me what he studied.
We have not formally tested these sentences, but our own intuitions do not find a contrast as large
as that with ellipsis.
5
More recent analyses in the minimalist framework preserve the basic insight of May but
attribute the movement of the DP to movement at LF to AgrO for purposes of Case assignment; see
Hornstein 1994 for empirical arguments that the resulting analysis is superior to one based on QR.
However, Kennedy (1997) presents strong arguments against the Case-based account and our
results also argue against this alternative. Given that a phrase always requires Case on the
Hornstein analysis, immediate movement should occur regardless of whether VP-ellipsis occurs in
the relative clause.
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syntactic structure is present for the elided constituent and that (long) QR is
optional.
For present purposes, what is interesting is that the processor is faced with a
chain where it appears that the phrase everyone who you did [e] may be
interpreted either in its surface position, that of the tail of the chain, as in (12a)
or at the LF/Case position, the head of the chain, as in (12b).
(12) a. Dulles [AgrO ti [VP suspected [DPi everyone who you did VP [e]]]].
b. Dulles [AgrO [DPi everyone who you did [e]]VP [suspected ti]].
By hypothesis, the processor will initially choose to interpret the DP in its

surface position (at the tail of the chain).6 This means the processor will copy
the VP underlined in (10). See Tunstall 1998 and Anderson 2004 for
independent evidence that the processor interprets phrases in surface position
when possible—that is, when no evidence warrants interpretation at other
positions in a chain. In (12a), when the processor encounters the elided VP, it
will not have a VP of the right shape to serve as the antecedent VP.
Consequently, the processor will need to interpret the DP in its higher position,
as in (12b).
In general, structures are harder to reanalyze the longer the initial
structure has been retained (Christiansen, Holingworth, Halliwell & Ferreira
2001; Ferreira & Henderson 1991; Frazier & Rayner 1982; Frazier &
Clifton 1998b). Consequently, we might expect that delaying the evidence
that an ACD sentence like (10) contains an elided VP would dramatically
increase processing difficulty. Of course, to test this prediction, late
disambiguation ACD sentences must be compared to relevant control
sentences.
Experiment 2 examined items like those in (13).
(13) a. Dulles investigated some men Bill said you did.

b. Dulles investigated some man you did, Bill said.
c. Dulles investigated some man Bill said you investigated.
d. Dulles investigated some man you investigated, Bill said.
Item (13a,b) contain elided VPs; (13c,d) are their overt counterparts. In (13a)
and (13c) the target VP (elided in 13a, overt in 13c) is embedded under the
clause Bill said. In (13b,d), this clause is present to control for number of
clauses and propositional complexity, but it is outside the relative clause
and is the root clause of the sentence. In short, focusing on the critical
relative clause, we have crossed +ellipsis (13a,b) versus –ellipsis (13c,d) with
6
Throughout, we limit our discussion of QR to long QR, as in the text. It is well known that a
type-fixing operation must also occur to avoid a type mismatch that would preclude composition
of the quantified noun phrase and the VP. We assume that the type-fixing operation is obligatory
but either is not QR or does not leave a variable of the appropriate sort for an antecedent VP.
2005 The Author

two-clause (13a,c) versus one-clause (13b,d) relative clauses. The main

prediction is that (13a) will be rated worse (more unnatural) than (13b),
relative to their controls. We expect an interaction, with (13a) being
particularly unnatural, because the need to interpret the DP in its higher (LF
Case) position is not apparent until late, indeed, one clause after the highest
clause in the DP.
2.3.1 Method
Sixteen items like those in (13) were constructed, with four versions of each,
defined by the factorial combination of ellipsis present versus absent and two-
versus one-clause relative clauses. All items appear in Appendix B. These
items were combined with 16 other items like John bought an X-large t-shirt
and a small one into four counterbalanced forms of a questionnaire. Each form
of the questionnaire contained four experimental items in each of the four
versions; across the four questionnaire forms, each item was tested once in
each version.
Seventy University of Massachusetts undergraduates completed the ques-
tionnaire individually after having participated in an unrelated experiment.
They were asked to decide how natural each sentence sounded to them, from
the perspective of helping a nonnative speaker of English to learn what was
natural. Each sentence was followed by a 5-point rating scale, where 1 was
defined as ‘‘unnatural’’ and 5 as ‘‘natural.’’

The mean ratings appear in Table 2. Elliptical sentences were rated as less
natural than nonelliptical sentences (F1(1, 69) ¼ 48.89, p < .001; F2(1,
15) ¼ 15.68, p < .001). Most importantly, the interaction between presence
versus absence of ellipsis and two versus one clauses in the relative clause was
significant (F1(1, 69) ¼ 10.22, p < .002; F2(1,15) ¼ 10.71, p < .01. The long
(two clause) ACD sentence was rated as most unnatural, whereas adding a
second clause to the nonelliptical (and thus non-ACD) sentence did not lower
its rating.
We think the results suggest that QR is optional. The processor first tries the
surface VP as the antecedent and only later performs QR. Thus, on the first
analysis, the copied or shared structure has the wrong form to serve as an
antecedent.
Table 2. Mean naturalness ratings, experiment 2: 5 ¼ natural,

1 ¼ unnatural
Ellipsis
Relative clause Present Absent
Two clause 1.99 2.60
One clause 2.28 2.48
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The account provided for the results of experiment 2 clearly presupposes

that syntactic structure is available at the ellipsis site. Having discovered
the inadequacy of the first copied or shared VP, the one without a variable,
the appropriate antecedent VP is created by quantifier raising the DP,
thereby creating an antecedent VP containing a variable. It is not at all
clear how one could give an explanatory nonsyntactic account of the
results.
It is surprising that readers prefer the unelided form of these sentences.
Presumably this is because the sentences are rather complex. Also, as one
reviewer pointed out, ACD may be preferred in sentences with a DP headed
by a strong quantifier rather than an indefinite.
2.4 Experiment 3
The role of island constraints in ellipsis is discussed in section 4 with respect
to the interplay of syntactic and discourse processing. However, here we
wish to note that accounts where there is syntactic structure at the ellipsis
site could easily accommodate the observation that ellipsis sentences with
island violations are less acceptable than their non–island violating
counterparts. Although syntactic accounts exist which permit ellipsis
sentences with island violations (see Merchant 2005 for an account where
island violations are repaired if the constituent marked as ‘‘*’’ [ungrammat-
ical] is not pronounced), one might expect island-violating sentences would
not be perfect—for example, a repaired sentence may not be a perfect
sentence.
Experiment 3 tests the possibility that even ‘‘repaired’’ island-violating
ellipsis sentences show some penalty in the form of decreased acceptability
relative to nonisland counterparts. It required subjects to make speeded
acceptability judgments on six types of sentences. Two (14a,b) contained one-
clause questions out of a PP that did (b) or did not (a) involve an adjunct island
violation. Two forms (14c,d) consisted of two clauses: the declarative
counterpart to the question in (14a,b) followed by a clause (but I don’t know
what) that contained an elided interrogative clause. The declarative counter-
parts without any extraction (14e,f) served as controls.
(14) a. What lecture was Sally impressed with?

b. What lecture was Sally impressed after?
c. Sally was impressed with some lecture, but I don’t know what.
d. Sally was impressed after some lecture, but I don’t know what.
e. Sally was impressed with some lecture.
f. Sally was impressed after some lecture.
Assuming the expected penalty for violations of the adjunct island in (b),
the (b)-form should be accepted less often than the (a)-form. If the sluicing
sentence in (14d) also involves an island violation, then (14d) should be
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accepted less frequently than (14c). To the extent that this island violation is
partially repaired by eliding or not pronouncing the offending dependency, the
difference in acceptability might be smaller for the sluicing sentences than for
the questions. To ensure that the results do not reflect a semantic or plausibility
difference between the with sentences and the after sentences, (14e,f) were
included. The only differences of interest in (14a–d) are differences above and
beyond those observed for (14e,f).
2.4.1 Method
2.4.1.1 Materials. Twenty-four sentences like (14) were constructed, with
six versions of each. These 24 sentences were combined with 114 other
sentences and two-sentence discourses of a wide variety of constructions,
including 32 sentences that were unacceptable for a variety of reasons (gender
or number disagreement, missing or extra arguments, semantic anomaly, etc.)
A six-item practice list was also constructed, with three acceptable and three
clearly unacceptable items. Six counterbalanced lists were constructed, such
that each list included 4 sentences in each version, and each sentence appeared
on each version in one list.
2.4.1.2 Subjects and procedure. Forty-eight University of Massachusetts
undergraduates were tested in individual half-hour sessions. Eight participants
saw each of the six counterbalanced lists. Each participant was instructed to
read sentences or two-sentence discourses, phrase by phrase, pulling a trigger
with the right hand if the sentence was grammatically acceptable to that point,
and pulling a trigger with the left hand if the sentence had become
unacceptable. ‘‘Unacceptable’’ was defined as violating the normal rules of
everyday English. It was stressed that a sentence did not have to be the
most ‘‘insightful, true, interesting, or elegant’’ sentence the subject had ever
seen to be classed as ‘‘acceptable.’’ To conclude the instructions, the partici-
pant then marked a sheet of 10 sentences as acceptable or unacceptable, and
the experimenter discussed any differences of judgment (which were very
rare).
After instructions, a session began with the randomized presentation of
the six items in the practice list, followed by a break, followed by an
individually randomized presentation of all 138 items in the main list. On
each trial, a series of underscores appeared on the screen to indicate where
the characters were to appear. In the full experiment, some items appeared
all at once, whereas others were presented segment by segment. The latter
was true of the sluiced experimental items (14c,d); the former was true of
the other experimental items. When the participant first pulled the right-hand
trigger, some or all of the experimental item appeared on the screen,
replacing the underscores. The subject then pulled a response trigger to
indicate the acceptability of the item, and if a part of the item remained, the
first part disappeared and the second part appeared, in which case the
subject pulled a response trigger again. A right-hand trigger pull indicated
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that the item was acceptable, and a left-hand trigger pull indicated that
it was unacceptable. The participant’s response and reaction time were
recorded.
2.4.2 Results
The mean reaction times and the proportion of ‘‘acceptable’’ responses appear
in Table 3. The reaction time data yielded nothing of interest. Analyses of
variance indicated that there was a main effect of type of sentence (question,
sluice, control), but this reflected nothing other than the fast times to respond
to the relatively short sluice clause, as compared to the time to respond to the
entire sentence in the other conditions.
The analysis of proportions of ‘‘acceptable’’ responses, however, indicated
significant main effects of both factors (type of sentence, argument vs.
adjunct) and their interaction. Control sentences were accepted more often
than questions, which were accepted more often than sluices
(F1(2,94) ¼ 16.38, p < .001; F2(2, 46) ¼ 17.58, p < .001). Sentences with
arguments were accepted more often than sentences with adjuncts
(F1(1,47) ¼ 26.71, p < . 001; F2(1, 23) ¼ 14.59, p < .002). Of most interest,
the size of the argument-adjunct effect differed across sentence types
(F1(2,94) ¼ 5.74, p ¼ .004; F2(2,46) ¼ 4.07, p ¼ .024). It was largest for
the question sentences (.22), next largest for the sluices (.13), and smallest for
the controls (.005).
The results clearly show that an attenuated but significant penalty persists
for the island-violating ellipsis sentences. The size of this penalty would be
consistent with a ‘‘repair’’ approach like Merchant 2005, assuming that repair
is only partial. A full theory of the role of island violations in various types of
ellipsis takes us well beyond the scope of this paper. The important point in
the present context is that the existence of a penalty for island violations in
elided constituents readily follows if syntactic structure is present at the
ellipsis site. The fact that such penalties are reduced compared to penalties in
unelided constituents may be accounted for by the fact that the offending
dependency is not pronounced (Merchant 2005) or perhaps because it is not
focused.
Table 3. Proportion of ‘‘acceptable’’ responses and reaction time (second region for
sluicing conditions), experiment 3
Condition Proportion ‘‘acceptable’’ Reaction time (ms)
Argument question (14a) .831 3,807
Adjunct question (14b) .611 3,974
Argument sluice (14c) .651 2,746
Adjunct sluice (14d) .519 2,775
Argument control (14e) .838 3,579
Adjunct control (14f) .833 3,886
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2.5 Discussion: Structure at Ellipsis Site

