ellipsis in inquisitive semantics
Work in inquisitive semantics has developed an alternative-rich notion of semantic content which is uniform across questions and assertions. This chapter explores the ramifications of this view for the theory of ellipsis. It examines these issues primarily by focusing on the analysis of a particular ellipsis process in English: sluicing. Empirically, it reviews a number of arguments in favor of an account of sluicing incorporating inquisitive semantics, most notably cases where truth-conditionally equivalent sentences have differential behavior for sluicing. Theoretically, the chapter demonstrates how a theory of ellipsis building on Merchant (2001) but based on an inquisitive semantics helps address this data. Beyond this, it briefly discusses motivations for extending this sort of approach to other ellipsis processes and compares the proposed account with other potential ways of incorporating inquisitive semantics into a theory of ellipsis.