Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

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196f, 196g

SITUATIONAL ELLIPSIS  

94

Situational and other kinds of ellipsis  

94a

Ellipsis can be either situational, textual or structural. Situational ellipsis means

not explicitly referring to people and things which are in the immediate situation,

such as the participants themselves:

A: Don’t know what’s gone wrong here.

B: Oh. Need any help?

(situational; understood: I don’t know … Do you need …)

He applied and got the job.

(textual; understood from previous clause: … and he got the job.)

The car he was driving was stolen.

(structural; optional use of that: The car that he was driving …)

Although ellipsis is often defined as the absence of elements normally required by

the grammar (e.g. a subject before a tensed verb form), in reality nothing is

‘missing’ from elliptical messages; they contain enough for the purposes of

communication. It makes more sense to say that writing and formal speech

typically need to elaborate more for the sake of readers/listeners and so ‘add’

items that might otherwise be unnecessary in everyday informal speech. 

Situational ellipsis may involve understood references to a range of expressions

relating to people and things:

Didn’t know that film was on tonight. 

(understood: I didn’t know …)

Sounds good to me. 

(understood: It/that/something obvious in the situation sounds …)

Lots of things to tell you about the trip to Barcelona. 

(understood: There are/I’ve got/we’ve got lots of things …)

[at a dry-cleaner’s; speaker B is leaving a pair of trousers for cleaning]

A: Wednesday at four be okay? 

B: Er, yeah, that’s fine … Just check the pockets a minute. 

(understood: Will/would Wednesday at four be … I’ll/let me just check …)