This paper concerns the so-called Swiping elliptical construction in English involving a wh-phrase followed by a preposition (e.g., Where from? as a response to I just moved here). The construction displays quite idiosyncratic properties in many respects: it applies only to a limited set of wh-expressions and prepositions, occurs only in Sluicing environments, and typically disallows an overt correlate in the antecedent clause. The paper reports a corpus investigation for the uses of the construction in real life and suggests a direct interpretation (DI) approach couched upon a construction-based HPSG framework that posits neither clausal sources nor derivational processes. It shows that the DI analysis can serve better in accounting for the semi-productive Swiping construction in English.
1. Introduction
2. Some Key Properties
3. Previous Analyses: Movement and Deletion Approaches
4. Corpus Findings and Discussion
5. An Analysis: A Direct Interpretation Approach
6. Conclusion
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