Elliptical Sentences in English. Monograph

MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND HIGHER EDUCATION

OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

FEDERAL STATE-FUNDED EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION OF HIGHER EDUCATION «DON STATE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY»

L.V. Kosonozhkina, V.P. Zimina

ELLIPTICAL SENTENCES

IN ENGLISH

Monograph

Rostov-on-Don

DSTU 2024

UDC 81.36:811.111

K71

Reviewer

Associate professor G.A.Pulenko (Southern Federative University)

Kosonozhkina, Lyudmila Valentinovna.

K71 Elliptical Sentences in English : monograph / L.V. Kosonozhkina, V.P. Zimina ; Don State Technical University. Rostov-on-Don : DSTU, 2024. – 65 p.

ISBN 978-5-7890-2197-2

This monograph describes the structural and semantical characteristics of the elliptical sentences in modern English.

It can be used for the theoretical and practical training of students in such subjects as the theoretical and practical grammar, stylistics of English.This monograph was written for a wide range of readers-students studying English and also it is intended for the people who are interested in ellipsis in English.

UDC 81.36:811.111

It is published by the decision of the editorial and publishing Council Don State Technical University

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Introduction

One of the most essential characters of any spoken language is the wide use of the elliptical (shortened, fragmentary) sentences both in dialogues and monologues. Elliptical sentences are considered to be the norm in all the world languages: Slavonic, German, Roman, Asian etc.The study of this language phenomenon started in ancient times and is still carried out because or its versatile features from the the different point of views. This paper studies the elliptical sentences in question answer dialogues of the English language from the structural and semantic sides. The examples were taken fom the belles-lettres texts of the English and American writers. The reader will find numerous samples of the English elliptical sentence of different structure and semantics.

The references to the elliptical sentences are taken from the works of both Russian and foreign linguists. So the readers of this monograph can have an access to to other scientific books describing the elliptical sentences and thus making profit by comparing different scientific handbooks. This monograph is intented for the teachers and students of the English language. It was written to help the readers to see the logically and linguistically interdependent essence of the elliptical sentences. The aim of this paper is to describe the English elliptical sentences in the theoretic way and to aid the English language learners in acquiring skills how to use these structures in every day speech. It consists of three chapters. The first one describes the structure of the elliptical sentences in the question-answer dialogue unities in the modern English language. The second one is devoted to the semantic analysis of the elliptical questions in the question-answer dialogue unities in the modern English language. The third one is devoted to the semantic analysis of the elliptical answers in the question-answer dialogue unities in the modern English language.The paper analyses both the elliptical interrogative and answering sentences with repetitions and the secondary semantic (pragmatic) functions of elliptical sentences in the question-answer dialogical unity and the character of the actual division in it. Conclusion represents the results summing up.

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1.THE STRUCTURE OF THE ELLIPTICAL SENTENCES IN THE QUESTION-ANSWER DIALOGUE UNITIES

IN THE MODERN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Usually we see that the people communication is carried out in the form of a dialogue.

In linguistics the structural and semantic unity of two replicas in the dialogues makes a minimal communicative unit – dialogue unity (later in monograph DU). The widely spread type of syntactic structure which produces English dialogues is represented by the DU made of questions and answers-later QADU (question answer dialogue unity).

The question-answer dialogue unity with the elliptical sentence presented in the question, in the answer or in the question and the answer simultaneously constitutes one of the frequently used types in English.

Great attention of scholars is devoted to the elliptical sentence in linguistics as a specific phenomenon of English speech syntax. Nearly every linguistic trend described the ellipsis and its results, i.e. the elliptical sentence from its own approach. In the formal grammar elliptical sentences were considered as grammatical structures which do not correspond to the classical two member sentences because some of the sentence members were omitted. According to this approach elipticalk sentences (later ES) ES (elliptical sentence) were not considered as the independent grammatical structures because one or several members of the sentence, corresponding to the scheme of the standard two-member English simple sentence were absent. The ellipsis phenomenon was treated as a tendency to make the economy of language signs in the English language system. Text linguistics viewed the ES as the syntactic constructions that receive their own functional status thanks to the context and extralinguistic support.

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In accordance with the communicative approach ES reveal their dependence on linguistic and extralinguistic contexts when forming their semantics, they simply cannot exist without this support.

The authors of this monograph state that the ES are independent special language structures with their own models; and she tries to prove that the semantics of the elliptical interrogative and answer ES in QADU can only be clarified when taking into account the contextual and situational conditions of their formation. In the theory of communicative acts and the question-answer communicative acts in particular the most important factors that influence the semantic structure of ES are context, situation and presupposition. In the QADU of the modern English language, the ES gets a linguistic status of the proposal of semantic-functional dependence on the presuppositions or context or situation. So linguistic and extra-linguistic factors play the important role in the formation of the content plane of the ES in the QADU of modern English. All of the above mentioned facts allowed the authors to determine the elliptical ES as a particular linguistic structure, which is closely dependent on contextual lingustic and extra linguistic information, as the center for the integration of contextual or situational

in which such minimal structures acquire semantic and communicative sufficiency. The study of ES in the QADU of modern English requires a comprehensive pragmatic and linguistic approaches. This allowed the author of monograph to identify the ES as the main structural models in the composition of QADU and to describe the semantic primary and secondary functions of these structures, i.e. pragmatically determined functions. The complex analysis of ES in the QADU of modern English suggests that this linguistic form acts as a product of structural-semantic and pragmatic interaction of question and answer. It possesses certain

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structural models, the study of these numerous models is necessary for their subsequent semantic description.

Summarizing the observations of the structure of elliptical sentences in the QADU of the modern English language, the following conclusions can be made.

1.QADU of the modern English language is a single structuralsemantic unit with the semantic interdependence of its components.

