A Linear Grammar of Speech 103
It is diffi cult to know exactly what he means by this comment but it seems
that he envisages chains where speakers have the freedom to double back
to previous intermediate states. In (38), according to this view, the N ele-
ment she prospects both following V elements went and sat. It seems that and
signals to the hearer the speaker’s re-use of an earlier part of the chain.
Such an explanation implies that there is no need to overtly code the
ellipsis. However, there are two problems with this view. The fi rst is that it
seemingly contradicts Brazil’s defence of his introduction of the Ø symbol
(ibid. 132) where he claimed that it is sometimes helpful to make use of
the Ø symbol for the expected element which is unrealized in the chain
because the Ø symbol allows for a more descriptively powerful grammar.
The second point is that Brazil’s explanation only applies, as he makes
clear, if the ellipsis occurs in the same increment as the element which the
speaker re-uses. Example (37) shows that ellipsis occurs in a different chain
from the re-used N element. This raises the counterintuitive solution of
coding the ellipsis in (37) but not in (38). In the interests of consistency
and clarity it is suggested that all instances of ellipsis be coded with the
Ø symbol: a symbol intended to indicate that something, without attempt-
ing to specify what, according to the formal rules of the grammar is missing
from the chain.^22
There are no instances of situational ellipsis in the monologic corpus
studied by Brazil (1995) which he used to generate his proposed chaining
rules. Carter and McCarthy (1997: 14) note that in spoken English, ellipsis
is mainly situational. They state that it frequently involves the omission of
personal pronouns where the identity of the speaker is unambiguous and
provide the example:
(39) A: What’s the matter?
B: Got an awful cold (ellipsis of I’ve)which, following the discussion above, is coded as
(40) Got an awful cold
Ø V' d e NThe coding in (40) indicates that speaker (B), with (A’s) assistance, com-
pleted the chain; the hearer using their own cognitive environment was
able to fi ll in the unrealized items and allot them to their proper slots in the
grammatical chain.