This document describes a research paper that investigated gender matching in ellipsis in Spanish and Spanish-English code switching. It discusses three main theories about how Spanish nouns behave under ellipsis: requiring gender match; allowing one-way, two-way, or no substitution depending on noun category like in Greek; or having partial syntactic and semantic identity affecting grammaticality. The paper presents two experiments that test these proposals to provide evidence for the best explanation. It provides examples showing number mismatch is allowed under ellipsis while gender mismatch is not.

1. See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/282294527
Gender-Mismatch in Monolingual Spanish and
Spanish/English Code-Switching
RESEARCH · SEPTEMBER 2015
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1665.5842
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4 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:
William Udziela
Rush University Medical Center
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Jeanne Heil
University of Illinois at Chicago
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Sergio Ramos
University of Illinois at Chicago
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2. Udziela
1
Gender-­‐Mismatch
in
Monolingual
Spanish
and
Spanish/English
Code-­‐Switching
William
Udziela
University
of
Illinois
at
Chicago
Honors
College
Capstone
May,
2015

3. Udziela
2
Gender-­‐Mismatch
in
Monolingual
Spanish
and
Spanish/English
Code-­‐Switching
1.
Introduction
The
field
of
Hispanic
Linguistics
has
disagreement
in
the
literature
over
how
Spanish
nouns
function
when
undergoing
the
linguistic
phenomena
of
ellipsis.
The
major
theories
are:
that
ellipsis
must
have
gender
match
in
order
to
be
acceptable
(Depiante
&
Masullo,
2001);
that
Spanish
nouns
behave
similarly
to
Greek
nouns
and
fall
into
categories
that
allow
either
one-­‐way,
two-­‐way,
or
no
ellipsis
substitution
(Merchant,
2011);
or
that
Spanish
nouns
have
a
partial
identity
of
both
syntax
and
semantics
that
affect
grammaticality
when
elided.
This
set
of
two
experiments
probes
each
of
these
proposals
in
the
effort
to
provide
evidence
of
one
proposal
that
best
explains
how
Spanish
nouns
interact
with
elision.
First
ellipsis
is
the
omission
of
a
part
of
a
sentence
without
a
change
in
meaning.
For
example,
observe
(1),
where
the
part
of
sentence
that
is
crossed
out
is
the
part
of
the
sentence
that
is
omitted,
or
elided.
(1) John
bought
something,
but
I
don’t
know
what
John
bought.
From
(1),
it
is
possible
for
the
person
hearing
that
statement
to
understand
that
the
speaker
is
referring
to
what
John
bought.
This
phenomenon
demonstrates
that
the
listener
is
able
to
reconstruct
a
meaning
when
there
is
not
explicit
information
Yet
within
the
overarching
genre
of
ellipsis,
there
is
a
more
specific
form
that
can
be
called
“stripping”.
It
is
possible
to
learn
more
about
the
nature
of
Spanish
NPs
(noun
phrases)
using
ellipsis.
This
information
stems
from
comparing
the
grammaticality
of
individual
items,
especially
in
cases
of
morphological
gender
or
number
mismatches.
See
(2)
and
(3):

4. Udziela
3
(2) El
tío
de
Juan
y
los
tíos
de
María.
the.MASC.SG
of
J
and
the.MASC.PL
uncles
of
M
“Juan’s
uncle
and
María’s
(uncles).”
(3) *El
padre
de
Juan
y
la
madre
de
María.
The.MASC.SG
father
of
J.
and
the.FEM.SG
mother
of
M
“Juan’s
father
and
María’s
(mother).”
As
can
be
observed
in
(2)
and
(3),
the
difference
of
acceptance
mismatch
in
ellipsis
is
that
number
mismatch
(2)
is
allowed,
whereas
gender
mismatch
(3)
is
not
allowed
(Depiante
&
Masullo,
2001)
In
(2),
the
noun
in
the
second
conjunct
(‘uncles’)
is
not
pronounced,
yet
the
utterance
is
acceptable
with
the
difference
in
number
between
the
singular
noun
in
the
first
conjunct
and
the
plural
one
in
the
second
(‘tío’
[MASC.SG]
paired
with
‘tíos’
[MASC.
PL]).
In
(3),
there
is
gender
mismatch
due
to
the
first
conjunct
containing
the
masculine
noun
[padre],
while
the
second
conjunct
has
an
unpronounced
feminine
noun
[madre],
marked
by
the
article
‘la’.
The
presence
of
‘la’
in
the
second
conjunct
marks
that
the
noun
in
the
second
conjunct
can
only
be
feminine.
Not
pronouncing
the
noun
in
the
second
conjunct
(‘mother’)
results
in
ungrammaticality,
signified
by
the
“*”
at
the
beginning
of
the
item.
It
is
surprising
that
this
change
in
gender
(‘padre’
vs.
‘madre’)
is
worse
than
the
change
in
number,
as
seen
in
(2)
with
tío
[singular]
vs.
tíos
[plural].
In
this
paper,
the
status
of
NPs
is
tested
according
to
the
three
leading
proposals
of
NP-­‐ellipsis
in
Spanish,
namely
those
proposed
by
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001),
Merchant
(2011),
and
Saab
(2010).
This
paper
analyzes
the
results
of
a
Mexican
dialect
of
Spanish
monolingual
study
(Udziela,
Ramos,
&
González-­‐Vilbazo,
2013)
and
Mexican-­‐American
dialects
of
Spanish/English
code-­‐switched
items
(Udziela,
González-­‐Vilbazo,
Ramos,
&
Heil,
2015)
involving
Spanish
NP
ellipsis.
It
is
proposed
that
Saab
(2010)
gives
the
best
account

5. Udziela
4
to
date
of
NP
ellipsis
in
Spanish
and
has
strong
implications
across
languages
with
and
without
morphological
gender.
2.
Literature
Review
The
first
proposal
is
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001)
in
which
they
state
that
there
must
be
complete
gender
matching
in
cases
of
Spanish
ellipsis.
However,
under
their
proposal,
mismatches
would
differ
by
type:
a
case
of
number
mismatch
would
be
acceptable,
unlike
a
case
of
gender
mismatch.
This
was
partially
shown
above
in
cases
(2)
and
(3).
To
see
the
examples
of
Depiante
&
Masullo
from
their
text
(2001),
see
(4)
and
(5):
(4) Juan
visitó
a
sus
tíos
y
Pedro
visitó
al
tío
suyo.
John
visited
his
uncles.MASC.PL
and
Peter
visited
the
(MASC.SG)
his.
“John
visited
his
uncles
and
Peter
visited
his
uncle”
(5) *Juan
visitó
a
su
tío
y
Pedro
visitó
a
la
tía
suya.
John
visited
his
uncle.MASC.SG
and
Peter
visited
the
(FEM.SG)
his.
“John
visited
his
uncle
and
Peter
visited
his
aunt”
(4)
is
a
reversal
of
(2)
in
that
the
noun
of
the
first
conjunct
is
plural,
and
the
second
conjunct’s
noun
is
singular
(‘tíos’
[MASC.PL]
paired
with
‘tío’
[MASC.SG]).
(5)
is
an
example
of
unacceptable
gender
mismatch:
the
first
masculine
noun
in
the
first
conjunct
is
paired
with
a
feminine
noun
in
the
second
conjunct
(‘tío’
[MASC.SG]
paired
with
‘tía’
[FEM.SG]).
Comparing
(4)
and
(5),
the
differences
are
differences
in
number
(number-­‐mismatch)
(4)
versus
a
difference
in
gender
(gender-­‐mismatch)
(5).
According
to
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001),
number-­‐mismatch
items
will
have
greater
acceptability
than
gender-­‐mismatch
items,
which
is
supported
by
(4)
and
(5).
However,
the
proposal
of
required
gender-­‐match
does
not
account
for
all
the
cases,
specifically
as
regards
to
some
nouns
concerning
the
office
or
profession
of
individuals.
See
(6)
where
(6a)
has
a
male
antecedent
and
a
female
NP
has
been
elided
and
(6b)
has
a
female
antecedent
and
a
male
NP
has
been
elided.

