In the previous literature on sprouting, most attention has been paid to the elided structure. This paper, however, focuses on the remnant of the elided part. More specifically, this paper claims that, in sprouting, the wh-phrase, which is the remnant of ellipsis, echoes a cataphoric implicit argument that is locally accommodated to the argument structure of the antecedent clause. Under this view, sprouting is not very different from merger in the respect that the former comes when the antecedent of the wh-phrase is manifested as an implicit argument rather than being completely absent whereas, in the latter, the antecedent of the wh-phrase is realized as an explicit argument. The implication of this study is that backward formation should, in general, be allowed in linguistics.