Gapping vs VP-ellipsis in Catalan sign language

Abstract

Johnson (2014) defines gapping as being such only if the gap appears in the second conjunct of a coordination. Moreover, in English and in other spoken languages, gapping is considered a particular type of elliptical structure compared to other types of ellipsis. This is due to the restriction on gapping in appearing only in coordination and to its compliance with the no embedding constraint (Johnson 2014). Gapping in Catalan Sign Language (LSC), instead, presents different properties than English, showing similarity to VP-ellipsis (VPE). In this paper, I compare LSC to English, as representative of many other languages, and I consider the necessity of grouping gapping with other elliptical structures, contrary to analyses suggested based on English. I adopt a large coordination (Gengel 2006) and PF deletion (Coppock 2001 following Merchant 2001) analysis and I provide a unified deletion account for gapping and VPE.