6. Udziela
5
(6) a.
Juan
es
juez
y
María
es
jueza
también.
J
is
judge.MASC
and
M
is
judge.FEM
too.
“Juan
is
a
judge
and
María
too”
b.
María
es
jueza
y
Juan
es
juez
también.
M
is
judge.FEM
and
J
is
judge.MASC
too.
“María
is
a
judge
and
John
too”
In
(6),
there
is
a
gender-­‐mismatch
present
and
the
mismatch
has
been
rated
acceptable
in
cases
where
the
male
noun
of
the
first
conjunct
is
paired
with
a
female
noun
in
the
second
conjunct
(‘juez’
[MASC.SG.]
paired
with
‘jueza’
[FEM.SG]),
in
addition
to
a
female
noun
in
the
first
conjunct
being
paired
with
a
male
noun
in
the
second
conjunct
(‘jueza’
[FEM.SG]
paired
with
‘juez’
[MASC.SG])
(Udziela,
Ramos,
&
González-­‐Vilbazo
2013).
There
was
no
change
in
acceptability
if
the
male
or
female
form
of
the
noun
(‘juez’)
was
first
in
the
order.
This
presents
a
problem
with
the
theory
in
that
if
gender
mismatch
is
not
allowed,
then
why
would
(6)
be
rated
acceptable
by
native
speakers
but
not
(3)
or
(5)?
Alternate
proposals
may
be
able
to
account
for
this
ability.
Merchant
(2011)
provides
a
possible
solution
to
the
inconsistencies
of
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001)
in
acceptability
of
gender-­‐mismatch
cases
through
comparison
of
Greek
to
Spanish.
Merchant
(2011)
cites
other
works
(Brucart
1987,
1999;
Ritter
1988;
Picallo
1991;
Bernstein
1993;
among
others)
as
having
distinguished
“three
classes
of
nouns
in
Romance
that
differ
from
each
other
in
their
behavior
under
ellipsis”.
Merchant
(2011)
states
that
it
is
possible
to
see
these
categorizations
of
nouns
within
Greek
as
well.
Merchant
distinguishes
three
different
groups
of
nouns
with
regards
to
their
behavior
vis-­‐
à-­‐vis
ellipsis.
From
his
findings
with
studying
nouns1
and
noun
phrases
under
ellipsis
in
Greek,
nouns
pertained
three
different
categories
of
N
in
Greek
that
were
able
to
vary
in
1
In
his
text,
Merchant
labels
these
nouns
as
“N”,
by
stating
that
there
are
“three
categories
of
‘N’
that
exist”.
This
also
includes
not
only
nouns
but
noun
phrases
(NPs).

7. Udziela
6
different
circumstances,
specifically
in
cases
of
gender-­‐mismatch
in
ellipsis.
Although
the
majority
of
the
analysis
in
Merchant
(2011)
is
done
in
Greek,
he
posits,
citing
data
from
Depiante
(2001)
and
Depiante
and
Masullo
(2001),
that
his
account
for
Greek
can
be
transferred
to
Spanish.
In
Greek,
one
noun
class
was
not
able
to
vary
under
ellipsis
at
all,
which
could
be
coined
as
“Non-­‐alternating
nouns”
or
here
categorized
as
“Noun
Class
1”.
Noun
Class
1
in
Greek
“consists
of
noun
pairs
like
adherfos/adherfi
‘sibling
(male)/sibling
(female)’”
(Merchant,
2011).
These
noun
pairs
do
not
alternate
under
ellipsis
as
seen
in
(7)
from
Merchant
(2011):
(7) a.
*O
Petro
sine
adherfos,
ala
i
Maria
oxi.
The.m
Petros
is
brother.m
but
the.f
Maria
not
(‘Petros
is
a
brother,
but
not
Maria.’)
b.
*
I
Maria
ine
adherfi,
ala
o
Petros
oxi.
The.f
Maria
is
sister.f
but
the.m
Petros
not
(‘Maria
is
a
sister,
but
not
Petros.’)
Example
(7a)
provides
an
example
of
the
male
version
of
‘sibling’
(‘adherfos’)
in
the
first
conjunct,
with
the
second
conjunct’s
noun,
marked
feminine
by
the
‘i’,
is
elided.
(7b)
has
a
feminine
first
conjunct
noun
‘adherfi’
(also
marked
feminine
by
‘i’)
with
the
second
conjunct’s
noun
elided
but
marked
‘male’
by
‘o’.
In
both
of
items
of
(7),
there
is
not
any
acceptability
when
gender
mismatch
was
present.
Merchant
(2011)
notes
that
these
non-­‐alternating
nouns
tend
to
be
nouns
that
indicate
familial
lines
or
royalty.
This
class
of
nouns
(non-­‐alternating),
from
Merchant
(2011),
would
coincide
with
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001)
in
that
it
does
not
allow
gender
mismatch
in
NP
ellipsis
in
either
direction.
Table
1
provides
the
equivalent
Spanish
nouns
from
Merchant’s
Greek
non-­‐alternating
nouns:

8. Udziela
7
Table
1.
Nouns
of
Noun
Class
1
(“No-­‐Way
Ellipsis”)
as
proposed
by
Merchant’s
Greek
counterparts
Noun
Class
1
Spanish
noun
English
noun
Hermano/a
Brother/sister
Caballero/dama
Gentleman/lady
Nieto/a
Grandson/granddaughter
Hombre/mujer
Man/woman
Ahijado/a
Godson/goddaughter
Padre/madre
Father/mother
Principe/princesa
Prince/princess
Rey/reina
King/queen
Duque/duquesa
Duke/duchess
Emperador/emperatriz
Emperor/empress
Abuelo/a
Grandfather/grandmother
See
(8)
for
Spanish
exemplars
of
non-­‐alternating
nouns
as
would
be
described
by
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001)
and
Merchant
(2011):
(8) a.
*Juan
es
rey
y
María
es
reina
también.
J
is
king.MASC
and
María
is
king.FEM
too.
“Juan
is
king
and
María
too.”
b.
*María
es
reina
y
Juan
es
rey
también.
M
is
king.FEM
and
J
is
king.MASC
too.
(8a)
is
an
item
where
the
first
conjunct’s
noun
is
masculine
(‘rey’)
that
is
paired
with
a
feminine
noun
(‘reina’)
in
the
second
conjunct.
(8b)
is
the
reverse
of
(8a)
in
that
the
noun
of
the
first
conjunct
is
feminine
(‘reina’),
and
the
noun
in
the
second
conjunct
is
masculine
(‘rey’).
Merchant’s
second
class
(“Noun
Class
2”
or
“Two-­‐Way
Ellipsis”)
is
a
set
of
nouns
in
Greek
that
is
able
to
vary
male
to
female
or
female
to
male.
For
these
nouns,
it
appears
that
the
biological
sex
makes
no
difference.
Here,
Merchant
(2011)
states,
“epicene…nouns
only
have
one
form,
but
their
concord
and
agreement
patterns
are
determined
by
natural
(or

