I need to work on my book this morning, so I don't have time to go into
a very detailed response to Bob Yates's comments. However, I do see how
sentences with 'gapped' or left-out pronouns can be seen as serving communication.

If something (note: a pronoun, something that refers to an
already-mentioned entity in most cases) is left out of a sentence that
would in another version of that sentence be there, it is because the
referent of that pronoun can be recovered from context or from
recognition of a conventionalized pattern with a 'gap'. Omission, or
ellipsis, serves efficiency of communication: no need to mention things
that are already known or can be identified without explicit mention.
Ellipsis also serves formality-marking functions: More-formal situations
usually have less ellipsis than less formal situations, so speakers can
use ellipsis to satisfy two communicative needs: the need for
efficiency, and the need to mark the social status of the participants
in the exchange. When you write a note on the fridge, for example, you
can leave things out: "feed dog 6 pm. will be late."  You don't have to
write: "would it be at all possible for me to ask you to feed the dog at
6 pm? I ask because I will be late coming home from work tonight".

I've used the two extreme ends of (non)ellipsis here to dramatize, but I
people will understand that other ellipses/gapping fall in between on a
continuum. And gapping or ellipsis patterns conventionalize and become
part of the form of certain syntactic constructions, such as the ones
Bob is citing.

I am quite interested now in finding functional/semantic explanations
for the sentences Bob cites, especially since I have been accused ;-) of
giving a formal analysis! I don't have time to explore it now, but I
will pose these sentences to my functional friends on another listserv
and report back. Promise!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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