On Sluicing

As one type of ellipsis, sluicing was proposed by Ross in 1969. The follow-up researches mainly focus on two aspects: the generation mechanism of sluicing and the interpretation mechanism of sluicing. In order to find these mechanisms, most scholars have made their researches based on identity conditions and licensing condition. However, by way of logical reasoning and observation of the previous studies on sluicing, we find that those ideas are inconsistent, inadequate, and even contradictory to one another. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify and correct the current theories of sluicing, and to discover the generation and interpretation mechanisms of it.First, the previous studies argue that there is identical syntactic or semantic relation between sluicing and its antecedent sentence and the former is derived from the latter. Consequently, they all agree that sluicing can be restored into one sentence. However, this thesis claims that sluicing can be restored into various sentences. Therefore, there is no identical syntactic and semantic relation between sluicing and its antecedent sentence and no derivation. Sluicing enjoys independent syntactic structure and we analyze this structure in the thesis.Second, as two major theories on the generation and interpretation mechanisms of sluicing, Phonetic Form (PF for short) Deletion Approach and Logical Form (LF for short) Copying Approach are defective. Based on the assumption of separation of PF and LF, the two approaches regard sluicing as inconsistency of sound and meaning. However, PF and LF constitute one entity with two sides. It is unconvincing to separate them apart simply for the theoretical research. In the computation system, a complete sentence with matched PF and LF is generated. And then, pragmatic factors motivate the ellipsis. In addition, following the foregoing analyses, the thesis tries to solve the"Shi"issue in Chinese sluicing and the so-called island repairing puzzle.