9. Udziela
8
‘semantic’)
gender
of
their
referent.”
See
(9)
for
Greek
example
items
of
this
class
taken
from
Merchant
(2011):
(9)
a.
O
Petros
sine
jatros,
ala
i
Maria
oxi.
the.masc
Petros
is
doctor
but
the.fem
Maria
not
‘Petros
is
a
doctor,
but
not
Maria.’
b.
I
Maria
ine
jatros,
ala
o
Petros
oxi.
the.fem
Maria
is
doctor
but
the.masc
Petros
not
‘Maria
is
a
doctor,
but
not
Petros.’
In
(9a)
and
(9b),
while
the
antecedent
noun
does
not
change
morphologically,
we
can
know
that
their
gender
is
different
by
looking
at
the
gender
of
their
respective
modifiers.
In
the
same
way,
the
modifiers
of
the
deleted
noun
show
that
this
unpronounced
noun
was
different
in
gender
from
its
antecedent.
In
both
sentences,
the
ellipsis
is
allowed.
See
Table
2
for
a
listing
of
Spanish
nouns
proposed
to
be
within
Noun
Class
2
(“Two-­‐
way”
ellipsis):
Table
2.
Nouns
of
Noun
Class
2
(“Two-­‐Way
Ellipsis”)
as
proposed
by
Merchant’s
(2011)
Greek
counterparts
(Masculine/Feminine)
Noun
Class
2
Spanish
English
Presidente/Presidenta
President
P.
ministro/P.
ministra
Prime
Minister
Doctor/Doctora
Doctor
Médico/Médica
Physician
Escritor/Escritora
Writer
Juez/Jueza
Judge
Abogado/Abogada
Lawyer
Secretario/Secretaria
Secretary
Esposo/Esposa
Husband/Wife
Jefe/Jefa
Boss
Niño/Niña
Boy/Girl
Using
these
proposed
Spanish
nouns
from
Table
2,
see
(10)
for
Spanish
exemplars
of
grammaticality:

10. Udziela
9
(10)
a.
Juan
es
doctor
y
María
es
doctora
también.
J
is
doctor.MASC
and
M
is
doctor.FEM
too.
“Juan
is
a
doctor
and
María
too.”
b.
María
es
doctora
y
Juan
es
doctor
también.
M
is
doctor.FEM
and
J
is
doctor.MASC
too.
“María
is
a
doctor
and
Juan
too.”
In
(10a)
the
first
conjunct
is
masculine
to
agree
with
‘Juan’
and
the
second
conjunct
has
an
elided
phrase
of
‘es
doctora’,
where
‘doctora’
is
feminine
marked
by
“-­‐a”
to
agree
with
‘María’.
(10b)
uses
the
same
sentence
but
inverts
the
order
of
the
conjuncts,
so
the
first
conjunct
is
feminine
(‘doctora’
[doctor.FEM])
to
coordinate
with
‘María’
and
the
second
conjunct
has
the
elided
‘es
doctor
[doctor.MASC]’
phrase
that
would
coordinate
with
‘Juan’.
(10a)
and
(10b)
both
have
conjuncts
that
are
assigned
a
semantic
gender
to
match
the
gender
of
the
person
within
the
conjunct,
either
‘Juan’
or
‘María’
in
these
items.
The
last
class
of
nouns
in
Greek
(“Noun
Class
3”
or
“One-­‐Way
Ellipsis”)
is
only
able
to
have
variance
under
ellipsis
in
the
direction
male-­‐to-­‐female.
That
is,
ellipsis
is
only
possible
when
the
antecedent
is
male
and
the
elided
noun
female.
When
the
feminine
noun
is
in
the
first
conjunct
and
preceding
an
elided
masculine
noun,
the
item
is
ungrammatical.
See
(11)
for
examples
of
this
in
Greek
from
Merchant
(2011):
(11)
a.
O
Petros
sine
dhaskalos,
ala
i
Maria
oxi.
the.masc
Petros
is
teacher
but
the.fem
Maria
not
‘Petros
is
a
teacher,
but
not
Maria.’
b.
*
I
Maria
ine
dhaskala,
ala
o
Petros
oxi.
the.fem
Maria
is
teacher.fem
but
the.masc
Petros
not
‘Maria
is
a
teacher,
but
not
Petros.’
Table
3
lists
the
Spanish
nouns
selected
from
their
Greek
Noun
Class
3
counterparts
that
Merchant
(2011)
proposed:

11. Udziela
10
Table
3.
Nouns
of
Noun
Class
3
(“One-­‐Way
Ellipsis”)
as
proposed
by
Merchant’s
Greek
counterparts
Noun
Class
3
Spanish
Noun
English
noun
Maestro/Maestra
Teacher
Poeta/Poetisa
Poet
Tío/Tía
Uncle/Aunt
Soldado
Soldier
Profesor/Profesora
Professor
Estudiante
Student
Enfermero/Enfermera
Nurse
Alumno/Alumna
Pupil
Monje/Monja
Monk/Nun
Testigo
Witness
Mártir
Martyr
See
(12)
for
Spanish
exemplars
of
Noun
Class
3
(“One-­‐way”
ellipsis
nouns)
using
‘tío’/’tía’:
(12) a.
Juan
es
tío
y
María
es
tía
también.
J
is
uncle.MASC
and
M
is
uncle.FEM
too.
“Juan
is
an
uncle
and
María
too.”
b.
*María
es
tía
y
Juan
es
tío
también.
M
is
uncle.FEM
and
J
is
uncle.MASC
too.
“María
is
an
aunt
and
Juan
too.”
(12a)
uses
‘tió’
[tío.MASC]
in
the
first
conjunct
and
‘tía’,
the
female
form
of
‘tío’,
is
elided.
(12b)
inverts
the
conjunct
order
of
(12a)
to
put
the
feminine
form
in
the
first
conjunct
preceding
the
elided
masculine
form
of
‘tío’.
Similar
to
(11),
(12)
is
only
rated
grammatical
when
the
masculine
noun
is
in
the
first
conjunct
and
preceding
an
elided
feminine
noun
in
the
second
conjunct.
Merchant
refutes
Depiante
&
Masullo’s
(2001)
proposal
by
stating
that
gender
mismatch
can
be
acceptable.
In
addition,
Merchant
(2011)
provides
a
schema
to
explain
why
gender-­‐mismatch
is
grammatical
in
some
items
but
not
in
others.
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001)
and
Merchant
(2011),
however,
do
not
address
the
differences
between
animate
and
inanimate
objects.
For
animate
organisms,
there
is
the
biological
sex
feature
inherent
in
their
semantics.
Saab
(2010)
proposes
a
Distributive

