A Minimalist Approach to VP-Ellipsis in the English Comparative Construction

A Minimalist Approach to VP-Ellipsis in the English Comparative Construction

This paper explores why VP-ellipsis is obligatory in English comparative construction if T-to-C movement has applied (Merchant 2002). Merchat's solution in terms of the ECP at PF is critically reviewed. The solution of this paper comes from an extension of Holmberg's (1999) new generalization on Scandinavian object shift in terms of focus feature, [+Foc]. In particular, it is argued that the ill-formedness is due if a [+Foc] element does not happen to be in the same clause with a [-Foc] element. This paper entertains Lasnik's (2002) idea that the classical clause-mate condition still holds in many aspects of syntactic phenomena.