MaxElide vs. MaxPronominalize

The term ‘MaxElide’ is used to refer to the phenomenon that deletion of the smaller constituent leads to ungrammaticality when the larger constituent can be deleted. This article, however, argues that the so-called MaxElide effects bear no relation with ellipsis, but follow from the constraint ‘MaxPronominalize’. In this article, I claim that pronominalization is subject to the pronominalization economy, according to which the maximal constituents must be pronominalized, with the result that the maximal constituents are not pronounced when the pronoun is realized as a zero form. A consequence of the MaxPronominalize approach is that it sheds light on the question of where the island constraints apply. In an attempt to explain the phenomenon that the elided part is not subject to the island constraints, many linguists, including Fox and Lasnik (2003), Lasnik (2007), Merchant (2001, 2003, 2008), propose that island violation can be repaired via ellipsis, while assuming that the island constraints apply at PF. However, the MaxPronominalize approach shows that the island constraints are not conditions on PF representation but on the syntactic derivation, as Chomsky (2001, 2008) proposes.