12. Udziela
11
Morphology
account
for
ellipsis
in
Spanish.
Briefly,
in
Distributive
Morphology
(DM)
words
and
sentences
are
derived
by
the
same
mechanism.
Further,
there
are
two
types
of
morphemes:
roots,
which
are
language-­‐specific
combinations
of
sound
and
meaning,
and
functional
morphemes,
which
combine
with
roots
to
give
them
a
category
(Embick
&
Noyer
2007).
In
Saab’s
account,
gender
is
checked
in
a
functional
head
n.
In
inanimate
nouns,
gender
is
assigned
arbitrarily
at
n,
whereas
for
animate
nouns
the
morphological
gender
is
somehow
connected
to
their
biological
gender
found
in
the
root.
Number,
on
the
other
hand,
heads
its
own
projection,
above
n,
as
exemplified
in
Figure
1.
In
ellipsis,
Saab
contends,
what
is
elided
is
must
be
syntactically
identical
to
its
antecedent,
and
in
nominal
ellipsis
what
is
elided
is
nP,
which
explains
why
number
mismatches
are
allowed
but
gender
mismatches
are
not:
the
head
where
number
is
checked
remains
outside
the
ellipsis
site.
Figure
1.
Syntactic
tree
of
the
Dependent
Phrase
according
to
Saab
(2010)
Figure
1
shows
a
phrase
tree
that
breaks
down
the
dependent
phrase
(DP)
into
its
components
until
arriving
at
the
root
of
the
NP.
In
this
tree,
the
“n”
beneath
“nP”
is
the
grammatical
or
morphological
sex
signifier
to
show
that
the
morphological
sex
is
apart
from
the
root
of
the
word
itself.
Number
mismatch
is
shown
as
the
separation
of
“Num”
from
“nP”
beneath
“NumP”.
The
difference
of
location
of
the
separations
of
Num
from
nP,

13. Udziela
12
and
“n”
from
√P,
supports
why
number
mismatch
is
more
acceptable
than
gender-­‐
mismatch
due
to
being
less
integral
to
the
semantics
of
the
DP
overall.
Saab’s
(2010)
proposal
differs
from
Merchant’s
(2011)
proposal
in
that
Saab
provides
a
more
principled
way
to
distinguish
the
nouns,
being
if
the
root
is
different
or
a
special
suffix
for
gender
is
required
vs.
noun
that
only
change
in
their
noun
marker.
For
Merchant
(2011),
the
categorization
of
the
different
nouns
is
solely
based
upon
behavior
in
ellipsis
instead
of
patterns
that
the
nouns
of
any
particular
class
(Noun
Class
1,
2,
or
3)
may
share
within
the
category.
Also
under
Distributive
Morphology,
each
and
every
one
of
these
roots
is
specific
to
each
language
to
which
they
belong,
even
if
the
semantic
meaning
is
the
same.
Exemplars
of
same
roots
(14)
and
different
roots
(15):
(14)
a.
Abogad-­‐o
b.
Abogad-­‐a
(15)
a.
Duque
b.
Duquesa
(16)
a.
El
abogado
de
Juan
y
la
abogada
de
Pedro
The
lawyer.MASC
of
J
and
the
lawyer.FEM
of
P
“Juan’s
lawyer
and
that
of
Pedro.”
b.
La
abogada
de
Juan
y
el
abogado
de
Pedro.
The
lawyer.FEM
of
J
and
the
lawyer.MASC
of
P
“Juan’s
lawyer
and
that
of
Pedro.”
c.
*El
duque
de
York
y
la
duquesa
de
Gran
Bretaña.
The
duke.MASC
of
Y
and
the
duke.FEM
of
G
B
“The
Duke
of
York
and
that
of
Great
Britain.”
(14)
demonstrates
that
if
the
word
only
changes
in
its
word
marker
(‘-­‐o’/’-­‐a’,
etc.)
the
mismatch
will
be
slightly
tolerated.
Example
(15a-­‐b)
is
composed
of
two
different
roots,
where
(15b)
‘duquesa’
has
a
special
suffix
to
differentiate
from
‘duque’
(15a).
Case
(16a-­‐b)
shows
the
tolerated
gender
mismatch
because
the
order
of
the
genders
within
the
item
did
not
change
the
acceptability.
However,
in
example
(16c),
the
addition
of
the
complex
‘-­‐esa’

14. Udziela
13
to
‘duqu-­‐‘,
effectively
eliminates
any
acceptability
of
gender-­‐mismatch.
This
is
because,
according
to
Saab’s
analysis,
‘duque’
and
‘duquesa’
are
interpreted
as
different
roots,
disallowing
mismatch.
(Saab,
2010).
A
code-­‐switching
perspective
can
answer
questions
not
answerable
in
monolingual
data.
It
is
also
important,
and
interesting,
to
study
this
phenomenon
in
CS
for
its
own
sake,
without
trying
to
answer
a
question
that
may
be
unanswerable
only
using
monolingual
data,
for
the
simple
reason
that
people
have
not
previously
investigated
it.
In
light
of
these
three
theories,
two
experiments
were
proposed:
a
monolingual
Spanish
experiment
to
determine
which
of
the
three
proposals
better
predict
how
NP
ellipsis
occurs
in
Spanish:
Merchant
(2011),
Saab
(2010),
or
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001).
The
second
experiment
was
a
code-­‐switching
study
to
test
whether
the
same
proposals
found
in
the
monolingual
study
extended
across
languages,
particularly
Spanish
and
English.
3.
Experiment
1:
Stripping
in
Monolingual
Spanish
In
Experiment
1,
the
primary
research
question
was
to
determine
if
in
a
Mexican
dialect
of
Spanish,
there
was
a
difference
in
acceptability
of
ellipsis.
If
there
was
no
gender-­‐
mismatch
allowed
in
any
of
the
items,
then
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001)
would
be
supported
in
that
there
was
no
tolerance
for
gender-­‐mismatch.
Then,
if
there
was
a
difference,
did
it
depend
upon
root/inflection
distinction
in
nouns
(Saab,
2010)
or
a
noun-­‐class
distinction
(Merchant,
2011)?
For
this
experiment,
participants
were
native
speakers
of
Spanish
for
natural
intuitions
of
grammaticality
within
Spanish.
This
pilot
study
included
four
native
speakers
of
Spanish,
all
of
whom
had
learned
Spanish
before
six
years
of
age.
All
of
the
participants
were
current
residents
of
Aurora,
IL,
US
that
had
emigrated
from
Mexico
when

