Elliptical Sentences in English. Monograph

they serve for the confirmation or development of thought. It should be noted that the QADU wth several repetitions of the questions, including several one-member elliptical answers – repeated questions, lead to the strengthening of their semantic potential. For example:

Не went out and got more money and now he's in control.

In control? He is? [101].

Mother said if she ever catches me sitting on the swing with a boy, she won't allow any more boys to come and see me.

Boys? What boy? So boys come and see you? [101] There's men on the driveway.

On the driveway? What are they doing? Our driveway? [101].

How is your passenger?

My passenger? Oh, the baby? Well, heavy [101].

Thus, the analysis of semantic functioins of the answering ES in the DU with questions repetitions in the modern English language allows us to distinguish the following main points. In answers to special questions, various types of one-member elliptical sentences serve to identify a subject, person, phenomena of the objective reality, action, place, time, quality and quantity, depending on the semantics of the interrogative pronoun in the question. Elliptical answers to general questions expressed by sentences Yes, No (and their modal equivalents) and two-member elliptical sentences with represented members serve as confirmation or negation of the proposition of the question. Elliptical questions with lexical repetitions have emotive and clarifying semantic

in questions and answers with lexical repetitions convey additional semantic information.

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3.3. Secondary semantic (pragmatic) functions

of elliptical sentences in the question-answer dialogical unity and character of the actual division

Due to the fact that in the process of communication, ESs in the question-answer DU acquire additional meanings, there is the point of their semantic and pragmatic description, i.e. the description of their contextually dependent meaning. Pragmalinguistic approach to the description of language units is carried out in the works by W. Cheif, L.V. Vasilieva, J. Hintikki.

From a semantic-pragmatic point of view, questions are divided into questions with standard and non-standard semantics, and questions aimed at a positive or negative answers.

The primary semantic function of a question (including elliptical) in the QADU is the request for information, if the person who asks doesn’t know it.

Secondary semantic functions of questions are textually determined (pragmatic). These functions can include all those additional semantic meanings that are transferred by these structures.

Pragmalinguistic characteristics of questions are interpreted differently among the linguists. In addition to purely informative ones, they describe the affirmative, contrastive, true questions and repeated questions, dubitative, presumptive, emotional, rhetorical questions, and interrogative-narrative, suppositional, claryfiying, insistent general questions, interrogative-confirmative, ascertive-interrogative and interrogative-suppositional, informative-modal or object-subjective, alternative, separate, affirmative, negative questions.

Secondary semantic functions of various types of questions are reflected respectively on the semantics of elliptical answering sentences. General question with negation is usually oriented toward a negative

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answer, although the possibility of an affirmative answer is not excluded. For example:

Nо clue as to how the morphia got in the bottle? None whatever [110].

Alfredo: No pain nor nothing? Peter: Nо [103].

The answer to a general question cannot consist only of «Yes or No», if it expresses a request to do something. If the general question contains an additional question in an implicit form, the answer to it may consist of a simple «No» and when using «Yes», additional information is required. We can answer «Yes» to the general questions related to the rheumatic component of a sentence, but we cannot answer with a simple «No», because additional information is also required.

As one of the types of pragmatic coordination in DU with of ES the general question appears the case when a two-member elliptical question with a direct word order implicitly contains a special question. For example:

Ormund: Anybody else staying here? Farrant: Yes, a Dc. Gortler.

In this example an elliptical, general question is equivalent to a special question «Who is staying here?» Therefore the one-member substantive answering ES contains confirmation and additional semantic information.

Paula: You often here?

Harry: Once every two months or so [96].

In this example, an elliptical general question is equivalent to a special question «How often are you here?» Therefore, the response replica is presented in the form of an one-member substantive elliptic sentence with temporal semantics.

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«Yes, No» that actually act as outstripping answers to the subsequent special question. For example:

Oh, have got tell tale traces?

On your chin [116].

Do you have your own furniture?

In storage, said Whitehall. Few York [116]. Carol: Have you seen Alan?

Robin: Just for a second [112]

Mr. Alfred down yet? he heard his father say.

