We provide novel data from Asante Twi (AT, Kwa) which show that its
pattern of argument encoding under argument extraction is more complex
than previously described (Saah 1994, Korsah 2017, Korsah & Murphy
2019): (a) One and the same type of extraction may result in both a gap
or a resumptive pronoun (RP) (/pace /claims for AT that extraction of
NP-arguments always leaves behind an RP); (b) the choice between RP/gap
is determined by the referentiality of the extracted XP (novel
observation). Thus, the choice between RP/gap is not only determined by
extraction type (e.g. movement vs. topicalization) or the properties of
the extraction site (inside an island or not), but also by the
properties of the extractee. Moreover, AT exhibits a preference to use
an RP over a gap if possible - a pattern that is in conflict with
economy constraints such as AvoidPronoun. We propose an analysis of the
referentiality-driven RP/gap-choice that is based on a structural
difference between ref./non-ref. XPs and partial copy deletion.
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