15. Udziela
14
they
were
greater
than
18
years
old.
Table
4
sums
the
descriptors
of
the
participant
pool
for
Experiment
1:
Table
4.
Descriptors
of
participants
of
Experiment
1
(N=4)
Native
speakers
of
Spanish
(learned
before
age
6)
Residents
of
Aurora,
IL,
US;
grew
up
in
Mexico
Average
age:
31
College
educated
Age
of
arrival
to
US
>
18
years
Each
of
the
participants
was
provided
with
a
sentence
judgment
task
in
which
there
were
126
total
sentences,
66
of
which
were
critical
stimuli
such
as
seen
in
(17),
and
60
distractor
items.
Of
the
critical
stimuli,
11
nouns
were
from
Noun
Class
1,
13
nouns
were
from
Noun
Class
2,
and
13
nouns
were
from
Noun
Class
3.
Because
the
primary
focus
was
to
test
Merchant’s
categorization,
each
of
the
nouns
involved
were
used
in
3-­‐4
exemplars,
approximately
2
items
per
gender
form
(masculine/feminine).
(17)
a.
Juan
es
alumno
y
Teresa
también.
“Juan
is
a
student
and
Teresa
too.”
b.
Andrea
no
es
doctora,
pero
Carlos
sí.
“Andrea
is
not
a
doctor,
but
Carlos
is.”
The
participants
were
asked
to
read
each
item
and
then
rate
them
according
to
acceptability
on
a
Likert
scale
(1=unacceptable,
5=acceptable).
After
completing
the
judgment
task,
participants
were
also
asked
to
complete
a
modified
version
of
the
DELE
(Montrul
&
Slabakova,
2003)
to
verify
the
proficiency
of
each
participant
in
written
Spanish.
The
results
of
the
Spanish
proficiency
task
indicated
that
each
participant
was
indeed
a
high
proficiency
speaker
of
Spanish.
For
the
results
of
the
judgment
task,
there
was
a
noted
variance
among
the
three
categories
proposed
by
Merchant.
The
ratings
were
analyzed
according
to
the
noun
class
to
which
they
pertained,
and
then
also
in
accordance
to
the
direction
of
the
elision:
male
to

16. Udziela
15
female
or
female
to
male.
The
average
ratings
are
presented
in
Table
5
in
which
direction
of
elision
is
entailed
by
the
gender
of
each
noun.
Where
the
listed
noun
(e.g.,
‘escritor’)
is
masculine,
the
elided
noun
was
feminine
(e.g.,
‘y
María
es
escritora
también’
‘and
María
is
a
writerFEM
too’).
Table
5.
Statistical
analysis
of
Spanish
monolingual
NP-­‐ellipsis
critical
items
by
Noun
Class
Class
Word
N
M
SD
Noun
Class
M
1:
Non-­‐alternating
Rey
11
1.64
0.492
1.50
Reina
11
1.36
0.452
2:
Two-­‐way
alternating
Escritor
11
3.23
1.23
2.69
Escritora
11
2.07
0.537
3:
One-­‐way
alternating
Maestro
11
3.18
1.07
2.68
Maestra
11
2.18
0.742
The
mean
rating
values
of
the
Noun
Class
1
(“Rey/Reina”)
had
mean
ratings
of
1.64
and
1.36
respectively.
Mean
ratings
of
Noun
Class
2
(“Escritor/Escritora”)
were
3.23
and
2.07,
male
to
female
then
female
to
male
respectively.
Mean
ratings
of
Noun
Class
3
(“Maestro/Maestra”)
were
3.18
for
the
male
to
female
direction
and
2.18
for
the
female
to
male
direction
(Udziela
et
al.,
2013).
The
preliminary
results
suggest
that
Merchant’s
noun-­‐categorization
proposal
is
not
supported.
If
Merchant’s
proposal
were
to
be
correct,
the
average
rating
of
the
Noun
Class
1
(“Two-­‐way
Ellipsis)
NPs
should
have
been
significantly
higher
than
that
of
the
other
two
classes.
In
this
case,
the
Noun
Class
1
and
Noun
Class
2
average
ratings
were
fairly
close,
not
enough
of
a
difference
between
the
average
ratings
was
present
to
indicate
a
clear
support
for
Merchant’s
proposal.
On
the
other
hand,
it
is
possible
that
the
root
mismatch
and/or
rare
suffixes
may
determine
grammaticality
as
proposed
by
Saab.
Possible
evidence
in
favor
of
Saab’s
partial
identity
condition
is
that
due
to
the
smaller
difference
in
mean
acceptability
ratings
of
the
“Maestro/Maestra”
categories
(Noun
Class
2)
in
comparison
to

17. Udziela
16
the
“Escritor/Escritora”
categories
(Noun
Class
1)
is
that
under
the
partial
identity
formula,
“Maestro/Maestra”
and
“Escritor/Escritora”
would
both
fall
under
the
category
of
“same
root”
according
to
Saab.
This
could
also
explain
why
the
mean
acceptability
ratings
of
the
“Rey/Reina”
(Noun
Class
3)
categories
were
so
low:
“Rey”
and
“Reina”
would
be
categorized
as
“different
roots”,
which
according
to
Saab’s
proposal,
would
have
a
noted
lower
acceptability
score
in
elided
items
than
with
same
root
items.
The
results
do
suggest
that
there
was
a
difference
in
acceptability
of
nouns
in
elided
items.
Highest
acceptability
ratings
were
for
nouns
that
belong
to
Noun
Class
2
and
Noun
Class
3.
However,
the
ratings
for
Noun
Classes
2
and
3
are
almost
equivalent
to
each
other,
which
is
against
Merchant’s
class
rating.
If
Merchant’s
(2011)
proposal
was
correct,
there
should
have
been
a
noted
difference
among
all
of
the
classes.
Because
of
the
similarity
in
scores
for
Noun
Classes
2
and
3
and
the
stark
difference
with
the
average
rating
of
Noun
Class
1,
Saab’s
(2010)
proposal
of
root/inflection
of
nouns
determining
the
acceptability
of
gender-­‐mismatch
in
Spanish
nouns
is
supported.
4.
Experiment
2:
NP
Ellipsis
in
Code-­‐switching
Experiment
2
further
tests
the
grammaticality
of
elided
Spanish
nouns
under
Saab’s
(2010)
proposal
that
the
gender-­‐mismatch
acceptability
of
a
noun
is
dependent
upon
the
root/inflection
pairing
between
the
noun
of
the
first
conjunct
and
the
elided
noun
of
the
second
conjunct.
This
second
experiment
included
monolingual
Spanish
and
English
item
blocks
in
addition
to
code-­‐switched
item
blocks
to
test
if
the
proposal
(Saab,
2010)
extends
further
than
Spanish
to
other
languages
as
well:
English
in
this
case.
Let
us
discuss
the
phenomenon
of
code-­‐switching
and
its
contribution
to
Experiment
2.
Code-­‐switching
is
the
use
of
two
or
more
languages
within
a
conversation
by

