Tamar Jojua

Structural Analysis of the Elliptical Sentence ( On the linguistic Material of

English)
A sentence is defined as a syntactic structure, which is used in communication to form and
render complete thought about situation of reality. It is a grammatical unit consisting of one or
more words that are grammatically linked and is characterized by its specific features:
 Integrity
 Syntactic independence
 Grammatical completeness
 Semantic completeness
 Communicative functioning
 Predicativity
 Modality
 Intonational completeness
Including words, grouped meaningfully a sentence can express a statement, a question, an
exclamation, a request, a command or a suggestion:
1
 The season developed and matured. (statement)
 “What are you crying for?” he coldly asked . (question) 2

 “How can you dare to use such words! (exclamation) 3

 Could I stay here for a while? (request) 4

 “Stand still!” he continued. (command) 5

 You could ask him about the news. (suggestion) 6
Accordingly, from the viewpoint of their communicative purposes sentences are divided into
the following types: declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory sentences.

By structure sentences can be classified as: simple and composite---compound and complex,
complete and incomplete----elliptical, two-member or one-member7:

1
Hardy Th. Tess of the D’urbervilles Published in . Penguin popular Classics, 1994, pp.3.
2
Hardy Th. P..5
3
Hardy Th. P.7
4
Hardy Th. P.8
5
Hardy Th. P.10
6
Hardy Th. P.15
7
Kobrina N.A., Korneyeva E.A., Ossovskaya M.I., Guzeyeva K.A.. An English Grammar .Syntax.
Moscow,”Prosvechenye”, 1986, pp. 5-8.
  Jon slipped his hand tremulously under her arm. (simple-includes one subject-predicate
line)8

 The dinner flowers were pale, Fleur was struck with pale look of everything.9
( compound- clauses are arranged as units of syntactically equal rank)

 If these two noticed Angel’s growing social ineptness, he noticed their growing mental
limitations. (complex- units of unequal rank)10

 “Have you come home to be married?” “No, I have not come for that, mother.” (complete-
both the principal positions are filled with word-forms) 11

 “As advertisement?” said Soams dryly. (incomplete-the main positions are not filled) 12
 “I’ll mark for you”.(two member sentence-contains two principal parts)13

 “To get married”.( one-member sentence) 14

Sentences can be shortened to avoid redundancy. Constituents of sentences, when they have
already been mentioned, are in most cases dropped for reasons of the speaker/writer’s desire for
comprehensibility and economy----it is the principle of reduction. Two kinds of reduction are
widely acknowledged: the use of pro-forms and ellipsis. 15
Pro-forms are described as such words which are used to replace or refer to a large construction
in a sentence. Pro-form are of two different types: co-reference and substitution. Co-reference
takes place when two or more expressions in a text refer to the same person or thing; they
have the same referent, e.g. Mary promised she would come very soon.
Pro-forms used in co-reference include:

 definite pronouns and determiners e.g. she, they, myself, his, theirs, those, that; they
often refer to some or all of a noun phrase

 definite adverbs of time or space e.g. then, there, here; adverbial pro-forms relate to
adverbials, e.g. Nick went to the stadium and I went there too.

8
Galsworthy J. To Let. Foreign Languages Publishing House. Moscow, 1952, p.25.
9
Galsworthy J. p. 28.
10
Galsworthy J. p.29.
11
Galsworthy J.p.31.
12
Galsworthy J. , p.33.
13
Galsworthy J p..34
14
Galsworthy J p..35
15
Quirk R., Greenbaum S., Leech G., Svartvik J. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman
Group Limited, 1985, pp. 858-861.
Substitution is the replacement a word or phrase with another word (such as one, so, or do)
to avoid repetition. Pro-forms used in substitution are:

 indefinite pronouns e.g. one(s), some, none, either e.g. I have apples. Do you want
some?

 adverbs e.g. so, thus; so can replace an object, a complement, an adverbial or a

whole clause

 the verb do in constructions as do so e.g. The professor asked the students to take an
active part in the discussion and they did (so).

Ellipsis can be described as “grammatical omission” of a principal or subordinate element or in

some cases both, but their meaning can be understood or implied and should be recoverable:16

 “You are a prince, Ackley kid.” I said “You know that”? (Do you ….) 17
Ellipted items can be recovered from the linguistic context or the situational context.
Recoverability refers to a) textual recoverability when the full form can be recovered from
neighbouring part of the text. Two kinds of textual recoverability are distinguished: cataphoric
and anaphoric references.
Cataphoric-refers to another unit that was introduced later in the sentence; For example:

 After a couple of hours they parted, Frank and Beatrice to have a round of golf, and
Arrow to take a walk with a young Prince Poccamare whose acquaintance she had
lately made.18
Anaphoric-refers to another unit that was introduced earlier in the sentence; For example:

 But Tess did not answer, she throbbingly resumed her walk… .19
b) situational recoverability: the omitted form is recoverable from the extralinguistic situation
and c) structural recoverability: the full form is recoverable through knowledge of grammatical
structure.

While studying ellipsis the following types are usually singled out: linguistic, grammatical and
semantic. Any elliptical sentence should be considered as a transform of the complete sentence,
formed by means of transformation of ellipsis or "deleting" (deletion), the core of this lies in

16
Quirk R et al. . A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman Group Limited, 1985, pp..883-
885
17
Salinger J. D., The Catcher in the Rye. Penguin Books,1990, p.45
18
Maugham W. S. Stories. The Three women of Antibes. “Arili” Publishing House, Tbilisi, 1995,p11.
19
Hardy Th. Tess of the D’urbervilles Published in . Penguin popular Classics, 1994, p. 102.
replacing the explicit version of any word or words with pro-form of the same word. Every
word, either notional or functional can undergo this operation of ellipsis.

Ellipted elements can be seen20 :

1. In replies—to avoid repeating one and the same information: “What are you
going to drink then?”
“Water”. 21

(More natural than “I am going to drink water.”)

2. In structures with and, but, or----in co-ordinate structures repeated words are
omitted: Nothing spoiled their good humour, but the scales,.. .(= …but the scales
spoiled their good humour.) 22

What book of rules says that the theatre exists only within some ugly buildings
crowded into one square mile of New York City? Or London, Paris or Vienna.
(=…into one square mile of London, into one square mile of Paris or into one
square mile of Vienna.)

3. At the beginning of a sentence---In spoken English, when the meaning is clear

such words as articles, possessive and personal pronouns, auxiliary verbs at the
beginning of the sentence are often ellipted: “Coffee?” I said. (=Would you like
coffee?) “Yes, Just an ice-cream and coffee” she answered. 23

4. Sometimes it is possible to omit nouns after adjectives, noun modifiers and

determiners: “Madame wants to know if you have any of those giant asparagus” I
asked the waiter. A happy smile spread over his broad, priest-like face, and he
assured me that they had some so large, so splendid, so tender(=…..so large, so
splendid asparagus) that it was a marvel.24
5. At the end of a verb phrase-if the meaning is clear to avoid repetition a complete
verb can be dropped: She dresses like a man as she could. (= as she could dress.)25
6. The whole infinitive can be ellipted and only particle “to” is used instead of it:
She liked bread and butter, cream, potatoes and puddings and for eleven months
20
Swan M. Practical English Usage. Oxford University press, 1995, pp. 172-178.
21
Maugham W. S.. Collected Short Stories, 4th vol .The Luncheon. Pan Books, London, 1975,p. 23.
22
Maugham W. S. Stories. The Three women of Antibes. “Arili” Publishing House, Tbilisi, 1995,p5.
23
Maugham W. S.. Collected Short Stories, 4th vol. The Luncheon. Pan Books, London1975,p25.
24
Maugham W. S. . p.24.
25
Maugham W. S. Stories. The Three women of Antibes. “Arili” Publishing House, Tbilisi, 1995,p.4.
 of the year ate pretty well everything she had a mind to, and for one month
went Carlsband to slim. (=… she had a mind to eat.)26

7. In comparative structures with as and than if the meaning is clear: What she
liked about Beatrice Richman and Frances Hickson was that they were both so
much fatter than she, it made her look quite slim; (=…than she was.)27
8. Clauses can be ellipted after question words:“Mother said we’d have company so
come right home but she didn’t say who,” said Ann in a friendly voice. (=..who
would come to stay as company for Ann and her mother.)28

9. In an informal conversation conjunction “that” and object relative pronouns can

be dropped: She was beginning to suspect (that) he wasn’t so clever as she had
thought.29
10. In short answers: “Oh, do you go to Pency?”, she said . “Yes, I do,” I said. 30

The purpose of ellipsis is not only to shorten sentences and avoid repetition, but also to create
cohesion (the grammatical links between sentences) within a text to demonstrate that sentences
are interconnected.31 Elliptical sentences are very common for conversational English. While it
is quite ordinary for the written texts to include long sentences involving multiple layers of

Subordination, in unplanned speech, in everyday informal conversation it is quite natural to

operate with short and clear sentences where all forms of reduction are possible and they do
not affect the effective communication.

