Features of French clausal ellipsis

Evidence is provided that there is a use of the French clitic le (coined special le) that co-occurs with clausal ellipsis. I argue against extending Elbourne’s (2001) analysis of E-type pronouns as definite determiners followed by ellipsis to special le and suggest instead that it is best analyzed as the optional phonological realization of an E-feature. I further establish the existence of two distinct types of clausal ellipsis: type 1, which may, but need not, co-occur with wh-extraction out of the ellipsis site and type 2, which must involve wh-extraction of an ellipsis remnant to be licensed. I propose an account of type 1 (a.k.a. modal) ellipsis that correctly predicts that it is only licensed by those modal verbs that take phasal complements. I then turn to type 2 ellipsis and argue that it involves the pairing of an E-feature and an EPP feature with the higher C-projection of a CP-recursive structure selected by verbs embedding a speech act such as bridge verbs. Finally, I show that type 2 ellipsis is licensed in ACD relatives but not in standard relatives. I provide a tentative explanation for this based on Koster-Moeller & Martin Hackl’s (2008) derivational theory of ACD relatives.