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Ellipsis in comparatives

Kennedy and Merchant 2000 argue that examples like (50a) involve a degree phrase extracting from a left branch (here, attributive) position within a noun phrase, structurally parallel to (50b).

a. Brio wrote a more interesting novel than Pico did.

b. *How interesting did Pico write a _ novel?

Nonstructural approaches have a ready explanation for this state of affairs, if one assumes that island effects come about only in movement structures. By parity of reasoning, one could have a structural account which eschews move- ment in these particular structures, as Lobeck 1995 and Chung et al. 1995 pursue, which derives the same effect. These structures are difficult only for ‘deletion’ approaches that fall under (13b.ii) and those null structure accounts like Wasow’s and Williams’s that posit regular null structures as well.