In section 2 we have presented linguistic and psycholinguistic evidence that
syntactic structure is present for the elided material in sluicing and VP-ellipsis.
Experiment 1 implicates a nearest-conjunct relation between the interrogative
and the position of the variable. We think this implicates syntactic structure for
the elided material for two reasons. First, the nearest-conjunct effect is also
present for wh-extraction, which we assume to be a clear instance of a
syntactic dependency. Second, order effects are apparently not robust when an
antecedent is found in the discourse representation, as indicated in many
studies of anaphora (Clifton & Ferreira 1987, and also by the main clause–
subordinate clause results in experiment 6).
The results of experiment 2 follow naturally if quantifier raising occurs only
when the processor receives evidence that it is necessary. Delaying this
evidence increases the difficulty of processing sentences like (13a). If the
syntactic structure of the shared constituent were not at issue in arriving at the
interpretation of the elided VP, it becomes unclear why the operation of
creating a variable as the object of a verb should be more difficult when the
evidence for it is delayed. This argument relies on the assumption that
accounting for ACD involves relating the elided VP to a VP with the
appropriate syntactic shape and in turn provides evidence for that assumption
in the sense that a natural account for the psycholinguistic (complexity) data
follows readily given the assumption.
The nature of the argument here is not that one could never develop
an account of the results of a single experiment without assuming the
existence of syntactic structure for the elided material. Rather, as usual, our
attempt has been to account for a variety of results in a single framework of
assumptions—assumptions that led us to expect these results in advance.
We do not see an obvious or natural (nonsyntactic) account for the full
range of effects discussed in this paper. We thus view our proposal,
and the empirical evidence supporting it, as a challenge for nonsyntactic
accounts.
In section 2 experimental evidence has been presented in support of the
claim that syntactic structure occurs in the ellipsis site. Assuming that it is
typically copied from an already occurring antecedent, the question for an
account of processing ellipsis is how the processor chooses among potential
antecedents. This is the question taken up in section 3.
3. ‘‘Salience’’ Relations
When processing discourse, readers and listeners may prefer interpretations
based on material high in the phrase structure tree of a sentence because of
expectations concerning how information is packaged and where important
information is expected to occur. Perhaps the clearest examples involve
relative clauses. Compare the sentences in (15).
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(15) a The man who wore a red tie approached a woman.

b. The man who approached a woman wore a red tie.
The main assertions of (15a) and (15b) are contained in their matrix clauses
(approached a woman and wore a red tie, respectively). The embedded
relative clause allows the perceiver to identify a referent by predicating
information of its head. Readers know that (15a) and (15b) are not
interchangeable. Similarly in John found out that the man approached a
woman, the main assertion is that John found out p not that the man
approached a woman.
We propose the main assertion hypothesis in (16).
(16) Main assertion hypothesis:

Other things equal, comprehenders prefer to relate material in a new
sentence to the main assertion of the preceding sentence.
The main assertion hypothesis is intended to capture the reader’s expectation

that material contained in the matrix clause will be the preferred antecedent for
VPE. We do not claim that the main assertion tendency is limited to ellipsis.
For instance, a substantial body of research on the use and interpretation of
personal pronouns demonstrates that a pronoun takes as its preferred
antecedent a ‘‘center’’ of the preceding clause or sentence (Gordon &
Hendrick 1998; Grosz, Joshi & Weinstein 1995), and the center must be part
of the main assertion. Similarly, we do not claim that the main assertion
hypothesis, taken by itself, is novel. The centering hypothesis, just mentioned,
is closely related to the main assertion hypothesis, and the hypothesis can be
seen as a variant of a commonplace in prescriptive rhetoric: Stick to the topic.
What is new is the claim that the main assertion hypothesis applies in the
domain of discourse representations but not in the domain of syntactic
representations.
Even this claim has its precursors. In the pioneering days of modern
psycholinguistics, many ingenious studies probed the nature of the memory
representation for linguistic material after the material had initially been
processed. The work suggested that the syntactic form of an utterance is lost
more rapidly than its meaning (Sachs 1967) and that syntactic detail becomes
inaccessible across a clause boundary (e.g., Caplan 1972, Jarvella & Herman
1972). Many results supported the idea that processing takes place clause by
clause (see Fodor, Bever & Garrett 1974). In fact, however, these studies just
show that clause boundaries have effects on the availability of linguistic
information. The study that most clearly raises questions about claims about
what is accessible in a discourse and shows that the main assertion of a
sentence is more accessible than its other content is a little known study by
Walker, Gough, and Wall (1968), described by Fodor, Bever, and Garrett
(1974). Sentences like (17) were tested in a two-word probe experiment.
Participants responded more slowly if the two probe words were drawn from
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different clauses (Indians, killed) than if they were drawn from the same
clause.
(17) The scout the Indians saw killed a buffalo.
They were also faster if the two words came from the matrix clause (scout,
killed) than if they both came from the embedded clause. The matrix clause, of
course, presents the content of the main assertion of the sentence. This result
suggests that once a sentence has been processed, the main assertion is the
most accessible or salient part of the sentence.7
3.1 Experiment 4
Consider (18a). We assume that the phrase and Mary did too is preferentially
attached low for syntactic reasons. This phrase is conjoined with the clause
Fred went to Europe. Presumably, this attachment must be revised to compute
the matrix antecedent interpretation (in which Mary said something).
(18) a. John said that Fred went to Europe and Mary did too.
b. John said that Fred went to Europe. Mary did too.
Within a sentence, we assume that the syntactic (including LF) representation

is readily accessible. In the syntax we expect recent material to be favored
over distant material for purposes of both attachments, favoring attachment to
a low recent node, and for finding a preferred antecedent for ellipsis (a low
recent constituent). Across sentence boundaries, as in (18b), the syntactic
representation will be less accessible. The discourse representation will be
more accessible, and antecedents in the position where important information
is expected (e.g., in positions high in the tree) will be favored. These
predictions were tested in a written questionnaire study.
Before turning to the study, it is important to emphasize that salience of the
potential antecedents is not the only factor that should be expected to influence
the choice of antecedent. Imagine that the plausibility or likelihood of the
reading resulting from the selection of one particular antecedent is much
greater than the plausibility of the other. On anyone’s model of sentence
processing, this should be expected to influence the ultimate choice of
antecedent. So, the predictions concerning the relative salience of antecedents
are not predictions that should be construed in terms of a majority of one type
of response or a majority of the other type, given that the baseline level of, say,
matrix VP antecedents will be influenced by plausibility. Instead, the
7
We have no doubt that ultimately information-structure-based preferences will be more
complicated than suggested so far. But what is important for present purposes is not a fully fleshed
out account but rather a test of the hypothesis that information-structure-based preferences such as
the main assertion preference need not coincide with the general syntactic preference for material
low in the syntactic tree.
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predictions must be construed in terms of the baseline level of matrix VP

antecedents (VP1 antecedents) being greater in the across-sentence condition
than in the within-sentence condition.
3.1.1 Method
3.1.1.1 Materials. Twelve examples were constructed, with two versions
of each, as illustrated in (18). Each example consisted of three clauses with
VP-ellipsis in the third clause. The two versions of an example differed only in
whether the final claim was conjoined to the preceding clause or appeared as a
separate sentence. The resulting sentences (which appear in Appendix D) were
included in a questionnaire with an additional 20 sentences that had quantifier
scope ambiguity (e.g., In the movies, a man loved every woman). Each
sentence was followed by a two-choice response (e.g., (18) was followed by
What did Mary do? [1] went to Europe [2] said Fred went to Europe). Four
forms of the questionnaire were constructed, each with six examples of
sentences like (18) presented as single sentences and six as two-sentence
discourses, counterbalanced across the two forms and independently rand-
omized for each form.
3.1.1.2 Participants and procedures. Twenty University of Massachusetts
undergraduates completed the questionnaire for course credit. They were
instructed to read each sentence or two-sentence discourse, decide what it
meant to them, and then read and answer the following question. They were
asked to check the answer that they thought the sentence first meant to them
and were told not to puzzle over the frequently ambiguous sentences. Each
participant completed the questionnaire individually, at his or her own pace.
3.1.2 Results
For the items presented as single sentences, 60% of the responses indicated
that a lower (embedded clause) antecedent was selected. In the two-sentence
condition, a significantly smaller percentage of the responses (45%) indicated
the lower antecedent (t1(1, 19) ¼ 2.35, p < .03; t2(1, 11) ¼ 3.10, p < .02).
3.1.3 Discussion
The prediction that more recent material is preferred as the antecedent of
an ellipsis within a sentence but the discourse-salient (higher) material is
preferred across sentences was confirmed. Assuming that a multiple-
sentence discourse (as opposed to presenting the same material in a single
sentence) emphasizes the discourse representation, this finding supports our
proposal that salience relations differ between syntactic and discourse
representations—specifically, that syntactic representations govern availab-
ility within a sentence, but discourse representations dominate across
sentence boundaries.
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One might be concerned that the results of experiment 4 are entirely due
to the effect of recency on syntactic attachment rather than the relative
salience of main assertions across rather than within sentences. If there is a
preference in syntactic processing to attach new material to recently
processed material, the elliptical and Mary did too might be coordinated
with the recent phrase Fred went to Europe, which would effectively force it
to take the low antecedent. Syntactic coordination is not involved in
interpreting the two-sentence discourses, which removes this reason to
choose a low-antecedent interpretation. We cannot reject this suggestion on
the basis of experiment 4 (or 5). However, experiments 6 and 7 do address
the relative accessibility of main assertions under conditions where no
attachment ambiguity is present. We note further that the results of Walker,
Gough, and Wall (1968) suggest that the main assertion of an unambiguous
sentence has priority in memory after the sentence has been processed,
which justifies the basis for our proposed account of the results of
experiment 4.
One might be concerned whether the lower preferences observed in
experiment 4 are formed during ordinary, rapid reading versus being limited to
the kind of reflective processing that can take place while completing a written
questionnaire. Experiment 5 explored this possibility, as well as investigating
the effect of a adding a context that pragmatically biased readers toward or
away from a matrix interpretation of an ellipsis.
3.2 Experiment 5
Experiment 5 presented sentences in contexts that pragmatically biased
readers to either a matrix or an embedded-VP interpretation of ellipsis, as
illustrated in (19) and (20), and measured reading times and interpretations
using a self-paced reading procedure designed as a further test of the main
assertion tendency. The initial sentence in (19) and (20) contains an indirect
question querying who went where for vacation. The matrix subject of the
query in (19), John wondered…, is singular, imposing an embedded-VP
antecedent bias (a ‘‘low’’ bias), whereas in (20), John and Fred wondered…, it
is plural, imposing a matrix-VP antecedent bias (a ‘‘high’’ bias).
(19) John wondered who went where for their vacation. (low bias)
a. John said Mary went to Europe and Fred did (one sentence)
too.
b. John said Mary went to Europe. Fred did too. (two sentences)
(20) John and Fred wondered who went where for their (high bias)
vacation.
a. John said Mary went to Europe and Fred did (one sentence)
too.
b. John said Mary went to Europe. Fred did too. (two sentences)
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The main assertion hypothesis predicts more matrix-VP antecedents in the

