The goal of this paper is to propose a syntactic analysis of MaxElide effects. Past researchers have been intrigued by the fact that VP-ellipsis is impossible whenever sluicing is possible. Various attempts have been made, but not very successful to provide a theoretical account, so that the researchers had to stipulate, with descriptive terms, that ellipsis must target the largest possible constituent. In this paper, we attempt to make a theoretical explanation of why such a phenomenon exists. We propose that there be a functional projection, called Ellipsis Phrase (EP) in the left-periphery, and that the uninterpretable uE in EP must agree with the E feature in a functional head, such as Focus for sluicing and Voice for VP-ellipsis. In the cased where both functional heads bear the E features, only the closest E may be able to agree with uE, following the standard locality condition. This locality condition of feature agreement captures MaxElide effects. Since the E feature in the Focus head is always closer to the one in the Voice head, uE always agree with the E feature in the Focus head. Under the assumption that only the agreed E feature imposes PF-deletion, sluicing always takes place. VP-ellipsis is correctly predicted to be blocked since it could not agree with uE in this situation.
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