Ellipsis and Nonsentential Speech

Book excerpt: The papers in this volume address two main topics: Q1: What is the nature, and especially the scope, of ellipsis in natural language? Q2: What are the linguistic/philosophical implications of what one takes the nature/scope of ellipsis to be? Each of these main topics includes a large sub-part that deals specifically with nonsentential speech. Within the first main topic, Q1, there arises the sub-issue of whether nonsentential speech falls within the scope of ellipsis or not; within the second main topic, Q2, there arises the sub-issue of what linguistic/philosophical implications follow, if nonsentential speech does/does not count as ellipsis. This book is unique in that it offers the reader; Papers on the boundary between philosophy and linguistics, Applications of advanced work in theoretical linguistics to traditional philosophical questions, It is the only volume of papers ever published on sub-sentential speech, Major contribution to our understanding of ellipsis in natural language, presently a central topic in syntactic theory. This book is of interest to professionals and advanced graduate students in the fields of philosophy of language, semantics, and syntax.