134 A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse
Without the recognition that hearers are able to recover elements
from the context, example (25) would have had to be coded as a single
increment. It does not appear feasible, bearing in mind human memory
limitations, that the interlocutors would have been able to keep track
of where they were in the discourse had it represented a single increment
(see Chapter 1). To summarize, ellipsis is a fact of language which enables
speakers to communicate effi ciently without impacting on their hearer’s
ability to comprehend their intended meaning. Accordingly a grammar of
speech should code it if it wishes to map movement from an initial state
to a target state.
5.6 Summary
The VPHR, the PHR coding, and the coding of certain N elements with more
than one orthographic word as a single N element were introduced and
succeeded in making the workings of the chaining rules more transparent.
Three further minor classes of lexical items were coded and integrated
into the grammar as suspensive elements. It was demonstrated that the
introduction of the Ø symbol to code elements which were not overtly
realized in the chain because they were available either in the preceding
co-text or situation enables the grammar to identify numerous chains as
representing successful run-throughs of the chaining rules. Finally the
introduction of the bracketing convention enabled a more transparent
explication of how speakers successfully moved from initial to target state,
as well as serving to tidy up the message by fi ltering out elements which
the hearers need not pay attention to.^13