A study on ambiguity caused by ellipsis and substitution in english = nghiên cứu về sự mập mờ về nghĩa gây ra do phép tỉnh lược và phép thay thế trong tiếng anh luận văn tốt nghiệp đại học

The importance of understanding English expressions and sentences, as well as thewhole text in order to translate them into Vietnamese correctly has stimulated the author inthe study on

I also should like to thank the teachers in Foreign Language Department at VinhUniversity who have given me useful advice and favourable conditions for the completion

I have made great efforts to complete the study However, due to my limitedknowledge, the study is far from being perfect Thus, the author would like to receive anycomments from the teachers, friends, and those who are concerned about this area, whichcan help improve the study

Vinh, May, 2011

Vo Thi Kim Oanh

The importance of understanding English expressions and sentences, as well as thewhole text in order to translate them into Vietnamese correctly has stimulated the author inthe study on ambiguity caused by ellipsis and substitution In this thesis, the authordiscusses different definitions of ambiguity, ellipsis and substitution and their types first.Then, the survey is implemented so as to investigate the main types of ambiguity caused byellipsis and substitution From the result, some suggestions for making disambiguation aregiven In addition, some types of exercises are also given to practice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

PART I: INTRODUCTION i

1 Justification of the Study 1

2 Aims of the Study 2

3 Research Questions 2

4 Scope of the Study 2

5 Methods of the Study 3

6 Format of the Study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4

1.1 The Nature of Ambiguity 4

1.2 Types of Ambiguity 5

1.2.1 Lexical Ambiguity 7

1.2.2 Grammatical Ambiguity (Structural Ambiguity) 8

1.4 Definition of Ellipsis 10

1.5 Types of Ellipsis 11

1.5.1 Nominal ellipsis: 11

1.5.2 Verbal Ellipsis: 12

1.5.3 Clausal Ellipsis: 14

1.6 Definition of Substitution 15

1.7 Types of Substitution 16

1.7.1 Nominal Substitution 16

1.7.2 Verbal Substitution 17

1.7.3 Clausal Substitution 18

CHAPTER 2: THE SURVEY 20

2.1 Overview of the Survey 20

2.1.2 Survey Setting 20

2.2 Description of Survey Exercises 20

2.3 Survey Result and Data Analysis 20

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 29

3.1 Major Findings 29

3.2 Some Ways of Disambiguation 30

3.2.1 Some Recommendation for Using Ellipsis and Substitution to Disambiguate 30

3.2.2 Some Suggestions for Readers to Avoid Ambiguity caused by Ellipsis and Substitution 33

3.3 Some Exercises to Practice 35

PART III: CONCLUSION 38

1 Recapitulation 38

2 Suggestions for Further Studies 39 APPENDIX

REFERENCES

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Justification of the Study

Nowadays English has become popular in all aspects such as: education, economy,politics, science, ect In Vietnam it is one of the most important and compulsory subjects at alllevels of learning and teaching In recent years, together with the increasing need for learners,great efforts have been made in order to improve the quality of English teaching and learning.Vocabulary and grammar which seem to be the most important things in language system haveattracted the attention of a large number of researchers The author herself is really fond ofstudying the use of words as well as grammar structures

Moreover, since the Vietnamese and English languages have very district grammarsystems, Vietnamese learners of English tend to encounter a lot of difficulties in theiracquisition of the target language One of these difficulties is ambiguity caused by the usage ofwords and sentence structures This makes learners at all levels, from elementary to university

or even at higher levels, difficult to understand and to interpret English into Vietnamese andvice verse In many years of learning English, the author has also met a lot of ambiguity Manyresearchers have been made in order to find out and avoid ambiguity when using English.However, many questions have been raised for this topic

Additionally, in English grammar system, cohesive devices play an important role inunderstanding and interpreting English into Vietnamese Among them, ellipsis and substitutionseem to appear a lot in the text In some cases, these two cohesive devices also cause someambiguity This does not only make students but also the teachers who teach English getdifficulty when interpret English sentences Therefore, it is really important and necessary toavoid this ambiguity However, to my best knowledge, very little research has been done onanalyzing ambiguity caused by ellipsis and substitution That is why the author wants to payher attention and contribution to solve this problem

Ellipsis and substitution are used a lot in all books and at any levels of English learning.However, at low levels the students rarely realize ambiguity caused by ellipsis and substitutionsince they mainly get knowledge from teacher but not study themselves Only from high levelsstudents begin to study about this Further more, at university level, students have to studymany subjects related to ellipsis and substitution as well as ambiguity such as: DiscourseAnalysis, An Introduction to Linguistics, English Lexicology, ect Therefore, solving theproblem of ambiguity caused by ellipsis and substitution will also help students at this levelstudy these subjects better This is also the reason for the author to conduct the survey atuniversity level

Beside that, the author has been trained to be a teacher of English in the near future, sothe knowledge of using English words and structures is really important and necessary Toknow in what ways ellipsis and substitution cause ambiguity and how to avoid them areindispensable in teaching English.

All of the above reasons and factors have inspired the author to choose the thesis

entitled: “A study on ambiguity caused by ellipsis and substitution in English” with the hope

that this study will provide English learners a better understanding about ellipsis andsubstitution and their ambiguity In addition, the study is implemented with the hope to make alittle contribution to solve ambiguity caused by ellipsis and substitution

2 Aims of the Study

For the reasons mentioned above, the thesis has been done with the aims to:

 Provide some general knowledge about: nature of ambiguity, types of ambiguity, factors cause ambiguity, definition of ellipsis, types of ellipsis, definition of

substitution and types of substitution

 Investigate the circumstances in which ellipsis and substitution usually causeambiguity

 Indicate the main ambiguities caused by ellipsis and substitution

 Give some recommendations and suggestions for avoiding ambiguity caused by ellipsisand substitution

 Give some ellipsis and substitution exercises to practice

3 Research Questions

The study aims to answer the following questions:

 In what circumstances do ellipsis and substitution usually cause ambiguity?

 What are the main types of ambiguity caused by ellipsis and substitution?

 How to avoid ambiguity caused by ellipsis and substitution?

4 Scope of the Study

This paper deals with a small part of English ambiguity that is ambiguity caused byellipsis and substitution and how to avoid it However, it is too broad and difficult to carry outthe survey at all levels of students Thus, the thesis only focuses on the fourth-year students inVinh University All provided knowledge and survey exercises are based on the text books atuniversity level and the research works of many English Linguists

5 Methods of the Study

To carry out the study, the following methods and procedures were employed:

 Investigating methods

 Analytic and synthetic methods

 Descriptive methods

 Comparative and contrastive methods

6 Format of the Study

The thesis consists of three parts:

 Part I: Introduction This part deals with justification, aims, research questions, scope

and methods of the study The format of the study is also provided

 Part II: Development.

This part consists of three chapters:

 Chapter 1: Theoretical background

This chapter consists of seven main sections: nature of ambiguity, types of ambiguity,definition of ellipsis, types of ellipsis, definition of substitution and types of substitution

 Chapter 2: The survey

This chapter consists of two sections The first section describes such elements related to themethodology of the survey as survey setting and data collection The second section presentsthe results of the survey, the analysis of ambiguity caused by ellipsis and substitution throughexercises

 Chapter 3: Findings and discussion

This chapter presents some major findings about ambiguity which is caused by ellipsis andsubstitution derived from the analysis Then some ways of disambiguation are provided Someexercises for practicing are also given in this chapter

 Part III: Conclusion.

This part will summarize what have been presented in the thesis and give some suggestions forfurther studies

The References and Appendix are provided at the end of the thesis.

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND1.1 The Nature of Ambiguity

To say something about the nature of ambiguity, we have, first of all, to try our best togive an explicit definition of ambiguity, which will help to constrain our scope of inquiry

“Ambiguity - a word, phrase, or sentence is ambiguous if it has more than one meaning”(Bach, 1994) For instance, the word “bank” carries several distinct lexical definitions,including “organizations dealing with money” and “the edge of a river”

Another definition: “ambiguity is a one-many relation between syntax and sense.”

