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Deletion and proform reduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

D. J. Allerton
D. J. Allerton
Affiliation:
Department of General Linguistics, University of Manchester
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Extract

The law of least effort is of course constantly at play in language use. Redundant linguistic items are consistently reduced in size, replaced with a proform or simply left out. These phenomena are dealt with within the framework of a transformational-generative grammar through transformations involving reduction and deletion. In other grammars they may be handled differently; for example the ‘reduced’ sentences may be regarded as full sentences that may optionally be ‘completed’. But I am not concerned here to give a precise specification of the rules involved, but only to raise the more fundamental questions: what is the nature of the processes involved? And, under what conditions do they operate? In this discussion I shall use the term DELETION throughout although a more neutral term like OMISSION, or even NON-INCLUSION, might be preferred.

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Journal of Linguistics , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , September 1975, pp. 213 - 237
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

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