A study on ellipsis in ernest hemingway’s short stories with reference to vietnamese equivalents

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY ON ELLIPSIS IN ERNEST HEMINGWAY’S SHORT STORIES WITH REFERENCE TO

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY ON ELLIPSIS IN ERNEST HEMINGWAY’S SHORT STORIES WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master

in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

an academic researcher

A special word of thanks goes to all the lecturers of the M.A course at Hanoi Open University and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

translated works by Le Huy Bac, a professor in literary field

Combinations of methods such as descriptive, statistic, comparative are used in the research Accordingly, descriptive method is used from the beginning of the study in order to build a solid theoretical background The statistic method is used to identify and collect elliptical cases occurring in Hemingway’s short stories and their Vietnamese equivalents After that, the comparative method is used to investigate the use of ellipsis in Ernest Hemingway’s short stories with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents

Different kinds of English ellipsis (nominal, verbal and clausal) were discovered together with typical Vietnamese equivalents Accordingly, not all English elliptical cases are still translated as ellipsis in Vietnamese which causes a lot of challenges in learning and teaching this phenomenon Related recommendations for learning and teaching ellipsis are suggested with hope to overcome these drawbacks

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1:Halliday and Hasan’s classification of cohesive devices (1976)

15

Table 2: Types of Ellipsis based on Halliday and Hasan (1976) 16

Figure 1: Types of ellipsis in Hemingway's short stories 47

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.2.5.2 Types of English nominal ellipsis 17

2.2.7.1 Modal ellipsis and propositional ellipsis 25 2.2.7.2 Ellipsis in question-answer and other rejoinder sequences 27 2.2.7.3 Ellipsis in ‘reporting-reported’ sequences 29

Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1 English nominal ellipsis and Vietnamese equivalents 37 4.1.1 Nominal ellipsis with Deictic functioning as Head 38

4.2 English verbal ellipsis and its Vietnamese equivalents 44

4.3 English clausal ellipsis and its Vietnamese equivalents 48

4.3.2 Ellipsis in question-answer rejoinder sequences 49

4.3.1 Challenges in teaching-learning English ellipsis 54 4.3.2 Implication for learning and teaching ellipsis effectively 55

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the research

People convey ideas, thoughts and emotions through language, both spoken and written To most writers through decades, what they wanted to express or touch others’ hearts not only bases on the careful selections of words but also the assistance of cohesive devices, especially grammatical ones

The theory and practice of grammatical cohesion have been widely analyzed by many foreign linguists such as Halliday and Hasan (1976), Baker (1992), Yule (1996) as well as Valeika and Buikiene (2006) Abundant works about grammatical cohesion have been written, but it would seem that further investigation is needed to be taken in the usage of this phenomenon appearing in the literary works

Ernest Hemingway, a famous American writer, appears to be the typical author who frequently used grammatical cohesive devices such as reference, ellipsis and conjunction in his works Many researchers overseas and in Vietnam have still continued to carry out researches on the contribution of these grammatical cohesive devices in Hemingway’s novels and short stories Among all, ellipsis has not been discussed much although this phenomenon distributes much portion in many of Hemingway’s works

In many short stories, Hemingway avoided complicated syntax; about 70%

of the sentences are simple sentences – a childlike syntax without subordination According to Baker (1972), he believes that Hemingway

learned to “get the most from the least, how to prune language, how to multiply intensities and how to tell nothing but the truth in a way that allowed for telling more than the truth”, which sometimes is called “theory

of omission”

The repetition of this grammatical cohesion device in most of Hemingway’s short stories has brought a significant feature that strongly

impressed readers because they get addicted to the to-be-told stories in this special writing style Therefore, a lot of his works have been translated into Vietnamese in order to give Vietnamese readers and researchers an ideal chance to be closer to his writing style as well as to figure out the beauty of literature In another point of view, Mc Carthy (1991) points out that

ellipsis “not only creates difficulties in learning what structural omissions are permissible but also does not seem to be readily used even by proficient learners in situations where native speakers naturally resort to it”

As a result, the author would like to investigate the use of ellipsis in Hemingway’s short stories to have better understanding of this phenomenon

as well to examine its Vietnamese equivalents to draw out some suggestions for learning and teaching ellipsis better

1.2 Aims of the research

This study aims to carry out an investigation into the use of ellipsis in some of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents; therefore, to suggest some recommendations for learning and teaching ellipsis effectively

1.3 Objectives of the research

In order to reach the set goal, the study has to fulfill three following objectives:

- Identifying elliptical cases in Ernest Hemingway’s short stories and their Vietnamese equivalents

- Investigating the use of elliptical cases in Ernest Hemingway’s short stories and their Vietnamese equivalents

- Offering some suggestions for learning and teaching elliptical phenomenon effectively

1.4 Scope of the research

1.4.1 Academic scope

Owning to the limitation of time, the study only investigates five

selected short stories by Ernest Hemingway as A three-day blow, Fifty grand, The way you’ll never be, The short happy life of Francis Macomber and The killers as well as their Vietnamese version of translation by Le Huy Bac These five above works are the typical ones with the frequent

appearance of different elliptical cases which by no means give the author the good base for analysis

