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University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics

Abstract

There are differing theories concerning the construction dubbed swiping by Merchant 2002. Some theories predict that the inverted preposition/wh-word order characteristic of swiping is idiosyncratic to prepositions and wh-words in particular and does not generalize to other elements. Other theories predict that swiping is merely a particular instantiation of a generalizable possibility for inverted word orders under ellipsis. In this paper I provide evidence for this latter type of theory by showing that the characteristics of swiping extend beyond prepositionals and wh-words. The generalization is that whatever can extrapose and be extracted from can enter into a swiping like construction.

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