18. Udziela
17
fluent
bilinguals.
However,
this
switching
is
not
done
erratically;
just
like
monolingual
speech,
code-­‐switching
is
rule
governed
(Poplack,
1980).
Because
code-­‐switching
is
rule
governed,
which
prevents
erratic
switching
from
one
language
to
another,
a
plausible
phrase
construction
for
the
code-­‐switched
item
can
be
constructed.
Using
what
is
already
known
about
code-­‐switching
in
conjunction
with
new
experiments
can
further
the
understanding
of
linguistic
theory
(González-­‐Vilbazo
&
Ramos,
2011;
Toribio,
2001).
In
this
case,
code-­‐switching
can
provide
information
about
the
conditions
that
define
ellipsis
and
what
kind
or
portion
of
the
NP
can
be
elided.
More
specifically
in
relation
to
this
series
of
experiments,
the
addition
of
a
code-­‐switching
study
to
supplement
the
monolingual
study
provides
another
analysis
tool;
this
tool
is
to
pair
different
NPs
from
different
languages
within
an
item
and
see
how
the
change
of
language
affects
the
conditions
that
either
allow
or
disallow
ellipsis
between
languages
and
what
NPs
can
be
elided
across
languages.
To
apply
Merchant’s
proposal
to
English,
it
questions
whether
the
semantically
equivalent
nouns
in
English
show
the
same
behavior
as
their
Spanish
counterparts
in
ellipsis.
It
is
possible
to
test
Merchant’s
proposal
in
English
as
the
categorization
of
nouns
is
purely
based
upon
behavior
in
ellipsis.
However,
it
is
possible
to
apply
Saab’s
proposal
to
English
through
semantics,
yet,
it
does
not
equally
apply
to
the
inflection
of
English
nouns
as
to
Spanish
nouns.
This
is
possible
by
testing
semantically
equivalent
nouns
as
described
in
Spanish
by
Saab
(18-­‐19).
In
this,
we
assume
that
across
languages,
the
root
can
be
the
same,
otherwise
no
ellipsis
in
code-­‐switching
would
be
acceptable.

19. Udziela
18
(18)
a.
Mesa
(‘Table’)
root=
Mesa,
no
semantic
gender
suffix=
-­‐a,
syntactic
female
gender
b.
Table
root=
Table,
no
semantic
gender
suffix=
ø
(null),
no
syntactic
gender
(19)
a.
Padre
(‘Father’)
root=
Padre,
male
semantic
gender
(from
biological
sex)
suffix=
ø
(null),
no
added
syntactic
gender
b.
Father
root=
Father,
male
semantic
gender
suffix=
ø
(null),
no
added
syntactic
gender
As
can
be
seen
in
(18b)
and
(19b),
English
nouns
are
devoid
of
a
morphological
gender;
therefore
any
gender
that
is
associated
with
the
noun
is
inherent
to
the
semantic
root
of
that
noun.
Here,
it
is
where
the
identity
condition
of
the
roots
can
be
tested.
Although
‘Padre’
and
‘Father’
both
are
semantically
equivalent,
they
are
different
roots
under
Distributive
Morphology
(see
e.g.,
(19)).
We
see
now
why
code-­‐switching
provides
an
interesting
ground
to
test
this
theory:
In
Saab’s
proposal,
no
ellipsis
should
be
allowed
between
these
nouns,
because
their
roots
are
different.
This
concept
formed
the
basis
of
Experiment
2.
We
tested,
following
the
categorization
of
nouns
as
described
in
Experiment
1,
gender
mismatches
in
predicate
nominal
ellipsis
in
Spanish/English
code-­‐
switching.
A
primary
research
question
for
Experiment
2
was
to
determine
if
ellipsis
was
accepted
in
code-­‐switching
cases.
If
ellipsis
was
not
allowed
in
code-­‐switching
items,
then
low
acceptability
ratings
would
be
predicted
for
the
code-­‐switched
elided
items
in
comparison
to
the
code-­‐switched
items
with
the
NP
repeated.
In
the
case
that
ellipsis
was
accepted
in
code-­‐switched
items,
then
elided
code-­‐switched
items
were
expected
to
have
equal
or
greater
acceptability
ratings
as
the
non-­‐elided
code-­‐switch
items.
The
next
question
was
to
determine
if
there
was
any
difference
in
the
acceptability
by
NP
type

20. Udziela
19
(English
NP,
Spanish
NP,
elided
NP),
which
should
be
seen
regardless
of
the
acceptability
of
ellipsis
in
code-­‐switched
items
and
within
those
differences,
was
there
a
difference
in
the
code-­‐switch
acceptability
by
the
direction
of
the
code-­‐switch
(English-­‐Spanish,
Spanish-­‐
English)?
Then,
within
the
Mexican-­‐American
dialect
of
Spanish
that
was
tested,
was
there
an
effect
on
licitness
of
code-­‐switched
Elided
NP
by
the
root
type
(Same,
Different)
as
proposed
by
Saab
(2010)?
Participants
of
Experiment
2
were
different
than
those
of
Experiment
1
because
Experiment
1
required
monolingual
Spanish
speakers,
whereas
Experiment
2
required
bilingual
Spanish/English
speakers.
This
second
set
of
participants
was
a
group
of
six
native,
bilingual
speakers
of
Spanish
and
English
who
learned
both
languages
before
age
6.
All
of
the
participants
were
female,
college
educated,
residents
of
the
Greater
Chicagoland
area,
and
all
spoke
a
Mexican-­‐American
dialect.
Descriptors
of
the
participants
for
Experiment
2
are
recorded
in
Table
6.
Table
6.
Descriptors
of
participants
in
Experiment
2
Bilingual
speakers
of
Spanish
and
English
(before
age
6)
Resident
of
Greater
Chicagoland
Area
Average
age=
22.5
College
educated
Females,
N=6
Mexican-­‐American
dialect
of
Spanish
For
Experiment
2,
participants
were
asked
to
complete
an
online
timed
acceptability
judgment
task
of
code-­‐switched
items
containing
NP
Ellipsis
using
a
Likert
scale
(1=bad,
5=good).
There
were
192
total
items,
of
which
144
were
critical
items
[Same-­‐Root
Spanish
NP
(20),
Same-­‐Root
Spanish
NP
(21),
Same-­‐Root
NP
Ellipsis
(22),
Different-­‐Root
English
NP
(23),
Different-­‐Root
Spanish
NP
(24),
Different
root
NP
Ellipsis
(25)],
and
48
were
distractors/fillers
(26).