(Geoffrey Leech, Semantics, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987, quoted by Pehar)

In ‘A Discussion on Ambiguity in English’ Qing-liang, Z defines ambiguity as follows:Ambiguity is defined as the fact that a word (or an expression) or a sentence, before realization

of stress, stop, intonation or other phonological means and without any more presuppositions

or contexts than what the word or the sentence itself creates, can be regarded as two or moredifferent descriptive senses To make our definition clearly understood, it seems necessary toexplain it in further detail Some linguists think that almost every expression or sentence,before realized by phonological means, is ambiguous For example, by putting stress on

different parts of the following ambiguous expression “English teacher”, ambiguity is

completely got rid of:

English teacher = a teacher who teaches English, whether he is an Englishman is unknown;

English teacher = a teacher from Britain, whether he teaches English is unknown.

Another example may be the shifting of logical stress to create different presuppositions Such

a sentence as “He came here yesterday” may presuppose quite differently by shifting the local

stress:

He came here yesterday Presuppose: not I, you, etc.

He came here yesterday Presuppose: not ran, etc.

He came here yesterday Presuppose: not other places.

He came here yesterday Presuppose: not other days.

It often happens that when we are talking, we don’t realize there is any ambiguity there butwhen we have it written down and isolate every sentence from the context, we will find thatmany of the sentences are ambiguous; and the more parts we divide the whole into, the moreambiguous we have

So secondly, we have to point out that ambiguity exists when there are no more

contexts than the expression or sentence itself For example “She can’t bear children” may be understood to mean “She is unable to give birth to children” or “She cannot tolerate

children” The sentence is ambiguous only because it has no more contexts than the sentence

itself By putting enough contexts to make the ambiguous word contained in a certain semanticfield; the ambiguity is eliminated, as is illustrated by the following sentences:

A: She cannot bear children if they are noisy.

B: She cannot bear children because she is sterile.

Thirdly, it is necessary to notice that our definition is confined to the descriptive

meaning, or the conception meaning of an expression or a sentence Such sentences as “It’s

very cold today”, which may on certain occasion mean “Oh, please close the window” are not

within our concern

In short, Ambiguity means something that can mean two different things Such thingsare ambiguous Sometimes the word is used to mean something that can mean several things orthat is unclear In the proper sense it should mean “two different meanings” because “ambi”comes from the Greek word for “two”

The lexical ambiguity of a

word or phrase contains in its having

more than one meaning in the

language to which the word belongs

Example:

An untitled photograph showing meanings of brass

- Contextual ambiguity (Syntactic ambiguity):

Contextual ambiguity means sentences that have no ambiguous words (no polysyms) and can be reasonably figured out with little confusion given to the reader

“The Chicken is ready to Eat”

- Semantic ambiguity:

This type of ambiguity occurs when there are two or more ways to read the structure of

a sentence Instead of lexical ambiguity (a finite number of known and meaningful dependent interpretations), semantic ambiguity gives a choice between any number of possibleinterpretations, none of them have a standard agreed meaning

For example:

“Flying aircraft may be hazardous.” (Chomsky, 1957)

- Homonyms & homophones (in spoken

English only)

For words like “bear” and “bare”

(homophones) their sounds the same and

may cause ambiguities during daily

conversations

For example:

The little bare bear

According to Bach, “there are two types of ambiguity, lexical and structural Lexical

ambiguity is by far the more common” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on

Ambiguity)

There are two types of ambiguity: structural and lexical ambiguity When a sentencecan be interpreted in more than one way, it is structurally ambiguous, as exemplified in thefollowing sentence (Hurford & Heasley, 1983: 121):

Visiting relatives can be boring,

this can be interpreted in two ways:

(1) It can be boring to visit relatives.

(2) Relatives who are visiting can be boring.

Similarly, a word is ambiguous when it has two or more interpretations due to the factthat two or more lexical meanings are associated with it This lexical ambiguity is traditionallyillustrated with the word ‘bank’ which may mean either as “a business establishment in whichmoney is kept for saving or commercial purposes or is invested, supplied for loans, orexchanged” or “the slope of land adjoining a body of water, especially adjoining a river, lake,

or channel” The sentences:

(5)I went to the bank,

(6) We finally reached the bank,

(7) I was on my way to the bank,

contain the ambiguous word ‘bank’, thus they are lexically ambiguous.

