Explaining ellipsis without identity*

Abstract Ellipsis is a pervasive phenomenon across the world’s languages, and it is easy to see why: it allows speakers to omit certain parts of their utterances while nonetheless conveying their full meaning, which contributes to making linguistic communication highly efficient. While there is broad consensus that elliptical utterances depend on the context in some way, the nature of this dependency remains controversial. In this paper, I re-evaluate the merits of two classes of ellipsis theories: identity theories, which posit that material can be elided only if it is identical to a linguistic antecedent; and referential theories, which assume that ellipsis is enabled by the same underlying mechanism that governs other forms of discourse reference. I argue that both empirical and theoretical considerations favor referential theories in this comparison, and in doing so I outline new adequacy criteria for linguistic theories aimed at explaining the nature of the linguistic and non-linguistic context and how it interfaces with context-dependent linguistic devices.