How Words Work:6

- there must be no ambiguity caused by the omission (in the sentence she loves her cat more than her family, ellipsis of "does" would lead to a different meaning).

When practising sentences and dialogues, when asking for answers to questions, teachers often encourage learners to form unnaturally full structures, fostering a belief that it is the fully extended sentence that is correct, e.g..

Teacher: What time did you get up this morning?
Learner: I got up at 7.30 this morning.
Teacher: Good...

This is artificial in the extreme, yet it is common classroom practice and often involves learners who spontaneously volunteer the short answer yet are often asked to give a fuller version. The role of ellipsis seems to be imperfectly understood by many teachers and is thus inadequately taught to the learners.

Repetition is also avoided by the technique of substitution in which pro-forms replace the given information. While most learners have no difficulty in using personal and possessive pronouns in this way:

We went on holiday with some friends. Their children are the same ages as ours.

indefinite pronouns - one(s), some, any, none, either, neither, few, many, little, much, several, enough, each, all, half, both, other(s), another;
adverbs - then, there, here, so, thus, that and replacements for verbs and predicates are less transparent and can be confusing.

The following examples illustrate the difficulties learners might encounter:

I bought some green peppers and some red ones as well. (Confusion that one can be used in the plural)

I'll lock the door if you haven't already done so. (Confusion over use and tense of auxiliary and over use of "so" instead of the equally acceptable "it": both so and it can be used as substitutes for objects or object complements.

She believes he is honest but I don't think so. (Confusion over why it is not acceptable instead of so. In this case so is used as the substitute for the subject complement - it can be used only for an object complement.)

Implications for the classroom

Learners need:

a) a grasp of the basic sentence elements in English

b) practice in realistic structures involving ellipsis rather than mechanical practice of unnaturally extended sentences

c) a systematic training in the use of substitution to help them avoid unnecessary repetition.

d) explanations of how the devices used for substitution play specific roles in this

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