Contenu du sommaire : L'Ellipse grammaticale : Études épistémologiques et historiques

L'Ellipse grammaticale : Études épistémologiques et historiques. Catherine Fuchs [Dir.]

• Articles

  • Introduction - Catherine Fuchs p. 5-7
  • L'ellipse chez Apollonius Dyscole - Jean Lallot p. 9-16
    Ellipsis in Apollonius Dyscolos. Ellipsis and pleonasm are viewed as symmetrical with respect to a middle state, normal discourse. In this pathological view of language, the trouble may be considered mild because excess and lack are properties of the signifiant only, while the signifié remains unaffected. Diagnosing ellipsis implies a grammatical doctrine, which is based on the notion of the internaI rationality of language -as the middle state does not coincide with piûse usage. Exaroples of ellipsis and function of the contexte.
  • L'ellipse dans la tradition rhétorique grecque - Anne-Marie Chanet p. 17-22
    Ellipsis in Greek rhetorical tradition. For Aristotle, ellipsis is a gap in a line of argument: a point which is essential for the argument is missing. As a trope, it appears rather late in the rhetorical tradition: it is closer to the grammarians' ellipsis than to the logicians'. It is in fact a non-homogeneous category, as shown (better than by the definitions) by the examples and by the glosses that comment upon them. The authors do not specify the norm which serves as a basis to determine the existence of ellipsis (i.e. gap, incompleteness), but it generally seems to be grammatical theory rather than common usage.
  • Le schéma "addition, soustraction, mutation, métathèse" dans les textes anciens - Françoise Desbordes p. 23-30
    A study of the formula «addition, subtraction, mutation, metathesis» in ancient theoretical texts. Study of the formula and its variants in ancient theoretical texts. Origin of the linear formula and model of the operations that apply to writing. Ellipsis as a «gap» with respect to «sermo rectus». Recurrence of the model at various levels: theories of spelling, barbarism, solecism, rhetorical «figures», and the role played by ellipsis in syntaxe This study also includes a terminological clarification and deals with the difficulties that result from the use of the formula when the items concerned are words. Thinking out the implications that surround the notion of ellipsis in antiquity is not pointless for modern Iinguistics since the notion is still used in a way which does not seem ta be basically different.
  • Roger Bacon et le problème du sujet sous-entendu - Irène Rosier p. 31-42
    Roger Bacon and the ellipsis of the subject. The speculative grammar of the Modists, which appears around the middle of the XIIth century, rejects the study of rhetorical figures and focuses on the forms of simple and canonical discourse. On the other hand, although Roger Bacon, one of the major figures of the century, is one of the immediate grammatical forerunners of the Modists, his Summa grammatica only deals with figures. This point of view, however, does not keep him from engaging in the quest for basic rules: since each figure raises a double question -what is the «vice» and what is the «ratio excusans» a rule must first be set up in order to show subsequently how it may have been violated. This paper deals mainly with the problem of the ellipsis of the subject, a point which is at the crossroads of logic and grammar and which is treated differently by the two disciplines. The questions are: is cu" it a complete sentence, is there a type of semantic completeness distinct from morpho-syntactic completeness, is it the nominative form of the noun, or the pronoun, which is understood, what distinguishes the currit structure from ille cu" it, what kinds of words can or should be reconstructed when the subject is not explicit, etc. This leads to a discussion of the notion of «supposition», an ambiguous term which denotes both a word, with the function of grammatical subject, and an object, that is to say what a noun refers to.
  • Ellipse et syntaxe de concordance chez quelques grammairiens classiques - Geneviève Clerico p. 43-56
    Some classical grammarians' conception of ellipsis and the syntax of concord. Linacre, Sanctius, Lancelot, Du Marsais and Beauzée ail made use of ellipsis in the various parts of linguistic analysis (morpho-syntax, lexicology, semantics) and they all suggested highly interesting theoreticaljustifications for its «foundation». First, a few salient points on «reconstruction» and «suppletion», key elements in the organisation of «grammaire générale», are reviewed. This is followed by a more specific study of the potentialities of ellipsis applied to the syntax of concord, since the use of ellipsis for complement government is more generally known. Is is a fact that the restitution of a basie canonical form by rewriting, controversial though it may be, is more readily accepted in the treatment of syntactic concatenation and of intra-propositional relations than in concord phenomena, just as well described by syllepsis, the only figure of substitution that these grammarians still include in their methodological framework. We test the usefulness of ellipsis for a satisfactory treatment of «concord through meaning» (conceptio), or to account for the contrast between «generic» and «specific» terms. We are led to conclude that ellipsis is unable ta throw light on certain linguistic facts.
  • L'ellipse et La syntaxe du relatif latin dans La grammaire "causiste" - Bernard Colombat p. 57-65
  • Gérondif et adjectif verbal dans La grammaire de l 'ellipse aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles - Claire Lecointre p. 67-77
    The analysis of nominal verb forms in XVlth and XVllth Sanctius-type latin grammars. Expressions which are difficult to analyze can often be interpreted with the help of sentences which are considered as equivalent, and the structure of which is clear. Certain XVIth and XVIIth century grammarians who support the theories of Sanctius, use such equivalencies as a method of reasoning, basing themselves on the parallelism they postulate between form and function. This allows them to find a grammatical level where the expressions of the nearly always figurative colloquial language are made explicit. This article tries to show the types of reasoning used in Sanctius-type latin grammars, through the analysis of the nominal verb forms they propose.
  • L'ellipse dans la tradition rhétorique française de 1675 à 1765 - Michel Le Guern p. 79-85
    Ellipsis in French Rhetoric from 1675 to 1765. French rhetoric in the classical age is divided into two main trends: traditional rhetoric, which goes back to Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and sometimes St Augustine;. innovative rhetoric, based on the philosophical study of language, mainly exemplified by the oratorian priest Bernard Lamy. Ellipsis is one of the points on which the two trends differ. The word ellipsis itself hardly occurs in the rhetorical treatises that stem from the traditional school. This lack of interest is quite understandable in a type of rhetoric oriented towards abundance, repetitive emphasis and amplification. For Bernard Lamy, on the other hand, ellipsis is bath a figure of grammar and a figure of rhetoric, in a conception of language where figures are the linguistic expression of passion. Only in 1765, with Crevier, did the traditional trend integrate Lamy's views into its approach ta ellipsis.
  • Ellipse et attraction chez Dumarsais - Françoise Soublin p. 87-93
    Ellipsis and attraction in Dumarsais. After Sanctius, ellipsis is used ta regularize and order grammatical facts and explanations. In this function, Dumarsais introduces a newer concept, «attraction» (derived from Dangeau's rules of sound assimilation) which competes with ellipsis. The analysis of this competition is based on a few key examples and leads ta an examination of its implications for the respective roles of analysis and intuition in grammar.
  • L'ellipse dans quelques grammaires françaises du XXe siècle - Dorota Sliwa p. 95-102
  • Une version transformationnelle de l'ellipse: l'effacement chez Harris - Catherine Fuchs p. 103-111
    A transformational version of ellipsis: deletion in Harris' syntaxe The state of Harris's theory referred to here is presented in Notes du Cours de Syntaxe (1976). Although the word «ellipsis» does not appear explicitly, it is clear that sorne transformations, in particular the deletion transformations, deal with ellipsis phenomena. A brief review of the various types of deletion set up by Harris raises the following questions: (i) the limits ofellipsis? (cf. link to transformations other than deletion) (li) the interpretation of the ellipsis phenomenon? (cf. the notion of weak information content); (iii) the conditions of ellipsis? (cf. univocal recoverability -but problem of the ambiguity of sorne ellipses); (iv) the theoretical status of ellipsis? (a linguistic fact or a metalinguistic tool of analysis -hence in particular the problem of the paraphrastic properties of the relation between an elliptic structure and its developped counterpart).
  • L'ellipse et les relatives - Jacqueline Bastuji p. 113-119
    Ellipsis in relative clauses. The analysis by ellipsis of formally missing items is a touchstone for grammatical and linguistic theories. Since the relative clause of the Indo-European languages is not a universal structure, the absence of a «relative pronoun» cannot be treated as ellipsis in the languages that do not have the «antecedent NP + relative S» structure (Chinese and Turkish for instance), even though these languages have the operation of relativization defined as the embedding of an S (NP + VP) with all its constituents under an NP. Consequently, ellipsis of the relative pronoun (e. g. in object position in English) or of the antecedent NP (in French of Latin) is a possible solution only for the languages that require as part of their system that there should be a relation of redundant co-reference between the antecedentNP and the anaphoric element in the relative clause. Ellipsis of the relative pronoun seems to be syntactically constrained while ellipsis of the antecedent seems to be connected to a set of conditions that are syntactic as weIl as semantic. We reject the traditional idea of a relation between an antecedent which is already present and the relative clause and suggest that relativization be treated as the adjunction through predication of a property to an (empty or filled) N or NP, the property being specified by the relative clause which is of the form: S includes x. As the variable x is anempty place, ellipsis is out of the question. By a process of place filling, structures that are at first potential can be turned into a range of varied syntactic configurations.