1.4.2 Social scope

In the study, the data was collected from five selected short stories

by Ernest Hemingway and their Vietnamese equivalents from Le Huy Bac who is very famous for literature background knowledge in Vietnam Although there are different Vietnamese authors having taken preference in translating Hemingway works, we have just focused on Le Huy Bac’s translation because of the limitation of time In spite of taking data from literary works as a focus, what will be discussed in the study is hoped to be the representative of ellipsis as a whole

1.5 Significance of the research

1.5.2 Practical significance

Thanks to some recommendations in the study, it was hoped to bring great benefits for learners of English who want to use this phenomenon to express any ideas effectively Moreover, hopefully, it will help Vietnamese learners overcome difficulties in learning this phenomenon

as well as help Vietnamese teachers teach it effectively

1.6 Structural organization of the thesis

This graduation thesis is designed with 5 chapters Chapter 1 gives the reasons for doing the research, the aims, the objectives as well as the scope and the significance of the research Chapter 2 presents the review of previous studies which contribute to the inspiration of conducting the thesis Moreover, it also consists of theoretical background such as discourse, cohesion and ellipsis Chapter 3 describes the methods and materials used in doing the research, including data collection and data analysis techniques Chapter 4 presents and analyzes the data collected, then interprets the results Chapter 5 wraps with all main ideas discussed in previous chapters

as well as suggests some recommendations for further studies

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies

2.1.1 Previous studies overseas

It was since the 1960s and 1970 when there lived a great development

in the field of discourse analysis that many aspects of discourse, especially cohesive devices have been discussed in the works of English scholars such

as Pinton (1985), Rosalina (2008), Jamila (2009), Mazeikite (2012), Amitabh (2015)

In his work, Pinton (1985) drew out an investigation into the great majority of referential, substitutive and elliptical cohesive items in Conrad Aiken’s “Silent now, secret snow” Before arriving at some findings as shown in tables of the study, the author gave in-depth background knowledge of discourse analysis, cohesion and types of grammatical cohesive devices The writer also affirmed the importance of reference, substitution and ellipsis contributing to the story by Conrad Aiken However, it is suggested that the author focus on one type of grammatical cohesive devices to deeply analyzed as well as arrives at findings

Rosalina (2008), in her thesis, conducted a research on the appearance

of cohesive devices (both grammatical and lexical) in 3 short stories by

Hemingway, namely The light of the World, Hills like white elephants, and

A clean-well lighted place Accordingly, the frequency of cohesive devices

in these writings were focused and categorized and finally arrived at the answer of the most dominant one Although this thesis was a great effort of taking all kinds of cohesive devices in these 3 shorts stories into consideration, it seems that there was no focus As a result, my thesis will deal with ellipsis as a significant cohesive device in five selected short stories in order to make it a typical one out of other devices

Jamila (2009) attempted to investigate both grammatical and lexical cohesion with the data taken from journalistic text and fiction text The background framework such as discourse, coherence and cohesion as well

as cohesive devices was provided in order to be the solid background for the study However, the data collected from 2 random texts from a newspaper and story seemed to make the result unpersuasive because the data collected was in a small quantity It would be better if the writer added more texts in order to get valuable findings Aiming at achieving good data of different types of ellipsis for analysis, I attempted to analyze five short stories by Ernest Hemingway, which hopefully help me to arrive at expected findings

Mazeikite (2012) shared the same ideas as my thesis when she based

on 4 short stories by Ernest Hemingway such as Hills like white elephants, The killers, Cat in the rain and Canary for one in order to get the data for further analysis In this paper, the author attempted to make clear the concept of cohesion generally and the concept of reference particularly The thesis then arrived at analysis of personal reference, demonstratives and comparative reference from the 4 selected works above

In another journal, Amitabh (2015) attempted to analyze ellipsis in two short stories in English (Hills like elephants by Hemingway) and in Hindi (Jaadu by Munshi Premchand) The two literary works were considered to be the masterpiece in the two languages has been taken into consideration The author illustrated the diversity and complexity of ellipsis

in two works in order to help learners to compare the structures of both the languages and then get to know how and where the structures of noun phrases, verb phrases, and appositional phrases might occur and become

elliptical in two languages The analysis of Hills like white elephants in this

writing will be an enormous contribution to my study Moreover, the translation of five selected short stories will also be taken into consideration

with aim to draw out some comparison between the source and the target texts

In conclusion, it can be understood that cohesion in discourse seems

to be a preferred topic that many researchers overseas have decided to conduct further studies They all share the same perspective of the base for their study such as the theory of discourse, discourse analysis or cohesion Consequently, it was applied into analyzing cohesion and any type of grammatical cohesion contributing to certain documents and works

