Ellipsis (linguistics)

In linguistics, ellipsis (from the Greek: , lleipsis, omission) or elliptical construction refers to the
omission from a clause of one or more words that are
nevertheless understood in the context of the remaining
elements. There are numerous distinct types of ellipsis acknowledged in theoretical syntax. This article provides an overview of them. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis can vary greatly depending in part upon whether a
constituency-based or a dependency-based theory of syntactic structure is pursued.

trated below: 1) gapping, 2) stripping, 3) VP-ellipsis, 4)

pseudogapping, 5) answer fragments, 6) sluicing, 7) Nellipsis, 8) comparative deletion, and 9) null complement
anaphora. One should note that there is no unanimity
among experts that all nine of the mechanisms should indeed qualify as ellipsis. Most experts would agree, however, that most of the nine are in fact ellipsis. The discussion below takes their status as ellipsis largely for granted.
The example sentences below employ the convention
whereby the elided material is indicated with subscripts
and smaller font size.

Preliminary comments

2.1 Gapping

Varieties of ellipsis have long formed a central explicandum for linguistic theory, since elliptical phenomena
seem to be able to shed light on basic questions of form
meaning correspondence: in particular, the usual mechanisms of grasping a meaning from a form seem to be
bypassed or supplanted in the interpretation of elliptical
structures, ones in which there is meaning without form.
In generative linguistics, the term ellipsis has been applied
to a range of phenomena in which a perceived interpretation is fuller than that which would be expected based
solely on the presence of linguistic forms.

Gapping occurs in coordinate structures. Redundant material that is present in the immediately preceding clause
can be gapped. This gapped material usually contains a
nite verb. Canonical cases have a true gap insofar as a
remnant appears to the left and to the right of the elided
material.
John can play the guitar, and Mary
the violin. - Gapping
Fred took a picture of you, and Susan of me. - Gapping

One trait that many types and instances of ellipsis have in

common is that the appearance of ellipsis is optional. The
occurrence of VP-ellipsis, for instance, is often optional,
e.g. He will help, and she will (help), too. Whether or not
the verb help is elided in this sentence is up to the speaker
and to communicative aspects of the situational context in
which the sentence is uttered. This optionality is a clear
indication of ellipsis. At other times, however, ellipsis
seems to be obligatory, for instance with cases of comparative deletion, e.g. *More girls were there today than girls
were there yesterday. The second occurrence of girls must
be omitted in this sentence (More girls were there today
than were there yesterday). The obligatory occurrence of
ellipsis complicates the analysis, since one can argue that
obligatory cases are not really instances of ellipsis at all,
but rather a null pro-form is involved. These aspects of
the theory should be kept in mind when considering the
various types and instances of ellipsis enumerated below.

While canonical cases have medial gaps as in these two

sentences, the gap need not be medial, and it can even be
discontinuous, e.g.
She persuaded him to do the homework, and he her . - Gapping
Should I call you, or you
me? - Gapping
While these two sentences again each have two remnants,
the gapped material is no longer continuous. There are in
a sense two gaps in each of the gapped clauses. Gapping
has been thoroughly studied, and it is therefore reasonably well understood, although the theoretical analyses
can vary signicantly.

Types of ellipsis

2.2 Stripping

There are numerous widely acknowledged types of el- Stripping is also known as bare argument ellipsis. Many
lipsis. Nine of them are mentioned and briey illus- linguists take stripping to be a particular manifestation of
1

gapping whereby just one remnant appears in the gapped

clause instead of the two (or more) that occur in instances
of gapping. The fact that stripping is limited to occurring
in coordinate structures is the main reason why stripping
is integrated into the analysis of gapping:
John can play the guitar, and Mary
, too. - Stripping
Sam has attempted problem 1
twice, and problem 2
also. - Stripping
These examples illustrate that stripping is exible insofar as the remnant in the stripped clause is not limited in
function; it can, for instance, be a subject as in the rst
sentence or an object as in the second sentence. A particularly frequent type of stripping is not-stripping, e.g.

TYPES OF ELLIPSIS

2.4 Pseudogapping
Many linguists take pseudogapping to be a particular
manifestation of VP-ellipsis (not of gapping). Like VPellipsis, pseudogapping is introduced by an auxiliary verb.
Pseudogapping diers from VP-ellipsis, however, insofar as the elided VP is not entirely gone, but rather one
(or more) remnants of the VP appear. This aspect of
pseudogapping gives it the outward appearance of gapping. Pseudogapping occurs frequently in comparative
and contrastive contexts:
They have been eating the apples
more than they have the oranges. - Pseudogapping
I will feed the chickens today if you
will tomorrow. - Pseudogapping

Sam did it, not Fred . - notStripping

Sally is working on Monday,

not on Tuesday. - notStripping

Not-strippings status as a form of ellipsis can be debated,

since the non-elliptical versions of these sentences are unacceptable. The key trait of ellipsis, namely, is that both
versions are supposed to be acceptable (the elliptical and
non-elliptical version).