2.Elliptical sentence of question or answer in QADU appears as a structural indicator of this interdependence.

3.The principle of structural classification of ES in QADU according to the volume and the way of the morphological expression of the core (key) component is the same for both the questions and answers, which makes it possible to speak about the identity of their structures (except for those DU when the elliptical questions are presented by the question words only).

4.The advantage of such classification is the compiling of all the diversity of the ES of questions and answers to the certain models. The following structural models of the elliptical question and answer sentences in DU of modern English can be distinguished:

1) one-member elliptical interrogative and answering sentences with noun, pronoun, adjectives, numerals and adverb ial parts of speech as a key component;

2) one-member ES with auxiliaries parts of speech as a key component: an elliptical questions presented by the question words, conjunctions; and elliptical answers in the form of conjunctions, interjections, prepositions;

3) one-member elliptical answer yes-sentences and no-sentences; 4) two-member elliptical general and special questions with direct

word order, two-member elliptical answering sentences with the

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incomplete structure of the predicate and also two-member elliptical interrogative and answering sentences with the represented members;

5)elliptical sentences (one-member, two-member) as a component of the series of questions. As a particular structural model the aurhor identified one and two member elliptical sentences of question and answer with lexical repetition;

6)elliptical questions and answers in DU can be either determined or not determined by the secondary members of the sentence;

7)structural dependence of answering sentences from the questions in modern English DU is reflected in their shortened, elliptical way of expression and in the use of structural tools for their cohesion,

i.e. conjunctions, lexical repetitions, pronouns;

8)elliptical sentences of questions and answers in DU of modern English are the regular, normative feature of the spoken syntax: the evidence is their high usage (4410 elliptical structures were found by the author in a comparatively small amount of texts). Using the statistical method, it can be seen that among the questions the most commonly in use are elliptical one-member questions – 879 examples of the examples, representing 20 % of the total number of examples 4410; among them substantive – 434 examples, verbal – 250 examples,

adjectival – 70 examples, pronominal – 70 examples, adverbial –

55examples);

9)elliptical structures in the form of question words in DU-3

(dialogue unit consisting of 3 replicas) are less common in use (300 examples, two-member elliptical questions with direct word order -5 % (220 examples) and represented members 4,3 % (190 examples)). Elliptical questions as the components of a series of questions amounted to 8 % (350 examples);

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10) the highest usage have elliptical one-member answer sentences – 26 % (1157 examples), among them substantive – 620, verbal – 210, adjectival – 125, pronominally – 115, adverbial – 87 examples in our files. Elliptical yes-answers, no-answers and their modal equivalents form 960 examples of 21.8% and two-members elliptical answer sentences –2,8 % (125 examples);

11) the lowest usage have the elliptical answer sentences presented by the auxiliary parts of speech – 0,7 % (30 examples).

The number of elliptical sentences of questions and answer with lexical repetition is only 4,5 % (200 examples).

The diagram of the quantitative distribution of the various structures of elliptical sentences (ES) in QADU in modern English:

1 – one-member ES; 2 – ES question and answer with texicak repetitions; 3 – ES question words;

is possible to present schematically (Figure: see the diagram).

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2. SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION

OF ELLIPTICAL SENTENCES

IN THE QUESTION-ANSWER DIALOGICAL UNITY OF THE MODERN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

2.1. Interrelation between interrogative and answer sentences

The linguistic research includes the study of the pragmatic and stylistic characteristics of the linguistic units. This leads to the logical interpretation of sentences which reflects the speaker's thoughts and which is undoubtedly influenced by the situation of communication. One can find a lot of linguistic theories of interaction between the logical and grammatical forms in a sentence. Epistemic (interrogative) logic investigates the types of interrogative sentences and their

of interrogative sentences in discussions. The questions as the special thought forms have been studied by such Russian and foreign logicians like J.I. Zuev, V.V. Zabotin, J. Hintikka, V.V. Petrov, P.M. Kuchinsky, Ajdukiewicz, R.C. Collingwood [1, 13, 28, 37, 52, 82, 84].

In the works of these authors many sided study was given to such issues as the essence, logical form and structure of the interrogative sentence, their interrelations with the answer sentences. Naturally, as a logical outcome of such an analysis, the results can be applied to the linguistic study of these structures. Interrogative sentence as the linguistic expression of logical thought categories of a question was also studied by such Russian and foreign linguists as S. Shangelidze, I.P. Susov, V. Bublitz, I. Sag, G. Hankammer [10, 59, 67, 68].

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In logical-syntactical interpretation of the questions the following aspects are being studied:

1)complex logical construction of interrogative sentences, including several components;

2)close logical-syntactical relationship between question and

answer;

3)the diversity of the semiotic versions of the questions.

If one takes a closer look at the studies of both Russian and foreign logicians it becomes evident that the complex logical construction of the question as a special two-members (some authors wrote about three-members) subject-predicate thought is mentioned. It includes, on the one hand, the prerequisite of the question (N. Belnap, and T. Steel) or in other terminology, the base of the question (Yu.I. Zuev), the quality of the question (E.I. Zabotin), desideratum of the question (Ya Hintikka), the judgement or basis of the question as a «springboard for that leap in knowledge that is planned by the question» (P.V. Kopnin), and on the other hand – the subject, predicate and conjunction, which make the semantic center of the question. The subject of the question constitutes the link of the question and it is shown in the interrelation of subject and predicate of the question. In the logic literature the interaction between the link and the predicate of a question is described by different scholars roughly speaking in the same way. So, Y.I. Zuev wrote: «... the cognitive essence of the matter is that it is required to determine whether the characteristic reflected in its predicate corresponds to the elements of many objects that are reflected in the subject matter. The relationship between the subject and the predicate of the question is expressed in this unity» [84].

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