2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam

Along with overseas studies, many Vietnamese authors have also had discussion on the theme Some of the typical ones are Huỳnh Hữu Hiền (1997), Hoàng Thị Tú Anh (2005), Phạm Văn Tình (2006), Nguyễn Thị Hoa (2011)

Huỳnh Hữu Hiền (1997) carried out thorough investigation into the kinds of ellipsis in English and Vietnamese, then drew out valid comparison between the two languages in ways of using this cohesive device The data contributing to the findings and discussions of this thesis was collected from different sources in both languages, which, in some aspects, took a lot of time for collection By taking advantage of what being studied in this paper,

my thesis is desired to mainly focus on ellipsis in Hemingway’s short stories with the available sources Accordingly, the author will have more time to examine and select valuable data for further analysis

In the study, Hoàng Thị Tú Anh (2005) analyzed ellipsis as a measure

to clarify Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory She also cited a lot of elliptical cases from different short stories and novels for further analysis However, the study based on Vietnamese version to get the data as well as it tends to focus on literature area instead of linguistics As a result, elliptical cases will

be analyzed from the perspective of linguistics in order to help in using and translating this phenomenon in an effective way

In another point of view, Phạm Văn Tình (2006) conducted in-depth analysis on ellipsis in Vietnamese which has given me a good chance to have better understanding of this phenomenon in Vietnamese style Together with knowledge of ellipsis being researched by many authors in English, I myself can make general comparison of this cohesive device in the two languages As a result, the study of the five selected short stories by Hemingway and the changes in their translation in Vietnamese will definitely work

Nguyễn Thị Hoa (2011) presented what grammatical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese were and then contrasted them to see whether there are corresponded grammatical cohesive devices in Vietnamese to those in English and how these grammatical cohesive devices differ from each other The author also arrived at some implications for readers in order to avoid making mistakes in using grammatical cohesive devices and translating between these two languages Seemingly, it took the author much time because she had to collect data from different sources, both in English and Vietnamese

In general, these above researchers collected and analyzed grammatical cohesive devices from many sources including Ernest Hemingway as mine However, none of them discussed about ellipsis as a focus occurring in Hemingway’s works, especially five short stories I have chosen

2.2 Review of theoretical background

2.2.1 Theoretical framework

The study was conducted basing on the theoretical framework of discourse analysis, coherence and ellipsis which have been studied for long decades by foreign and Vietnamese researchers

In the late 1950s, Harris (1952) was the first person to mention the

term Discourse analysis and Mitchell (1957) actually studied discourse first

through his study on language in social settings entitled “ Buying and selling in Cyenaica: a situational statement”. It was not until the 1960s and 1970s that discourse analysis had a lot of development with some best-known works by Austin(1962), Dell Hymes (1964), Searle (1969), M.A.K Halliday (1973), Grice (1975) and Sinclair and Coulthard (1975)

In Vietnam, linguists started paying attention to discourse analysis at the end of the 20 century Some of the famous authors are Tran Ngoc Them (1985, 1999) , Diep Quang Ban (1998, 2002) , Nguyen Hoa (2002, 2003), Hoang Van Van (2006)

2.2.2 The concept of discourse

There are some definitions of discourse According to Crystal (1980), discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than

a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative While Stubbs (2002) give the definition of discourse as

“language above the sentence or above the clause”. Discourse is a particular way of talking about and understanding the world (or an aspect of the world) Discourse is language-in-action, and investigating it requires attention both to language and to action According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), discourse is a language that is functional – language that is doing some job in some context as opposed to isolated words or sentences Discourse can be spoken, written or in any other medium of expression

Nunan D (1993) defined discourse as “ a stretch of language consisting of several sentences, which are perceived as being related in some way Sentences can be related, not only in terms of the idea they share, but also

in terms of the jobs they perform within the discourse – that is in terms of their functions”

From the definitions above, it can be known that discourse is the comprehension unit of language It occurs as a highest or biggest in the grammatical hierarchy Sentence in discourse is unreleased but it merges

between preceding and following sentences The discourse unity is formed

by sentences, which are components of its construction

Halliday and Hasan (1976) use “text” to actually refer to discourse for they say a text is unit of language in use and it may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue Brown and Yule (1983) point out that texts are the representation of discourse and verbal records of communicative acts The concept of “text” is, however, confusing and

impractical According to Widdowson (1979), “one way to sees it as a text,

a collection of formal objects held together by patterns of equivalences or frequencies or by cohesive devices The other way sees languages as discourse, a use of sentences to perform acts of communication which cohere into larger communicative units, ultimately establishing a rhetorical pattern which characterizes the pieces the language as a whole as a kind of communication”. The ability of the speaker to stretch a given discourse can

be said to constitute a text Cohesion then is a principle factor in determining texture since it is a means through which we can relate our utterances or sentences

Undoubtedly, it causes researched a lot of trouble distinguishing the two terms “text analysis” and “discourse analysis” According to Ho Ngoc

Trung (2013), “the term discourse analysis or text analysis refers to a branch of linguistics that studies discourse/text”. James (1980)

distinguished them as “we shall view text analysis as concerned with the formal devices used for establishing inter-sentential connections, and unit

