in the presence of not), e.g.: Sam did it, not Fred did it. - not-Stripping Sally is working on Monday,she is not working on Tuesday. Not-stripping's status as a form of ellipsis can be debated, since the non-elliptical versions of these sentences are unacceptable. The key trait of ellipsis, namely, is that both versions are supposed to be acceptable (the elliptical and non-elliptical version). Verb phrase ellipsis Verb phrase ellipsis (also VP-ellipsis or VPE) is a particularly frequent form of ellipsis in English. VP-ellipsis elides a non-finite VP. The ellipsis must be introduced by an auxiliary verb or by the particle to. John can play the guitar; Mary can play the guitar, too. He has done it before, which means he will do it again. An aspect of VP-ellipsis that is unlike gapping and stripping is that it can occur forwards or backwards. That is, the ellipsis can precede or follow its antecedent, e.g.: The man who wanted to order the salmon did order the salmon. The man who wanted to order the salmon did order the salmon. Of the various ellipsis mechanisms, VP-ellipsis has probably been studied the most and it is therefore relatively well understood. Pseudogapping Many linguists take pseudogapping to be a particular manifestation of VP-ellipsis (not of gapping). Like VP-ellipsis, pseudogapping is introduced by an auxiliary verb. Pseudogapping differs from VP-ellipsis, however, insofar as the elided VP is not entirely gone, but rather one (or more) remnants of the VP appear. This aspect of pseudogapping gives it the outward appearance of gapping. Pseudogapping occurs frequently in comparative and contrastive contexts: They have been eating the apples more than they have been eating the oranges. I will feed the chickens today if you will feed the chickens tomorrow. Pseudogapping is more restricted in distribution than VP-ellipsis. For instance it can hardly occur backwards, i.e. the ellipsis can hardly precede its antecedent. Further examples: Would you want to say that to me, or would I want to say that to you? They could read this book more easily than they could read that book. Another noteworthy trait of pseudogapping (and one that supports the view that it is a type of VP-ellipsis) is that it is absent from languages related to English. Answer ellipsis Answer ellipsis involves question-answer pairs. The question focuses an unknown piece of information, often using an interrogative word (e.g. who, what, when, etc.). The