Lobke Aelbrecht

Contact information

Muinkkaai 42

9000 Ghent (Belgium)

(+32) 09 331 32 75

lobke.aelbrecht(at)ugent.be

PhD Thesis

You have the right to remain silent: The syntactic licensing of ellipsis. 2009. Catholic University of Brussels.

Research interests

Since my PhD thesis deals with the licensing conditions on ellipsis, I dedicated the first four years of my linguistic career to this topic. I have been looking at gapping, sluicing, fragment answers, stripping, VP ellipsis, pseudogapping, British English do and IP ellipsis, among others. Other topics I have dealt with in the past, related or unrelated to the dissertation topic, are modal verbs, Dutch dialects and negative concord.

My present research tries to combine the knowledge on ellipsis with other topics, such as VP topicalization and VP pronominalization. I have also been working on joint projects with Liliane Haegeman (on several topics, among which British English do and VP topicalization) and Uli Sauerland (on ACD contexts).

Since 2011, I have also been exploring the adpositional domain in Dutch, and more specifically preposition doubling in Flemish dialects. This research is conducted together with Marcel den Dikken.

I have not abandoned ellipsis yet, however. Together with Will Harwood I have been looking into VP ellipsis with respect to aspectual auxiliaries, to explore the VP ellipsis site and licensing in more detail. My recently acquired BOF grant allows me to dive back into ellipsis fully, on my own project on why VP ellipsis occurs in certain languages, but not in others. This question I try to tackle by looking at VP ellipsis in several languages and comparing the syntactic properties of these languages to other ones in their language family.

Publications

Monographs

2010. The Syntactic Licensing of Ellipsis. Amsterdam/New York: John Benjamins.

Journal articles

Under review. What ellipsis can do for phases, and what it can't, but not why. Special issue of The Linguistic Review.
2015. With Will Harwood. To be or not to (be) elided: VP ellipsis revisited. Lingua.
2014. Wat als een modaal alleen komt? Modale complementsellipsis in het Nederlands vanuit de generatieve hoek. Nederlandse Taalkunde 3.
2014. Ellipsis in negative fragment answers. Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo" 46:1, 1-15.
2013. Flying through Dutch Comparatives. LISSIM Working Papers.
2013. With Marcel den Dikken. Preposition Doubling in Flemish and its Consequences for the Syntax of Dutch PPs. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 16:1.
2012. With Liliane Haegeman. VP ellipsis is not licensed by VP Topicalization. Linguistic Inquiry 43:4, 591-614.
2011. With Marcel den Dikken. Doubling PPs in Flemish dialects. Linguistics in the Netherlands 29, 1-13.
2011. With Marcel den Dikken. Grammaticalisation in the syntax of Flemish preposition doubling. Proceedings of the 13th Seoul international conference of generative grammar, 101-120.
To appear. Ellipsis in negative fragment answers. International Journal of Basque Linguistics and Philology.
2008. Negatieverdubbeling in Vlaamse spreektaal. Over Taal, 47:1, 6-9.
2007. Niemand nie in Vlaamse spreektaal. TABU 26(3/4), 89-103.
2006. IP-ellipsis in Dutch dialects. Linguistics in the Netherlands 24, 1-13.

Articles in books

Under review. Predicate Ellipsis (Including VP-ellipsis and pseudogapping). In Jeroen van Craenenbroeck & Tanja Temmerman (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis. Oxford University Press.
2015. Ellipsis. In Tibor Kiss & Artemis Alexiadou (eds), Syntax – Theory and Analysis. An International Handbook. Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 42.1-3. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
2012. With Liliane Haegeman & Rachel Nye. Main Clause Phenomena and the Privilege of the Root. In Main Clause Phenomena: New Horizons, ed. by Lobke Aelbrecht, Liliane Haegeman & Rachel Nye. John Benjamins.
2012. Modal Complement Ellipsis: VP ellipsis in Dutch? In Peter Ackema, Rhona Alcorn, Caroline Heycock, Dany Jaspers, Jeroen Van Craenenbroeck & Guido Vanden Wyngaerd (eds), Comparative Germanic Syntac: The State of the Art, 1-34. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
2011. Agreeing to remain silent: The syntactic licensing of ellipsis. In Patrick Grosz, Irene Heim, Pritty Patel and Igor Yanovich (eds), Proceedings of the Conference of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS40), 1-16. GLSA Publications, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
2010. Modal complement ellipsis: VP ellipsis in Dutch? Linguistics Today: Proceedings of the Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop 23. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
2008. Dutch modal complement ellipsis. O. Bonami & P. Cabredo Hofherr (eds.), Empirical Issues in Formal Syntax and Semantics : Proceedings of the Colloque de syntaxe et sémantique à Paris 2007, 7-34. URL: http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/eiss7/.

Edited volumes

2012. With Liliane Haegeman & Rachel Nye. Main Clause Phenomena: New Horizons. John Benjamins.
2009. With Dany Jaspers. Proceedings of the Spring meeting of the Belgian Linguistic Society. http://webh01.ua.ac.be/linguist/SBKL/SBKL.htm

Work in progress

Movement or Ellipsis, what's the difference?!. Ms. University of Ghent. 2012.
VP topicalization and VP ellipsis. Ms. University of Ghent. 2009.
A movement account of Dutch gapping. Ms. Catholic University of Brussels. 2007.