“above” the sentence and view discourse analysis as handling considerations of use”. Moreover, Widdowson (1979) points out that text analysis and discourse analysis are different but complementary ways of looking at language in use

2.2.3 Cohesion

2.2.3.1 Text and its texture

As for Valeika and Buitkiene (2006), “Language is a means of conveying and obtaining information” and to achieve this, the units of language must perform appropriate functions All languages are formed of the smaller units – words, which have form and meaning All languages also have sentences which similarly have form and meaning and that meaning is determined by the meanings of the words which it is composed and also grammatical structure Those sentences must be bound together to make a text A text is the text if there is mutual dependence between sentences A number of linguists such as Halliday and Hasan (1976), Breugrande and Dressler (1981) and Lyons (1995) have characterized what a text is and what features it has that distinguished it from a collection of unrelated sentences

Halliday and Hasan (1976) refers to a text as “any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length that forms a unified whole” In order to create a text as a unified whole, it is necessary to know what makes text coherent Firstly, it can be said that text is not defined by its size, it is not a grammatical unit and it differs from a sentence As observed earlier a collection of random sentences cannot be regarded as the text, it can be said that “in its deep structure, the text is sequence of mutually related clauses, which after the application of appropriate textualizing operations, are turned into text sentences” (Valeika and Buitkiene, 2006) Furthermore, in order to create mutually connected sentences, the meaning that is semantic relation

of the words is important, because words and context are inseparable If we take any word for example, we can make predictions about the textual environment it can occur, and if we know something about the environment, then we can make predictions about the words which are likely to occur there (Stubbs, 2002) The main conclusion, however, is that meaning and logical relation of words and sentences are important when creating a

coherent text That is why the text is not composed of sentences it is realized

by sentences (Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

A text distinguishes from a non-text by its texture Texture is the particular property that a text possesses and this distinguishes it from something that is not a text (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) Texture is “the property that ensures that the text ‘hangs together’” and makes any text meaningful and coherent (Valeika, 2001) A text without texture would be a group of unrelated sentences

The most important feature of the texture is the cohesive relation called a tie that is a semantic link between two elements According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), “the concept of a tie makes it possible to analyze a text in terms of its cohesive properties, and give a systematic account of its patterns of textures” Ties “create links across sentence boundaries and pair and chain together items that are related (e.g by referring to the same entity)” (McCarthy, 1991) Accordingly, ties link sentences and therefore create cohesion It is easy to see that language follows a linear sequence The last sentence of the previous text will lead into the beginning of the next and cohesion shows if there is the connection between sentences in the text That means it describes the ways in which components of sentences of a text are mutually connected (grammatically and lexically) It creates a meaningful text to put it otherwise it defines a text as text

2.2.3.2 The concept of cohesion

The term “cohesion” was used by M.A.K Halliday (1976) and later employed by other linguists such as Hasan (1976), Toolan (1988), Cook (1994), Lyons (1995) and Yule (1996) Halliday and Hasan (1996) analyzed relations between adjacent sentences and clauses, they named these relation

cohesive relations They claimed that cohesion is a semantic relation and that cohesion exists “where the interpretation of some elements in the

discourse is dependent on that of another” De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) refer to the cohesion as “continuity” meaning that various occurrences in the text are related to each other It showed that the syntactic knowledge is an important part in constructing cohesive relations and making text the unified whole It also indicates that cohesion depends upon lexical and grammatical relationships that allow sentences to be understood

as connected text rather than as unrelated sentences

Like other semantic relation, Halliday and Hasan (1976) noted that cohesion can be expressed through the stratal organization of language Language as multiple coding systems has three levels of coding or “strata”: the semantic (meanings), the lexico-grammatical (forms) and the phonological or orthographic (expressions) Meaning is put into wording and wording into sound or writing Wording refers to lexico-grammatical form, the choice of words and grammatical structures Cohesion is a semantic relation and it is realized through the lexico-grammatical system like all components of the semantic system Some forms of cohesion are realized through the grammar and others through the vocabulary (Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

2.2.3.3 Grammatical and lexical cohesion

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), cohesion is classified into 2 broad types: grammatical and lexical While the grammatical type is realized by various grammatical devices used to make relations among sentences more explicit, the lexical one is established through structure of vocabulary; by relating words in terms of their meaning Both types of cohesion and their divisions are presented in Table 2.1 on page 14, based on Halliday and Hasan (1976)

2.2.3.4 Cohesion and coherence

It is known two aspects in forming text unity, they are coherence and cohesion Concerning those aspects, some linguists have asserted their

concept about them According to Widdowson (1979), coherence is a matter

of the contextual appropriacy of linguistic forms (sentences and part of sentences) While, cohesion is the overt relationship between propositions expressed through sentences In other word, cohesion is a propositional relationship across sentences, without regard to what illocutionary acts are being performed, by reference to formal syntactic and semantic signals

