Gapping and Sluicing in Persian: A Minimalist Approach

The omission of linguistic objects from derivation, generally called ellipsis, has long attracted the attention of linguists. Ellipsis comes in different forms, though it is usually possible when some types of antecedents are available; in the form of either linguistic expressions or non-linguistic expressions. Gapping in which a verb (with or without its dependents) is removed in some series of coordinations has long been proved to be problematic in syntactic theories because of its unique properties. Despite their many tempting similarities, gapping and pseudogapping are distinct constructions in English. Johnson (2009) showed that pseudogapping is a special instance of VP-ellipsis, while gapping is a special instance of across-the-board movement. Contrary to what Johnson (2009) proposed for gapping in English, the present study argues that gapping in Persian is a kind of sluicing, in which TP is deleted from the second conjunction preceded by scrambling of the remnant constituents to the specifiers of some functional projections (such as TopP or FocP). According to this line of analysis, Persian is a language in which there is no elision of pseudogapping and main verb in VP-deletion due to obligatory V-raising out of the VP. The Minimalist approach is a research method that attempts to define an optimal design for human language by postulating only those assumptions which are minimally required on conceptual grounds. These assumptions include a grammar that generates Logical Form (LF) and Phonetic Form (PF) pairs for all sentences. These pairs are compiled from the features of lexical items by an optimal computational system and must have the morphosyntactic features of all lexical elements which have been checked at the interfaces for appropriate interpretability. The features which relate sound and meaning come in binary divisions; they can be interpretable or uninterpretable, and weak or strong. The property of interpretability, generally used as a driving force behind the establishment of syntactic dependency in the minimalist system, is supposed to play a central role in the syntactic computation to drive the transition into the interpretive LF component. The idea is that uninterpretable forces feature matching and any uninterpretable feature which has been matched will be deleted. To put it more concretely, unlike interpretable features which have an effect on semantic interpretation and can participate in more than one checking operations, the uninterpretable ones must be eliminated before they reach LF; otherwise, Full Interpretation will be violated. In addition to having the property of interpretability, features have a second property, known as strength. Strong features must be checked before the grammar splits; indeed, if any strong feature is left unchecked before spelling out, the derivation fails at PF. To sum up, the feature strength is used to ensure locality between two features (that is, to trigger movement). Within this framework, I examine two kinds of famous deletions in Persian: gapping and sluicing. We need the feature, checking mechanism, for the verb movement in this language which affects the omission of internal and external arguments from derivation. In line with the feature, checking, which has been introduced in the previous section, we examine the properties of gapping and sluicing within the Minimalist framework. Generally speaking, gapping is an ellipsis in which a verb is removed in one, or more series of coordinations, while pseudogapping is simply elision of the main verb by VP ellipsis leaving the auxiliary in situ. Despite many speculations about their similarities, gapping and pseudogapping are distinct constructions. Pseudogapping is a special instance of VP-ellipsis, while gapping, as Johnson (2009) argues, is a special instance of across-the-board movement. Condensing gapping into the across-the-board movement has its own discomforts, however, as Johnson (2009) suggests, it can be remedied by retailoring the syntax to include string-based output constraints. On the other hand, sluicing is a term used for a type of ellipsis in which the interrogative item is interpreted as a complete question, the omitted material which has been retrieved from the previous discourse. The deletion leaves a WH-phrase, as in somebody just left, Guess who. However, it should be emphasized that some languages such as English allow non-wh-sluicing, but only in matrix contexts. Based on these theoretical assumptions, especially V-to-T movement theory, this paper examines the properties of gapping and sluicing in Persian. Persian is a null-subject, verb final language that exhibits a SOV order in the unmarked order, except clausal arguments that occur post verbally. In ordinary sentences, many phrases can be omitted producing different kinds of ellipsis. As I mentioned before, Johnson (2009) showed that pseudogapping is a special instance of VP-ellipsis, while gapping is a special instance of across-the-board movement. Contrary to what Johnson (2009) proposed for gapping in English, the present study argues that gapping in Persian is a kind of sluicing, in which TP is deleted from the second conjunction preceded by scrambling of the remnant constituents to the specifiers of some functional projections (such as TopP or FocP). According to this line of analysis, Persian is a language which doesn’t allow pseudogapping and main verb should not be omitted in VP-deletion due to obligatory V-raising out of the VP. In this paper I suggested that gapping in Persian is a kind of Clausal ellipsis. Clausal ellipsis can be defined as a subspecies of ellipsis whereby an entire clause is missing, including the canonical subject position and the agreement domain, but often to the exclusion of one or more clause-internal constituents. As we have shown in this paper, those constituents are usually argued that have been moved to the left part of the clause prior to deletion.