Sloppy symmetry under ellipsis

Abstract This paper focuses on the behavior of symmetric predicates under ellipsis. Building on Stockwell (Stockwell, Richard. 2020. Contrast and verb phrase ellipsis: Triviality, symmetry, and competition . UCLA. Doctoral Dissertation), we examine the phenomenon of participant and transitivity switching under VP-ellipsis, which symmetric predicates permit but non-symmetric ones do not. While Stockwell takes this as evidence for a semantic identity condition on ellipsis, we show that semantic equivalence is too weak. Specifically, cases of participant or transitivity switching involving focus marking are wrongly predicted to be acceptable. We argue instead for a syntactic identity condition on ellipsis and sketch a new analysis of symmetric predicates as unaccusatives.