Two routes to predicate ellipsis in Spanish: the clitic versus focus strategy

Abstract This paper documents and analyzes a predicate ellipsis alternation found in contemporary Spanish, addressing some challenges it poses for current theories of ellipsis licensing with the Minimalist Program. Spanish predicate ellipsis occurs in two variants: (i) lo-insertion , where an overt proform (the neuter clitic lo ) attaches to the auxiliary preceding the silent gap, and (ii) lo-omission , where predicate ellipsis is licensed under polarity focus (typically marked on the stranded auxiliary). Both variants arise from ellipsis of the main predicate – and its arguments – and are licensed by the same restricted class of auxiliaries. To account for their shared distribution, this paper argues that predicate ellipsis stems from a single [E]-feature, in both the lo-insertion and the lo-omission context. Concretely, the presence of a clitic (in lo-insertion ) and its absence under polarity focus (in lo-omission ) are analyzed as two alternative strategies to satisfy the semantic requirements of a single [E]-feature, without encoding these contexts for ellipsis directly in [E]’s syntax. This analysis is further extended to predicate ellipsis constructions in Germanic languages, which employ strategies for predicate anaphora akin to both lo- insertion and lo- omission, albeit with a different distribution.