  • Ellipses grammaticales et anaphores - Mitsou Ronat p. 121-128
  • Le sujet de l'impératif - Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin p. 129-134
    The subject of the imperative. This paper considers the status of the empty subject noun phrase of the imperative in French and in Rumanian. For Rumanian the analysis draws a parallei between the cases of lexical nouns that occur in the vocative case (to the right of the verb) and the cases with a surface subject. It is shown that in Rumanian the subject of the imperative is of the same type as the subject of other inflected verbs (in Rumanian pronominal subjects are generally deleted). In French thesubject of the imperative may be (is is shown that the empty subject slot is to the right of the verb, as in Rumanian) unlike the nominative subject of other inflected verbs. This possibility is explained by a relation of quantification that binds the subject of the imperative to an «imperative quantifier» which defines the domain of reference of the subject as the set of aIl co-speakers. Our hypothesis, which is is that the subject of the imperative can only occur (as an empty slot) to the right of the verb, accounts for the difference in clitic placing between the imperative and other structures (Tu le tapes / Tape-le).
  • Ellipse et sens littéral chez Searle - Dominique Begue p. 135-141
    Ellipsis and literal meaning in SearIe's theory. Searle puts forward the idea that the postulates constitutive of meaning are basically incomplete and suggests that there is no such thing as a «zero or context» for an utterance. This annihilates Frege's contrast between potential reference and actual reference. Searle is thus led to distinguish two types of ellipsis connected to the speaker's activity: contextual ellipsis and contingent ellipsis. Contingent ellipsis is linked to the definition of the postulates that constitute meaning. Similarly, Searle is led to distinguish between «contingent» presupposition and contextual presupposition. Besides the reformulation of presupposition theory, Searle's questioning the existence of literal meaning compels him to take a stand on the relation between language and truth. Such a position, clearly deducible from Searle's proposals, eventually casts doubt on the linguistic specificity of the linguist's present field of study.
  • L'ellipse ou la maîtrise du manque - Claudine Haroche, Dominique Maingueneau p. 143-150
  • L'ellipse : phénomène discursif et métalinguistique - Irène Tamba-Mecz p. 151-157
    Ellipsis: a discourse and a metalinguistic phenomenon. The notion of ellipsis covers heterogeneous facts whose limits are unclear. It is therefore necessary. to list and briefly describe the data that are generally analyzed as ellipsis so as to reach a classification. Moreover, sorne facts that are not traditionally considered to be cases of ellipsis rnay be seen as such. How should the scope of the notion be defined? A few criteria are suggested: they are based on the level of analysis of the cases of ellipsis and on the notion of ellipsis itself, considered as suppression, omission or suspension. The aim is to deterrnine whether it is possible to give the notion a theoretical status or if, on the contrary, it covers unconnected points of view linked to historically dated views. The paper ernphasizes the relation between ellipsis and paraphrastic reformulation and the connection of ellipsis to syntax and semantics as well as to the speaker's attitude and to linguistic rnetalanguage.
  • Un paradigme de problèmes pour une étude historique de l'ellipse - Barrie E. Bartlett p. 159-165
    A paradigm of problems for a historical study of ellipsis. Ellipsis, as a phenomenon of surface structure, poses at least two problems: recoverability and the theoretical status of what is recovered. If ellipsis is considered as the set of a set partitioning both occurring and non-occurring forms, it is possible to define the various ways in which ellipsis has been perceived in the history of ellipsis and to attribute theoretical status to the variety of interpretations. In short, ellipsis enters into paradigmatic relations that can be accounted for either in well-founded theoretical terms or on a ad-hoc basis; such an analysis provides a basis for the evaluation of so-called theories of ellipsis.