A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Ellipsis refers to the omission from a clause of one or more signs whose meaning can however be recovered from the context. There are numerous distinct types of ellipsis. One type of ellipsis is the omission of the verbal arguments (SYNTAX 2.4). However here we are concerned with omission of an entire part of the clause. Omission typically requires that the meaning of the missing part be recoverable from a nearby clause. For this reason, ellipsis is usually observed in clauses introduced by signs like as_well (a), identical (b), yes or not, which indicate that what is described in a given clause is similar or different from what is described in a previous clause.

 

                       

         a.     as_well     

         (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 220)

 

                        

         b.    identical

         (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 220)

 

For example, in the following sentence the signs vase break are not repeated in the second clause to avoid a redundancy, since they have been just uttered in the first sentence.

 

 

 

         dining_room gianni vase break not. pietro yes

         ‘Gianni did not break a vase in the dining room. Pietro did.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 220)

 

The part of the clause that can be omitted can vary. For example, the following two sentences are distinguished by how big the elliptical part is. In the sentence (a) the signs dining_room, vase and break are omitted, while in the sentence (b) only the signs vase and break are omitted.

 

 

 

         a.            dining_room gianni vase break. maria identical

         ‘Gianni broke a vase in the dining room and Maria did so too.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 219)

 

 

 

         b.            dining_room gianni vase break. pietro identical kitchen

         ‘Gianni broke a vase in the dining room. Pietro did the same in the kitchen.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 220)

 

Another example showing that the size of the ellipsis can vary is observed when a modal verb is present in the sentence. As shown in the next two sentences, a modal verb like obligation may optionally be omitted when the main verb and its object are omitted. In the first sentence ellipsis involves book buy obligation, while in the second sentence it involves only book buy.

 

 

 

         a.            gianni book buy obligation. mario identical

         ‘Gianni must buy a book. Maria too.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 222)

 

 

 

         b.            gianni book buy obligation. mario obligation identical

         ‘Gianni must buy a book. Maria must also.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 222)

 

Ellipsis seems to be relatively independent from the type of predicate that is omitted. In the example considered so far, the predicate that is (partially) omitted is agentive (‘to break a vase’, ‘to buy a book’, etc.). However, this is not necessary for ellipsis to be acceptable. In the following examples, the predicate is not agentive.

 

 

 

         a.            vase CL(S): ‘crack’. mug identical

         ‘The vase is cracked. The mug too.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 221)

 

 

 

         b.            table red. chair identical

         ‘The table is red. The chair too.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 221)

 

         c.            gianni die. piero identical

         ‘Gianni die. Piero did too.’ (Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 221)

 

The following example shows that ellipsis is possible also when the predicate is a classifier predicate.

 

 

 

                                                                  tp

         window SASS(L): ‘rectangular’. door identical

         ‘The window is small and rectangular. The door too.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 221)

 

The clause that contains ellipsis can be a subordinate clause, as shown by the following example.

 

 

 

         gianni maria_a love_a. ix_3a think pietro identical

         ‘Gianni loves Maria. She thinks that Pietro does too.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 223)

 

In all the preceding examples, the clause from which the meaning of the missing predicate is recovered typically precedes the clause in which ellipsis takes place. However, it does not need to be so. In the following sentence, the clause from which the meaning is recovered follows the clause that contains ellipsis.

 

 

 

                              re 

         if pietro not gianni go

         ‘If Pietro does not, Gianni will go.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 224)

 

In all the examples considered so far, what is omitted is the entire predicate or a part of it. Subjects were never omitted. However, there is a specific syntactic context in which the subject can be omitted as well. This happens in embedded interrogatives, in which the interrogative clause is omitted except for the interrogative sign.  One example is the following (the wh-sign precedes the matrix verb know because, in this specific case, the (elliptical) indirect question precedes the main verb). The intended embedded interrogative is gianni meet who but the signs gianni meet are omitted.

 

 

 

         gianni someone meet but who ix₁ know^not

         ‘Gianni met someone, but I do not know who.’ (recreated from Cecchetto, Checchetto, Geraci, Santoro & Zucchi, 2015: 225)

 

However, embedded interrogatives allow ellipsis of the verb and object as well. In the following example, the intended embedded interrogative is book buy who but the signs book buy are omitted.

 

         someone book buy but who ix₁ know not

         ‘Someone bought a book, but I don’t know who.’