Non-finite VP ellipsis, Clefts, and Phase

The present paper proposes that the well-known difference between ECM to vs. control to distinction with respect to VP ellipsis can be nicely explained under the theory of dynamic phasehood as it relates to ellipsis. Previous research tried to derive the ECM to vs. control to distinction with VP ellipsis either with syntactic agreement or with non-syntactic notions like prosody. Although the present paper does not have much to say about the latter, the former analysis is shown to be deficient and under-motivated. The proposed analysis of this paper can account for two more related observations: the multiple auxiliary effect and the relationship between verb types and extraction out of VP ellipsis. In a nutshell, the dynamic phasehood-based solution is shown to provide a better explanation of the difference of the two instances of infinitival to and be fruitfully extended to cover further empirical domain.