ABSTRACT
It is well known that ellipsis involving a proform as its part can exhibit flexibility in
anaphoric interpretations – often in somewhat unexpected ways. In this work, I will
attempt to show that when we clarify how anaphora involved as part of ellipsis comes to be
represented in covert syntax, we will also have a better understanding of the way the
so-called E-type anaphora (including donkey anaphora) is represented in covert syntax. In
particular, I will first point out that ellipsis can provide a type of strict identity
interpretation for a ‘reconstructed’ proform which is akin to the interpretation recognized
in the E-type anaphora. I will then argue that the parallelism between the two constructions
arises due to the involvement of the same operation of ‘reconstruction’ in the form of
copying applying in covert syntax. It should be made clear at this point that the research
presented in this work deals mostly with the syntactic aspects of these phenomena and
leaves out their semantics. We will, in other words, attempt to answer the question what
syntactic operations are responsible for the semantic characteristics of these constructions
and how they should be represented at LF, but will leave unanswered the question how
they should be represented semantically. In the final part, I will extend the proposed
analysis to donkey anaphora, critically examining some alternative approaches.