To make the study easier to understand, we should divide ambiguity into two types:Lexical ambiguity and grammatical ambiguity/ structural ambiguity

1.2.1 Lexical Ambiguity

According to Quing-liang, Z (2007), the lexical ambiguity of a word or phrase contains

in its having more than one meaning in the language to which the word belongs "Meaning"hereby refers to whatever should be captured by a good dictionary For instance, the word

“bank” has several distinct lexical definitions, including “financial institution” and “edge of ariver”

Another example is as in apothecary You could say "I bought herbs from the

apothecary" This could mean you actually spoke to the apothecary (pharmacist) or went to the

apothecary (pharmacy)

A sentence is ambiguous if it has two (or more) paraphrases which are not themselves’paraphrases of each other

For example:

(1) They passed the port at midnight.

Paraphrase one: They passed the seaport at midnight.

Paraphrase two: They passed the port wine at midnight.

(2) The captain corrected the list.

Paraphrase one: The captain corrected the list.

Paraphrase two: The captain corrected the inventory.

Lexical ambiguity is ambiguity attributable to the fact that some ambiguous wordscontained in the sentence causes the whole sentence to be ambiguous, which is illustrated by(1) and (2) above (Quang-liang, 2007: 3)

Lexical ambiguity of a sentence refers to the meaning of a word produces a differentunderstanding of ambiguity is reflected mainly in polysemy and homonymy in the twofollowing aspects:

(1) Polysemy refers to a term has many different meanings; these words are often anintrinsic link between, the attribution of an entry in the dictionary

For example, ‘He is running after her”, here ‘running after’ can be understood as ‘catching

up’ and can also be understood as 'the pursuit'.

(2) With homographs include different tone with homographs and homonyms,homonymy words, they are usually the same form, but it is significant that contains two ormore completely unrelated words in the dictionary are generally included in a separate entries Here is another instance:

Flying planes can be dangerous.

1.2.2 Grammatical Ambiguity (Structural Ambiguity)

Words, as we know, often have more than one meaning, and that is the classic instance

of ambiguity Ambiguity has another sense, however Occasionally, phrases and clauses create

ambiguity because their structures may be interpreted in more than one way, leading todifferent meanings for the sentence as a whole Such ambiguity is called 'grammaticalambiguity.'

Compare tables (1) and (2) for an example of grammatical ambiguity:

(1) An example of grammatical ambiguity at the phrase rank, interpreting her duck as a noun

phrase:

(2) An example of grammatical ambiguity at the phrase rank, interpreting duck as a

subordinate clause:

At the clause rank, ambiguity arises when clause constituents can be interpreted as

having two or more functions Consider the clause “They found me a good worker”, where the

functions of the last two constituents can vary, creating two different meanings Comparetables (3) and (4)

(3) An example of grammatical ambiguity at the clause rank, interpreting me as an indirect object (meaning "They found a good worker for me")

Now compare example (4)

(4) An example of grammatical ambiguity at the clause rank, interpreting me as a direct object (meaning "They feel that I am a good worker")

(From Papyr.com/hypertextbook, March 21)

Matthews P H (2000) states that: Grammatical ambiguity refers to ambiguity

explained by differences in syntax E.g “I read the book on the floor” might mean that a book

was on the floor and that was the one the speaker read: this would reflect a syntactic

construction in which on the floor modifies book Alternatively, it might mean that the speakerwas on the floor while reading the book: this would reflect a construction in which on the floormodifies read or read the book, also called ‘constructional homonymy’.