two-sentence conditions (see (19b) and (20b)) than in the one-sentence
conditions (see (19a) and (20a)). If the bias from the context sentence is
effective, there should also be more matrix-VP antecedents in (20) than in
(19).
Reading times and question-answering times were recorded in experiment
5. The primary purpose was to discourage participants from ruminating on the
possible meanings of the discourses. However, the time data were examined to
explore the possibility that contextual bias conspires with the inherent bias of
the discourse form (one sentence vs. two) to affect speed of comprehension.
For instance, one might expect a reading-time advantage for (19b) and (20b),
where the two sources of bias are congruent, relative to their counterparts (see
(19a) and (20a)), where the inherent bias of the discourse form conflicts with
the contextual bias.
3.2.1 Method
Four versions of each of 16 two- and three-sentence items were made up on
the model of (19) and (20). All appear in Appendix E. The initial sentence of
two versions (a and b) began with a single proper-name subject, whereas the
initial sentence of the other two versions began with two conjoined proper
names (presumably biasing interpretation toward the matrix antecedent of the
elided VP, since the second proper name occurred as subject of the ellipsis). In
versions (a) and (c), the complement of the verb of saying appeared as a single
conjunction of two clauses, and in versions (b) and (d), it appeared as two
separate sentences. The latter version presumably would bias toward matrix
interpretations, following the main assertion hypothesis. These sentences were
assigned to four counterbalanced lists, with four instances of each version in a
list. The list contained 78 other sentences and two-sentence discourses of a
variety of different forms.
Experiment 5 was run concurrently with experiment 1b, so all procedures
described there apply here.
3.2.2 Results
The reading times and proportions of high attachment (main clause) answers
together with question-answering times (pooled over both answers) appear in
Table 4. The time measures proved generally uninformative. In reading times
for the second presentation segment, no effect approached significance (all
F < 1). Although both main effects (subject plurality, conjoined vs. separate
sentences) were nonsignificant in the analysis of question answering time
(F < 1), the interaction between the two factors was significant by subjects but
not by items (F1(1,47) ¼ 4.47, p < . 04; F2(1,15) ¼ 2.25, p < .16). Question-
answering times (pooled over both high- and low-attachment answers) may
have been longer in the singular subject, conjoined sentence case and the
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Table 4. Mean reading times and question-answering times (ms) and proportions of
high-attachment answers, experiment 5
Measure
Proportion
Time Question high
Condition Region 1 Region 2 time attachment
A (single subject, conjoined sentence) 2,755 3,407 2,742 .263
B (single subject, two sentence) 2,723 3,442 2,519 .343
C (conjoined subject, conjoined sentence) 3,095 3,417 2,602 .328
D (conjoined subject, two sentence) 3,171 3,388 2,724 .444
plural subject, separate sentence case than in the complementary cases. This
was precisely the opposite of the result predicted for sentence reading time:
Faster times when the initial sentence subject and the conjoined versus
separate nature of the two clauses resulted in the same interpretation bias than
when they had conflicting biases. We have no satisfying account of this
finding.
In contrast, the proportions of different answers chosen do help us evaluate
our hypotheses. High-attachment question answers were more frequent when
the initial sentence subject had two conjoined proper names (presumably
biasing toward matrix interpretation of the elided VP) than when the initial
sentence had a singular proper-name subject (F1(1,47) ¼ 4.68, p < .04;
F2(1,15) ¼ 11.75), p < .01). Similarly, high-attachment answers were more
frequent when the elided VP was contained in a separate sentence than when it
occurred in a conjoined sentence (F1,47) ¼ 5.35, p < . 03; F2(1,15) ¼ 9.28,
p < .01), which supports the main assertion hypothesis. The two factors did
not interact significantly.
3.2.3 Discussion
The question answers in experiment 5 provide further evidence for the main
assertion hypothesis. In experiment 4, questionnaire results suggested more
matrix-VP antecedents for two-sentence examples compared to one-sentence
examples. Experiment 5 found similar results when participants had to read
mini-discourses in a self-paced fashion, without being able to go back and
reflect on the sentence. However, sentence reading times did not show any
effect of bias, and question-answering times hinted that answering times were
actually slower if the context matched the inherent bias of the example than if
it mismatched, an admittedly statistically nonsignificant result which we are at
a loss to explain. We conclude that experiments 4 and 5 support the primary
predictions of the main assertion hypothesis, but leave questions about the
time course of integrating different sources of information in discourse
comprehension unanswered. The fact that the absolute levels of matrix-VP
antecedents varied across experiments and the fact that it only reached a level
of 44% in experiment 5 is really an issue concerning the baseline biases in the
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materials. As noted earlier, the absolute level of matrix-VP antecedent choice

is not really what is at issue; what matters is how the baseline is influenced by
the inter- versus intrasentential manipulation.
The effect of sentence boundaries in experiments 4 and 5 might be
influenced by implicit prosody: across sentence boundaries, readers are
presumably more likely to assume the presence of an intonational phrase
boundary than within a sentence. It is certainly plausible to think that
discourse chunks are defined by intonational phrases rather than by periods,
even in silent reading (Bader 1998, Fodor 2002). We note that Carlson,
Frazier, and Clifton (2004) have presented auditory studies manipulating the
presence of a continuation boundary tone (H%), which might be thought to
favor the following elided clause being included in the preceding sentence,
versus a low boundary tone (L%), which might favor ‘‘finality’’ and thus a
sentence boundary before the final elided clause. Despite the plausibility of
this approach, no effect of boundary tone was observed. In a later study where
the same intonations were paired appropriately with syntactically disambig-
uated one- versus two-sentence examples (by conjoining the two clauses with
and or not), the auditory results mirrored the reading results reported here: two
sentences resulted in more frequent matrix-clause choices than did their one-
sentence counterparts.
As noted in the discussion of experiment 4, it is possible to attribute the
difference between one- and two-sentence items to a recency preference in the
one-sentence items rather than to a relatively heightened availability of the
main assertion in the two-sentence items. Experiment 6 addresses this concern
by comparing the relative accessibility of main and subordinate assertions in
discourses where syntactic attachment is not an issue, and goes on to
demonstrate a recency-like effect that holds across a sentence boundary.
3.3 Experiment 6
Consider the sentences in (21).8
(21) a. Mary laughed after she made a joke about the supervisor. / Then
Tina did too.
b. After Mary laughed, she made a joke about the supervisor. / Then
Tina did too.
Assuming that the main clause expresses the main assertion of the initial
sentence, readers should be more likely to interpret did too as laughed in (21a)
8
Some colleagues have suggested that discourses like those in (21) may be prohibited by the
grammar. We are not aware of any grammatical proposal that would exclude examples like these.
Further, in a mini-discourse like (i), without any ambiguity, the sentence seems quite acceptable, as
would be expected if processing factors are responsible for the intuition that (21) is degraded.
(i) Jason is sick because he ate shellfish last night. But Mary did too and she didn’t get sick.
2005 The Author

than in (21b). Further, nothing in our proposal claims that clause order or the
recency of the VP antecedent should matter. The prediction that the preferred
interpretation of the ellipsis would relate it to the main assertion of the
previous sentence, regardless of clause order, was tested in experiment 6, a
self-paced reading study.
Experiment 6 also included sentences like those in (22), with two conjoined
clauses, only one of which is an appropriate antecedent for the following
ellipsis. There is no reason to pick out one of two conjoined clauses as the
main assertion of a sentence. Therefore, the main assertion hypothesis makes
no prediction about whether (22a) or (22b) would be easier to comprehend.
However, in this case, unlike (21), recency is predicted to have an effect. As
we discussed in section 2.1, the processing domain provided by a conjoined
structure may be either the entire conjoined structure, including all its
conjuncts, or just the most recent conjunct. This conjunction domain
hypothesis leads us to expect that (22a), where the most recent conjunct is
inappropriate as an antecedent for the following ellipsis, will be harder to
process than (22b), where the recent conjunct is the appropriate antecedent.
(22) a. Mary laughed and she was looking mischievous. / Then Tina did too.
b. Mary was looking mischievous and she laughed. / Then Tina did too.
3.3.1 Method
3.3.1.1 Materials. Sixteen two-sentence discourses were constructed, with
four versions of each. The first sentence of two versions (21a,b) contained a
main clause and a subordinate clause. In the (a)-form, the main clause
occurred first; in the (b)-form it occurred second. The matrix verb of the
(a)-form occurred as the subordinate verb in the (b)-form by moving
the subordinate conjunction (after) from the beginning of clause two in
the (a)-form to the beginning of the sentence in the (b)-form. Two forms
(22a,b) were conjoined clauses with the appropriate antecedent VP, the matrix
VP of (21a,b), in the first clause (22a) or the second clause (22b). The other
conjunct of the (22a,b) forms was inappropriate as the antecedent of did.
Typically, it was the copular verb (be) plus an adjectival phrase. All initial
sentences were followed by the same VP-ellipsis sentence. Materials appear in
Appendix F.
These 16 discourses were assigned to four counterbalanced lists, with four
instances of each version of the initial sentence in each list. Each was followed
by a two-choice question (e.g., What happened? Tina laughed. Tina made a
joke.) as illustrated in Appendix F. An additional 104 sentences and two-
sentence discourses of various constructions appeared in each list. The same
practice list described in experiment 5 was used in experiment 6.
3.3.1.2 Subjects and procedures. Forty-eight University of Massachusetts
undergraduates were tested in individual half-hour sessions. The procedures
were the same as used in experiment 5. In experiment 6, each of the two
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sentences was presented as a single presentation region in the noncumulative