21. Udziela
20
(20)
Pedro
is
not
a
good
teacher,
ni
Teresa
tampoco
es
a
good
teacher
P
is
not
a
good
teacher
nor
T
either.NEG
is
a
good
teacher
“Pedro
is
not
a
good
teacher,
nor
is
Teresa
a
good
teacher
either.”
(21)
Teresa
es
un
buena
maestra,
but
Pedro
is
not
una
buena
maestra.
T
is
a
good
teacher.FEM
but
P
is
not
a
good
teacher.FEM
“Teresa
is
a
good
teacher,
but
Pedro
is
not
a
good
teacher.”
(22)
Teresa
is
a
good
teacher,
y
Pedro
también.
T
is
a
good
teacher,
and
P
is
a
good
teacher
too.
“Teresa
is
a
good
teacher
and
Pedro
too.”
(23)
Peter
is
a
brave
man,
pero
Esperanza
no
es
un
valiente
hombre.
P
is
a
brave
man.ENG,
but
E
is.NEG
a
brave
man.SPAN
“Peter
is
brave
man,
but
Esperanza
is
not
a
brave
man.”
(24)
Esperanza
es
una
buena
madre,
and
Peter
is
a
good
mother.
E
is
a
good
mother.SPAN.FEM
and
P
is
a
good
mother.ENG.FEM
“Esperanza
is
a
good
mother,
and
Peter
is
a
good
mother.”
(25)
Peter
is
a
good
father,
y
Esperanza
también.
P
is
a
good
father.ENG.MASC,
and
E
is
a
good
father.ENG.MASC
too.
“Peter
is
a
good
father
and
Esperanza
too.”
(26)
Pedro
toca
tres
instrumentos,
but
Mary
two.
P
plays
three
instruments
but
Mary
two
“Peter
plays
three
instruments,
but
Mary
two”
All
of
the
critical
Spanish
nouns
(and
English
counterparts)
used
within
the
critical
stimuli
items,
were
proposed
by
Saab
(2010)
and
were
verified
to
have
high
frequency
ratings
in
both
Spanish
and
English
to
ensure
that
would
be
used
in
every
day
speech,
ideally
using
code-­‐switching.
The
critical
nouns
used
in
this
experiment
are
listed
in
Table
7:
Table
7.
List
of
critical
nouns
by
Root
Type
used
in
Experiment
2
(Masculine/Feminine)
Root
Type
Spanish
English
Different
Padre/Madre
Father/Mother
Different
Hombre/Mujer
Man/Woman
Same
Maestro/Maestra
Teacher
Same
Abogado/Abogada
Lawyer

22. Udziela
21
The
results
of
the
acceptability
task
appear
in
Figure
2
and
Figure
3.
Figure.
2.
Average
ratings
by
Type
and
Direction
Firstly,
the
results
of
average
ratings
of
the
Elided
NP
items
are
higher
overall
than
either
the
English
NP
or
Spanish
NP
items.
This
demonstrates
that
ellipsis
in
code-­‐switched
items
is
not
only
acceptable,
but
also
preferred
to
the
English
NP
or
Spanish
NP.
Between
the
English
NP
and
Spanish
NP
types,
English
NP
was
favored
over
the
Spanish
NP
types,
but
neither
was
rated
as
well
as
the
elided
NP
type.
This
difference
in
rating
by
type
indicates
that
there
is
an
order
of
preferences
among
the
three
types
with
Spanish
NP
being
the
least
preferred,
English
NP
in
the
middle,
and
elided
NP
having
the
most
preference
of
the
three
types.
This
visual
comparison
from
the
graph
was
also
supported
by
a
significant
main
effect
for
Type
(F2,10
=
17.749,
p=0.001,
η2=0.780).
An
interaction
of
Direction*Type
(F2,10
=
6.293,
p=0.017,
η2=0.557)
is
seen
in
Figure
2
when
comparing
three
type
columns
(English
NP,
Spanish
NP,
elided
NP)
among
each
other.
For
two
of
the
three
cases,
Spanish
NP
and
elided
NP,
the
English
to
Spanish
direction
(blue
columns)
was
rated
higher
than
the
Spanish
to
English
direction.
When
comparing
the
English-­‐Spanish
directionality
to
the
Spanish-­‐English
direction,
while
the

23. Udziela
22
error
bars
are
overlapping,
the
difference
between
the
overall
rating
levels
suggest
that
there
was
a
preference
between
the
two
possible
directions,
while
also
suggesting
that
there
is
a
preference
for
the
direction
with
each
of
the
types.
When
visually
comparing
the
columns,
it
appears
that
Spanish
NP
and
elided
NP
almost
differ
by
the
same
amount
between
the
directionalities,
just
in
a
different
ratio
of
acceptability.
However,
statistically,
a
post-­‐hoc
analysis
demonstrated
that
Spanish
NP
≠
Elided
NP
and
that
there
was
no
effect
for
gender
either.
The
occurrence
of
a
visually
noted
difference
between
the
directionality
preference
by
type
raises
the
question
of
why
is
one
direction
preferred
for
Spanish
NP
and
elided
NP,
but
not
the
English
NP
type?
It
is
thought
that
English
NP
items
had
higher
acceptability
ratings
in
comparison
to
Spanish
NP
items
due
to
the
employ
of
a
morphologically
gender-­‐less
noun.
In
comparison
to
Spanish,
use
of
a
morphologically
gender-­‐less
noun
would
make
it
easier
for
the
nouns
to
agree
when
switching
between
Spanish
and
English.
This
agreement
of
switching
from
Spanish
to
English,
or
vice-­‐versa,
can
stem
from
the
lack
of
a
morphological
gender
in
English
more
easily
agreeing
with
whatever
gender
is
present
in
the
opposing
conjunct.
See
(27)
for
a
Spanish/English
code-­‐switched
item:
(27)
a.
Pedro
is
not
a
good
teacher,
ni
Teresa
tampoco
es
a
good
teacher.
Pedro
is
not
a
good
teacher,
nor
T
either.NEG
is
a
good
teacher
“Pedro
is
not
a
good
teacher,
nor
is
Teresa
a
good
teacher
either.”
b.
Teresa
es
una
buena
maestra,
but
Pedro
is
not
una
buena
maestra.
T
is
a
good
teacher.FEM
but
Pedro
is
not
a
good
teacher.FEM
“Teresa
is
a
good
teacher,
but
Pedro
is
not
a
good
teacher.”
Example
(27a)
shows
an
English-­‐Spanish
code-­‐switch
item
that
employs
an
English
NP
phrase
‘a
good
teacher’
as
part
of
the
first
conjunct,
but
also
repeats
it
as
part
of
the
second
conjunct.
Similarly,
(27b)
uses
a
Spanish
NP
phrase
‘una
buena
maestra’
in
both
the
first

24. Udziela
23
and
second
conjuncts.
Here,
the
potential
difference
of
preference
of
English
NP
or
Spanish
NP
use
could
be
seen
because
in
(27a),
the
English
NP
‘teacher’
is
morphologically
gender-­‐
less,
therefore,
potentially
easier
to
tolerate
gender-­‐mismatch
because
the
English
NP
itself
does
not
have
a
morphological
gender
that
needs
to
agree
with
the
gender
of
‘Pedro’
or
‘Teresa’.
It
is
not
the
same
in
example
(27b):
‘una
buena
maestra’,
the
Spanish
NP
phrase,
has
a
morphological
gender
associated
with
‘maestra’
marked
feminine
through
the
‘-­‐a’
suffix.
This
said,
Pedro
is
not
presumed
to
be
feminine
or
female
in
gender,
so
while
gender-­‐mismatch
of
this
type
may
be
accepted,
it
may
have
less
acceptance
because
of
the
more
obvious
mismatch
between
‘Pedro’
and
the
feminine
identity
of
‘maestra’,
than
‘Pedro’
or
‘Teresa’
with
‘teacher’
as
the
English
NP.
While
it
is
interesting
to
note
that
ellipsis
is
allowed
in
code-­‐switching
items
and
that
there
was
a
difference
in
acceptability
by
NP
type
(English
NP,
Spanish
NP,
elided
NP)
and
a
difference
of
acceptability
by
direction
(English-­‐Spanish,
Spanish-­‐English),
the
question
still
unanswered
was
that
critical
question
of
was
there
a
difference
by
root
(Same/Different)
as
was
predicted
by
Saab’s
(2010)
theory?
This
distinction
is
necessary
to
make
inferences
whether
Saab’s
(2010)
root
proposal
is
extendable
cross-­‐linguistically
to
code-­‐switching
items.
Figure
3
breaks
the
different
NP
types
(English
NP,
Spanish
NP,
elided
NP)
into
the
distinction
of
same-­‐root
versus
different-­‐root
to
compare
acceptability
levels
by
root-­‐type:

25. Udziela
24
Figure
3.
Average
Ratings
by
Root,
NP
–type,
and
Direction
As
seen
in
Figure
3,
there
was
higher
overall
acceptability
for
items
that
had
the
same
root
than
items
with
different
roots.
Of
all
the
different
types,
NP
ellipsis
with
same-­‐root
NPs
had
the
greatest
rating
scores,
which
is
significant
because
it
suggests
some
sort
of
accommodation
for
these
types
of
nouns
over
different-­‐root
NPs.
The
English-­‐Spanish
directionality
was
prevalent
in
same-­‐root
Spanish
NPs,
same-­‐root
NP
Ellipsis,
and
different-­‐root
NP
ellipsis.
Acceptability
for
a
different-­‐root
Spanish
NP
was
almost
equivalent
in
both
direction
types
(English-­‐Spanish,
Spanish-­‐English).
There
was
a
significant
main
effect
for
Root
(F1,5
=
61.965,
p=0.001,
η2=0.925).
Post-­‐hoc
analysis
for
Type
showed
that
Spanish
NP
≠
NP
Ellipsis.
There
was
no
effect
for
Gender
observed.
There
was
a
strong
preference
for
cases
in
which
the
same-­‐root
was
used
as
compared
to
different
root
nouns.
This
effect
was
independent
of
whether
the
root
was
in
English,
Spanish,
or
elided.
The
finding
that
type
of
noun
was
irrelevant
is
compatible
with
Saab’s
proposal
that
items
that
use
the
same
root
are
going
to
have
greater
acceptability,
even
in
non-­‐elided
cases.

26. Udziela
25
5.
Discussion
and
Conclusions
In
conclusion,
the
results
of
Experiment
1
and
Experiment
2
combine
to
create
a
coherent
picture
of
NP
ellipsis
from
both
monolingual
Spanish
and
code-­‐switching
perspectives.
Experiment
1
found
that
the
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001)
proposal
that
gender-­‐mismatch
is
not
allowed
in
ellipsis
was
not
supported
at
all.
To
the
contrary
of
Depiante
&
Masullo
(2001),
the
results
supported
that
gender-­‐mismatch
on
the
whole
was
supported.
From
Experiment
1,
the
noun
categorization
schema
proposed
by
Merchant
(2011)
was
not
as
strongly
supported
as
the
root
partial
identity
structure
proposed
by
Saab
(2010).
Experiment
2
found
that
the
Saab
(2010)
proposal
is
further
supported
by
the
code-­‐switching
data
allowing
gender-­‐mismatch
in
code-­‐switching
ellipsis
over
set
of
nouns
that
had
same
roots
(‘Maestro/Maestra’,
‘Abogado/Abogada’)
and
was
much
less
acceptable
in
ellipsis
when
nouns
had
different
roots
(‘Hombre/Mujer’,
‘Padre/Madre’).
If
Merchant’s
proposal
had
been
correct,
in
Experiment
1,
the
mean
ratings
of
each
Noun
Class
would
have
had
distinct
differences
in
mean
ratings,
especially
those
between
the
different
gender
constructions
as
well.
By
this,
in
Experiment
1,
the
difference
between
the
male
and
female
gender
directions
should
have
been
markedly
different
from
the
Noun
Class
2
(Two-­‐way
ellipsis
nouns)
and
Noun
Class
3
(One-­‐way
ellipsis
nouns);
this
is
due
to
the
importance
of
the
directionality
of
the
item
with
a
masculine
noun
preceding
an
elided
feminine
noun
for
Noun
Class
3
in
comparison
to
the
indifference
of
noun-­‐gender
order
within
the
item
for
Noun
Class
2.
For
Experiment
2,
there
would
not
have
been
a
predicted
effect
by
root
because
Merchant
did
not
provide
a
word
structure
schema,
only
a
categorization
of
Spanish
nouns
by
behavior
in
ellipsis.

27. Udziela
26
If
Depiante
and
Mascullo’s
proposal
had
been
correct,
Experiment
1
would
have
indicated
that
there
were
no
acceptable
gender-­‐mismatch
cases
in
Spanish
in
ellipsis.
This
prediction
would
have
manifested
as
very
low
acceptability
scores
across
all
of
the
Noun
Class
types
(1,
2,
and
3)
because
the
mismatch
overall
would
not
be
allowed.
To
extend
this
possibility
to
the
code-­‐switching
of
Experiment
2,
there
would
not
be
mismatch
allowed
under
circumstances
of
code-­‐switching
either;
if
it
is
not
allowed
monolingually
in
Spanish,
it
is
presumed
that
it
would
not
be
acceptable
in
Spanish/English
code-­‐switching
instances,
either.
Saab’s
(2010)
proposal
is
the
strongest
of
the
three
because
in
Experiment
1,
the
participants
rated
Noun
Class
2
(Two-­‐way
ellipsis)
and
Noun
Class
3
(One-­‐way
ellipsis)
almost
identically.
Under
Saab’s
partial
identity
of
the
root
proposal
(2010),
this
is
explained
by
Noun
Class
3
nouns
as
having
the
same
root,
which
allowed
gender
mismatch
approximately
to
the
same
extent
as
Noun
Class
2
(Two-­‐way
ellipsis).
The
root
idenitity
proposal
is
supported,
because
of
the
lack
of
differentiation
between
One-­‐way
ellipsis
nouns
and
Two-­‐way
ellipsis
nouns,
which
defies
Merchant’s
(2011)
proposal
and
Depiante
and
Masullo’s
(2001)
proposal.
Continuing
into
Experiment
2,
Saab’s
proposal
is
the
strongest
of
the
three
due
to
the
results
of
a
significant
effect
of
the
root
(same
root
vs.
different
root);
not
only
was
preference
for
same
root
vs.
different
root
documented,
but
it
was
interesting
that
it
was
independent
of
language:
English,
Spanish,
or
elided.
This
indicates
that
ellipsis
is
accepted
in
code-­‐switching
cases
and
that
root
mismatch
may
determine
grammaticality,
even
in
cases
of
code-­‐switched
items.
Further
testing
would
include
additional
testing
within
the
same
language
pair
of
Spanish/English
in
different
elliptical
constructions
such
as
nominal
ellipsis
in
the
subject

28. Udziela
27
position
and
in
the
object
positions.
Testing
these
different
structures
would
increase
understanding
of
ellipsis
overall,
but
is
of
particular
interest
as
to
elliptical
behavior
cross-­‐
linguistically.

29. Udziela
28
Literature
Cited
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J.
B.
(1993).
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nominal
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Romance
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New
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J.
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