Verb Phrase Ellipsis in Likpakpaanl

This paper discusses verb phrase ellipsis in Likpakpaanl, a Mabia (Gur) language belonging to the Niger-Congo family and predominantly spoken in the Eastern part of the Northern Region and the Oti Region of Ghana. I argue that VP ellip- sis is licensed by the modals ŋmàn and bàn, which project separate modal phrases (ModP) in the clausal structure. The data drawn from the Licahbol dialect show that only the higher ModP position occupied by ŋmàn and bàn hosts the ellip- sis [E]-feature which licenses VP ellipsis by deleting the phonological content of their complements. I show that even though both modals license VP ellipsis, bàn targets an entire CP for deletion, while ŋmàn deletes the VP and its internal argu- ments. Finally, I adduce evidence from Antecedent Contained Deletion (ACD) and Reconstruction effects and propose a base-generation analysis to account for the presence of the resumptive pronoun in the distribution of bàn, and also assume a PF-deletion approach for Likpakpaanl VP ellipsis.