fashion described in experiment 5.
3.3.2 Results
The mean reading times for the two sentences and question-answering times, and
the proportion of matrix answer choices (versions a and b) and appropriate
answer choices (versions c and d) appear in Table 5. As in experiment 5, the time
measures were less informative than the choice measures. For the sentences
containing a main clause and a subordinate clause (21a,b), clause order did not
influence reading times, question-answering times, or the frequency of choice of
matrix-VP antecedent (all values of t comparing versions (21a) and (21b) were
<1.0). Roughly 70% matrix-VP antecedents were chosen, significantly greater
than 50% (t1(47) ¼ 8.47, p < .001). Assuming the absence of other factors that
might influence choice of antecedent, this value is in line with the predictions of
the main assertion tendency. However, the principal conclusion we wish to draw
from this part of experiment 6 is that the apparent matrix-antecedent preference
does not reflect an underlying preference for primacy or recency of mention.
The conjoined sentences (22a,b) appeared to be read faster numeric-
ally when the antecedent VP occurred in the closer conjunct than when
it appeared in the distant conjunct, but the difference was not signi-
ficant (t1(47) ¼ 1.30, p ¼ .20; t2(15) < 1). Question-answering times
did not differ (t < 1). However, participants were significantly more
accurate when the antecedent VP was in the closer conjunct than when it
was in the distant conjunct (t1(47) ¼ 3.29, p < .002; t2(15) ¼ 2.67, p < .02).
3.3.3 Discussion
As predicted by the conjunction domain hypothesis, order did matter for
conjunction (22a,b): antecedent VPs in closer conjuncts were processed more
accurately (and nonsignificantly faster) than VPs in the distant conjunct. But
clause order did not matter for clauses that structurally distinguish the consti-
tuent clauses (21a,b) with one expressing the main assertion. In these cases,
a majority of matrix VP antecedents was chosen independent of clause order.
matrix answers (conditions A and B) and appropriate answers (conditions C and D),
experiment 6
Measure
Time Question Proportion high
A (matrix-subordinate) 2,828 1,267 3,321 .737 matrix
B (subordinate-matrix) 2,802 1,288 3,425 .697 matrix
C (conjoined, initial appropriate) 2,834 1,352 3,216 .777 appropriate
D (conjoined, final appropriate) 2,797 1,268 3,261 .886 appropriate
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We would like to suggest that this contrast between main/subordinate and

conjoined structure is important. In cases where there is a clear main assertion
(21a,b), the antecedent of the VP-ellipsis can be found in discourse structure.9
Information structure, not order, matters here. But when there is no clear main
assertion, the VP-ellipsis antecedent tends to be found in the syntactic
representation, where order does matter.
3.4 Experiment 7a
The results of experiment 6 confirm the expectation that the matrix clause
expresses the main assertion in sentences with a subordinate clause.
Experiments 4 and 5 suggest that in a matrix clause–complement clause
sentence, the matrix clause expresses the main assertion. But is that always so?
We expect not. For example, with the complement to a perception verb, it may
well be the complement that expresses the main assertion. And, with some
matrix clauses (I think), the contribution of the matrix clause is ‘‘epistemic’’
and only expresses the speaker’s certainty or degree of commitment to his
assertion. In such cases, the clause could often be replaced with an adverb
(presumably, clearly, etc.).
If the main assertion tendency holds not because the matrix predicate is high
in the syntactic tree but because of its information value, then the tendency for
a matrix-VP antecedent should not be as strong with (potentially) epistemic
matrix clauses as with other (nonepistemic) matrix clauses. Experiment 7a
(self-paced reading) tested this prediction.
3.4.1 Method
Sixteen two-sentence discourses like (23) were constructed, with four versions
of each.
(23) a. I think Mary smokes. / Sam does too.

b. The teacher thinks Mary smokes. / Sam does too.
c. I think that Mary smokes. / Sam does too.
d. The teacher thinks that Mary smokes. / Sam does too.
In the (a) and (c) forms, a first-person subject of a propositional attitude verb
appeared, along with a sentential complement. A second sentence contained
VP-ellipsis that in principle could take either the matrix or embedded VP as
its antecedent. The (b) and (d) forms were identical except that the matrix
subject was a (third person) definite description. The (c) and (d) forms
contained the overt complementizer that, but otherwise were identical to the
(a) and (b) forms, respectively. (Complementizer presence/absence was
9
Our analysis of the information structure of sentences with main and subordinate clauses is
likely to be too simplistic. Some sentences with main and subordinate clauses may express, as their
main assertion, precisely the connection between clauses.
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manipulated because it was not clear to us which form provided the fairest test
of the epistemic phrase/main assertion hypothesis.) All items appear in
Appendix G.
These 16 discourses were tested in four counterbalanced lists containing 94
items in all. Each item was presented in two segments, marked by the slash in
(23). Experiment 7 was run concurrently with experiment 3, so all the
procedures described there apply to the current study.
3.4.2 Results
The results of the study appear in Table 6. Reading times longer than
6,000 ms or shorter than 100 ms for one presentation segment were eliminated
(1.4% of all responses). No differences in reading times for the second
presentation segment (the ellipsis) were significant (F < 1 for the effect of
presence vs. absence of that, F1(1,47) ¼ 2.474, p ¼ .12; F2(1,15) ¼ 1.72,
p ¼ .21, for the epistemic/nonepistemic contrast; F1(1,47) ¼ 1.82, p ¼ .18;
F2(1,15) ¼ 1.04, p ¼ .33, for the interaction). Question-answering times did
not differ significantly either (Fs < 1 except for the interaction, where
F1(1,47) ¼ 3.82, p < .06; F2(1,15) ¼ 2.22, p < .16).
However, as predicted, matrix-antecedent answers were chosen more
frequently for the sentences with third-person subjects (23b,d) than for
sentences with potential epistemic clauses or first-person subjects (23a,c)
(50% vs. 32%; F1(1,47) ¼ 17.05, p < .001; F2(1,15) ¼ 9.23, p < .01). All
other effects were nonsignificant (F < 1).
3.5 Experiment 7b
To ensure that the results of experiment 7a obtained for the predicted
reason—the availability of a potential epistemic interpretation of the
matrix clause—and not due to the person manipulation per se, a follow-up
matrix answers, experiments 7a and 7b
Measure
Proportion
Time Question high
Experiment 7a
A (epistemic) 1,819 1,319 2,944 .322
B (nonepistemic) 2,360 1,336 2,734 .508
C (epistemic, that) 1,851 1,242 2,830 .322
D (nonepistemic, that) 2,505 1,358 2,989 .493
Experiment 7b
A (first person) 2,454 1,249 2,715 .408
B (non-first person) 2,988 1,398 2,862 .402
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study, experiment 7b, was conducted. Sixteen two-sentence mini-discourses

were constructed with a first-person subject and a third-person subject version
of each, as illustrated in (24). The sentences were adapted from those used in
experiment 7a primarily by altering the matrix verb. Instead of matrix verbs
like think or believe, which support an epistemic interpretation, the matrix verb
was a verb of saying or a verb like learn or find out.
3.5.1 Methods
Two versions of each of 16 sentences, like those illustrated in (24), were
constructed by modifying the experiment 7a items. All items are included in
Appendix H. One version of each of these 16 sentences was included in each
of two counterbalanced lists, together with 80 additional sentences of varying
structures.
(24) a. I revealed that Angela spoke Swahili. / Joe did too.

b. The assistant revealed that Angela spoke Swahili. / Joe did too.
Because the materials did not support an epistemic interpretation in neither the
first- nor third-person forms, no difference between the two forms was
expected in terms of proportion of choosing matrix antecedents for the elided
verb phrase in the second sentence.
Forty-eight University of Massachusetts undergraduates read these senten-
ces in a self-paced reading task, using the procedures described in experiment
7a.
3.5.2 Results
Table 6 presents the data for experiment 7b. The only data of real
interest are the proportions of choice of matrix-antecedent answers, in the
rightmost column. These values clearly do not differ, which shows that
the effects observed in experiment 7a were due to the epistemic status
of the sentences in that experiment, not the use of the first-person
pronoun.
3.6 Discussion: Salience Relations

Four studies supported the main assertion hypothesis. They suggested that
readers are more likely to relate new material to material in the matrix clause
than to material in a complement clause across sentences than within
sentences. However, we have argued that this tendency should be modeled in
information-structure terms, not tree-geometry terms, because the informa-
tional contribution of a clause matters. As we have shown in experiment 7a,
potentially epistemic matrix clauses provide less tempting antecedents than
nonepistemic clauses. We have also shown that the order of clauses does
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influence processing of antecedents in conjoined clauses but not in main-

subordinate clauses.10
Our evidence suggests that across sentences, one loses the low attachment or
recency preference and instead tends to prefer relating new material to the main
assertion of the prior utterance. Thus, we have evidence supporting two
systems: a syntactic system based on a syntactic vocabulary with salient recent
material, and a discourse system based on discourse entities, information
structure, main assertion, and the like, with salience for information occurring
in positions where important information is expected to occur.
In section 4 we turn to the processing of sluicing involving islands and the
interplay of syntactic and discourse processing.
4. Island Sensitivity
One potential difference in the operations of the syntax and discourse
processors is their differing ability to relate material to positions within islands
(e.g., violating the Complex NP Constraint). As discussed earlier, sluicing is a
structure where an embedded interrogative clause is elided and must be related
to earlier material, as illustrated in (25) (see Chung, Ladusaw & McCloskey
1995; also Romero 1998 and Merchant 2001, 2005).
(25) CP
Whati C′
Q IP
ti
Sluicing is possible either with an overt ‘‘inner antecedent’’ as in (26) or

