On Jun 13, at 5:18 PM, Patricia M. Godfrey wrote:
As usual, more than you wanted to know.
Well, not more than I did, though I did already know it and I'm under
60. For a few more months.
There's another use of the word 'ellipsis'. An example:
Edna went to the movies and ate popcorn.
We are wont to say, in the vocabulary of baby logic, that the logical
form of that is a conjunction of the two statements:
Edna went to the movies
Edna ate popcorn
Note that 'Edna ate popcorn' appears nowhere in the initial sentence.
That's because there's an ellipsis in that sentence. In English such
ellipses are rampant. (rampant on a field of grammar).
David Auerbach
Department of Philosophy & Religion
Box 8103
NCSU
Raleigh, NC 27695-8103