Embedded-complement and discontinuous pseudogapping in Hybrid Type-Logical Grammar: a rejoinder to Kim and Runner (2022)

Abstract

Abstract In their recent paper on pseudogapping in Construction Grammar/HPSG, Kim and Runner (Kim, Jong-Bok & Jeffrey T. Runner. 2022. Pseudogapping in English: A direct interpretation approach. The Linguistic Review. https://doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2022-2094) suggest that the analysis of pseudogapping in Hybrid Type-Logical Grammar (Hybrid TLG) presented in Kubota and Levine (Kubota, Yusuke & Robert Levine. 2017. Pseudogapping as pseudo-VP ellipsis. Linguistic Inquiry 48(2). 213–257) does not explain certain complex patterns of pseudogapping for which their own proposal does offer an account. Though Kim and Runner’s (2022) remarks on Kubota and Levine (Kubota, Yusuke & Robert Levine. 2017. Pseudogapping as pseudo-VP ellipsis. Linguistic Inquiry 48(2). 213–257) leave room for interpretation, we take it to be reasonably clear that they simply mean that it is difficult to see how such data could be formally accounted for in Kubota and Levine’s proposal. The primary goal of our response is to refute Kim and Runner’s claim on this interpretation. After refuting their claim on this interpretation, we consider a different interpretation of their remarks, one which merely questions the conceptual plausibility of Kubota and Levine’s (2017) broader theoretical architecture. This latter discussion leads to some interesting and important cross-theoretical comparison of different approaches to ellipsis.