Perfect Island Repair by Ellipsis in Nupe: Against Aspectual Mismatch

Document Type

Journal Article

Role

Author

Journal Title

Snippets

Issue

48

First Page

10

Publication Date

10-2025

Abstract

Perfect island effects in Nupe arise when non-edge vP-internal material is A-extracted in clauses containing the perfect marker. Recent research by Mendes and Kandybowicz (2023) indicates that these perfect island violations can be neutralized in sluicing and stripping environments, suggesting that ellipsis can salvage such violations. An alternative proposal posits that the ellipsis site may lack the perfect marker, despite its presence in the antecedent, potentially evading perfect island violations. This hypothesis raises questions about the mismatch between the ellipsis site and its antecedent regarding tense and aspect. While such mismatches might seem problematic under traditional ellipsis identity conditions, evidence from other languages suggests they can occur without featural clash. The study also examines the implications of reference time specification in perfect clauses, which complicates the analysis. Ultimately, the findings support the conclusion that Nupe perfect island violations can be repaired through deletion, challenging the notion that these violations stem from narrow syntactic constraints and instead highlighting the role of PF-representation constraints in ellipsis contexts.

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