‘Structural ambiguity is the unique case in which a sentence has more than one meaningeven though none of the words in the sentence is ambiguous There are two different types ofstructural ambiguity, surface ambiguity and deep ambiguity In English syntax it is almostimpossible to separate the studies of surface structure and deep structure ambiguity since oneusually gives rise to the other Deep structures go through a series of transformational rules

that give rise to the surface structure.’ (Cited on wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguity, March 12)

In short, even though there are many types of ambiguity, in this study only two mainones focused on are lexical ambiguity and grammatical ambiguity

It should be admitted that many factors might lead to English ambiguity; however, inthis thesis we only investigate ambiguity of the two following factors: ellipsis and substitution

1.4 Definition of Ellipsis

The definition of ellipsis has traditionally been studied as a formal feature withinsentence It has been looked into across sentence as a cohesive device Many authors havegiven many different definitions about ellipsis We should consider some of them below

According to Cobuild (1988: 396), ellipsis is defined as follows: “In English peopleoften omit words rather than repeating them This is called ellipsis”

Quirk et al (1972) states that ellipsis is purely a surface phenomenon In a strict sense

of ellipsis, words are elliptic only if they are uniquely recoverable and what is uniquelyrecoverable on the contexts

Morley (1985:78) claims that ellipsis is term applied to denote the lack of repetition ofone or more elements that have been mentioned in a previous part of the discourse Ellipticalelements are thus deemed to be recoverable by the hearer from the preceding linguisticscontext

As Halliday and Hasan states in “Cohesion in English” (1976: 143) “ellipsis issubstitution by zero”; it is a form of substitution in which the item is substituted by nothing.The information that should be inserted in the opening should be presupposed by bothspeakers Therefore, the main principle that should be taken into consideration is that allelliptical information should be unambiguous; that it should be specified to certain things thatboth speakers knew

In “An introduction to discourse analysis” (2002:26), Nguyen Hoa states “ellipsis may

be defined as the omission of certain elements from sentence, allowed by context”

It seems to us that the concept of ellipsis indicated by Mc Cathy (1991:43) is the best to

be acceptable “ellipsis is the omission of elements normally required by grammar which thespeaker/writer assumes are obvious from the context and therefore need not be raised”

These definitions, though are not exactly the same in detail, have something incommon All the writers actually agree that ellipsis is the omission of some elements, whichare permitted by the participating context

Let’s consider the structure of the nominal group first

Halliday and Hasan (1976) point out that the nominal group consists of three differentelements: the head, the pre-modification and the post-modification in the following order:

Pre-modifier The Head Post-modifier

Take the example below to clearly understand the structure of nominal group:

Example: Those two little handsome boys with nice hats.

Pre-modifier Head Post-modifier

Quirk et al (1972) views the structure of the nominal group nearly the same:

Pre-modifier The Head Post-modifier

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the structure of modifier embraces theelement: Deictic (D), Numerative (N), Epithet (E), Classifier(C), and Quantifier (Q) TheDeictic is normally a determiner, the Numerative a numeral or other quantifier, the Epithet is

an adjective and the Classifier a noun, the Qualifier a relative clause or prepositional phrase;but these correspondences are by no means exact Consider an instance as illustration

Example: Those two little handsome boys with nice hats.

D N R C H Q

The function of Head is normally served by the common noun, proper noun or pronounexpressing the Thing Common noun are often further specified, and this is the function of the

elements Deictic, Numerative, Epithet and Classifier Now under certain circumstances thecommon noun may be omitted and the function of Head taken on by one of these otherelements This is what is meant by nominal ellipsis.

For instance: Four other Oysters followed them, yet another four.

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 148)

“Four” in the second clause is a Numerative and normally acts as Modifier It upgrades to

function as Head

Here is another example of clause ellipsis:

Three hundred general practices will also manage their own budgets from April, though details have yet to be announced Like their trust counter parts, their main motive for seeking autonomy is to improve the services they offer to patents Such doctors tend to be the most innovative in their fields Some < > might opt out of the National Health Service altogether if, as labour has pronicred the whole policy were scrapped.

(Salkie, 1993: 57)

In short, Nominal ellipsis occurs when there is an omission of the Head Noun It is clearthat an elliptical nominal group requires some source of the information necessary for filling itout This source is often a preceding nominal group

1.5.2 Verbal Ellipsis:

By verbal ellipsis, we mean ellipsis within the verbal group For example:

(a) Have you been swimming? - Yes I have.