Table 2.1: Halliday and Hasan’s classification of cohesive devices (1976)

COHESION

Anaphoric [to preceding text]

Cataphoric [to following text]

Antonymy Superordinate and Meronymy General word

Verbal substitution Clausal substitution Ellipsis Nominal ellipsis

Verbal ellipsis Clausal ellipsis Conjunction Adversative

Additive Temporal Causal

Van Dijk (1977) also asserted that coherence is a semantic form in discourse, which is based on the interpretation of relation inter-proposition According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the concept of cohesion is a

semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as the text Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another Furthermore, Halliday and Hasan said that cohesion in the text is distinguished by grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion

According to the definition above, it is clear that cohesion and coherence are the important factors in forming the text unity Text unity is depending on the interpretation of relation inter-proposition and formal relation, which is formed by cohesive devices that exist within the text However, because of time limitedness, coherence is not analyzed in this research

2.2.4 The concept of ellipsis

Ellipsis, a cohesive device, is a universal linguistic phenomenon which is generally employed without any real awareness of how it is structured by the language users Many researchers have defined ellipsis in many ways

Mc Carthy (1991) defined “ellipsis is distinguished by the structure having some ‘missing’ elements Ellipsis is the omission of elements normally required by the grammar which the speaker/writer assumes are obvious from the context and therefore need not to be raised”

Halliday and Hasan (1976) observed “the starting point of the discussion of ellipsis can be familiar notion that it is ‘something left unsaid’.

There is no implication here that what is unsaid is not understood; on the contrary, ‘unsaid’ implied ‘but understood nevertheless’

Quirk et al (1972) considered “Ellipsis is purely a surface phenomenon In a strict sense of ellipsis, words are ellipted only if they are uniquely recoverable and what is uniquely recoverable depends on the contexts”.

Kennedy (2003) indicates that “ellipsis is the process by which noun phrase, verb phrase, or clauses are deleted or “understood” when they are absent.”

Ho Ngoc Trung (2013) observes ellipsis as “the omission of elements normally required by the grammar which the speaker/writer assumes are obvious from the context and therefore need not be raised”

In conclusion, it can be understood that ellipsis occurs when some essentials structural element is omitted from a sentence or clause and can only be recovered by referring to an element in the preceding text Halliday and Hasan (1976) categorized ellipsis into three categories, as illustrated in Table 2.2 as follows:

Table 2.2: Types of ellipsis based on Halliday and Hasan (1976) Nominal ellipsis Verbal ellipsis Clausal ellipsis

The men got back at

midnight All ɸ were

tired out

swimming?

Yes, I have ɸ

Who was going to plant

a row of poplars in the park?

- The Duke was ɸ

2.2.5 English nominal ellipsis

2.2.5.1 The structure of English nominal group

Basing on the logical perspective, different authors studying English shared the same point of view toward nominal group Quirk el al (1972) and Halliday and Hasan (1976) view the nominal group (‘noun phrase’ in their term) as consisting of three components: the head, the pre-modification, and the post-modification as shown in the following order:

According to Leech and Svartvick (1975), a ‘noun phrase’ is structured by fours elements, namely a Head Noun, Determiner, Pre-modifier and Post-modifier The structure is outlined as:

A complicated solution to the problem

In the functional dimension, the structure of nominal group can be illustrated as follows:

Deictic Numerative Epithet Classifier The Head Qualifier

The above illustration was taken from Halliday and Hasan’s point of view (1976) As for this order, nominal ellipsis occurs when one of the four elements: Deictic, Numerative, Epithet, Classifier appears as Head In the scope of this study, we will base on this functional angle to conduct further researches on ellipsis

2.2.5.2 Types of English nominal ellipsis

As mentioned above, nominal ellipsis occurs when one of the four elements: Deictic, Numerative, Epithet, Classifier appears as Head

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976) in Cohesion in English, “Classifier

tends to achieve by substitution rather than by ellipsis”, so the most characteristic instances of ellipsis are those with Deictic, Numerative and Epithet as Head”

2.2.5.2.1 Nominal ellipsis with Deictic functioning as Head

In this part, a division of the Deictic element into two parts: one forming the Deictic properly so called and one which has been referred to as post-deictic The words functioning as Deictic are mostly of the class of determiner with the demonstrative, possessive, and indefinite determiners; the articles; and some adjectives functioning as post-deictic

a The article “the”

“The” is used to refer to something in its fully-refined designation It

cannot stand alone, functioning as Head in the nominal group and thus

requires another items as in the two, the small, the one that got away (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) The word “the” does not operate elliptically

and where it could have occurred, it is replaced by its non-reduced cognate

form ‘that’ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

b Demonstratives

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), demonstratives such as this, that, these, those, which) all occur elliptically, with very great frequency These demonstratives are most often used with an anaphoric reference as in following examples:

[1] Take these pills three times daily And you’d better have some more of those

ɸ too (Halliday and Hasan, 1976).

