Sluicing

In syntax, sluicing is a type of ellipsis that occurs in both direct and indirect interrogative clauses. The ellipsis is introduced by a wh-expression, whereby in most cases, everything except the wh-expression is elided from the clause. Sluicing has been studied in detail in the early 21st century and it is therefore a relatively well-understood type of ellipsis. Sluicing occurs in many languages. Basic examples Sluicing is illustrated with the following examples. In each case, an embedded question is understood though only a question word or phrase is pronounced. (The intended interpretations of the question-denoting elliptical clause are given in parentheses; parts of these are anaphoric to the boldface material in the antecedent.) Phoebe ate something, but she doesn't know what. (=what she ate) Jon doesn't like the lentils, but he doesn't know why. (=why he doesn't like the lentils) Someone has eaten the soup. Unfortunately, I don't know who. (=who has eaten the soup) Sluicing in these examples occurs in indirect questions. It is also frequent in direct questions across speakers, e.g.