(b) What have you been doing? – Swimming.

The two verbal groups which are the answers “have” in (a) and “swimming” in (b) are both instances of ellipsis Both can be said to stand for “have been swimming” and there is no possibility of filling out with any other items So, for example, “swimming” in (b) could not be interpreted only as “I have been swimming”; and it could, furthermore, be replaced by “I have

been swimming”, since as in all types of ellipsis, the full form and elliptical one are both

possible (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:167)

Like the nominal group, the verbal group plays an important part in English sentences.

In the traditional, structural and transformational grammars, the term “verb phrase” is used for

(1) Finiteness: finite or non-finite

If finite: indicative or imperative

If indicative: modal or non-modal(2) Polarity: positive or negative, and marked or unmarked

(3) Voice: active or passive

(4) Tense: past or present or future (recursively)

In elliptical form, they have to be recovered by presupposition However, it seems noteasy to recognize whether a verbal group is elliptical or not although we know the theoreticaldefinition

Any verbal group consists of auxiliary as operator and therefore there are two types ofverbal ellipsis: lexical ellipsis in which the lexical verb is missing from the verbal group andoperator ellipsis which involves the omission of operators

- Lexical ellipsis: is described as “any verbal group not containing a lexical verb” or “thelexical verb is missing from the verbal group” (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:170)

Lexical ellipsis is ‘ellipsis from the right’: it always involves in omission of the lastword, which is the lexical verb, and may extend ‘leftward’, to leave only the first word intact.For example:

- They could have been delayed by the snow.

- Yes they could have been.

could have.

could.

(Advanced grammar in use: 160)

- Operator ellipsis: means “only the omission of operators: lexical verb always remains intact.”(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 174)

Operator ellipsis is ‘ellipsis from the left’ In this type, it is possible to introduce a newsubject as in the following instance:

Some were laughing and others crying

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 174)Verbal Ellipsis leaves out the verb and any modifiers to the right verb.

Other domestic broils came at the same time to increase my chagrin Madam Le Vasseur, while making me the finest compliments in the world aliented from me her daughter

as much as she possibly could < >.

(Salkie: 1993: 58)Verbal ellipsis, in short, is the omission of one element or more of verbal group

1.5.3 Clausal Ellipsis:

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the clausal in English considered as thevarious speech functions such as statement, question, response and so on, has a two-partstructure consisting of modal element plus a propositional element Take the followingsentence as an example

Example: The duke was going to plan a row of poplars in the park

(Modal element) (Propositional element)

The modal element, which embodies the speech function of the clause, consists in turn

of the subject plus the finite element in the verbal group The propositional element comprisesthe residue: the remainder of the verbal group, and any complements or adjuncts that may bepresent Thus, clausal ellipsis can be divided into two types: modal ellipsis and propositionalellipsis, which are in turn illustrated by two following examples:

(1) Are they crying? – No, laughing.

(2) You look good, Jim – Do I really?

In the first example, the missing elements are “they are” is seen as the modal element or this case is modal ellipsis For the second one, the missing elements are “look good” and are

regarded as a case of propositional ellipsis

Here is another example of clause ellipsis:

The sculptor is going to sculpt a masterpiece

(Modal element) (Propositional element)

Based on the structure, clausal ellipsis has several possibilities There is a modalelement ellipsis, in which the modal element is omitted, such as:

Q: What is the sculptor going to do?

A: Sculpt a masterpiece

In the answer, the modal element is deleted; a full complete sentence will be:

‘The sculptor is going to sculpt a masterpiece.’

Another possibility is a propositional element ellipsis, in which the propositional element isdeleted, such as:

Q: Who is going to sculpt a masterpiece?

A: The sculptor is.

Here an omission of proposition occurs A complete answer would be: ‘The sculptor is going

to sculpt a masterpiece’.

Taking the presupposing clause as a basic structure where ellipsis occurs in constituentslike the subject, complement, predicator and adjunct, the missing part can be recovered fromthe corresponding presupposed structure in another sentence; undoubtedly the whole clausecan be omitted Let’s have a look at the following instance:

- Can you swim?