In the dining room, sir, having his breakfast, said Nelly louder

components of SofQs on the material of the modern German language were described by L.P. Vlasenko. In her opinion, they serve to emphasize the subject from the preceding statement, for a more precise expression of the author's intention and more powerful influence on the interlocutor, and it is difficult to disagree with it [80].

The pragmatic function of the interrogative-negative sentences in modern English lies in the fact that it expresses along with the query the subjective attitude of the speaker to the content of the utterance, which is reflected accordingly in the semantics of the elliptical answering sentences.

Thus in the question-answer DU, interrogative elliptical sentences sometimes acquire secondary semantic functions that do not coincide

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with their primary, explicitly expressed semantic meanings and it is being reflected accordingly in the semantics of the responsive elliptical sentences. The secondary semantic functions of the elliptical sentences in the QADU are pragmatically determined.

In the QADU the communicative function of the language is particularly evident. The question of the actual division of the interrogative sentence and the corresponding elliptical sentence appears as a question of the distribution of semantic information, «given and new» within the QADU. In pronominal question the interrogative word has the character that determines the rheme of the elliptical answering sentence.

In general question, any word or group of words can act as a rheme, if they are under the logical stress and program the rheme of the elliptical answering sentence, the rheme of general question is mobile. The theme in the interrogativeelliptical sentences is their presupposition.

In the elliptical answering sentence the most important part is always expressed; it is the rheme. Since communication tries to avoid semantic repetitions, it is natural that the elliptical form of the answering sentence is a demonstration of this tendency; only new information is updated in it. For example, in a QADU:

Where you going?

Inside, back to the tube [89].

The elliptical answering r sentence presupposes the proposition «You go», which is contained in the interrogative sentence; this is the theme which does not receive the verbal expression. The elliptical sentence expresses only rheme. The nature of the relationship between the interrogative and answeing sentences was studied by P.I. Sergeyev, who wrote that the question word of a special question «fixes the generalized signs of denotation, the rheme of the answer sentence gives

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their concretization. Thus, interrogative and answer sentences are characterized by a diversified nomination» [62]. The rheme of the interrogative sentence points directly to a certain class from which a choice will be made in the rheme of the elliptical answering sentence.

Since the elliptical response sentence is rhematic, it acts as a highlighted, actualized, underlined syntactic structure.

So, the specific distribution of the actual division in the composition of the QADU is that the rheme of question projects the elliptical answer sentence, in which only the new semantic information is actualized. The subject of the question is contained in the presupposition of an elliptical answer. And the elliptical answer, in its turn, makes it possible to divide the question into the theme and the rheme: «what is known and what is not known» to the person who asks, and what things he wants to find out. This particular distribution of the actual division contributes to the formation of a close communicative integrity of the QADU with an elliptical component in modern English.

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Conclusions

As a result of the semantic analysis of elliptical sentences, the authors conclude that the QADU with an elliptical sentence in the modern English language appears as one of the most common forms of communicative interaction. The base for revealing the essence of the QADU is logics, since the thought of the question determines the structural, semantic and pragmatic characteristics of the elliptical answering sentence. The question is presented as a special structure of thought formation including the original meaning, basis information (the prerequisite of the question) with a simultaneous indication of its insufficiency (the question operator) and the necessity for its subsequent fulfillment in the response.

The dialectical way of the thought movement in QADU is from the given information in the question to the new one in the elliptical answer. In special questions the logical predicate is expressed by the pronominal question words; and the elliptical sentences are always the answers to these question words.

The elliptical sentence serves as the answer to the general or tag interrogative sentence, which is being emphasized by the logical stress, the elliptical sentence turns into a positive or negative link between the logical subject and the logical predicate of the question. In elliptical sentences answering the alternative questions, a choice isbeing made between the disjunction of propositions presented in the question. Due to the strong logical and semantic unity between the various types of questions and answers, the appearance of various types of elliptical sentences in the modern English language becomes possible.

The elliptical sentence in the question QADU acts as a context dependent linguistic unit, as a means of integrating contextual information: its semantics is derived partly from the syntactic construction and partly from the linguistic and extralinguistic context.

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The factors that determine the semantic structure and the communicative adequacy of elliptical sentences in the QADU include the linguistic context, situational context, presuppositions.