without one as in (27). The elided material is presented in square brackets in
(26) and (27).
10
Some readers have suggested that perhaps readers prefer to relate new material to the main
assertion hypothesis because it is a stylistic preference taught to them in grade school. We
acknowledge that educators may well attempt to make their students aware of their otherwise-
implicit preferences with the aim of improving writing style. But we doubt very much that our
results (or those of Walker, Gough, and Wall 1968) can be explained solely in terms of arbitrary
prescriptions. Consider that, to produce our results, an educator would have to teach students that
main clauses are really important only when they are in a previous sentence, not the current one
(experiments 1 and 2). Further, the educator would have to teach the students that, although the
distinction between main and subordinate clauses matters, their sequence does not, while on the
other hand, the sequence of conjoined clauses does matter (experiment 6). Finally, the educator
would have to teach the students that an epistemic main clause like I think does not count but a
clause like The teacher thinks does (experiment 7a) and that a first-person main clause does count
when the verb is changed to make the clause nonepistemic (experiment 7b).
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(26) John ate something but I don’t know whati [John ate ti].
›
overt inner antecedent
(27) John ate but I don’t know what [John ate ti].
In examples without an overt inner antecedent, the syntactic processor must
simply build (‘‘sprout’’) the syntactic structure in the elided clause that includes
the variable bound by the interrogative constituent. Sprouting of structure is
possible only where it violates no syntactic constraint. Frazier and Clifton
(1998a) show that it takes longer to read the final clause of the sentence (but I
don’t know what) when sprouting is required (27) than when it is not (26).
In an eye-movement recording experiment, Frazier and Clifton showed that
reading an ambiguous sluicing sentence (28a) takes less time on the final clause
(but nobody knows who) than an unambiguous counterpart disambiguated to
the dispreferred structure (28b) (where a slash indicates an analysis region
boundary; total reading times, including rereading time, appear below each
analysis region, followed in parentheses by first-pass times; all times are in ms).
(28) a. Somebody claimed / that the president fired / but nobody knows
someone who.
1,136 (953) 2,053 (1593) 1,040 (876)
b. Somebody claimed / that the president fired / but nobody knows
Fred who.
1,162 (953) 2,106 (1578) 1,148 (968)
They argued that readers prefer an analysis where the inner antecedent is
overtly focused or it occurs in a position where focused material is likely to
occur, as in (28a) on the analysis where the embedded object (someone) is the
inner antecedent. Independent evidence for this assumption derived from an
auditory study with a prominent pitch accent on either the matrix subject or the
embedded object. More object-antecedent interpretations were reported with
the object accent (72%) than with the subject accent (48%).
Chung, Ladusaw, and McCloskey (1995) observed that sluicing may violate
the Complex NP Constraint but only if an overt inner antecedent is present
(29a), not if sprouting of structure is required (29b).11
11
In the recent linguistic literature, especially Merchant 2005, in press (but also see Fox & Lasnik
2003), a rather elegant account of island violations and ellipsis has emerged. The idea is that illicit
(island-violating) movements leave a marker of ungrammaticality ‘‘*’’ on the illicit intermediate
traces. In sluicing, these marks are deleted by the ellipsis, whereas in VP-ellipsis, where island
violations lead to clear ungrammaticality, the highest offending * remains after the VP is elided.
Given the present approach to island violations in sluicing, the difference between sluicing island
violations and VP-ellipsis violations must lie elsewhere. One possibility is that Max-elide (Merchant,
in press) is violated in the VP-ellipsis example (i) because the entire clause could have been elided, as
in (ii).
(i) *They want to hire someone who speaks a Balkan language, but I don’t remember which
they do.
(ii) They want to hire someone who speaks a Balkan language, but I don’t remember which.
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(29) Complex NP Constraint:

a. They hired someone (who won something) but I can’t remember
what.
b. #They hired someone (who won) but I can’t remember what.
Imagine that the discourse processor can perform an operation replacing an

overt constituent with a variable of type e. That is, when it has cause to do so
(there is a missing variable), the discourse processor may replace a constituent
with a variable, and it is particularly likely to do so when the constituent is
focused. The sluicing behavior noted above would follow immediately, given
the processing system proposed here. Sprouting requires actually building
syntactic structure—an operation of the syntactic processor. But the syntactic
processor cannot violate islands, so no variable can be sprouted inside an
island. However, when an overt constituent, especially a (potentially) focused
one, is present, the discourse processor can replace it with a variable. The
discourse processor can do this even if the constituent is inside an island
because, by hypothesis, the discourse processor is not island sensitive.
4.1 Experiment 8a
Experiment 8a (an acceptability judgment questionnaire) tested the predictions
of this account in sluicing sentences containing a Complex NP Constraint or a
Subject Condition violation, as illustrated in (30) and (31), respectively.
(30) a. Frederica listened to some tenor who was singing but she didn’t say
what.
b. Frederica listened to some tenor who was singing something but
she didn’t say what.
c. Frederica listened to some tenor who was singing SOMETHING
but she didn’t say what.
(31) a. To win is possible but we don’t know what.

b. To win something is possible but we don’t know what.
c. To win SOMETHING is possible but we don’t know what.
Note that nonsluicing sentences like these are clearly ungrammatical; (32)
violates the Complex NP Constraint, and (33) violates the Subject Condition.
(32) *What will Frederica listen to (some tenor who is singing t)?
(33) *What do we know (to win t) is possible?
Inside the ellipsis site of (30), a variable must be postulated inside a

(copied) complex noun phrase (the tenor who was singing vbl). It is this
variable that the interrogative constituent binds. Similarly, in (31), a variable
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must be postulated inside the subject (to win vbl), and it is this variable that the
interrogative constituent must bind. We expect that sentences with an overt
inner antecedent will be rated relatively acceptable, especially when that
antecedent is focused (presented in capital letters), as in (30c) and (31c).
Without an overt inner antecedent ((30a) and (31a)), the sentences should be
rated less acceptable because neither the syntactic processor, due to the need to
go inside an island, nor the discourse processor, which is unable to build
syntactic structure, can produce the variable needed to interpret the
interrogative constituent.
4.1.1 Method
Twelve sentences like (30) and 12 sentences like (31) were constructed, with
three versions of each. All sentences appear in Appendix I. They were mixed
with 44 filler sentences, including 16 sluicing sentences involving conjunction
(e.g., Katy won a prize and excelled but Alex didn’t say what) and 12
unquestionably unacceptable sentences (e.g., sentences without a gap site in a
relative clause). Three versions of each of the 24 experimental sentences were
constructed, with no overt inner antecedent or with an overt inner antecedent
in either lowercase or uppercase (which was presumed to impart focus). Three
counterbalanced forms of a questionnaire were constructed, with four of each
set of items in each version. Each sentence was followed by a 5-point rating
scale, with 1 marked ‘‘unacceptable’’ and 5 marked ‘‘acceptable.’’
Forty-eight University of Massachusetts undergraduates completed the
questionnaire for course credit. The participants were explicitly instructed to
interpret the capitalized words as accented and emphasized and to provide their
intuitive judgment of the acceptability of each sentence after reading in a normal
fashion. ‘‘Acceptable’’ was described as applying to a sentence that the parti-
cipant could easily imagine hearing or saying (even if it were complex), and
‘‘unacceptable’’ as applying to a sentence that the participant would say only by
mistake or would not expect a native speaker of English to say.

The mean acceptability ratings appear in Table 7. Analyses of variance
indicated that the Complex NP Constraint violation sentences were rated as
Table 7. Mean acceptability ratings, experiment 8a: 5 ¼ acceptable,

1 ¼ unacceptable
Island type
Inner antecedent Complex NP Subject Condition
Missing 3.07 2.53
Lowercase 3.40 3.05
Uppercase 3.75 3.35
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more acceptable than the Subject Condition violation sentences (F1(1,

47) ¼ 22.93, p < .001; F2(1, 22) ¼ 12.76, p < .002). Of greater interest,
the effect of type of inner antecedent was also highly significant (F1(2,
94) ¼ 23.79, p < .001; F2(2, 4) ¼ 12.29, p < .001). Each of the three inner
antecedent means differed significantly (p < .01) from each other mean. The
interaction between the two variables was nonsignificant (F < 1). These
results indicate that the presence of an overt inner antecedent, stressed or
otherwise, alleviates some of the difficulty of finding an inner antecedent of a
sluice inside an island. We suggest that this reduction of processing difficulty
reflects the operation of the discourse processor, especially its insensitivity to
islands.
A reviewer pointed out that over half of the verbs in experiment 8a seem to
take indefinite implicit objects but that several (win, race, drive, fail, and
arguably trade and eat) apparently take definite implicit objects. The form
of sluicing we used requires an indefinite inner antecedent (see Carlson,
Dickey, Frazier & Clifton 2005 for experimental work on the compre-
hension of definite sluices). The reviewer suggested that the results we
report might hold true only for the items with indefinite implicit objects.
However, we performed separate analyses on the two sets of items and found
that each set separately exhibited the pattern of ratings that we reported for the
full set.
4.2 Experiment 8b
The final experiment followed up experiment 8a, using a speeded
acceptability judgment task, to determine whether the effects seen in
experiment 8a depended on the presence of an island. It examined sluicing
sentences like those in (34) and (35). The inner antecedent of the sentences
in (34) was inside a relative-clause island, whereas in (35) it was not inside
an island. To the extent that the increase in acceptability of the sluicing
sentence of experiment 8a that had overt inner antecedents was due to the
overt constituent enabling the discourse processor to overcome a syntactic
island violation, the benefit conferred by the overt inner antecedent should
be smaller for sentences without an island than for sentences with the inner
antecedent inside an island.
(34) a. They hired someone who won but I can’t remember what.
b. They hired someone who won something but I can’t remember
what.
c. They hired someone who won SOMETHING but I can’t remember
what.
(35) a. Someone won but I can’t remember what.

b. Someone won something but I can’t remember what.
c. Someone won SOMETHING but I can’t remember what.
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4.2.1 Methods
Thirty sentences like those in (34) and (35) were constructed, six versions
each. All sentences appear in Appendix J. They were assigned to six
counterbalanced lists, so that five sentences of each version appeared in each
list, and each sentence occurred in each version in one list. The resulting 30
items in each list were combined with 106 other sentences of a variety of
forms.
Sixty University of Massachusetts undergraduates were tested in individual
half-hour sessions. The procedures were essentially the same as those
described in experiment 3 except that each experimental sentence was
presented in two segments: the initial clause, and the clause containing the
sluice. Subjects received instructions about how to classify sentences as
acceptable or not, made judgments about sentences in a practice list, and then
made judgments about the experimental items and the remaining 106 items in
an individually randomized order. Responses and reaction times to the sluiced
clause were recorded and analyzed.
4.2.2 Results
The mean proportion ‘‘acceptable’’ responses and the mean reaction times of
all responses appear in Table 8. As was the case previously, reaction times
were uninformative. Although times were slower when sprouting was required
than when it was not and were slower when the inner antecedent was in a
relative-clause island (all p < .001), the interaction between sprouting and
island was nonsignificant (F < 1).
However, analysis of the proportion of ‘‘acceptable’’ responses did indicate
that extraction from an island played a role in the difficulty of sprouting. The
numbers of ‘‘acceptable’’ responses differed among the three inner antecedent
conditions (F1(2,118) ¼ 39.61, p < .001; F2(2,58) ¼ 66.19, p < .001), being
lower when sprouting was required than when it was not. Further, relative-
clause islands depressed ‘‘acceptable’’ judgments (F1(1,59) ¼ 21.88,
p < .001; F2(1,39) ¼ 7.05, p < .01). Most importantly, the interaction between
the two factors approached significance (F1(2,118) ¼ 3.92, p ¼ .02;
F2(2,58) ¼ 2.32, p ¼ .11). Given that the difference between lowercase and
uppercase was negligible, these two conditions were pooled, and the analyses
of variance were rerun. Now the interaction F values were F1(1,59) ¼ 6.58,
Table 8. Proportion ‘‘acceptable’’ and reaction time (ms), experiment 8b

