Table of contents
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Chapter 1.Introduction
1.1Characteristics of spontaneous speech
1.2Types of fragments and ellipses
1.2.1Structural ellipses
1.2.2Performance governed apocopes in spoken language
1.2.3Freestanding constituents
1.2.4Discourse ellipses
1.2.5Elliptical data from written registers
1.3A distinct grammar for spontaneous speech?
1.3.1Same grammar or different grammars?
1.3.2Dialogism versus monologism
1.4Well-formedness in discourse ellipses
1.5Collection of data
1.6Overview of the book
Chapter 2.Null arguments in generative theory
2.1Pro drop and zero topic
2.2German subject/object asymmetries
2.3The null constant
2.4Null subjects in abbreviated registers – structural truncation?
2.5Fundament ellipsis in Swedish
2.6Towards a uniform approach to null arguments
2.7The need for an empirical and theoretical broadening
Chapter 3.Foundations of a grammar model
3.1A selective approach to meaning: Grammar Semantics
3.2A weak interpretation of the Principle of Full Identification
3.3Endoskeletal versus exoskeletal theories
3.3.1Lexically driven grammars
3.3.2The exoskeletal alternative
3.3.3Five syntactic frames in Norwegian
Chapter 4.A g-semantic syntax with insertion slots
4.1Syntactic terminals – the building blocks
4.2Empty slots for insertion
4.3Separationism in the functional domain
4.4Clausal architecture
4.4.1CP – Illocutionary force and speech acts
4.4.2TP – a tense operator
4.4.3A predication operator in PrP
4.4.4An exoskeletal approach to VP
4.4.5The ontology of lexical semantics
4.5Conclusion
Chapter 5.Silent structure and feature construal
5.1The structure question
5.2Agreement and valuation of phi-features
5.2.1Active agreement features in the ellipsis site
5.2.2Checking by valuation
5.2.3Semantic agreement
5.2.4An alternative analysis: Feature construal
5.2.5Feature construal in discourse ellipses
Chapter 6.Semantic licensing restrictions
6.1Phonological deletion
6.2Deletion through movement
6.3Semantic identity and structural licensing restrictions
6.4Recoverability of deletion
6.4.1The original principle
6.4.2Expanded use of the principle – recoverability in context
6.4.3Strategies for identification
6.5Shortcomings of the recoverability condition
6.5.1Expletive subjects and copula verbs
6.5.2Structural licensing
6.6Processing discourse ellipses
Chapter 7.Structural licensing conditions
7.1The vulnerability of the C-domain
7.1.1The C-domain as an interface to discourse
7.1.2Preposed elements in [spec,CP]: topic and focus
7.1.3Non-sentence initial discourse ellipses
7.1.4Person restrictions on topic drop
7.1.5Interacting syntactic and semantic restrictions
7.2The CP–TP connection – Silence under Agree
7.2.1Empirical patterns
7.2.2No CP in subject-initial clauses?
7.2.3Feature inheritance from C to T – a phase-based analysis
7.2.4Silence under Agree
7.3Agreement and silence in the C – T complex
7.3.1Omitted topicalized subject
7.3.2Omitted topicalized object
7.3.3Omitted topicalized subject and auxiliary
7.3.4Omission of topicalized object and auxiliary is impossible
7.3.5Ellipsis in yes/no questions
7.3.6Lexical verbs versus modal and perfective auxiliaries
7.4Why is there a subject/object asymmetry in the C-domain?
Chapter 8.Concluding remarks
8.1Empirical and theoretical contributions
8.2Prospects
References
Empirical sources
Appendix
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