Part of
The Sociolinguistics of GrammarEdited by Tor A. Åfarli and Brit Mæhlum
[Studies in Language Companion Series 154] 2014
► pp. 171–190
In Norwegian discourse ellipses, elements in the left edge of the clause are most frequently elided. Yet, a topic drop analysis is argued to be empirically too narrow, since occasionally the whole C-domain is silent. I propose an analysis which combines semantic and structural restrictions: Ellipsis must obey the semantic recoverability condition. On the structural side, the whole C-domain can be unrealized only when all the elements are part of the same Agree-relation. If the constituent in (spec,CP) is not part of this agreement system, e.g. if the object is topicalized, ellipsis of the whole domain is illicit. Ellipsis of only (spec,CP) is possible in any case, given that the semantic identity criteria are fulfilled.