Measure
Proportion ‘‘acceptable’’ Reaction time
Inner antecedent Complex NP Main clause Complex NP Main clause
Missing .583 .702 2,351 2,158
Lowercase .794 .833 2,036 1,938
Uppercase .805 .863 2,050 1,937
2005 The Author

p < .02; F2(1, 29) ¼ 3.49, p ¼ .07. The requirement of sprouting inside an
island lowered acceptability judgments from 80% to 58%, but sprouting in a
main clause lowered acceptability judgments only from 85% to 70%.
We take this as suggestive evidence that sprouting inside an island is
particularly costly and that some of its cost can be alleviated by providing an
overt inner antecedent. The presence of an overt inner antecedent seems to
have less of an effect when sprouting is required in a main clause, where no
island is present.
4.3 Discussion of Experiments 8a and 8b

The results of experiments 8a and 8b indicate that an overt, explicit inner
antecedent helps a sluicing sentence to overcome an island violation,
especially if the inner antecedent is focused (at least in the acceptability
rating study, experiment 8a). We suggest that having an overt inner antecedent
permits the discourse processor to interpret the corresponding elided
constituent as a variable. Further, the discourse processor can relate an
interrogative constituent to such a variable even within an island, especially if
the inner antecedent is focused. As argued earlier, the syntactic processor is
required to sprout a missing inner antecedent, but it must obey island
constraints and thus cannot sprout an antecedent in our island-violation
sentences. The main conclusion to take away from experiment 8 is that the
syntactic processor and the discourse processor differ both in their ability to
build syntactic structure and in their ability to relate material to positions
inside islands. The fact that focus improved the status of the island violation
sentences in experiment 8a is really striking: typically, one expects violations
to be more severe when the focus directs attention to the ill-formedness of the
sentence rather than directing attention away from it.12
5. Conclusions
For the type of ellipsis discussed here—ellipsis that may cross sentences—we
have argued that syntactic structure is present for the elided material through
copying or sharing of structure from the antecedent. In addition to linguistic
evidence for this assumption, the results of experiments 1–3 support this view
and present a challenge to alternative views (see Hardt 1993; Shieber, Pereira
& Dalrymple 1999).
12
A reviewer suggested that perhaps an account of these facts could be based on scope.
Assuming that an implicit argument must take narrow scope but that a focused argument may
scope outside an island, perhaps a scope-based account could be developed. However, this would
seem to predict a sharp contrast between focused antecedents, on the one hand, and implicit and
unfocused antecedents, on the other, given the usual assumption that relative clauses are islands for
(unfocused) quantifiers. This does not fit well with our data, where unfocused overt antecedents
are intermediate, sometimes closer to the focus condition and sometimes closer to the implicit
condition.
2005 The Author

Across sentence boundaries, readers and listeners expect to relate new

material to already given material using information structure, not tree
structure. Evidence has been presented that the notion of ‘‘main assertion’’ is
critical: new material does not typically relate to information presented as
being of subordinate importance. Although the notion of ‘‘main assertion’’
requires further elaboration, typically the main assertion of an utterance is
the highest predication: the highest VP in sentences containing a main clause
and relative clause; the main clause, not the subordinate clause, given a
sentence containing main and subordinate clauses, assuming default
intonation. In matrix clause–complement clause sentences, typically the
matrix predicate contains the main assertion, though we have presented
evidence that epistemic matrix clauses do not. We suspect that the
complement of a perception verb may also present the main assertion of
an utterance. These observations fit with the present proposal that the notion
of ‘‘main assertion’’ does not necessarily get fleshed out in terms of some
invariant tree geometry property (highest VP). Intonation, for example, is
expected to play a critical role in identifying the main assertion of an
utterance.
We have proposed that the syntactic and discourse systems operate on
distinct representations, the former defined in terms of familiar syntactic
vocabulary (DP, VP, c-command, etc.) and the latter crucially involving a
representation of discourse entities and the information-structure status of
these entities. That a particular constituent or its discourse representation
counterpart can be more accessible than some other constituent in syntax but
not in discourse representation (or vice versa) is expected on this view. In this
sort of framework, it is not too mysterious that the presence of a sentence
boundary may decrease the accessibility of the syntactic representation and
increase the accessibility of the discourse representation of material preceding
the sentence boundary, which would explain the results of experiments 4 and
5, for example (as well as influencing the probability of bound-variable
interpretations, see Frazier & Clifton 2000).
Prior psycholinguistic evidence demonstrates that the syntactic processor
obeys islands (especially Traxler & Pickering 1996). If one makes the
natural assumption that only the syntactic processor may build syntactic
structure, then the otherwise surprising distribution of island violations in
sluicing follows immediately: island violations are possible, but only if the
discourse processor may identify the variable bound by the interrogative
constituent in the sluiced clause. The assumption that the discourse
processor may replace a copied overt constituent with a variable leads to a
natural account of the sluicing facts reported in experiment 8. To our
knowledge, our proposal offers the only explanation to date for the
observation that island violations are not permitted in ‘‘sprouting’’
examples.
The proposal we have made in the present paper addresses only one piece
of a very complex issue. Our proposal raises many questions and makes
2005 The Author

numerous predictions beyond those we have tested to date. But we think it

does begin to bridge the gap between syntactic processing and discourse
processing.
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Lyn Frazier
University of Massachusetts
Department of Linguistics
226 South College
Amherst, MA 01003
USA
[email protected]
Charles Clifton, Jr.

University of Massachusetts,
Psychology Department
Tobin Hall
Amherst, MA 01003
USA
[email protected]
Appendix A: Materials Used in Experiments 1a and 1b

All four versions of item 1 as used in experiment 1b are shown, but only
version A appears for the remaining items. The slash indicates division into
presentation segments.
1. A. Bob ate his burger and rented something to watch /but he didn’t
say what.
B. Bob rented something to watch and ate his burger /but he didn’t
say what.
C. Bob ate his burger and he rented something to watch /but he didn’t
say what.
D. Bob rented something to watch and he ate his burger /but he
didn’t say what.
2. Barbara cooked roast beef and baked/but she didn’t mention what.
3. Jill drank coffee and typed/but I couldn’t see what.
4. Timothy stamped his feet and muttered/but nobody knew what.
5. Brenda sent a postcard and promised something/but Jane didn’t know
what.
6. Martin went home and called/but it’s not clear who.
7. Michael slept and studied/but he didn’t tell me what.
8. George worked hard and passed/but I forgot what.
9. Linda got angry and ignored someone/but Sally didn’t say who.
10. Katy excelled and won a prize/but Alex didn’t say what.
2005 The Author

11. Roger stewed and mumbled/but nobody could hear what.

12. Lynne slipped and broke something/but she didn’t say what.
13. Ellen made molasses cookies and wrapped something/but we don’t
know what.
14. Jason raked the lawn and built something/but Kate didn’t mention
what.
15. Josh got frightened and smashed something/but the neighbors didn’t say
what.
16. Jessica coughed and took some medicine/but I don’t know what.
Appendix B: Materials Used in Experiment 2

All four versions of each sentence are illustrated, separated by a slash.
1. Dulles investigated some man Bill said you did./Dulles investigated

some man you did, Bill said./Dulles investigated some man Bill said you
knew./Dulles investigated some man you knew, Bill said.
2. Clinton disliked some aide Tom reported Gore did./Clinton disliked
some aide Gore did, Tom reported./Clinton disliked some aide Tom
reported Gore hired./Clinton disliked some aide Gore hired, Tom
reported.
3. Hillary praised some reporter Max claimed Bill did./Hillary praised
some reporter Bill did, Max claimed./Hilary praised some reporter Max
claimed Bill detected./Hilary praised some reporter Bill detected, Max
claimed.
4. The victim picked out some suspect Mary said the witness did./The
victim picked out some suspect the witness did, Mary said./The victim
picked out some suspect Mary said the witness recognized./The victim
picked out some suspect the witness recognized, Mary said.
5. Barbara hated some senator Frank claimed Bush did./Barbara hated
some senator Bush did, Frank claimed./Barbara hated some senator
Frank claimed Bush supported./Barbara hated some senator Bush sup-
ported, Frank claimed.
6. Sharon cornered the same guest that John claimed Fred did./Sharon
cornered the same guest that Fred did, John claimed./Sharon cornered
the same guest that John claimed Fred pestered./Sharon cornered the
same guest that Fred pestered, John claimed.
7. Tanya contested every ruling that May reported the DA did./Tanya
contested every ruling that the DA did, Mary reported./Tanya contested
every ruling that May reported the DA wrote./Tanya contested every
ruling that the DA wrote, May reported.
8. Max berated the same employees that Kathy claimed Tom did./Max
berated the same employees that Tom did, Kathy claimed./Max berated
the same employees that Kathy claimed Tom criticized./Max berated the
same employees that Tom criticized, Kathy claimed.
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9. Ernesto invited some foreigner that Kate said Tony did./Ernesto invited
some foreigner that Tom did, Kate said./Ernesto invited some foreigner
that Kate said Tom met./Ernesto invited some foreigner that Tom met,
Kate said.
10. Fritz visited some friend that Iran claimed Janis did./Fritz visited some
friend that Janis did, Iran claimed./Fritz visited some friend that Iran
claimed Janis knew./Fritz visited some friend that Janis knew, Iran
claimed.
11. Pamela criticized some editor that Frank suspected Ann did./Pamela
criticized some editor that Ann did, Frank suspected./Pamela criticized
some editor that Frank suspected Ana hated./Pamela criticized some
editor that Ana hated, Frank suspected.
12. Karen taught some child that Jason thought Sue did./Karen taught some
child that Sue did, Jason thought./Karen taught some child that Jason
thought Sue helped./Karen taught some child that Sue helped, Jason
thought.
13. Laura described the criminal that Lou said Tina did./Laura described the
criminal that Tina did, Lou said./Laura described the criminal that Lou
said Tina identified./Laura described the criminal that Tina identified,
Lou said.
14. Carey adored every singer that Carlos mentioned Gary did./Carey adored
every singer that Gary did, Carlos mentioned./Carey adored every singer
that Carlos mentioned Gary liked./Carey adored every singer that Gary
liked, Carlos mentioned.
15. Gregory hired some contractor that Joe said Ellen did./Gregory hired
some contractor that Ellen did, Joe said./Gregory hired some contractor
that Joe said Ellen fired./Gregory hired some contractor that Ellen fired,
Joe said.
16. Michael entertained some executive that Rita said Joel did./Michael
entertained some executive that Joel did, Rita said./Michael entertained
some executive that Rita said Joel liked./Michael entertained some
executive that Joel liked, Rita said.
Appendix C: Materials Used in Experiment 3

Presentation regions for sluicing sentence are marked by a slash.
1. What lecture was Sally impressed {withâfter}?

