There is a name in linguistics for the kind of incompleteness being talked about here: ellipsis. We are allowed to leave out phrases that would be repetitious, as long as they can be recovered or 'understood' from the context. Tolerance of ellipsis increases with the informality of the situation and with the degree of acquaintance of the people interacting (the better people know each other, the more background knowledge they share; therefore, the more they can safely leave out). Do we need to teach about it? I think a brief explanation like the one I just gave will serve in certain situations: when students raise questions about sentences that look 'incomplete' to them, for instance. Maybe we don't need to bring it up unless students notice it and want information about it. It is, however, an interesting aspect of sentence grammar interacting with 'text grammar': it is the recoverability of the missing information from the surrounding (usually preceding) text that permits ellipsis. I don't know if students sometimes err when they write by leaving out more than the reader can recover; but if they do, then some teaching of ellipsis might be in order for such students. Composition teachers: Does this happen? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics ~ English Department, California Polytechnic State University ~ San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 ~ Tel. (805)-756-2184 Fax: (805)-756-6374 ~ E-mail: [log in to unmask] ~ Office hours Winter 1999: Mon/Wed 10:10-11am Thurs 2:10-3pm ~ Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~