A Cognitive Pragmatic Study Of English Ellipsis

Ellipsis,as an important research topic in English grammar,has always attracted the attention of linguists.Previous studies on English ellipsis mainly involve the description of ellipted sentence members and the comprehension of elliptical sentences in English,which have provided answers to questions as to what sentence members can be ellipted and how elliptical sentences are comprehended,but fail to provide systematical insights into either the nature and the cognitive motivations of English ellipsis or the pragmatic licensing conditions for English ellipsis.From a cognitive pragmatic perspective and,more specifically,under the guidance of the principle of prominence,the relevance theory and the principle of linguistic economy,this thesis has made a relatively systematical study of English ellipsis by answering the following questions:(1)What is English ellipsis by nature and what types of ellipsis are there in English?(2)What are the cognitive motivations of English ellipsis?(3)What are the pragmatic licensing conditions for English ellipsis?This thesis has first looked into the nature of English ellipsis,finding that ellipsis in English is in form the omission of sentence members,but in essence is the omission of conceptual elements that have appeared inthe proceeding context or those that are to appear in the upcoming context.On the basis of this,the thesis has classified English ellipsis into anaphoric ellipsis and cataphoric ellipsis,and has analyzed the conceptual elements in anaphoric ellipsis and cataphoric ellipsis with plenty of examples.Then the thesis has studied the cognitive motivations of English ellipsis.The result shows that there are mainly two cognitive motivations of English ellipsis.One is to highlight new information and the other is to pursue linguistic economy.Ellipsis involves the omission of known and repeated information,which results in the highlighting of new information and the simplification of linguistic forms.Finally,this thesis has explored the pragmatic licensing conditions for English ellipsis,discovering that cognitive relevance and cognitive context are the licensing conditions.Cognitive relevance indicates the relatedness of linguistic communication activities and the precondition for the speaker to use elliptical ostensive expressions is that he should not spoil the relatedness of communicative activities.This suggests that only known and repeated information can be ellipted,because known and repeated information will not spoil the relatedness of linguistic communication activities.Cognitive context is the basis of successful communication and linguistic communication can proceed smoothly only when the speaker and the listener have shared cognitive context.This indicates that all the information that has appeared in the proceeding context and theinformation that is to be repeated in the upcoming context can be ellipted,because they are information shared by both parties in the linguistic communication.The research done in this thesis can deepen English learners' understanding of English ellipsis and has referential value for English learners in learning and using English elliptical sentences.