Sluicing in Libyan Arabic

This study examines two issues related to sluicing in Libyan Arabic from a PF deletion perspective. First, it attempts to determine whether what appears as sluicing is sluicing or pseudosluicing. Second, it discusses the apparent violation of the preposition stranding generalization posited by Merchant (2001). The study shows that sluicing exists in the language and that it can be derived from regular wh-questions by wh-movement followed by TP deletion. Furthermore, the study argues that the apparent preposition stranding (p-stranding) effects under sluicing derive from a copular source and that therefore there are two sources of TP ellipsis: sluicing and pseudosluicing. Sluicing derives from regular wh-questions, and it conforms to the p-stranding generalization; pseudosluicing is an elliptical wh-cleft resulting from deletion of a clefted TP whose pivot is an extracted wh-phrase. The fact that the preposition in cleft wh-questions resides in the relative clause, which eventually deletes at PF in pseudosluicing, yields the illusion that sluicing involves p-stranding.