Deriving sluicing-like constructions in Isbukun Bunun

Abstract

Abstract This paper investigates the sluicing-like constructions (SLCs) in Isbukun Bunun, a language which always places its wh-words at the left-peripheral position, and it is argued that genuine sluicing is not available in this language. The evidence in favor of the pseudo-sluicing analysis draws on the behavior of how-phrases, the failure of implicit discourse anaphoric arguments and the absence of sloppy identity reading in Isbukun SLCs. These properties are otherwise hard to accommodate in a movement and deletion approach but rather follow from the view that SLCs in Isbukun Bunun are derived from independent syntactic operations including pro-drop.