Bound Tense in Relative Clauses: Evidence from VP-Ellipsis Unavailable

We discuss lessons from VP-ellipsis about tense embedding (TE). We begin by portraying two possible views of relative clause TE (RC-TE): one that derives simultaneous readings only by coreference, and another that derives them by binding (section 2). We show data from VP-ellipsis, inspired by Stowell 2014, that support the binding view (section 3), and later review an argument that has been made against it (section 4). The argument is based on the behavior of so-called defective modals in TE and was articulated by Abusch (1994) and von Stechow (1995). In our evaluation of Abusch’s/von Stechow’s argument, we will claim that their conclusion about RC-TE was unwarranted, and that their data can be explained independently of the RC-TE binding question. Nevertheless, we draw attention to another potential challenge to binding accounts of RC-TE simultaneity, leaving the question unresolved (section 5). We...