A Theory of Parallelism and the Case of VP Ellipsis

We provide a general account of parallelism in discourse, and apply it to the special case of resolving possible readings for instances of VP ellipsis. We show how several problematic examples are accounted for in a natural and straightforward fashion. The generality of the approach makes it directly applicable to a variety of other types of ellipsis and reference. 1 The Problem of VP Ellipsis VP ellipsis has received a great deal of attention in theoretical and computational linguistics (Asher, 1993; Crouch, 1995; Dalrymple, Shieber, and Pereira, 1991; Fiengo and May, 1994; Gawron and Peters, 1990; Hardt, 1992; Kehler, 1993; Lappin and McCord, 1990; Pr¨ust, 1992; Sag, 1976; Webber, 1978; Williams, 1977, inter alia). The area is a tangled thicket of examples in which readings are mysteriously missing and small changes reverse judgments. It is a prime example of a phenomenon at the boundary between syntax and pragmatics. VP ellipsis is exemplified in sentence (1). (1) John revised hi...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: ACL
• Authors: Jerry R. Hobbs, Andrew Kehler
• Keywords: ACL 1997, ACL 2007, John’s Paper, Teacher Revised John, Vp Ellipsis