This dissertation investigates two elliptical phenomena, sluicing and verb phrase ellipsis (VPE), in Indonesian. This dissertation is equally concerned with description and formal analysis, and provides the first in-depth description and generative analysis of both Indonesian sluicing and VPE.; First, I show that Indonesian displays auxiliary-stranding VPE, similar to English. I demonstrate that this ellipsis (i) targets the vP and (ii) is distinct from other elliptical phenomena including null complement anaphora, stripping, comparatives, and individual null constituents.; Second, I show Indonesian sluicing to be typologically unusual, failing to obey Merchant's (2001) Preposition Stranding Generalization. This generalization, which posits a correlation between preposition stranding in wh-questions and preposition omission in sluicing, has been argued to support the PF-Deletion approach (e.g. Ross 1969), under which sluices are formed with wh -movement identically to non-elliptical wh-questions. I show that, under PF-Deletion, Indonesian sluices involve wh-movement, arguing (i) the sluices are not elliptical wh-clefts, but are elliptical wh-questions and (ii) Indonesian wh-questions involve wh-movement. Indonesian sluicing thus presents a challenge to PF-Deletion.; Thirdly, sluiced wh-phrases crosslinguistically are known to not be subject to island constraints. Under PF-Deletion, islands are realized as properties of PF representations, and violations are repaired through deletion of the island from the representation. I argue this view of islands is untenable within Minimalism, showing it is impossible to formulate Subjacency as a constraint on representations. Consequently, the lack of island effects under sluicing cannot be handled by PF-Deletion. I contend a theory of ellipsis must be compatible with the alternative view of islands: the Minimal Link Condition, as part of the definition of Move (Chomsky 2004), prevents all Subjacency-violating movements.; Finally, I propose a Minimalist 'LF-Copying' analysis, compatible with Subjacency as an inviolable constraint, to account for Indonesian sluicing. The wh-phrase is generated in [Spec, CP] and later associated with a TP-internal variable, following 'sidewards' movement of the antecedent TP into the sluiced clause. In Chung, Ladusaw, and McCloskey's original (1995) proposal, this association obtains via a semantic coindexing operation, Merger. I propose Merger be reformulated as long-distance Agree (Chomsky 2004) between C0/wh-phrase and its correlate in the antecedent TP.
展开▼
