2.2 Fragments as elliptical sentences
2.2.1 In situ deletion
The most straightforward version of a sentential account derives fragments from regular sentences using those ellipsis mechanisms that are needed anyway to ac-count for other types of ellipsis, such as gapping or sluicing. Reich (2007) presents such an account.6 In a nutshell, he argues that all those parts of the utterance which are not focused are elided, and that the distribution of focus is determined by the relevant Question under Discussion (QuD, Roberts 1996), which can be either implicit or explicit.
The restriction of ellipsis to non-focused expressions follows from question-answer congruence, the licensing condition that Reich (2007) imposes on ellipsis.
Reich (2007) assumes a question-based discourse structure (following Roberts
5This “deletion” is assumed to occur only on the phonological form (PF) that determines the acoustic realization of the sentences, but not on the logical form (LF) that determines their meaning in the terminology of Chomsky (1981).
6Reich’s theory is specifically motivated by a set of similarities between short answers and gapping. I restrict the presentation of this account to fragments.
1996), so that the information structure of a sentence is determined by the imme-diately preceding QuD. The QuD can be either explicit or implicit. In Reich’s examples of fragments it is explicit, because he discusses short answers and not initial fragments. However, his theory can account for discourse-initial fragments in the same way, since one of his main goals is a uniform anal-ysis of fragments and gapping, where ellipsis is licensed by an implicit QuD.
Reich (2007) resorts to Rooth’s (1992) theory of question-answer congruence in order to formally define the relationship between question and answer. Fol-lowing Rooth (1992), Reich assumes that the meaning of a question is equivalent to the set of its potential answers, which can be obtained by replacing the wh-phrase by an existentially bound variable. For an answer to be well-formed, it must obey the two constraints in (12): First, C-Answer (12a) determines that the answer A must be included in the denotation of Q (Reich 2007: 472). Second, F-Answer determines that the answer’s focus value, which, following Rooth (1992), is calculated by replacing focused expressions with existentially bound variables, must be a superset of the denotation of the question (Reich 2007: 472).
(12) a. C-Answer: [[A]]∈[[Q]].
b. F-Answer: [[Q]]⊆[[A]]F (and |[[Q]]∩[[A]]F|≥2)
Reich shows how these constraints explain in interaction why (14a), but not (14b) or (14c) are information-structurally well-formed answers to (13).
(13) a. Which student did John invitet? (Reich 2007: 472) b. [[(13a)]] = {p;∃x[x a student & p=that John invited x]}
(14) a. John invited [Sue]F. (Reich 2007: 472)
b. *[Sue]Finvited John.
c. #John invited [Noam Chomsky]F.
Reich (2007: 472) defines the focus values for (14a) and (14b) as (15). The focus value of (14a) in (15a) entails the denotation of the question (13b) and thus con-forms to F-Answer. Since the answer is included in the denotation of the ques-tion (provided that Sue is a student), C-Answer is also respected. In the case of (14b), its focus value in (15b) does not entail (13b), therefore the answer is not congruent. The focus value of (14c) does entail (13b), but C-Answer is violated, becauseNoam Chomskyis not contained in the set of students so that (14c) is not included in the set of possible answers.
(15) a. [[(14a)]]F= {p;∃x[x∈De& p=that John invited x]}
b. [[(14b)]]F= {p;∃x[x∈De& p=that x invited John]}
Syntactically, Reich (2007: 472) links the question to the answer by assuming a squiggle operator∼, which adjoins to the highest node of the syntax tree of the answer, the CP. The operator introduces a variable Γ, which is coindexed with the question (16). The operator presupposes that the answer is congruent to the question with respect to the two constraints in (12a) discussed above. This notion of question-answer congruence is the licensing condition for ellipsis.7
(16) a. [Which professor did John invitet?]1 (Reich 2007: 472) b. [John invited [Noam Chomsky]F]∼ Γ1.
Reich (2007) defines ellipsis as PF-deletion, which can target only non-focused constituents, because the F-mark on focused ones requires them to receive a pitch accent (Selkirk 1984).8Defining ellipsis as a post-spellout phenomenon, which ap-plies to PF only, explains why it has no effects on LF. Technically, Reich proposes that PF-deletion proceeds top-down starting at the sister node ofΓ(CP, the root node of the answer) according to the rules in (17).
(17) PF-deletion (Reich 2007: 473)
a. F-markers are upper bounds to PF-deletion.
b. Maximize PF-deletion. (short answers and gapping) Taking the sentential answer (16b) as a starting point, the application of these PF-deletion rules yields the fragment in (18a) as the only acceptable outcome of the operation. Preserving larger parts of the structure, e.g. (18b), is ruled out by the need to maximize PF-deletion spelled out in (17b). Reich suggests that this second clause of the rule is specific to short answers and gapping, whereas (17a) applies to all types of ellipses.
7See Reich (2007: 474–477) for a comparison to Merchant’s (2001) notion of e-givenness.
8Ott & Struckmeier (2016) sketch a very similar account but argue that it is the background of the utterance that can be deleted rather than the focus that cannot. They argue that this accounts better for the ability of German modal particles (MPs) to survive ellipsis (i), because MPs do not encode propositional meaning but the attitude of the speaker. According to Ott &
Struckmeier, MPs neither belong to the focus nor to the background, so that the PF-deletion rules in Reich (2007) predict them to be omitted, while their own account does not.
(i) Who did Peter invite? (Ott & Struckmeier 2016: 227–228)
a. Er
‘Presumably he has invited his friends.’
b. Wohl
(18) a. [Noam Chomsky]F.
b. *Invited [Noam Chomsky]F.
The theory by Reich (2007) makes a series of testable predictions on the form of fragments. First, just like other sentential accounts, it predicts fragments to ex-hibit connectivity effects due to the unarticulated syntactic structure which they contain. Second, linguistic context, and specifically the relevant QuD, should have a strong effect on the form of fragments, because ellipsis is licensed only if the answer is congruent to the question. This is specifically expected when the QuD is explicit, as it is in question-answer sequences or other adjacency pairs. Implicit QuDs must be inferred by the hearer, who will try to accommo-date a QuD that is congruent to the fragment. If the speaker is cooperative, such a QuD will always be accessible, because otherwise the speaker would prefer to utter a full sentence. Third, the form of fragments will also be constrained by focus projection rules, because only F-marked constituents survive ellipsis and the background is PF-deleted. Language-specific differences with respect to these rules will be reflected in different possible forms of fragments. Finally, Re-ich (2007) allows for discontinuous non-constituent fragments. This contrasts with most of the other accounts of fragments discussed in this section, which re-quire fragments to be a single constituent. If multiple independent constituents are F-marked in a specific context, e.g. in case of multiplewh-questions (19), all of them must survive ellipsis.
(19) [Waiter serving a couple their food:] Who ordered what?
Customer: She ordered the pizza.