VP ellipsis

[James A. Crippen]

On Tue, 3 Apr 2001, Ivan A. Sag wrote:

> Hi Tibor,
>
> > I have a simple question concerning VP ellipsis (Ivan listen!):
>
> I'm listening...
>
> > As a continuation of (1), which of the cases in (2) are grammatical?
> >
> > (1) John may have been sleeping, and
> >
> > (2) a. Mary, too.
> >     b. Mary may, too.
> >     c. Mary may have, too.
> >     d. Mary may have been, too.
>
> (2b) is questionable, but there may be analogous examples that are
> well formed, e.g. with should or could instead of may.

(2b) must certainly be questionable since it reads okay to me but not you.
Maybe it's the punctuation.  Take out the comma and read it again, with no
pause.  Anyhow, I think I've seen this ellipsis before in common usage.
A search of the 'Internet corpus' would probably find an example.

'james

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