Presentations

Invited talks and presentations

Nov 2013. Presentation at the Dag van de Nederlandse Zinsbouw, Groningen.
May 2013. It wasn't elided, but it could have been: Optional deletion of auxiliaries under VP ellipsis. Together with Will Harwood. Workshop on ellipsis, University of Edinburgh.
May 2013. It wasn't elided, but it could have been: Optional deletion of auxiliaries under VP ellipsis. Together with Will Harwood. Leiden Syntax Circle on ellipsis, University of Leiden.
January 2013. It could have been elided, but it wasn't: Optional deletion of auxiliaries under VP ellipsis. UCL, London.
Nov 2012. What ellipsis can do for phases and what it can't, but not how. Ellipsis conference, Vigo University.
Oct 2010. Respondent to Marlies Kluck’s paper “(On)enigheid in de rechterperiferie: de rol van identiteit en proximiteit in Nederlandse achterwaartse conjunctiereductie”. DNZ4, Hogeschool Gent.

Conference, workshop and meeting presentations (based on an anonymously reviewed abstract)

April 2013. It wasn't elided, but it could have been: Optional deletion of auxiliaries under VP ellipsis. Together with Will Harwood. CLS49, University of Chicago.
November 2012. To be or not to (be) elided. Together with Will Harwood. Ellipsis conference, Vigo University.
November 2012. To be or not to (be) elided. Together with Will Harwood. New Researchers Forum on Linguistics, University of Manchester.
April 2012. To be or not to be elided: VP ellipsis revisited. Together with Will Harwood. SWIGG12, Geneva.
August 2011. Grammaticalization in the syntax of preposition doubling in Flemish dialects. Together with Marcel den Dikken. SICOGG 13, Sogang University, Seoul.
June 2011 Preposition Doubling in Flemish Dialects. Together with Marcel den Dikken. CGSW 26, Meerstens Institute Amsterdam.
June 2011. Grammaticalization in the syntax of preposition doubling in Flemish dialects. Together with Marcel den Dikken. DiGS 13, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
April 2011. Preposition Doubling in (Belgian) Dutch dialects. Together with Marcel den Dikken. CLS, University of Chicago
March 2011. Dubbel op: Doubling PPs in Flemish dialects. Together with Marcel den Dikken. Dutch Linguistics Workshop, Meertens Institute Amsterdam.
February 2011. Movement or Ellipsis: What’s the Difference?! Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, Sapienza Università Roma.
March 2010. VP ellipsis and VP fronting: The common core. CGG 20, University of Barcelona.
November 2009. Agreeing to remain silent: The syntactic licensing of ellipsis. NELS 40, MIT.
June 2008. VP ellipsis in Dutch and English. CGWS 23, University of Edinburgh.
May 2008. Ellipsis licensing as Agree. WCCFL, UCLA California.
April 2008. Modal complement ellipsis as deletion. Colloquium in Generative Grammar, University of Lisbon.
January 2008. Dutch modal complement ellipsis: deletion in narrow syntax. Annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago. January 2008.
October 2007. Dutch modals with a null VP proform complement. Colloque de syntaxe et sémantique à Paris, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris.
July 2007. Modal complement ellipsis in Dutch. BIDE07 Student Conference, University of Bilbao/Deusto.
April 2007. Movement and ellipsis: An analysis of gapping. 2^nd Student Conference on Formal Linguistics, Adam Mickiewicz University.
November 2006. Stripping the gap: Stripping and gapping in Dutch. Syntax Aio Meeting, Tilburg University.
July 2006. IP-ellipsis in Dutch dialect clefts. LIBILEM Student Conference, Stendhal University Grenoble.
June 2006. Ellipsis and negative fragment answers. BIDE06 Student Conference, University of Bilbao/Deusto.

Colloquium talk

December 2010. You have the right to remain silent. Licensing ellipsis. SyntaxLab, Leiden University.
May 2010. You have the right to remain silent. Lingforum Presentation, Ghent University.
March 2008. Ellipsis is deletion: a case study. Workshop on Philosophy and Linguistics, University of Chicago.

Teaching

2013 Algemene Taalwetenschap (General Linguistics, 2^nd year BA-students). Together with Klaas Willems and Peter Lauwers. Ghent University.

2012 Comparative linguistics. How to do research in Generative Grammar. Guest lecture for the Intensive Manama course. Together with Karen De Clercq and Amélie

Rocquet. Ghent University.

2011 Passiefwerking in Generatieve Grammatica (Passivisation in Generative Grammar). Guest lecture for Language Systems (3^rd year BA-students). Ghent

University.

2010 The syntax of ellipsis. Eastern European summer school on Generative Grammar (EGG), Romania.

2008 Writing Skills as part of the course English Proficiency (2^nd year BA-students). Catholic University Brussels.

2007 Generative Syntax: You have the right to remain silent (3^rd year BA-students). Together with Jeroen van Craenenbroeck). Catholic University Brussels.

Materials

"The syntax of ellipsis", introduction course on ellipsis at the Eastern European Generative Linguistics Summerschool in Constanta, Romania, Summer 2010.

Class 1: "If you don't understand my silence, how will you understand my words?" - handout - powerpoint presentation

Class 2: "Silence best speaks the mind." - handout - powerpoint presentation

Class 3: "It's a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence." - handout - powerpoint presentation

Class 4: "You have the right to remain silent." - handout - powerpoint presentation

Curriculum Vitae

You find a downloadable version of my cv here.

GIST - Generative Initiatives in Syntactic Theory