Clausal Ellipsis Definition

The text is best regarded as semantic unit: a unit not of form but of meaning. Thus it is related to a clause or sentence not by size but by realization. (Halliday & Hassan, 1976, P.2) It is the verbal record of communicative event. Many authors are concerned with the principles of connectivity which bind a text together and force co-interpretation. Halliday & Hassan take the view that the primary determinant of whether a set of sentences do or do not constitute a text depends on cohesive relationships within or between the sentences. (Brown & G. Yule, 1983, P. 191)The concept of texture is entirely appropriate to express the property of being a text'. A text has texture and this is what distinguishes text from something which that is not

For instance, 'I'm sure we will find your mother', Said the man with the searchlight, 'but God only knows where'. (Salkie, 1995, P. 59) Clausal ellipsis also involves the omission of the subject and the verb or only the subject. For example, -How are you? -Fine. In such example both the subject and the verb I am are omitted. The subject may be omitted from expressions such as guess so and think so.

2. Lexical cohesion However luxuriant the grammatical cohesion displayed by any piece of discourse, it will not form a text unless this is matched by cohesive patterning of lexical kind. (Tanskanen, 2006, P. 31) Lexical cohesion refers to the links between content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) which are used in subsequent segments of discourse. Two types of lexical cohesion can be distinguished: reiteration and collocation. (Renkema, 1994, P. 105) 2.1.

In Burtmarch's essay, such example Good morning, heartache, you’re the one who knew me illustrates the use of nominal substitution. In such example the word one substitutes the word heartache. Nominal substitution is more applicable in Chait's essay as in with one racially and economically polyglot party of center-left technocracy and one ethnically homogenous reactionary party. The latter is currently attempting to impose its program. The word one at the beginning stands for the word republicans and the other for the word conservative. Moreover the word the latter substitutes the word conservative. However both of them make no use of verbal and clausal substitution. For the sake of political text, Chait makes no use of ellipsis. Unlikely, Burtmarch uses only verbal ellipsis as he uses 'published' instead of which is published and 'called' instead of which is