Sally was impressed {withâfter} some lecture, /but I don’t remember
what.
Sally was impressed {withâfter} some lecture.
2. What part of the driving test did Ferdinand worry {aboutâfter}?
Ferdinand worried {aboutâfter} some part of the driving test, but he
never told us what.
Ferdinand worried {aboutâfter} some part of the driving test.
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3. What movie did John write his homework assignment {aboutâfter}?

John wrote his homework assignment {aboutâfter} some movie, /but I
don’t remember what.
John wrote his homework assignment {aboutâfter} some movie.
4. What news report did Mary cry because {ofâfter}?
Mary cried because {ofâfter} some news report, /but she didn’t say
what.
Mary cried because {ofâfter} some news report.
5. What offensive remark at the rehearsal did Stan apologize {forâfter}?
Stan apologized {forâfter} some offensive remark at the rehearsal, /but
I forgot what.
Stan apologized {forâfter} some offensive remark at the rehearsal.
6. What exhibition at the Metropolitan did Robert submit an article
{aboutâfter}?
Rob submitted an article {aboutâfter} some exhibition at the Metro-
politan, /but Sally forgot what.
Rob submitted an article {aboutâfter} some exhibition at the Metro-
politan.
7. What misunderstanding with Fred was Sandra upset {aboutâfter}?
Sandra was upset {aboutâfter} some misunderstanding with Fred, /but
nobody knew what.
Sandra was upset {aboutâfter} some misunderstanding with Fred.
8. What academic award did Karsten gloat {aboutâfter}?
Karsten gloated {aboutâfter} some academic award, /but Ana couldn’t
recall what.
Karsten gloated {aboutâfter} some academic award.
9. What illness did Anna suffer {fromâfter}?
Anna suffered {fromâfter} some illness, /but she didn’t tell us what.
Anna suffered {fromâfter} some illness.
10. What legal proceedings did Luis resign {fromâfter}?
Luis resigned {fromâfter} some legal proceedings, /but he didn’t say
precisely what.
Luis resigned {fromâfter} some legal proceedings.
11. What new policy change did Alex grumble {atâfter}?
Alex grumbled {atâfter} some policy change, /but now I’ve forgotten
what.
Alex grumbled {atâfter} some new policy change.
12. $What official announcement did Mark get upset {aboutâfter}?
Mark got upset {aboutâfter} some official announcement, /but we can’t
recall what.
Mark got upset {aboutâfter} some official announcement.
13. What official ceremony did Ewan laugh {atâfter}?
Ewan laughed {atâfter} some official ceremony, /but he didn’t reveal
what.
Ewan laughed {atâfter} some official ceremony.
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14. $What boring performance did Paul sleep {throughâfter}?

Paul slept {throughâfter} some boring performance, /but he didn’t say
what.
Paul slept {throughâfter} some boring performance.
15. $What mishap did Pat tell funny stories {aboutâfter}?
Pat told funny stories {aboutâfter} some mishap, /but I don’t know
exactly what.
Pat told funny stories {aboutâfter} some mishap.
16. $What incident at work did Paul resign because {ofâfter}?
Paul resigned because {ofâfter} some incident at work, /but we don’t
know exactly what.
Paul resigned because {ofâfter} some incident at work.
17. What press event did the singer run away {from^before}?
The singer ran away {from^before} some press event, /but she didn’t
mention what.
The singer ran away {from^before} some press event.
18. What strange event did Bella write a letter home {aboutâfter}?
Bella wrote a letter home {aboutâfter} some strange event, /but I never
knew what.
Bella wrote a letter home {aboutâfter} some strange event.
19. What public event did Kyle talk to his students {aboutâfter}?
Kyle talked to his students {aboutâfter} some public event, /but I don’t
recall what.
Kyle talked to his students {aboutâfter} some public event.
20. What noisy sporting event did Gina try to talk to her boyfriend
{atâfter}?
Gina tried to talk to her boyfriend {atâfter} some noisy sporting event,
but she didn’t say what.
Gina tried to talk to her boyfriend {atâfter} some noisy sporting event.
21. What event at the meal did Karen complain {aboutâfter}?
Karen complained {aboutâfter} some event at the meal, /but Tom didn’t
say what.
Karen complained {aboutâfter} some event at the meal.
22. What event did Sam get really nervous {about^before}?
Sam got really nervous {about^before} some event, /but his wife didn’t
mention what.
Sam got really nervous {about^before} some event.
23. $What competitive event was Lisa training hard {for^before}?
Lisa was training hard {for^before} some competitive event, /but she
didn’t tell us exactly what.
Lisa was training hard {for^before} some competitive event.
24. $What political event did Trevor write stories {aboutâfter}.
Trevor wrote stories {aboutâfter} some political event, /but we can’t
remember what.
Trevor wrote stories {aboutâfter} some political event.
2005 The Author

Appendix D: Materials Used in Experiment 4

Item (1) is shown in both one-sentence and two-sentence versions, with the
following question. Other items are shown only in the one-sentence version;
their questions were formed as shown for item (1).
1. John said Fred went to Europe and Mary did too.

John said Fred went to Europe. Mary did too.
What did Mary do? ___went to Europe. ___said Fred went to Europe.
2. Jason claimed Tom left school and Tina did too.
3. Lynne indicated Marcie signed up for a car mechanics class and Peter
did too.
4. Lucy mentioned Kathy got sick and Joe did too.
5. Michael wrote Sam got married and Emily did too.
6. Fred thought Max opened a business and Gloria did too.
7. Melissa assumed Karen got a raise and Ernie did too.
8. Julie said Mary went to the rally and Greg did too.
9. Henry suggested Ian studied all yesterday evening and Maria did too.
10. Roger thought Steve missed class and Barbara did too.
11. Jessica assumed Sharon got an award and William did too.
12. Jenny said Anne bought a Siberian husky and Tom did too.
Appendix E: Materials Used in Experiment 5

Item (1) is shown in all four versions, followed by a question. The remaining
items are shown in the conjoined-name subject, single-sentence condition,
without the question.
1. A. John wondered who went where for their vacation. John said Mary
went to Europe and Fred did too.
B. John wondered who went where for their vacation. John said Mary
went to Europe. Fred did too.
C. John and Fred wondered who went where for their vacation. John said
Mary went to Europe and Fred did too.
D. John and Fred wondered who went where for their vacation. John
said Mary went to Europe. Fred did too.
What happened?
Fred said Mary went to Europe. Fred went to Europe.
2. Jason and Tina asked who left school. At one point, Jason claimed Tom
left school and Tina did too.
3. Lyn and Tim wondered who signed up for what. Then Lyn remembered
Marcie signed up for a shop class and Tim did too.
4. Lucy and Joe asked whether anyone got sick. Later Lucy mentioned
Kathy got sick and Joe did too.
5. Michael and Emily wondered who got married. Later Michael wrote
Sam got married and Emily did too.
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6. Fred and Gloria asked if anyone opened a business. Later Fred thought
Max opened a business and Gloria did too.
7. Melissa and Ernie were wondering if anyone got a raise. Later Melissa
asserted Karen got a raise and Ernie did too.
8. Julie and Greg asked if anyone went to the rally. Later Julie said Mary
went to the rally and Greg did too.
9. Henry and Maria wondered whether anyone studied yesterday. Later
Henry suggested Ian studied all evening and Maria did too.
10. Roger and Barbara wondered out loud whether anyone dared to miss
class. Later Roger said Steve missed class and Barbara did too.
11. Jessica and William asked if anyone they knew got an award. Later
Jessica announced Sharon got an award and William did too.
12. Jenny and Tom wondered if anyone bought a dog. Later Jenny assumed
Anne bought a Siberian husky and Tom did too.
13. Pamela and Sally wondered who passed the physics exam. Later Pamela
reported Gene passed the physics exam and Sally did too.
14. Gretchen and Sandy wondered if children still get lice at school. Later
Gretchen admitted Billy got lice at school and Sandy did too.
15. Robert and John wondered if any of their friends received a fellowship.
Later Robert revealed Ferne got a fellowship and John did too.
16. Carson and Jeremy asked if anyone had left for the holidays. Later
Carson insisted Paulina left already and Jeremy did too.
Appendix F: Materials Used in Experiment 6

All four versions of sentence (1) are shown, together with both question forms.
Only versions A and C of the remaining sentences are shown.
1. A. Mary laughed after she made a joke about the supervisor. Then Tina
did too.
B. After Mary laughed she made a joke about the supervisor. Then Tina
did too.
C. Mary laughed and she was looking mischievous. Then Tina did too.
D. Mary was looking mischievous and she laughed. Then Tina did too.
What happened?
Tina laughed. Tina made a joke.
What happened?
Tina laughed. Tina was looking mischievous.
2. Sam sat down after he introduced himself. Then Fred did.
Sam sat down and he was unhappy. Then Fred did.
3. Mark telephoned home after he drove downtown. Then Pete did.
Mark telephoned home and he was sounding angry. Then Pete did.
4. Melissa bought curtains after she went to the hardware store. Then Lisa
did.
Melissa bought curtains and she was smiling a lot. Then Lisa did.
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5. Peter crashed his car after he went on vacation. Then Lou did.
Peter crashed his car and he was dazed. Then Lou did.
6. Rita planted lilacs after she redesigned the garden. Then Pamela did.
Rita planted lilacs and she was looking very satisfied. Then Pamela did.
7. Bush announced a program after he visited the Middle East. Then Blair
did.
Bush announced a program and he was hopeful. Then Blair did.
8. The host fixed drinks after he greeted the guests. Then the hostess did.
The host fixed drinks and he was jovial. Then the hostess did.
9. Patrick checked the ticket after he left the travel agency. Later Lynne did.
Patrick checked the ticket and he was upset. Later Lynne did.
10. Shawn learned French after he went to Paris. Later Greg did.
Shawn learned French and he was proud. Later Greg did.
11. Ian got a job after he went to Harvard. Later Max did.
Ian got a job and he was well-liked. Later Max did.
12. Jessica published a novel after she wrote short stories. Later Patsy did.
Jessica published a novel and she was optimistic. Later Patsy did.
13. David developed a video game after he quit his job. Later Stan did.
David developed a video game and he was active in his church. Later
Stan did.
14. Caitlin started catering after she came to Amherst. Later her sister did.
Caitlin started catering and she was a mother. Later her sister did.
15. Katherine became a lawyer after she went to Washington. Later Lea did.
Katherine became a lawyer and she was modeling. Later Lea did.
16. Lisa studied medicine after she became an oncologist. Later her husband
did.
Lisa studied medicine and she was an oncologist. Later her husband did.
Appendix G: Materials Used in Experiment 7a

