Comparative Ellipsis and logical form

This paper is a study of the syntactic process of Comparative Ellipsis (CE) and its semantic interpretation. Concentrating on CE constructions in Modern Hebrew containing the morphemeaSer, the paper argues for an analysis of these constructions as sentential structures undergoing ellipsis, rather than base-generated PPs that are assigned sentential meaning by semantic interpretation. The paper argues that CE differs from other rules of ellipsis in comparatives on the basis of a distinction between deep and surface anaphora. Following work by Sag (1976) and Pesetsky (1982) on gapping, the paper claims that CE involves LF copying of IP, from the main clause into the comparative clause which is base-generated as a reduced CP. This analysis accounts for various properties of CE, in particular the fact that it cannot occur in comparative clauses containingma ‘what’. The paper presents both syntactic and semantic arguments in favor of a clausal analysis of CE constructions withaSer and against an analysis of direct semantic interpretation.