Answer ellipsis

Answer ellipsis (= answer fragments) is a type of ellipsis that occurs in answers to questions. Answer ellipsis appears very frequently in any dialogue, and it is present in probably all languages. Of the types of ellipsis mechanisms, answer fragments behave most like sluicing, a point that shall be illustrated below. Standard instances of answer ellipsis occur in answers to questions. A question is posed, and the answer is formulated in such a manner to be maximally efficient. Just the constituent that is focused by the question word is uttered. The elided material in the examples in this article is indicated using a smaller font and subscripts: Q: Who walked the dog? A: Tom walked the dog. - Subject noun as answer fragment Q: Whom did you call? A: I called Sam. - Object noun as answer fragment Q: What did you try to do? A: I tried to Fix the hard drive. - Verb phrase as answer fragment Q: Whose house is too big? A: Fred's house is too big. - Possessor as answer fragment Q: When did they arrive? A: They arrived At noon. - Temporal adjunct prepositional phrase as answer fragment Q: Why will they resist our help? A: They will resist our help Due to excessive pride. - Causal adjunct prepositional phrase as answer fragment This sort of data could easily be expanded. An answer fragment is possible for any constituent that can be questioned using a question word. An important aspect of the elided material of answer ellipsis is that it usually does not correspond to a constituent. This fact is problematic for theories of ellipsis, a point which is examined below. Answer ellipsis behaves curiously in a couple of noteworthy ways. The answer fragment should not, for instance, encompass more than the focused constituent: Q: What did you try to begin to repair? a. A: I tried to begin to repair My bike. b. A: I tried to begin to *Repair my bike. c. A: I tried to *Begin to repair my bike. d. A: I *Tried to begin to repair my bike. e. A: I tried to begin to repair my bike. Either just the focused constituent (i.e.