VP-Ellipsis is not licensed by VP-Topicalization

Starting from the observation that the constraints on VP-ellipsis (VPE) closely match those on VP-topicalization (VPT), Johnson (2001) proposes a movement account for VPE: in order for a VP to be deleted, it must first undergo topicalization. We show that although this proposal is attractive, making VPE dependent on VPT is problematic because VPE and VPT are not distributionally equivalent. While VPT targets the left periphery and consequently is subject to constraints on movement, VPE is not so restricted. We outline some alternatives for capturing the observed parallelism in the licensing of VPT and VPE

Introduction: some thoughts on research programs in architecture

Each year, the Bartlett School of Architecture doctoral program stages an annual conference to showcase the best research done by doctoral students from its Architectural Design and its Architectural History and Theory programs. Students either deliver a lecture or exhibit a visual work in the lobby spaces of the Bartlett School. While each year the conference is an enormous success, few traces remain of these ‘works in progress.’ Occasionally, a few small publications circulate with some highlights of the day, but it is fair to say that the impact remains modest. At Opticon1826, UCL’s open access, peer-reviewed journal, we therefore collected a selection of the 2013 PhD Research Projects conference papers in a special issue dedicated to research on the built environment. Opticon1826 is a platform where the conference presenters extend their experience by translating their work from a conference script into a peer-reviewed journal article

What ellipsis can do for phases, and what it can't, but not why

The study of ellipsis, being a mismatch between form and meaning, has already proven to have consequences for our understanding of language in general, as it has helped us gain insights in other domains of the grammar. This paper focuses on one of these domains, namely the notion of Spell-Out and the theory of phases that has been developed within the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2001, 2005). Several authors have been tempted to tie ellipsis to Phase Theory, as ellipsis would be non-pronunciation at PF instead of pronunciation. In other words, ellipsis is the flip coin of Spell-Out, and the two differ only at PF. Although attractive, this proposal will be pointed out to run into empirical problems with regards to extraction possibilities. The data suggest that the difference between ellipsis and non-ellipsis is not simply decided at PF, but in the syntax already. At the same time, however, this paper aims to maintain the intuition behind the link between ellipsis and phases. It explores the chunks of structure that are targeted by both operations as well as their triggers

Introducing body-language methods into urban design to research the social and interactional potential of public space.

Since the 1960s the urban design discipline has experienced a remarkable turn towards the psychological, social and cultural dimensions of place. This is visible in its expanded body of knowledge to include a wide range of social science disciplines and in its investment in qualitative and cross-disciplinary methodologies in public space research to understand the different user’s needs and experiences. Comparatively, little research has been done on the social and interactional potential of public spaces. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper employs original empirical material from one case study with a view to focus on the bodily socio-spatial mechanics of social interactions among strangers in public space and to examine the potential applicability of body-language methods to study them

To be or not to be elided: VP ellipsis revisited

The main question that this paper addresses is: what happens to non-finite auxiliaries under English VP ellipsis (VPE)? Do they remain overt like finite auxiliaries, or do they disappear together with lexical verbs? Akmajian and Wasow (1975) and Sag (1976) observed the following pattern: non-finite have always stays overt, being is obligatorily elided, and be and been are optionally elided. We provide an analysis for this pattern. As preliminaries for our account we follow Chomsky (1993) and Lasnik (1995b) in assuming that English auxiliaries carry uninterpretable inflectional features which force the auxiliary to raise to the relevant inflectional head for feature checking at PF. As we argue that VPE includes the progressive projections in the ellipsis site, but nothing higher, the have and being data automatically fall out: have is base-generated outside the ellipsis site, so is never elided, whilst being’s landing site is inside the ellipsis site, so being is always elided. For be and been, which are base-generated in the ellipsis site and raise out of it to get their inflectional features checked, we take an optional raising approach: in non-elliptical sentences raising is obligatory, otherwise the derivation crashes at PF because of unchecked features. Ellipsis contexts, on the other hand, provide the option of not raising for be and been, because ellipsis then deletes be and been in their base positions, along with their unchecked features, avoiding the PF violation. We extend this account to other phenomena, such as VP fronting, pseudo-clefts and predicate inversion.status: publishe