In this example, those is elliptical for those pills

[2] ‘Albert says one of the boys is very sick’, she said ‘I think you’d better go down and see He wouldn’t get us up at this hour for nothing’

‘Which ɸ of the boy is it?’ I asked Albert as we followed the dance of my torch

pro-and Hasan, 1976) Let us consider the following example:

[3] Just ask Janet how to polish the brassware Hers sparkles

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

d Non-specific Deictic

The non- specific Deictics are each, every, any, either, no, neither, a, some, all, both All of these can occur as Head of an elliptical nominal

except every

‘Both’, ‘either’, and ‘neither’ presuppose two sets, and ‘all’ and

‘each’ presupposes two or more These are some examples:

[4] Smith and Jones are on holiday I wonder if either ɸ has left an address

[5] The flat has a sitting-room, a dining-room and one bedroom Each ɸ has a window overlooking the park.

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

The elliptical ‘some’ can presuppose either the singular or plural

nominal group as in following examples:

[6] Those apples are delicious Let’s buy some ɸ

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

[7] - Do you smell coffee?

- Yes dear

- Can I have some ɸ, good and black

(Xpekina et all, 1986)

‘Any’, and ‘no’ are the non-dual equivalents of ‘either’ and ‘neither’

‘No’ and ‘ none’ are negative but usually used with a positive verb “No’ has the form of ‘none’ in ellipsis Some examples for this are:

[8] I’ve checked all the files None ɸ were/was missing

[9] I’m expecting a letter Has any ɸ come?

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

‘A’ when used elliptically will become ‘one’ ; ‘one’ as a determiner is different form ‘one’ as a substitute in that the plural of the determiner ‘one’

is ‘some’ as in the following examples by Halliday and Hasan (1976) For

example:

[10] But you make no remark? – I didn’t know I had to make one ɸ, just then

e Post – deictics

The words functioning as Post – deictic element in English nominal group are not determiners but adjectives There are some thirty and forty adjectives used commonly but Deictic function; the frequent ones include

other, same, different, identical, usual, regular, certain, odd, famous, known, typical, obvious The distinction should be made between adjectives

well-as post-deictics and those well-as epithets Epithets and post-deictics are positioned differently in the nominal group:

For examples: ‘the identical three questions’ (post – deictic)

‘the three identical questions’ (epithet)

Of these adjectives used in deictic function the ones which regularly

occur elliptically are ‘same’ and ‘other’ “Other” may be singular or plural, definite or indefinite, then having one of these forms: the other, another, the others, others For example:

[11] I’ve used up these three yellow folders you gave me Can I use the other ɸ?

[12] - I’ll have too poached eggs and toast, please

- I’ll have the same ɸ

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

2.2.5.2.2 Nominal ellipsis with Numerative functioning as Head

The Numerative element in the nominal group is expressed by numberas or other qualifying words, which form three subcategories: ordinals, cardinals and indefinite quantifiers

The ordinal are first, next, last, second, third, fourth, etc are often used elliptically, generally with the or a possessive as Deictic, as in the

following example:

[13] Have another chocolate – No, thanks; that was my third ɸ

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

Cardinal numbers are also frequent in ellipsis, and may be preceded

by any Deictic that is appropriate in number, e.g: the three, these three, any three, all three, and also by post – deictic adjectives as in the usual three, the same three

Another type of numeratives is indefinite quantifiers, of which much, many, more, most, few, several, a little, lots, a bit are very frequently used in ellipsis For example:

[14] I paid the fare we had settled at the airport, plus a generous trip The driver

asked for more ɸ, speaking slowly and with funny gestures I said no and why do you speak like that, I am not a foreigner (…) He became embarrassed and I paid him a little

more ɸ (Spack, 1994)

2.2.5.2.3 Nominal ellipsis with Epithet functioning as Head

As seen in many grammar books, the function of Epithet is typically fulfilled by an adjective and it should be stated again that the adjective following a numerative in the nominal group is labeled “epithet”

Colour adjectives are perhaps the most usual ones to be used elliptically It is partly due to the fact that they are in the ‘close system’ For example:

[15] - Do they work in light or dark colours?

- Oh, light ɸ! They despise dark colours

non-[16] Apples are the cheapest ɸ in autumn (Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

The elliptical adjective in the compared form also occurs with

exophoric reference and in idiomatic expressions For example: The more, the merrier Elliptical adjectives as nominal head are probably seen in the exophoric use with the greatest frequency These adjectives are in the two

main subcategories: Plural personal (e.g The Chinese, the poor) and singular non-personal abstract (e.g The evil, the unknown, the usual)

2.2.5.3 Summary of English nominal ellipsis

The nominal group is regarded as an important component in the English clause and sentence Because of its function as expressing the sentence topic and discourse topic, it is found in the elliptical form with a great frequency In this part, three types of English nominal ellipsis (namely Deictic, Numerative and Epithet as Head) with detailed explanations have been discussed together with appropriate examples from valid sources

