Deriving parasitic gaps by fission und fusion

This paper presents a new approach to parasitic gaps which is able to implement the observation that two gaps have only one antecedent by transferring the concepts of fission and fusion to the syntactic component. I argue that the antecedent of a parasitic gap construction first fissions into two independent parts—thereby allowing it to occupy two different base positions—and is then fused again into one item which occupies the surface position. I further show that this analysis makes the correct predictions concerning the properties of parasitic gaps, setting it apart from previous approaches, which all had to struggle with capturing the behavior of parasitic gaps. In particular, I will present solutions to the following questions: (i) why are parasitic gaps only selectively sensitive to islands? (ii) Why do the real and the parasitic gap exhibit different properties concerning reconstruction and extractability from weak islands? (iii) Why can parasitic gaps only be licensed by Ā-movement but not by A-movement?