Ellipsis

It is well-known that Chinese seems to allow “deletion” or “ellipsis” prominently – constituents that are inaudible or invisible but are still meaningful. This chapter focuses on the important properties of the more commonly recognized elliptical structures in Chinese and some promising analyses, without comparing alternatives. The constructions discussed are NP-ellipsis, DP ellipsis, VP-ellipsis (the Aux construction and the shi construction (IP ellipsis)), and so-called sluicing. The apparent sluicing construction should be more appropriately labeled as pseudo-sluicing. The chapter shows that these ellipsis constructions do not represent a coherent class of constructions in the sense that they can all be captured by one single analysis, be it PF deletion or deletion in syntax or interpretive approach (LF copying).