In linguistics,
ellipsis (from the ,
élleipsis, "omission") or
elliptical construction refers to the omission from a clause of one or more words that would otherwise be required by the remaining elements.
Overview
Varieties of ellipsis have long formed a central explicandum for
linguistic theoryLinguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning...
, since elliptical phenomena seem to be able to shed light on basic questions of
form-meaning correspondenceMorphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most languages, words can be related to other words by rules...
: in particular, the usual mechanisms of grasping a meaning from a form seem to be bypassed or supplanted in the interpretation of elliptical structures, ones in which there is meaning without form.
In
generative linguisticsGenerative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar. The term "generative grammar" is used in different ways by different people, and the term "generative linguistics" therefore has a range of different, though overlapping,...
, the term
ellipsis has been applied to a range of phenomena in which a perceived interpretation is fuller than that which would be expected based solely on the presence of linguistic forms. Central examples drawn from English include
sluicingIn syntax, a sluicing construction is one in which the sentential part of an interrogative clause is elided; this typically occurs only in constituent questions...
as in (1),
Verb Phrase ellipsisIn linguistics, verb phrase ellipsis is an elliptical construction in which a verb phrase has been left out . Examples of verb phrase ellipses in English include:...
(VP-ellipsis) as in (2), and
noun phraseIn grammar, a noun phrase is a phrase whose head is a noun or a pronoun, optionally accompanied by a set of modifiers.Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, but some languages like Tuscarora and Cayuga have been argued to lack this category.- Form :Noun phrases normally consist of a...
ellipsis (NP-ellipsis or N’-ellipsis) as in (3).
- (1) John can play something, but I don’t know what.
- (2) John can play the guitar; Mary can, too.
- (3) John can play five instruments, and Mary can play six.
In each case, the second clause can be understood as in (4)-(6).
- (4) John can play something, but I don’t know what John can play.
- (5) John can play the guitar and Mary can play the guitar, too.
- (6) John can play five instruments, and Mary can play six instruments.
These three kinds of ellipsis are distinguished as well by the fact that distributional facts lead us to expect to find structural elements corresponding to the perceived interpretations: wh-phrases as in (1) require clausal sources, modals like
can in (2) take VP complements, and determiner-like elements such as
six in (3) require NP complements. In other words, selectional and subcategorization properties of particular elements require us to posit elided structures in (1)-(3), if these properties are uniform across the grammar.
Ellipsis has further been invoked in a range of other constructions, such as stripping (or bare argument ellipsis) in (7),
gappingGapping is a term in linguistics that refers to clauses in which all verbal elements have been omitted, but in which internal arguments of the verb remain...
in (8), fragment answers in (9), as well as a host of other cases that fall under the general rubric of ‘conjunction reduction’:
- (7) John can play the guitar, {and Mary, too/and Mary as well/but not Mary}.
- John can play the guitar better than Mary.
- (8) John can play the guitar, and Mary the violin.
- John can play the guitar better than Mary the violin.
- (9) Q: Who can play the guitar?
- A: (Not) John.
In addition to these structures, the term 'ellipsis' covers a potential multitude of distinct phenomena as it is used in general parlance, most of which are of little linguistic interest, or whose connection to the types seen above is oblique at best (such as
ellipsisEllipsis is a mark or series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word or a phrase from the original text. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought, or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence...
).
Some examples of other elliptical phenomena are as follows:
- Example: Jessica had five dollars; Monica, three. (The verb "had" was omitted at the comma).
- Example: What if I miss the deadline? (The verb phrase "will happen" was omitted, as in "What will happen if I miss the deadline").
- Example: Fire when ready. (In the sentence, "you are" is understood, as in "Fire when you are ready.").
See also
- collapsing sequences
Collapsing sequences occur in human speech when utterance pairs between speakers have some unspoken thought occurring between them that may make the latter phrase, out of context, seem to have no logical connection to the former; there is, however, an implication that logical thought has occurred...
- ellipsis
Ellipsis is a mark or series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word or a phrase from the original text. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought, or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence...
, about the orthographic usage rules for '...'.
- sluicing
In syntax, a sluicing construction is one in which the sentential part of an interrogative clause is elided; this typically occurs only in constituent questions...
, ellipsis of the sentential part of a constituent question.
- verb phrase ellipsis
In linguistics, verb phrase ellipsis is an elliptical construction in which a verb phrase has been left out . Examples of verb phrase ellipses in English include:...
, about the elliptical construction in which verb phrases are omitted.