22
ellipsis nothing is inserted into the slot. That is why Halliday and Hasan say that ellipsis can be regarded as substitution by zero.
42
Example: Joan brought some carnations and Catherine some sweet peas.
The structure of the second clause is Subject and Complement. There is no possible alternative here; the second clause can be interpreted only as Catherine
brought some sweet peas. This structure normally appears only in clause in which
at least one element, the Predicator brought is presupposed to be supplied from
the preceding clause. Actually, the normal sentence should be Joan brought some carnations, and Catherine brought soe sweet peas.
There are three types of ellipsis: Nominal ellipsis, Verbal ellipsis and Clausal ellipsis.
3.1 Nominal Ellipsis
By nominal ellipsis we mean ellipsis within the nominal group. An elliptical nominal group clearly requires that there should be available from some source or
the other information necessary for feeling it out. Normally, the source of information is a preceding nominal group.
43
For example: My kids play an awful lot of sport.
44
42
Halliday and Hasan, Op,Cit, p.143
43
Ibid, pp. 147-148
44
Anastasia Tsareva, Op,Cit p.23
23
3.2 Verbal Ellipsis
By verbal ellipsis we mean ellipsis within the verbal group. An elliptical verbal group presupposes one or more words from a previous verbal group.
Technically, it is defined as a verbal group whose structure does not fully express its systemic features-all the choices that are being made within the verbal group
system.
45
For example: What have you been doing?-- Swimming
In example above, what is omitted is I have been swimming. It is only the lexical verb swim that is found in the elliptical verbal group. The elliptical form
swimming has various systematic features that are not found in the verbal structure.
46
3.3 Clausal Ellipsis
Clausal ellipsis means ellipsis within the clause. The clause in English, considered as the expression of the various speech functions, such as statement,
question, response and so on, has two part structure consisting of modal element plus propositional element, for example:
„The dancers were going to perform the popular dance in the stage‟ [Modal element]
[Propositional element] What was the dancer going to do? Perform the popular dance in the stage.
45
Paul A.Crane, Texture In Text: A Discourse Analysis of a News Article Using Halliday and Hasan‟s Model of Cohesion
46
Ibid, pp. 25-26
