Sluicing

Abstract

Sluicing is a construction that has the surface form of a single w/z-constituent but is interpreted as an entire question. In this chapter, it is treated as ellipsis of a clause to the exclusion of the question phrase. In English, and in most other languages, sluicing is restricted to interrogatives with constituent w/z-questions, as has been known since Ross (1969), Lobeck (1995: 54-62) and Merchant (2001: 54-61). Hungarian sluicing is perfectly fine in wh-interrogatives, and unlike in English, the kind of ellipsis sluicing involves can also be found with non-w/z-remnants and contexts other than interrogatives. The latter property is due to the fact that sluicing-like TP ellipsis is licensed after any operator material that participates in a movement similar to that of w/z-constituents (sluicing tracks w/z-movement, van Craenenbroeck and Lipták 2006, Lipták 2015).