The question is illustrated for item (1).
1. I think / The teacher thinks (that) Mary smokes. Sam does too.
What about Sam?
He thinks Mary smokes. He smokes.
2. I think / The assistant thinks (that) Angela speaks Swahili.pp Joe does too.
3. I believe / The students believe Stan cooks.pp John does too.
4. I believe / Ron believes (that) Roger plays the violin.pp Barbara does too.
5. I know / Rob knows (that) Fred listens to WFCR.pp Gina does too.
6. I know / The principal knows (that) Jason makes robots.pp Victor does too.
7. I claim / Ian claims (that) Pam lies.pp Jessica does too.
8. I claim / The councilor claims (that) Karen excels at languages.pp Thomas
does too.
9. I assume / The secretary assumes (that) Lisa wants to get married.pp Tina
does too.
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10. I assume / The supervisor assumes (that) Peggy goes to class.pp Sharon
does too.
11. I guess / Sue guesses (that) Tim leaves tomorrow.pp Fred does too.
12. I guess / Katy guesses (that) Edgar reads poetry.pp Richard does too.
13. I think / Lucy thinks (that) Pat writes well.pp Charles does too.
14. I guess / Bill guesses (that) Lucinda works hard.pp Joe does too.
15. I assume / The lawyer assumes (that) Fritz likes dogs.pp Teresa does too.
16. I know / The hostess knows (that) Carey hates vegetables.pp Tom does too.
Appendix H: Materials Used in Experiment 7b

Question and alternative answers are shown only for item (1).
1. On the program, I learned/the teacher learned that Mary smoked.pp Sam

did too.
What about Sam?
He learned that Mary smokes. He smoked.
2. I/The assistant revealed that Angela spoke Swahili.pp Joe did too.
3. In this episode, I found out/the waiter found out that Stan cooked.pp John
did too.
4. I/The singer revealed that Roger played the violin.pp Barbara did too.
5. I/The student announced that Fred listened to WFCR.pp Gina did too.
6. During the interview, I/the guest let slip that Jason made robots.pp Victor
did too.
7. I/The boss said that Pam lied.pp Jessica did too.
8. I/The teacher wrote that Karen excelled at languages.pp Thomas did too.
9. I/The reporter started a rumor that Lisa wanted to get married.pp Tina did too.
10. I/The principal found out that Peggy went to class.pp Sharon did too.
11. I told/The driver told people that Tim left for vacation.pp Fred did too.
12. At the crucial moment, I learned/the editor learned that Edgar read
poetry.pp Richard did too.
13. I assured/Your brother assured you that Pat wrote well.pp Charles did too.
14. I swore/The worker swore to you that Lucinda worked hard.pp Joe did too.
15. I/The man happened to learn that Fritz liked dogs.pp Teresa did too.
16. At the table, I revealed/the mother revealed that Carey hated vegetables.pp
Tom did too.
Appendix I: Materials Used in Experiment 8a

Complex NP Constraint violations
1. They hired someone who won (something) but I can’t remember what.
2. The journalist interviewed someone who raced (something) but I don’t
know what.
3. Jill noticed some stranger who was eating (something) in the computer
room but she didn’t say what.
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4. The neighbors spotted someone who was hunting (something) but they
didn’t say what.
5. Charles talked to some kids who were playing (something) but he didn’t
mention which game.
6. Frederica listened to some tenor who was singing (something) but she
didn’t say what.
7. Gordon quieted someone who was whispering (something) but he didn’t
know what.
8. Claudia knows someone who knits (something) constantly but she didn’t
say what.
9. Tom cursed some guy who was driving (somewhere) dangerously but he
didn’t say where.
10. Jason recognized some girl who screamed (something) but he couldn’t
hear what.
11. Melissa comforted some student who failed (something) but she didn’t
mention what.
12. Teresa admires some lady who bakes (something) but she didn’t say what.
Subject Constraint violations

1. To win (something) is possible but we don’t know what.
2. To race (something) is stupid but nobody said what.
3. For every visitor to trade (something) is customary in China but the
guide didn’t say what.
4. To hunt (something) is possible but the ranger didn’t mention what.
5. For girls to play (something) is OK in Brazil but Anna didn’t say which
sport.
6. To sing (something) at the ceremony is possible but Max didn’t say
what.
7. To paint (something) would be helpful but nobody told me what.
8. To knit (something) in class is alright but the teacher didn’t say what.
9. For foreigners to drive (somewhere)is dangerous but the officials didn’t
indicate where.
10. To juggle (some things) inside is a bad idea but the instructor didn’t say
what.
11. To criticize (something) is not polite in this culture but Rex didn’t say what.
12. To bake (something) at the campsite is possible but Lucy didn’t say what.
Appendix J: Materials Used in Experiment 8b

Each item occurred in three forms: null, lowercase, and uppercase inner
antecedent.
1. They hired someone who won something but I can’t remember what.
Someone won something but I can’t remember what.
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2. The journalist interviewed someone who raced something but I don’t

know what.
Someone raced something but I don’t know what.
3. Jill noticed some stranger who was eating something in the computer
room but nobody said what.
Some stranger was eating something in the computer room but nobody
said what.
4. The neighbors spotted someone who was hunting something but I never
heard what.
Someone was hunting something but I never heard what.
5. Charles talked to some kids who were playing something but nobody
mentioned what.
Some kids were playing something but nobody mentioned what.
6. Frederica listened to some tenor who was singing something but Anita
didn’t say what.
Some tenor was singing something but Anita didn’t say what.
7. Gordon quieted someone who was whispering something but I don’t
know what.
Someone was whispering something but I don’t know what.
8. Claudia knows some neighbor lady who knits something constantly but
we never figured out what.
Some neighbor lady knits something constantly but we never figured out
what.
9. Tom cursed some guy who was driving somewhere dangerously but
nobody found out where.
Some guy was driving somewhere dangerously but nobody found out
where.
10. Jason recognized some girl who screamed something but nobody could
hear what.
Some girl screamed something but nobody could hear what.
11. Melissa comforted some student who failed something but we don’t
know what.
Some student failed something but we don’t know what.
12. Teresa admires some church lady who bakes something but we don’t
recall what.
Some church lady bakes something but we don’t recall what.
13. Fernanda praised the girl who was drawing something but I don’t know
what.
The girl was drawing something but I don’t know what.
14. Melissa wrote to an official who was investigating something but we
can’t remember what.
An official was investigating something but we can’t remember what.
15. The workmen complained to a supervisor who was watching something
but nobody knew for sure what.
A supervisor was watching something but nobody knew for sure what.
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16. Michael dated a teenage girl who was always investigating something
but heaven knows what.
A teenage girl was always investigating something but heaven knows
what.
17. Karl knew a woman who was usually baking something but who knows
what.
A woman was usually baking something but who knows what.
18. Shawn talked about a friend who was spending the summer studying
something although I have forgotten what.
A friend was spending the summer studying something though I have
forgotten what.
19. The cameraman mentioned an actor who was snorting something but
nobody told us what.
An actor was snorting something but nobody told us what.
20. The seamstress greeted a girl who was cutting something but we
couldn’t see what.
A girl was cutting something but we couldn’t see what.
21. The designer introduced me to a man who was measuring something but
I didn’t notice what.
A man was measuring something but I didn’t notice what.
22. Paula introduced us to a strange man who was eating something but we
didn’t want to know what.
A strange man was eating something but we didn’t want to know
what.
23. Cynthia called a friend who was cleaning something but Anne didn’t say
what.
A friend was cleaning something but Anne didn’t say what.
24. Kyle noticed a policeman who was writing something but even the
reporters didn’t find out what.
A policeman was writing something but even the reporters didn’t find
out what.
25. Angela put up a friend who was painting something but nobody could
say what.
A friend was painting something but nobody could say what.
26. Sandra worried about a guy who was protesting something but only the
arresting officer knows what.
A guy was protesting something but only the arresting officer knows
what.
27. Lillian invited home a guy who was apparently trespassing somewhere
but we don’t know where.
A guy was apparently trespassing somewhere but we don’t know
where.
28. The saxophone player hit the guy who was spilling something all over
and we can guess what.
The guy was spilling something all over and we can guess what.
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29. The student watched the teacher who was angrily grading something but
the student was afraid to ask what.
The teacher was angrily grading something but the student was afraid to
ask what.
30. Fritz likes the secretary who is always drinking something but we can’t
find out what.
The secretary is always drinking something but we can’t find out what.
2005 The Author


The Syntax-Discourse Divide: Processing Ellipsis: Lyn Frazier and Charles Clifton, JR

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Syntax 8:2, August 2005, 121–174

THE SYNTAX-DISCOURSE DIVIDE:

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ellipsis is licensed by semantic identity (Merchant 2001, 2005; Rooth

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(1) Syntax Discourse

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that there is a basic distinction between surface anaphora, which requires a

(2) The garbage needed to be taken out.

The deep anaphor did it in (2a) is acceptable even though no linguistically

(3) a. Hunters of deer tend to like them. (them ¼ deer)

In self-paced reading experiments, they tested pronouns (they) referring back

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antecedent with those lacking a parallel antecedent. In what follows, we ﬁrst

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2. Syntactic Structure for the Elided Material

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(4) a. *Max bought some presents and Fred did to Mary.

(5) Whoi did John go ﬁshing with ti?

Languages that do not permit preposition stranding in questions (e.g., German,

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ﬁrst conjunct, given a dependence to the left, as in the marginally acceptable

In experiment 1, sluicing is examined. Consider (8), where the interrogative

Imagine that studied is now placed inside a conjoined VP as in (9a,b) or a

On the other hand, if there is only a semantic or discourse representation of the

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2.1.2 Results and discussion

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Table 1. Mean ratings for sluicing sentences, experiment 1a: 5 ¼ natural,

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underscores and the second presentation segment to appear (the ﬁnal

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(10) Dulles suspected everyone who you did [e].

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By hypothesis, the processor will initially choose to interpret the DP in its

(13) a. Dulles investigated some men Bill said you did.

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two-clause (13a,c) versus one-clause (13b,d) relative clauses. The main

2.3.2 Results and discussion

Table 2. Mean naturalness ratings, experiment 2: 5 ¼ natural,

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The account provided for the results of experiment 2 clearly presupposes

(14) a. What lecture was Sally impressed with?

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2.5 Discussion: Structure at Ellipsis Site

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(15) a The man who wore a red tie approached a woman.

(16) Main assertion hypothesis:

The main assertion hypothesis is intended to capture the reader’s expectation

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(17) The scout the Indians saw killed a buffalo.

Within a sentence, we assume that the syntactic (including LF) representation

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predictions must be construed in terms of the baseline level of matrix VP

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