To begin with, this post will define Ellipsis in Discourse which is a component of coherence and cohesion and is considered an important grammatical cohesive device in the subject of discourse analysis.
Define Ellipsis in Discourse:
Ellipsis Definition:
Initially, the ellipsis is the process of omitting an unnecessary item, which has been mentioned earlier in a text and replacing it with nothing. Additionally, It is similar to substitution because “Ellipsis is simply substitution by zero” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976).
When an ellipsis occurs, the item that is omitted from the structure of the text can still be understood.
Types of Ellipsis
Analogous to substitution, the ellipsis has three types: nominal, verbal, and clausal.
Nominal Ellipsis
In nominal ellipsis, the noun is omitted.
For instance:
My brothers like sports.
In fact, both [0] love football.
All things considered: [0: My brothers]
In the second sentence, the nominal “my brother”s is omitted.
Verbal ellipsis
It involves the omission of the verb.
In the following example, the verb been studying is left out in B.
A: Have you been studying?
B: Yes, I have[0].
[0: been studying]Clausal ellipsis
A clausal ellipsis occurs when the clause is omitted.
In the example mentioned below, the clause writing on the board is excluded in B.
A: Who is writing on the board?
B: Alice is [0].
[0: writing on the board]Conclusion
This blog post discusses the element of grammatical cohesion called ellipsis. The three types of ellipsis have been discussed in the post.
Difference between Reference, Substitution, and Ellipsis
One difference is that reference can reach a long way back in the text whereas ellipsis and substitution are largely limited to the immediately preceding clause. Another key difference is that with reference there is a typical meaning of co-reference. That is, both items typically refer to the same thing. With ellipsis and substitution, this is not the case. There is always some difference between the second instance and the first. If a speaker or writer wants to refer to the same thing they use reference. If they want to refer to something different they use ellipsis-substitution (Halliday 1985).