2.2.6 English verbal ellipsis

2.2.6.1 The structure of English verbal group

Authors in traditional, structural and transformational grammars like Borsley (1991), Thomas (1969), Cook (1988) indicated that the term “verb phrase” consists of modal verbs, main verb and other elements of the predication

From the functional and systemic perspective by Quirk el al (1972) and Leech and Svartvik (1975), the verbal group (or verb phrase) consists of wither of a lexical verb (main verb) or of one or more operators (auxiliary verbs) together with a lexical verb which is always positioned at the end of the group

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the verbal group expresses systemic selections based on the following principle systems: Finiteness (finite or non-finite), Polarity (positive or negative; marked or unmarked), Voice (active or passive), and Tense (past or present or future) Another

system may be noted that is Contrast (contrastive or non-contrastive), marked by intonation in spoken English

In the scope of this study, in order to avoid complexity of structural description, systemic description should be the most appropriate in helping conduct further research on verbal ellipsis

2.2.6.2 Types of English verbal ellipsis

An elliptical verbal group presupposes one or more words from a previous verbal group Technically, it is defined as a verbal group whose structure does not fully express its systematic feature Example:

[17] Have you been swimming? – Yes, I have ɸ

[18] What have you been doing? – ɸ Swimming

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 167)

The two verbal groups in the answers have (in yes, I have) in [13] and swimming in [14], are both the instances of verbal ellipsis Both stand for ‘have been swimming’, and there is no possibility of ‘filling out’ with any other items The example [14] could be interpreted only as I have been swimming and it could, furthermore, be replaced by I have been swimming,

since as in all types of ellipsis, the full form and the elliptical one are both possible There are two types of verbal ellipsis namely lexical and operator ellipsis

2.2.6.2.1 Lexical ellipsis

Lexical verbal ellipsis is the phenomenon in which the lexical verb is missing from the verbal group Verbal ellipsis can simply be recognized by

an investigation into the form of the verbal group According to Halliday

and Hasan (1976), “any verbal group consisting of a modal operator only can immediately be described as elliptical”. For example:

[19] Is John going to come? – He might ɸ He was to ɸ, but he may not ɸ

- He should ɸ, if he wants his name to be considered

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

In lexical ellipsis whatever word may be ellipted, the first modal must

be present, that is it is always finite The other system like ‘Polarity’,

‘Voice’, and ‘Tense’ can be expressed either explicitly or implicitly, which depends partly on the modals coming next

It is worth noting that ambiguity may arise with the verb that can be used either as an operator or as a lexical In these cases, only by reference to

the previous verbal group can we decide whether it is elliptical or not ‘Do’ may bear the special tense of ‘be satisfactory’ (e.g Will that do?) or be used

as a substitute; ‘Have’ many mean ‘possess’ (e.g I haven’t any money) or

‘take’ (e.g I have breakfast)

2.2.6.2.2 Operator ellipsis

The second type of verbal ellipsis is referred to by Halliday and Hasan (1976) as operator ellipsis Operator ellipsis is, as the expression implies, that type of verbal ellipsis in which one or more than one operator (auxiliary verb) is omitted from the verbal group, the lexical verb always remain intact In operator ellipsis the subject is always omitted from the clause Look at the examples below:

[20] They might ɸ or might not have objected.

[21] Has she been crying? – No, ɸ laughing.

[22] What have you been doing? – ɸ Being chased by a bull

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

The full forms of these sentences are [1] They might or they might not have objected [2] Has she been crying? – No, she has not been crying, but she has been laughing [3] What have you been doing? – I have been being chased by a bull

Within the sentence, operator ellipsis usually occurs in those with coordination to refer to the two halves of the sentence In other words, the two verbal groups concerned are usually in close relationship Likewise across sentences, operator ellipsis tends to occur in very closely bonded

sentences such as question and response A few examples illustrated for this are:

[23] – What are you doing?

- ɸ Cleaning the walnuts

[24] - What’s the matter?

- Nothing Just ɸ looking for you

- ɸ Been out to the races?

(Xpekina, 1986)

In [23], the ellipted item can be easily recovered as ‘I am cleaning’

However, we need to go beyond the context to recover them in [24] Thus,

‘looking’ and ‘been’ here mean ‘I am looking’ and ‘Have you been’,

respectively

2.2.6.3 Summary of English verbal ellipsis

English verbal ellipsis consists of two types (lexical and operator ellipsis) which can be easily recognized from the structure of certain verbal group in way lexical or auxiliary verb is missing from the whole structure Along with detailed analysis, examples of two types of English verbal ellipsis have been supplied for illustrations in this part

2.2.7 Clausal ellipsis

Clausal ellipsis represents the omission of a part of the clause or all of

it It is similar to the verbal group ellipsis except that clausal ellipsis is external to the verb itself, affecting other elements in the structure of the clause Taking the two types of operator ellipsis and lexical ellipsis from another angle as the clause being the point of departure, the classification of clausal ellipsis can be: modal ellipsis and propositional ellipsis (Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

2.2.7.1 Modal ellipsis and propositional ellipsis

To illustrate modal and propositional elements in the structure of the English clause, some examples are given as follows:

1 He was going to meet her near the pub

Modal element Propositional element

In these above sentences, modal element embodies the speech functions of the clause consisting of the subject and the finite element in the

verbal group (He + was, They + can, You + can’t) The propositional element consits of the residue or the remainder of the verbal group (going, talk, understand) , and any Complement (her, him) and Adjuncts ( near the pub, with her, tonight) which may be present

Usually modal ellipsis is closely associated with operator ellipsis and propositional ellipsis with lexical ellipsis For examples:

[25] Modal ellipsis; operator ellipsis

- Are they talking? – No, ɸ eating.

