UNVEILING TOPIC-REMNANT ELIDED POLAR QUESTIONS: A NEW ELLIPTICAL CONSTRUCTION IN SPANISH AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR THE IDENTITY CONDITION.

This paper offers an in-depth analysis of a novel elliptical construction in Spanish, dubbed Topic-Remnant Elided Polar Questions (or polar TREQs in short). A detailed examination of polar TREQs in Spanish will provide evidence for the claim that (a) they are a type of clausal ellipsis, triggered by the presence of an [E]-feature on C, and (b) the remnant is a topicalized XP that undergoes movement out of the ellipsis site. Furthermore, the analysis of polar TREQs in various contexts (in particular, with respect to the so-called connectivity effects) confirms the need of syntactic identity between the linguistic antecedent and the ellipsis site. Moreover, an examination of the patterns related to the presence or absence of an overt complementizer in this elliptical construction provides empirical support for Merchant's (2001) Sluicing-COMP Generalization. In summary, this paper not only provides a comprehensive account of the syntactic intricacies of a new elliptical construction in Spanish, but also provides valuable insights into the broader landscape of elliptical phenomena in this language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]