Another Look at Re-binding in English VP Ellipsis

This paper revisits the issue of when re-binding in cases of VP ellipsis in English is degraded, and a new analysis is given that revises the proposal in Hardt (2006) in order to account for the claim made in Takahashi and Fox (2005) that focus plays a role in allowing for re-binding. Although focus plays a role, it appears to do so only when certain conditions are met. A new generalization is proposed according to which the potential of focus to allow for re-binding is crucially limited by (among other factors) whether the focus is on a potential binder of an elided pronoun. An updated version of Hardt’s proposal is given that captures this generalization.