Contrastive ellipsis: Mapping between syntax and information structure

Recent studies on ellipsis (e.g. Depiante, 2000; Hartmann, 2000; Kim, 1997; Merchant, 2004; Rooth, 1992b; Takahashi and Fox, 2005) have proposed that the characteristic feature of gapping and stripping is that the remaining constituents/elements are focused. We discuss the mapping between the syntax and information structure of contrastive ellipsis (CE) in German and English and show, on the basis of standard linguistic tests and experimental evidence, that a more fine-grained information structural analysis is needed which takes into consideration the parallelism requirement which holds for these constructions (Lang, 2004). While English, which is a configurational language, allows only one type of CE, we propose that there are two types of CEs in German which serve the function of realizing different types of contrast (cf. Molnár, 2006). Syntactic diagnostics indicate that one type leaves behind a contrastive topic (CT), the other a contrastive focus (CF). We will argue that in both constructions the gap is created by the same general mechanisms, namely movement of the contrastive remnants into a position at the left periphery of the phase and subsequent deletion of the given material. However, details of the syntactic derivations are different: In CT-ellipsis, the contrastive remnant moves to a left-peripheral position. In CF-ellipsis, the contrastive remnant moves to a position below the sentential adverb. Rating studies show that the acceptability of the resulting construction is influenced by the complexity of the syntax-information structure mapping relation. The paper adds further support to the proposal that the syntax of contrast involves movement of the contrastive constituent (cf. Frey, 2006) and provides evidence for language specific differences in the syntax-information structure mapping.