Pseudogapping

Pseudogapping is an ellipsis mechanism that elides most but not all of a non-finite verb phrase; at least one part of the verb phrase remains, which is called the remnant. Pseudogapping occurs in comparative and contrastive contexts, so it appears often after subordinators and coordinators such as if, although, but, than, etc. It is similar to verb phrase ellipsis (VP-ellipsis) insofar as the ellipsis is introduced by an auxiliary verb, and many grammarians take it to be a particular type of VP-ellipsis. The distribution of pseudogapping is more restricted than that of VP-ellipsis, however, and in this regard, it has some traits in common with gapping. But unlike gapping (but like VP-ellipsis), pseudogapping occurs in English but not in closely related languages. The analysis of pseudogapping can vary greatly depending in part on whether the analysis is based in a phrase structure grammar or a dependency grammar. Pseudogapping was first identified, named, and explored by Stump (1977) and has since been studied in detail by Levin (1986) among others, and now enjoys a firm position in the canon of acknowledged ellipsis mechanisms of English.

The following sentences are basic examples of VP-ellipsis and pseudogapping. Each pair draws attention to the similarities and differences across the two closely related ellipsis mechanisms. A smaller font and subscripts are used to mark the elided material:

The examples show that like VP-ellipsis, the ellipsis of pseudogapping is introduced by an auxiliary verb (be, can, could, have, may, might, should, will, would, etc.). The expression to the immediate right of the "pseudogap" is the remnant (milk, tomorrow, the play). As with the remnants of gapping, the remnant of pseudogapping must stand in contrast to the parallel expression in the antecedent clause, e.g. water must stand in contrast to milk in the first example. If it does not, the attempt at pseudogapping fails, e.g.

The star * indicates that the sentence is bad. These attempts at pseudogapping fail because the remnant does not stand in contrast to the parallel expression in the antecedent clause.

The elided material of pseudogapping need not be continuous. In other words, there can be two gaps, e.g.

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