1861. The novel Les Misérables has been written. Victor Hugo sends the manuscript of the novel to the publisher with the following cover letter: "?" The answer was immediate: "!"… Of course, the elliptical (incomplete) sentences discussed in this article are not so short, but no less dynamic, vivid and emotionally saturated. This once again confirms the fact that brevity is the sister of talent. So, today elliptical sentences are our “hero”, our main character, who is confused with other, no less important characters - incomplete sentences. Elliptic sentences are mistakenly considered a variety, but in modern linguistics they are considered separately. They are really easy to confuse. What are their differences? Let's figure it out….
Elliptical and incomplete sentences
Incomplete sentences are those that do not have main or secondary members. But they are easy to understand, to restore thanks to the speech situation. For example, in a sentence“This fertilizer is necessary for raspberries, then for black currants, then for apple trees,” only in the first part the grammatical basis is not violated. In the second and third parts of the sentence, the main members of the sentence - "fertilizer is necessary" - are omitted, but they are clear from the context, so they can safely be called incomplete.
Most often such sentences are used in colloquial speech, in dialogues and in descriptions. Elliptic sentences are a special type of sentences, in the structure of which only the predicate expressed by the verb is missing. To recreate the action or get an idea of the state, the context is not needed: “The seller - after him, loudly: - Come again!”; "There are billions of bright stars in the dark sky." In the examples given, the verbs "said" and "are" are omitted. They are easy to understand, but not from the situation, but thanks to the whole structure as a whole. It follows that, despite the formal absence of the main members, they take an active part in the construction of the sentence, and this brings elliptical sentences closer to incomplete ones. In other words, incomplete and elliptic sentences are similar only in one thing - in the structure of construction, the absence of one of the members of the sentence. However, the incompleteness of the first is random and depends on how the text is constructed, while the incompleteness of the second is its norm, its peculiarity. The table below summarizes what has been said and helps not to confuse these concepts:
| Incomplete | Elliptical | |
With meaningsentences complete, understandable |
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| Understood only by context or situation | Understandable regardless of context or speech situation | |
Missing sentence members |
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| Major and minor, which are restored thanks to | Only verb-predicate, the absence of which is the norm; its meaning is suggested by the structure and content of the sentence itself | |
context |
speech situation |
|
– Did you deceive and betray him? - No, he's me. |
1. It is raining outside. I put on rubber. (Situation suggests that boots are involved.) 2. It is necessary to knock softly and ask: May I? (A person usually says this phrase when entering a room) |
1. Incentive suggestions: Hurry up! Everyone here! 2. Verb-predicate with the meaning of being, presence, perception: There is a thick white fog over the city; In the hands of a bunch of wildflowers. 3. Verb-predicate with the meaning of thought, speech: I am a word to him, and he is ten to me. 4. Verb-predicate with the meaning of movement, movement: The boy is in the forest, and she is behind him. 5. Verb-predicate with meaningvigorous action, such as throwing, hitting, grabbing: They began to do justice: who by the hair, who by the ears |
Using elliptical sentences
In conclusion, I would like to say that expressive, spectacular, emotionally colored elliptical sentences are widely used both in colloquial speech and in works of art - in description, in narration, in dialogues. There are frequent cases of their use in oratory. The most interesting cases are the use of ellipses in the headlines of newspapers and magazines. The most concise form, on the one hand, helps to save “on ink”, and on the other hand, it attracts a record number of readers in an extraordinary and brilliant way: “Our children are in our families”, “Freedom - with a clear conscience?”, “Salvation - in Testaments", "Poetry - first of all", "And behind the crusts - into the transition."
