Deletion versus pro-forms: an overly simple dichotomy?

摘要

This paper examines an anaphoric construction, British English do, and locates it within the dichotomy in the ellipsis literature between deleted phrases and null pro-forms, concluding that the choice is a false one, in that pro-forms involve deletion as well; the question, then, is how to account for the differential permeabil-ity to dependencies that require external licensing of the various deleted constituents. British English do has some characteristics of a fully deleted phrase, and some of a pro-form. The paper proposes that deletion is involved in this construction, but of a smaller constituent than can host wh-movement or long quantifier-raising. Therefore, deletion must occur within the syntax, in order to bleed syntactic processes. It is fur-ther shown that, within a phase-based syntax, Voice must be a phase rather than v, but that both functional heads must exist, and offers a new explanation for the incompati-bility of passive and British English do, as well as an account of why some languages, like English, lack impersonal passives, while others, such as Dutch, allow them.