Language, as a rule, employs no more material than is necessary to make the hearer or reader understand the meaning intended to be conveyed by the speaker or writer. This statement must be taken merely generally, for it admits of many exceptions. But, as a rule, language, like a careful housewife, husbands its resources, and tends rather to economy than to lavishness in their employment. Everywhere in language we meet with forms of expression which contain just so much as is needed to make the employer of language understood, and no more. In fact, the supply offered by language depends on the demand, and on this alone. A gesticulation may supply the place of a sentence; a nod, a frown, a smile may speak as plainly as any words. Much, too, must depend upon the situation: on the relations of the speakers to each other; their knowledge of what is passing in each other’s minds; and their common sentiments with regard to the subject discussed. If we consider a form of expression which shall convey a thought under all possible conditions to any possible hearer as the only correct standard, and measure all other forms with that standard, then all these will appear imperfect, or, as grammarians would say, elliptical.
Practically, however, ellipse should be assumed in a minimum of cases, and each form of expression should be referred to its origin. Otherwise, we must be content to regard ellipse as an essential part of language; in fact, we shall have to regard language as habitually containing less than ought rightly to be expressed, and hence we should have to regard most expressions as elliptical.
We will consider first the cases in which a word or phrase is said to be supplied from what precedes or what follows. It hardly seems that we are justified in using the word supplied. Take such a sentence as Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead? (Rich. II., III. ii. 14). We can hardly contend that in the perfectly expressed sentence we should have to supply dead after Bushy, Green, and the Earl, etc. Again, in such a sentence as He saw me and grew pale, it seems unnecessary to supply he with grew pale; nor in such a combination as in fear and hope need we supply in before hope merely because we can also say in fear and in hope. It seems more correct to drop the notion of supplying, and to think of single positing with plural reference—regarding what usually is called a sentence, not as an independent self-contained integer, but as a link in a continuous series.
It is common to assume an ellipse in such cases as ‘the German and French languages,’ and still more in the form ‘the German language and the French.’ But we have really here a pair of elements standing in the same relation to a third. That this is so, we see by the fact that there are other languages in which the two elements are really treated as a unity and attached as such to the third, which then becomes strictly speaking the second. This is shown by the use of the plural. We say, for instance, in Latin—quarta et Martia legiones (Brut. apud Cicero, ad Fam., ii. 19), ‘the fourth (sing.) and the Martian (sing.) legions (plur.),’ beside legio Martia quartaque, ‘the legion Martian and fourth’ (both in Cicero); Falernum et Capuanum agros, ‘the Falernian (sing.) and Capuan (sing.) fields (plur.)’ (Livy, xxii. 15): Italian—le lingue Greca e Latina, ‘the languages Greek (sing.) and Latin (sing.),’ besides la lingua Greca e Latina, ‘the language Greek and Latin:’ in French—les langues Française et Allemande:—so, the fourth and fifth regiments; the second and third days.
In the same way, in the case of such sentences as John writes well, James badly, we are prone to assume an ellipse. But that the current assumption of an ellipse cannot be always right is proved by the fact that even in English we sometimes meet with a plural predicate: as, ‘Your sister as well as myself, said Booby, are greatly obliged’ (Fielding, J. Andr., iv. 7); ‘Old Sir John with half a dozen more are at the door,’ (Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV. II. iv.): as against, ‘Ely, with Richmond troubles me’ (Rich. III., IV. iii.); ‘Until her back, as well as sides, was like to crack’ (But., Hud., II. i. 85).[178]
In Latin, we actually find this construction with the ablative absolute: ille Antiocho, hic Mithridate pulsis, ‘the former when Antiochus, the latter when Mithridates WERE defeated’ (Tacitus); quod tu aut illa queri possitis, ‘what thou or she require could (the verb plural)’ (Tullia, ap. Cicero, ad Fam., iv. 5): cf.— ‘Not the King’s crown nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon nor the judge’s robe,
Become them.’
(Shakespeare, Meas. for Meas., II. ii. 60); ‘For there nor yew nor cypress spread their gloom’ (Th. Campbell, Theodoric). So in French—‘Ni l’or ni la grandeur ne nous rendent heureux’ (La Fontaine), ‘Neither gold nor grandeur make us happy:’ and in Latin—‘Erant quibus nec Senatus gloriari nec princeps possent,’ lit. ‘There were (some) of whom neither Senate boast nor the Emperor could (plur.)’ (Plin., Pan., 75).[179] This plural has originated from cases where the copulative connection could be substituted without essential alteration of meaning—as, ‘Yew and cypress spread not there their gloom,’—and has thence been extended by analogy. In fact, for the instinct of language, the predicate has been posited once and not twice.
In sentences like ‘I will come and do it,’ ‘Who steals my purse steals trash’ (Othello, III. iii. 157), ‘Who was the thane lives yet’ (Macbeth, I. iii. 109), we have instances of an element common to the principal and subordinate sentence, and also in such sentences as ‘It is thy sovereign speaks to thee,’ a variety of sentences constructed ἀπὸ κοινοῦ. Sometimes also, in German, we find such sentences as Was ich da träumend jauchzt und litt, muss wachend nun erfahren (Goethe), lit. ‘What I there dreaming cheered-at and suffered must waking now experience;’ with which we may compare sentences like Milton’s ‘Thou art my son beloved: in him am pleased,’ and ‘Here’s a young maid with travel much oppressed, and faints for succour’[180] (Shakespeare, As You Like It, II. iv. 75). It occurs frequently in dialogue that words of one speaker are not repeated by another, and they are ordinarily described as being supplied. Really, however, dialogue must be regarded as a continuous whole, so that, e.g., the words of one speaker (or their contents) form subject to predicate uttered by the other. Cf.—
‘O Banquo, Banquo!
Our royal master’s murdered——
(Lady Macb.) Woe! alas!
What, in our house?’
If we take a sentence like ‘my relatives and friends,’ the common element my stands at the outset of the whole sentence; it is then nearer indeed to relatives, but is without difficulty referred to friends. But insertion in the second part of the sentence is also possible: cf. ‘It (i.e. love) shall be (too) sparing and too severe’ (Ven. and Adon., 1155), ‘Beggars (sitting) in their stocks refuge their shame that (i.e. because) many have (sat) and many must sit there’ (Rich. II., V. v. 27); ‘of such dainty and such picking grievances’ (2 Hen. IV., IV. i. 198).[181] In this case, the first portion of the sentence remains incomplete until the common element has been spoken or written; and this serves to complete the first and the second part of the sentence simultaneously.
Sometimes the common element stands in different relations to the two others with which it is connected. Then concord must be violated: and different languages try to avoid this breach of concord in different ways.