Bibliography:
1. Berry R..English Grammar. A Course book for students.Routledge,2012, p.132
2. Kobrina N.A., Korneyeva E.A., Ossovskaya M.I., Guzeyeva K.A.. An English
Grammar .Syntax. Moscow,”Prosvechenye”, 1986, pp. 5-8.
3. Swan M. Practical English Usage. Oxford University press, 1995, pp. 172-178.

26
Maugham W. S. Stories. P.4.
27
Maugham W. S. Stories. P.3
28
English (For Senior Students of English) compiled by V. Urushadze. Sanders H. The Fifth Season. Publishing
House “Ganatleba”, 1974, p.5.
29
Maugham W. S. Stories. The Three women of Antibes. “Arili” Publishing House, Tbilisi, 1995, p.4.
30
Salinger J. D., The Catcher in the Rye. Penguin Books,1990, p48.
31
Berry R..English Grammar. A Course book for students.Routledge,2012, p.132
 4. Quirk R., Greenbaum S., Leech G., Svartvik J. A Comprehensive Grammar of the
English Language. Longman Group Limited, 1985, pp. 858-861, pp.883-885.

Cited Works of Fiction:

1. Galsworthy J. To Let. Foreign Languages Publishing House. Moscow, 1952,
pp.25,29,31, 33-35.
2. English (For Senior Students of English) compiled by V. Urushadze. Sanders H. The
Fifth Season. Publishing House “Ganatleba”, 1974, p.5.
3. Hardy Th. Tess of the D’urbervilles Published in . Penguin popular Classics, 1994,
pp.3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 15.
4. Maugham W. S. Stories. The Three women of Antibes. “Arili” Publishing House,
Tbilisi, 1995,pp. 4, 5,11.
5. Maugham W. S.. Collected Short Stories, 4th vol .The Luncheon. Pan Books,
London, 1975,pp. 23, 25, 4, 3, 4.
6. Salinger J. D., The Catcher in the Rye. Penguin Books,1990, pp. 45, 48.

Tamar jojua
E
elipturi winadadebis struqturuli maxasiaTeblebi (inglisuri enis
masalaze)

winadadeba ganisazRvreba rogorc sintaqsuri struqtura, romelic

komunikaciis procesSi gamoiyeneba arsebuli sametyvelo situaciasTan
dakavSirebuli dasrulebuli azris formirebisaTvis da gadmosaccemad.
winadadeba, rogorc gramatikuli erTeuli Sedgeba erTi an meti
gramatikulad dakavSirebuli sityvisagan xasiaTdeba Semdegi specifiuri
niSan-TvisebebiT: mTlianoba, sintaqsuri damoukidebloba, gramatikuli
sisrule, semantikuri sisrule, komunikaciuri funqcionireba, predikatiuloba,
modaluroba, intonaciuri sisrule. winadadeba, gamomdinare masSi
Semavali ama Tu im mniSvnelobis mixedviT dajgufebuli sityvebisagan
SeiZleba gamoxatavdes mtkicebiTi Sinaarsis mqone ganacxads, kiTxvas,
SeZaxils, Txovnas, brZanebasa da SeTavazebas. Aamrigad,
sakomunikacio miznebidan gamomdinare winadadeba SeiZleba
klasificirebuli iqnes rogorc TxrobiTi, kiTxviTi, brZanebiTi, Zaxilis.
struqturulad winadadeba SeiZleba iyos martivi, rTuli-Tanwyobili da
qvewyobili, sruli, usruli-elipturi, orwevriani, erTwevriani.
reduqciis princips safuZvlad udevs winadadebaSi Semavali adre ukve
naxsenebi ama Tu im wevrebis SemdgomSi gamotoveba, rac
gamoixateba mosaubris an mwerlis surviliT, rom Tavidan acilebuli iqnes
gameoreba, sityvebis arasasurveli siWarbe da gamonaTqvams ufro meti
bunebrivoba mieniWos. reduqciis erT-erT farTod gavrcelebuli tips
warmoadgens elifsi.Amocemul naSromSi detaluradaa ganxiluli elipturi
winadadeba,misi struqtura, fuqcionireba, saTanado magaliTebis
ilustrirebiT.