The interrogative sentence acts as a minimal linguistic context for an elliptical answering question, the semantics of the elliptical sentence is realized only thanks to it. Elliptical sentence reflects the complex denotate of a situation.

When the situation is treated in the broad sense of the word as the background knowledge that the speakers have, then it acts as a presupposition. Presupposition facilitates the simplification of the syntactic structure of the sentence, turning it into elliptical one, on the one hand, and leads to the complexity of their semantic structure, on the other hand.

The semantic analysis of elliptical questions in QADU allowed the authors to identify their various semantic types: identifying, qualifying, appellative and evaluative.

One-member substantive ES contain a query about the person, subject, the phenomenon of the objective reality, and one-member verbal elliptical questions – a query concerning the action. One-member adverbial ESs have the semantic functions nominating the place, time, degree, quality and quantity of the action performed and also they fullfil the metalinguistic function. One-member pronominal elliptical questions serve for the identifying or clarifying the nomination of the persons, events, place of the action, they have the semantic characteristics of generality and partiality. One-member adjectival elliptical questions have evaluative and qualificative semantics; ES represented by the auxillary parts of speech, usually act as the second components of the DU-3 and serve to clarify and concretize the idea expressed earlier.

Two-member elliptical questions are characterized by the various semantic functions: usually a two-member elliptical question with

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a direct word order is a pragmatically marked structure, its presupposition is directed at the affirmative semantics of the answer; two-member elliptical question in English with represented members of a type «Do I (do not I)?» refers to the reactive type of replica on the preceding sentence.

The elliptical questions (one-member, two-member) also have the clarifying semantic characteristics as the second components in a sequence of questions.

In addition to the basic semantic functions EQs are characterized bythe secondary semantic functions that can be evaluated as pragmatic meanings which appear in the QADU context.

The authors found out that the structural models of the ES in QADU of modern English have some modifications. They can be both determined and not determined by the subordinate parts of the sentence, they can have an affirmative or negative syntactic form and be located in a contact or distant way to each other. Conjunctions and lexical repetitions serve as structural indicators of the connection of the ES, located in one component of the QADU, with the other component.

The structural analysis of ESs as part of the QADU of modern English integrates its interrogative and elliptical answering sentences into one single unit.

As a result of the statistical analysis of ESs in the QADU of the modern English language the authors have found out that one-member elliptical questions (879 examples, which is 20%) and one-member elliptical answering sentences (1,157 examples among a total amount of 4,410 examples of elliptical sentences, i.e. 46%) possess the highest frequency of use. In statistical terms the distribution of elliptical interrogative sentences was as follows:

1. One-member questions with a key component expressed by:

a)a substantive – 434 examples;

b)an adjective – 70 examples;

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c)adverbs – 55 examples;

d)pronouns – 70 examples;

e)verbs (personal and nonpersonal) – 250 examples.

2.Two-member elliptical questions with a direct word order – 220 examples, 4,3 % of the total number of examples.

3.Two-member elliptical questions with the representative members – 190 examples, 4,3 %.

4.Elliptical questions as components of the sequence of questions – 350 examples, 8 %.

The distribution of elliptical answering sentences was as follows:

1.One-member answers with the main component expressed by: a) substantive – 620 examples;

b) adjective – 125 examples; c) adverb – 87 examples;

d) pronoun – 115 examples; d) verb – 210 examples.

2.Elliptical sentences YES, NO (or their modal equivalents) – 960 examples, i.e. 21.7 %. Two-member elliptical answers with representative members – 125 examples, 2,8 %. Elliptical question and answering sentences with auxiliary verbs as a key component made up 300 examples, 1 % of the total number of examples and elliptical

question and answering sentences with lexical repetitions – 200 examples, 4,5 %.

The QADU with an ES in modern English is characterized by the logical, semantic and pragmatic correlation of its components. The logical correlation of the QADU which forms the base for the semantic interpretation of the elliptical sentence lies in the fact that the QADU with each model of elliptical sentence is characterized by the anaphoric and cataphoric syntactic connection, the answering sentence is constructed depending on the logical-semantic structure of the question. And really the question itself without any answer

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