[B-Greek] Elipsis

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun Mar 28 09:25:28 EDT 2010


On Mar 28, 2010, at 7:45 AM, Richard Lindeman wrote:
> Is there a difinitive study that has been done on the subject of elipsis?

Definitive study of ellipsis? I doubt it -- I think there are too many different aspects of it.
I think any good grammar must have an index of it, however.

Here's the index on "ellipsis" in BDF:

Ellipsis: 479–83: in the broad sense 479, formulaic 480, dependent on style and circumstances 481, aposiopesis 300(2), 482, brachylogy 483; of εἶναι 127f., 190(4); of subj. 129f.; of a subst. (usually fem.) w. an adj. etc. 241; of a subst. w. the art. w. a gen. 162; of the subst. governing a gen. (υἱός, μήτηρ etc.) 162; of ‘than’ after πλείων, ἐλάσσων 185(4); of ἄλλος 306(5), 480(1); of the apodosis 454(4), 482; elliptical μήτιγε 427(3), εἴτε … εἴτε 446, 454(3), ἀλλʼ ἵνα 448(7), ἵνα δέ 470(3), 483

Worth reading too is the opening section of ATR's big grammar on "The Sentence" (chapter 10, pp. 389ff.)

Smyth §944-6 has some significant comments about omission of the verb.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0007:part=4:chapter=33&highlight=ellipsis

Smyth on omission of the subjec, etc.t §§928-937
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Apart%3D4%3Achapter%3D31

I think that the information about ellipsis is readily accessible, but (a) you do have to work through the TOC's and Indexes of the major reference works, and (b) although it doesn't help much to be told this, expansive reading does sensitize a person to the kinds of things that are left unstated -- usually because they are clearly implicit from what has already been said previously.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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