Pseudo Noun Phrase Coordination

The availability of both a single- and a multiple-event reading in constructions like John will talk to Mary and Susan, which superficially contain coordinated noun-phrases, hereafter called Pseudo NP Coordination or PNPC constructions, motivates an analysis positing coordination of larger categories. On the basis of various other properties of these constructions, including an availability that is cross-linguistically correlated with that of p-stranding, evidence about the categorial status of the conjuncts, and right-conjunct topicalization, the authors argue that PNPC constructions cannot be analyzed as small conjuncts plus sideward movement, as proposed by Hornstein & Nunes (2002) and Agbayani & Zoerner (2004) for related constructions, including Gapping and Left Peripheral Ellipsis. Instead, these and similar data are more readily accounted for by an analysis positing large conjuncts (on the order of CP-sized) plus ellipsis.