Ellipsis, brachylogy and other forms of brevity in speech in ... - DWC

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6 ELLIPSIS, BRACHYLOGY AND OTHER FORMS OF BREVITY scientific works, with other phenomena to which we should give their own names. Occurring already, in a grammatical sense, in Greek Antiquity, l)';.WpLÇ was used, by the Father of Syntax, Apollonius Dyscolus,13) to denote a construction which is shorter than might he expected on the strength of logical considerations and of the wrong starting-point of fictitious theoretical ideal constructions. 14 ) Because he adhered to the incorrect view that a single accusative had, in Greek, to denote a person or object 'suffering' or undergoing the process expressed by the verb he, also incorrectly, concluded for instance that TOVTOV q;of3ovfLaL "I am af raid of him" is an ellipsis instead of bLà TOVTOV q;of3ovfLaL. Such mistakes come home to roost: many generations built on on the foundations laid by Apollonius until these tendencies reached their culmination in the oeuvre of the Spanish scholar Sanctius (16th century) who exaggerated the possibilities of an ellipsis theory to such a degree as to contend that for instance Verg. Aen 4,39 nee venit in mentem quorum eonsederis arvis? was, in many respects, elliptical, the 'original' and 'correct' expression being nee venit ti bi , ° Dido, in mentem reeordatio illorum horninum in quorum horninum arvis tu consederis? It would, in 1959, be no use to observe that Sanctius was mistaken, and his theory a complete failure. Yet old and antiquated views and explications in linguistics are hard to kill and even now not all the consequences of the, in this respect, pernicious doctrines of former grammarians have been eradicated.15) By ellipsis is here intended the phenomenon that part of an expression which is current in normal usage or part of a construction which is, in a given milieu, usual, is omitted, because at the moment of speaking (or writing) it may be dispensed with and inevitably and as a matter of course ,supplied by the audience or understood by them in the construction of the sentence. 16 ) Neither the speaker nor the able and contemporaneous IS) Apollonius Dyscolus, De Syntaxi, p. 117, 19 B. 14) Compare also the remàrks made by H. Schuchardt, Brevier, Halle S. 1928, p. 269. 15) See e.g. H. Paul, Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte 5 , Halle S. 1920, ch. 18; B. Delbrück, Vergl. Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen lIl, Strassburg 1900, p. 112ff.; O. Jespersen, The philosophy of grammar, London 1924 (1935), p. 306ff.; A. H. Gardiner, The Theory of speech and language, Oxford 1932, p. 50f. ; 270; K. Bühler, Sprachtheorie, Jena 1934, p. 155ff. 18) Other, and objectionable, definitions were for instance given by J. Marouzeau, Lexique de la terminologie linguistique Paris 1933, p. 74; Kühner-Gerth, Ausf. Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, Satzlehre 1I4, Leverkusen (1955), p. 558. A. H. Gardiner, The theory of speech and language, Oxford 1932, p. 270 takes the term 'ellipse' in a wide sense so as to embrace all those types of incongruent function where the feeling of an omission is awakened. - According to Ch. Bally, Linguistique générale et linguistique française 2 , Beme 1944, p. 159 "l'ellipse (est) la sous-entente dans la parole, à une place déterminée du discours, d'une signe figurant dans un contexte précédent ou suivant"; I am af raid that this definition williead to serious misunderstandings. See e.g. also E. WeIlander, Studien zum Bedeutungswandel im Deutschen, 1I, Uppsala 1923.
ELLIPSIS, BRACHYLOGY AND OTHER FORMS OF BREVITY 7 hearer have in using or hearing a case of ellipsis consciously to seek for the term or terms omitted, though they may have a more or less faint notion of intending or understanding more than what has been said or heard. The omission is, as long as the case of ellipsis is not petrified,17) supplied by context and situation. It follows that part of the cases of ellipsis occurring in an ancient text may, for a modern reader, be very difficult to recognize, to discover or to · understand. If the situation is temporally and locally the same for both speaker and listener , a single word may of ten suffice, but if they are not or if one comes to hear or to read words which are ambiguous brevity may even easily land those who know a language very weIl in difficulties: in the French cette femme aime 80n fils plus que 80n mari it is not clear whether mari is subject or object. It follows that neither phrases such as the French plutót mourir! ; queUe horreur! or the Dutch pauze!; brand! "fire" - to which linguistically speaking nothing is to he supplied - nor omissions of those elements which for a correct understanding of the utterance are essential may be considered ellipses. Nor is an ellipsis a sous-entendu, that is: the nonrepetition of an element which occurs in the same context: he i8 8ix feet high, 8he five; he was dark and hi8 'brother fair, an aposiopesis,18) or a brachylogy of which there may occur a great variety of sub-types, e.g. Hes. Op. 515 c5là él'VOV fJodç eeXE.al, oMé f-ll'V laXEl (viz. él'VÓÇ) "he goes even through an ox's hide; it (the hide as subject, but not expressed) does not stop him". It will therefore he necessary to reconsider, as far as will be possible, a large part of the places marked as elliptical by our predecessors, hecause, to quote Schuchardt,19) terminological uncertainties have the same effect on research as foghas on shipping. If they are left unsettled they may be the source of much confusion. In colloquial language, among speakers who know each other weIl, or who heing of the same iiltellectuallevel take interest in the same occupations, ellipsis is a very common phenomenon. As soon as they find themselves confronted with a well-known situation or are to speak about familiar subjects - and in these circles most situations are apt of ten to return, and most subjects of conversation are familiar - they may understand each other with half a word. The context and situation supply the hearer with so many elements which are necessary for the right understanding of an utterance, and so of ten enable the speaker to leave out what is - or sometimes what is thought to be - superfluous, especially when he supplies by gestures what he omits in speaking. It is from the very situation clear that the subject of an ancient Roman epitaph 17) M. Bréal, Essai de sémantique 5 , Paris 1921, eh. 15; E. Wellander, Studien zum Bedeutungswandel im Deutsehen, 3 vol., Uppsala 1927-1928, passim; S. Ullmann, The prineiples of semanties, Glasgow 1951, 116f.; 238ff. For Fr. capitale < ville capitale etc. see also Bally, o.c., p. 147. 18) Otherwise: H. Paul, Deutsehe Grammatik, IV, Halle a.S. 1920, p. 378? 19) Hugo Schuehardt, Brevier, zusammengestelltvonL. Spitzer, HalleS. 1928, p.334.
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82 SUBJECT INDEX dissimilation, 60
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84 SUBJECT INDEX verb of subordinat
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INDEX OF SANSKRIT TEXT-PLACES 87 3,
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INDEX OF GREEK AND LATIN TEXT-PLACE
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Ellipsis, brachylogy and other forms of brevity in speech in ... - DWC

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