Re: Ellipsis (was: Re: Italian Particles)

Vasiliy Chernov scripsit:

> I suspect that enabling ellipsis is not so mandatory.
>
> For example, in English, you can't say simply 'Reads' in reply to a
> question like 'What does he do?' (Or at least I was taught you can't;
> L1 speakers may correct me). You must say 'He reads' - a very strange
> thing for the speakers of more synthetic langs.
Correct.   Actually, I had Chinese in mind as a non-case-marking
language.  English still case-marks its pronouns, after all.

> In many cases you can't omit the object. This may be partly conditioned
> by the common transitive/intransitive homonymy ('Burn!' wouldn't mean
> the same as 'Burn it!'), but there must be other factors involved (can
> you ever say in English simply 'Give!' or 'Take!', I wonder? And why,
> if not?).
"Take!" is impossible for me; it has to be "Take it!".  As for "Give!",
that is possible in a situation of begging (the Bible says:
"The horse-leech has two daughters, crying, Give, give)".

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin