Ellipsis and Discourse (Dissertation Proposal)
Daniel Hardt · ScholarlyCommons (University of Pennsylvania) · 1992
In human discourse there is much that is communicated without being explicitly stated. The grammar of natural language provides a broad array of mechanisms for such implicit communication. One example of this is verb phrase ellipsis, in which a verb phrase is elided, its position marked only by an auxiliary verb. Such elliptical constructions are generally easily and unambiguously understood. In this proposal I will attempt to explain how this is accomplished.