In English, the causation verbs 'make' and 'let' allow their following VP to be omitted: 'I made/let Chris play the drums before I made/let Sam (play the drums)'. We show that such 'causative VP-omission' involves Null Complement Anaphora rather than Predicate Ellipsis, and requires an agentive causee. We analyse this restriction — which extends to Null Complement Anaphora with aspectual verbs — as resulting from an interaction between a non-stative null pro-form and Voice (cf. Folli and Harley 2005).
Format: | [ pdf ] |
Reference: | lingbuzz/006496 (please use that when you cite this article) |
Published in: | v2: submitted. v1: to appear in proceedings of NELS 52 |
keywords: | syntax, english, causatives, null complement anaphora, ellipsis, voice, agency, syntax |
previous versions: | v1 [February 2022] |
Downloaded: | 612 times |