Here, the missing elements are ‘They are’ (the modal element which entails the operator ‘are’)

[26] Propositional ellipsis with lexical ellipsis

– You look good, Pop – ɸ Do I really?

In this example, the ellipted elements are recognized as ‘look good’ (the propositional element which entails the lexical verb ‘look’)

However, if the verb is in simple past or present tense, modal ellipsis

may not involve operator ellipsis; and when the speaker uses ‘do’ as the

substitute rather than as the elliptical form of the verbal group, propositional ellipsis may not be accompanied by lexical ellipsis For examples:

[27] - What did he do? – ɸ Ran away.

[28] - Does Jane sing? – Yes, she ɸ does

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

2.2.7.2 Ellipsis in question-answer and other rejoinder sequences

An observation by a speaker may be followed by an observation by another speaker that is related to it in a cohesive tie This is called rejoinder and it can be direct response or indirect response A direct response answers

a yes/no questions or supplies the specific information asked for by the question An indirect response can be: one which comments on the question

Wh-(commentary), one which denies its relevance (disclaimer), and one which

gives supplementary information implying but not actually expressing an

answer (supplementary) Other rejoinders, not following a question,

include Assent and Contradition (following a statement); Consent and Refusal (following a command) and Yes/No or Wh- question (following either a statement or a command)

a Direct responses

(*) Yes/ No questions

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), Yes/ No questions are also called polar questions (having ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for their answer) They may stand alone or be accompanied by short answers ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ only give the simple polarity: positive and negative For example:

[29] – Does your face hurt? – No ɸ, sir

[31] – ‘Will you be able to go?’ – ‘ Of course ɸ As major of the city…’

(Spack, 1994)

[32] ‘Tell me, Olivier, has the Law School accepted you yet?’ ‘ Not yet ɸ, sir.’

(Segal, 1993)

of answer is one of which does merely fill in the blank: which supplies the appropriate nominal, adverbial or prepositional group to act as Subject or Complement or Adjunct, and as Actor or Goal or Beneficiary or Temporal

or Locative, etc Examples illustrated for this may be:

[33] What did I hit? – ɸ A root (Complement, Goal)

[34] Who killed Cock Robin? – The sparrow ɸ (Subject, Actor)

[35] Till what time are you staying? - ɸ Half past three (Adjunct, Tempral)

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

b Indirect responses

An indirect response is regarded as an answer to a question in an

indirect way As mentioned above, it may be commentary - one which comments on the question; disclaimer - one which denies its relevance and

supplementary - one which gives supplementary information implying but not actually expressing an answer Halliday and Hasan (1976) explained each one through these following examples:

[36] Is it Tuesday today? – I don’t know ɸ (Commentary, ignorance)

[37] What’s your telephone number? – We’re not on the phone (Disclaimer,

declarative)

[38] Are you coming back today? – This evening (Supplementary,

coordinative)

c Other rejoinders

A response which presuppose a question is one kind of rejoinder but

it differs from a rejoinder in way a rejoinder is any utterance by a second

speaker which presupposes that of the first speaker whether it is a question

or not Because responses as rejoinders had been discussed above, we just have two other types: questions rejoinders and rejoinders to statements or commands

Question rejoinders have the function of querying a preceding statement or command or eliciting supplementary information about it One type is that which presupposes the entire preceding clause and seeks confirmation of it as a whole, these are yes/no questions and nearly always have the form of interrogative clauses with propositional ellipsis like the

question tag, and the polarity is never reserved For example: Peter’s here –

Is he? (Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

In another type, the speaker identifies one item as requiring confirmation; the remainder of the clause is omitted but this item is queried explicitly These rejoinders can be yes/no questions or Wh-questions and take place under the three conditions: repetition, expansion and replacement, involving an echoed element, an expanded element and a new element For examples:

[39] Wh-question and yes/no question; echoed and new elements

‘He’s too sick Very sick, Baas,’ He said

‘ But who ɸ? Franz ɸ?’

[40] Wh-question, expanded element

‘ Jenny, please I’m thinking.’

‘What about ɸ?’

(Spack, 1994)

2.2.7.3 Ellipsis in ‘reporting-reported’ sequences

These instances of ellipsis are also based on the same principle

of presupposition as discussed in the previous section They are of three minor types: indirect Wh-questions, indirect Yes/no question and indirect statements For indirect Wh-questions, the target of presupposition is similar