Some Notes on Ahn and Cho‘s (2017a, b, c) Approach to Fragment Answers in Korean

Abstract

A considerable volume of literature has addressed the issue of why fragment answers behave differently from full sentences, e.g., with respect to island constraints like the Left Branch Condition (LBC). Drawing attention to conceptual problems with previous analyses, Ahn and Cho (2017a, b, c) propose ‘a limited ellipsis analysis’, according to which fragments (the last elements in case of multiple fragments) can be derived from a copula sentence with the help of phase extension (cf. den Dikken 2006). Despite various theoretical advances Ahn and Cho’s (ibid) copula based explanation has made, the current work points out some defects that their theory bears: (i) phase extension does not help at all in non-elliptical contexts; and (ii) there are some aspects of multiple fragment answers that are orthogonal to their ‘repetitive gapless right dislocation analysis’ of multiple fragments. It will be shown that some sort of PF rescuing mechanism is called for even in their system and that multiple fragments are not necessarily composed of two clauses.