ELLIPSIS IN MODERN ENGLISH: THEORETICAL, STRUCTURAL AND PRAGMATIC CHALLENGES IN THE LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ELLIPTICAL SENTENCES
Keywords:
Keywords: ellipsis, elliptical sentences, syntactic deletion, pragmatic inference, discourse analysis, Modern English, linguistic analysisAbstract
Abstract. Ellipsis constitutes one of the most theoretically challenging and
empirically diverse phenomena in Modern English syntax and discourse. Although
widely acknowledged as a mechanism of linguistic economy, elliptical constructions
raise persistent analytical problems concerning structural representation, semantic
recoverability, pragmatic inference, and processing constraints. This study investigates
the principal difficulties in the linguistic analysis of elliptical sentences in Modern
English from syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic perspectives. Drawing upon a mixed
qualitative and corpus-based methodology, the research analyses examples from the
British National Corpus, contemporary newspapers, literary prose, and spoken
discourse. The findings demonstrate that ellipsis cannot be adequately explained
through a single theoretical model: generative accounts emphasize structural deletion,
while functional and discourse approaches foreground contextual recoverability and
communicative economy. The study identifies key analytical challenges, including
ambiguous antecedent recovery, structural indeterminacy, genre-based variation, and
computational parsing limitations. The discussion evaluates competing theoretical
interpretations and considers implications for translation, foreign language pedagogy,
and natural language processing. The paper argues for an integrative model that
combines structural representation with pragmatic inferencing to account for elliptical
phenomena in Modern English.
References
References
1. Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
2. Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
3. Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.),
Syntax and semantics, Vol. 3: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press.
4. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed.).
London: Edward Arnold.
5. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
6. Merchant, J. (2001). The syntax of silence: Sluicing, islands, and the theory of
ellipsis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
7. Merchant, J. (2019). Ellipsis: A survey of analytical approaches. In M. Everaert &
H. van Riemsdijk (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell companion to syntax (2nd ed.).
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
8. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive
grammar of the English language. London: Longman.
9. Sag, I. A., & Hankamer, J. (1984). Toward a theory of anaphoric processing.
Linguistics and Philosophy, 7(3), 325–345.
10. Sells, P. (1987). Aspects of logophoricity. Linguistic Inquiry, 18(3), 445–479.
11. Williams, E. (1977). Discourse and logical form. Linguistic Inquiry, 8(1), 101–139.