Pseudogapping is more restricted in distribution than VPellipsis. For instance it can hardly occur backwards, i.e.
the ellipsis can hardly precede its antecedent. Further examples:
Would you want to say that to me,
or would I to you? Pseudogapping

They could read this book more

easily than they could that book.
- Pseudogapping

2.3

Verb phrase ellipsis

Verb phrase ellipsis (also VP-ellipsis or VPE) is a particularly frequent form of ellipsis in English. VP-ellipsis
elides a non-nite VP. The ellipsis must be introduced by
an auxiliary verb or by the particle to.

Another noteworthy trait of pseudogapping (and one that

supports the view that it is a type of VP-ellipsis) is that it
absent from languages related to English.

2.5 Answer ellipsis

John can play the guitar; Mary can

, too. - VP-ellipsis
He has done it before, which means
he will again. - VP-ellipsis

Answer ellipsis associated with question-answer pairs involves ellipsis. The question focuses an unknown piece of
information, often using an interrogative word (e.g. who,
what, when, etc.). The corresponding answer provides
the missing information and in so doing, the redundant
An aspect of VP-ellipsis that is unlike gapping and strip- information that appeared in the question is elided, e.g.
ping is that it can occur forwards or backwards. That is,
the ellipsis can precede or follow its antecedent, e.g.
Q: Who has been hiding the truth?
A: Billy . - Answer
fragment
The man who wanted to order the
salmon did . - VP-ellipsis
Q: What have you been trying to accomplish? A: I The man who wanted to
This darn crossword. - Answer
did order the salmon. - VPellipsis

fragment

Of the various ellipsis mechanisms, VP-ellipsis has prob- The fragment answers in these two sentences are verb arably been studied the most and it is therefore relatively guments (subject and object NPs). The fragment can also
well understood.
correspond to an adjunct, e.g.

2.8

Comparative deletion
Q: When does the circus start? A:
T Tomorrow. - Answer

3
And the following two sentences illustrate nominal ellipsis with possessive determiners:

fragment

Q: Why has the campaign been so

crazy? A: T
Due to the personalities. - Answer
fragment

I heard Marys dog, and you heard

Bills . - N-ellipsis
If Doris tries my chili, I will try hers
. - N-ellipsis

Answer ellipsis occurs in most if not all languages. It is

a very frequent type of ellipsis that is omnipresent in ev- 2.8 Comparative deletion
eryday communication between speakers.
Comparative deletion occurs in comparative clauses introduced by than in English. The expression in the com2.6 Sluicing
parative clause is elided that corresponds to the expression focused by a comparative morph such as more or -er
Sluicing usually elides everything from a direct or indi- in the antecedent clause, e.g.
rect question except the question word. It is a frequent
type of ellipsis that appears to occur in most if not all lanMore people arrived than we exguages. It can operate both forwards and backwards like
pected would arrive. - ComparVP-ellipsis, but unlike gapping, stripping, answer fragative deletion
ments, and pseudogapping, e.g.
She ordered more beer than we
John can play something, but I dont
know what . - Sluicing
When I don't know, but
John will denitely call. - Sluicing
The sluicing illustrated with these two sentences has occurred in indirect questions. Sluicing in direct questions
is illustrated with the following two examples:
A: Something unusual happened.
B: What ? - Sluicing
A: He has been working on the
problem. B: When
? - Sluicing

could drink . - Comparative deletion

Doris looks more satised than

Doreen looks . - Comparative
deletion

William has friends in more countries than you have friends in .

- Comparative deletion

Comparative deletion is dierent from many of the other

optional ellipsis mechanisms insofar as it is obligatory.
The non-elliptical versions of these sentences are unacceptable.

2.9 Null complement anaphora

Sluicing has been studied intensely in the past decade

and can be viewed as a relatively well understood ellipsis Null complement anaphora elides a complete complemechanism, although the theoretical analysis of certain ment, whereby the elided complement is a nite clause,
aspects of sluicing remains controversial.
innitive phrase, or prepositional phrase. The verbal
predicates that can license null complement anaphora
form a limited set (e.g. know, approve, refuse, decide).
2.7 Nominal ellipsis
Interestingly, the elided complement cannot be a noun
Noun ellipsis (also N-ellipsis, N'-ellipsis, NP-ellipsis, phrase.
NPE, ellipsis in the DP) occurs when the noun and potentially accompanying modiers are omitted from a noun
phrase.[1] Nominal ellipsis occurs with a limited set of
determinatives in English (cardinal and ordinal numbers
and possessive determiners), whereas it is much freer in
other languages. The following examples illustrate nominal ellipsis with cardinal and ordinal numbers:
Fred did three onerous tasks because Susan had done two
. - nominal ellipsis
The rst train and the second
have arrived. - nominal ellipsis

Q: Do you know what happened?

