Right Node Raising Requires both Ellipsis and Multidomination

Existing analyses of Right Node Raising (RNR) implicitly assume that all instances thereof can be subsumed under a single mechanism, whether it be movement, ellipsis, or multidomination. We challenge this assumption by showing that English RNR can be divided into (at least) two distinct subtypes, one which shows properties of ellipsis and one which shows properties of multidomination. Moreover, we also show that these two subtypes are in complementary distribution, and that neither one can be reduced to the other. The overall result is that RNR is not a single process, but rather a cover term for a family of processes with superficially identical outputs.