A:No, I don't know . Null complement anaphora

Q: Do you approve of the plan? A:

No, I don't approve . - Null
complement anaphora

They told Bill to help, but he refused . - Null complement

anaphora

They oered two ways to spend the

day, but I couldn't decide .
- Null complement anaphora

REFERENCES

Of the various ellipsis mechanisms, null complement catenae, whereby many of these catenae fail to qualify
anaphora is the least studied. In this regard, its status constituents. In this manner, the need to posit movement
as ellipsis is a point of debate, since its behavior is not to rectify much of the ellipsis data disappears.
consistent with the behavior of many of the other ellipsis
mechanisms.

5 See also
3

Less studied ellipses

Further instances of ellipsis that do not (in a clear way)

qualify as any of the ellipsis types listed above:
A: The cat likes Bill. B: Why
Bill?
What if I miss the deadline? .[2]
With such data in mind, it is apparent that more work
on ellipsis needs to be done before any sort of complete
inventory of ellipsis mechanisms can be stipulated.

Catena (linguistics)
Constituent (linguistics)
Dependency grammar
Ellipsis, about the orthographic usage rules for "....
Gapping
Phrase structure grammar
Sluicing
Stripping
Verb phrase ellipsis

Theoretical challenges

Theoretical accounts of ellipsis struggle. One reason why

they struggle is that the elided material of many instances
of ellipsis (e.g. the subscripted material above) often does
not qualify as a constituent, the constituent being the fundamental unit of syntactic analysis associated with phrase
structure grammars.[3] What this means is that formal accounts of ellipsis must seek some way of accounting for
the fact that many of the ellipsis mechanisms enumerated
above can elide word combinations that do not qualify as
any recognizable unit of (phrase structure) syntax.
One widespread approach to the challenge is to assume
movement (or some notion akin to movement).[4] What
happens is that remnants are moved out of a greater constituent rst so that the greater constituent can then be
elided in full. By assuming movement rst and ellipsis
second, a theory of syntax can be maintained that continues to build on the constituent as the fundamental unit of
syntactic analysis.
Another, more recent approach states that the challenges
posed by ellipsis to phrase structure theories of syntax
are due precisely to the phrase structure component of
the grammar. In other words, the diculties facing
phrase structure theories are due the theoretical prerequisite that syntactic structure be analyzed in terms of
the constituents associated with constituency grammars
(= phrase structure grammars). If the theory departs
from phrase structures and acknowledges the dependency
structures of dependency grammars[5] instead, the ability to acknowledge a dierent sort of syntactic unit as
fundamental opens the door to a much more parsimonious theory of ellipsis. This unit is the catena.[6] The
assumption is now that ellipsis mechanisms are eliding

6 Notes
[1] See Lobeck 2006 for an overview.
[2] Phrases and clauses at Tameri Guide for Writers
[3] See for instance Lobeck 1995 and Lappin 1996.
[4] See for instance Johnson 2008 for an ATB-movement account of gapping and Merchant 2001 for a movement account of sluicing.
[5] See the collection of essays on dependency and valency
grammar in gel et al. 2003/6.
[6] See Osborne and Gro 2012.

7 References
gel, V., Ludwig Eichinger, Hans-Werner Eroms,
Peter Hellwig, Hans Heringer, and Hennig Lobin
(eds.) 2003/6. Dependency and Valency: An
international handbook of contemporary research.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Johnson, Kyle 2001. What VP ellipsis can do, and
what it cant, but not why. In The handbook of contemporary syntactic theory, ed. Mark Baltin and
Chris Collins, 439479. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Lappin, Shalom 1996. The interpretation of ellipsis.
In The handbook of contemporary semantic theory,
ed. Shalom Lappin. Oxford: Blackwell.

5
Lobeck, Anne. 1995. Ellipsis: Functional heads, licensing, and identication. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lobeck, Anne. 2006. Ellipsis in DP. In The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, ed. by Martin Everaert
et al., vol. 2, pp. 145-173. Oxford: Blackwell.
Merchant, Jason. 2001. The syntax of silence:
Sluicing, islands, and the theory of ellipsis. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Osborne, Timothy and Thomas Gro 2012. Constructions are catenae: Construction Grammar
meets Dependency Grammar. Cognitive Linguistics 23, 1: 163-214.
Sag, Ivan 1976. Deletion and logical form. Doctoral
Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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