In terms of the linguistic system, according to Halliday and Hansan (1976: 89),

“substitution is a relation on the lexicogrammatical level, the level of grammar and vocabulary,

or linguistic form” “It is a relation between linguistic items, such as words or phrases” “Asubstitute is a sort of counter which is used in place of the repetition of a particular item.”

Downing and Locke (1995: 237) states that substitution is used to avoid repeatinginformation that is known to the hearer Unlike ellipsis which leaves a structural slot empty,substitution replaces it by a filler word

Nguyen Hoa (2000: 24) defines substitution as follows: Substitution is basically adevice which shows the relationship between sentences, where it is desirable to avoidrepetition Most of substitutes are pro-forms within sentences, which are used across sentences

Substitution is used in order to avoid repeating the same word several times in one

paragraph it is replaced, most often by one, do or so So and do in its all forms might also

substitute whole phrases or clauses (Kami / Wisniewski / 2006: 8)

Quirk et al (1972: 677) defines substitution as follows: substitution is a device forabbreviating and for avoiding repetition Across sentences, substitution seems to be optional,and for stylistic reasons Within sentences, it is sometimes obligatory Most of the substitutes

or pro-forms within sentence are also used across sentences

In short, substitution is the replacement of one item by another A word is not omitted,

as in ellipsis, but is substituted for another, more general word Substitution serves as a holding device, showing where something has been omitted what its grammatical functionwould be

place-1.7 Types of Substitution

Mc Carthy (1991) agrees with Halliday and Hasan (1976) that substitution operateseither at nominal, verbal and clausal level

1.7.1 Nominal Substitution

Halliday and Hasan (1976: 91) indicate that “The substitute one/ones always functions

as a Head of a nominal group”

For example:

I shoot the hippopotamus

With bullets made of platinum

Because if I use leaden ones

His hide is sure to flatten ’ em

Here ‘bullets’ is Head of the nominal group ‘bullets made of platinum’ and ‘ones’ is Head of the nominal group ‘leaden ones’.

The two nominal groups need not themselves have the same function in the clause;either may have any function that is open to a nominal group Sometimes, as with reference,the presupposed item is buried deep inside a complex structure: the hearer generally has nodifficulty in recovering it

The substitute may differ from the presupposed item in number; in the following the

presupposed item is singular ‘cherry’, whereas the substitute is plural:

Cherry ripe, cherry ripe, ripe I cry.

Full and fair ones – come and buy

The nominal substitute can in fact substitute for any count noun (any noun participating

in the number system), either non-human or human

For example:

a Let me a pen – I’ve only got a fountain one.

b Let’s go and see the bears The polar ones are over on that rock.

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 97)

There is another cohesive use of same, this time is a nominal substitute, typically accompanied

by the Unlike one, which presupposes only the noun Head, the same presupposes an entire

nominal group including any modifying elements, except such as is explicitly repudiated Forexample:

A: I’ll have two poached eggs on toast, please.

B: I’ll have the same.

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 105)The substitute one is a grammatical item which contains no accent; it is always ‘given’

in meaning, and serves as a peg on which to hang the new information The substitute thesame, however, functions like a lexical item; it can carry the information focus, and typicallydoes so when in final position The meaning is ‘the information conveyed by this item in thiscontext is new, but the item itself has occurred before

1.7.2 Verbal Substitution

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976: 112), the verbal substitute in English is do.

This operates as the Head of a verbal group, in the place that is occupied by the lexical verb;and its position is always final in the group For example:

(a) …the words did not come the same as they used to do.

(b) I don’t know the meaning of half those long word, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!

The first “do”, in (a), substitutes for “come”; that in (b) substitutes for know the meaning of

half those long words.

Verbal substitution may function either within the same sentence or extend acrosssentence boundaries, as in the following instance:

He never really succeeded in his ambitions He might have done, one felt, had it not been for the restlessness of his nature.

Here, done substitutes for succeeded in his ambitions, and so serves to link the two sentences

by anaphora, exactly in the same way as the nominal substitute one.

Like the nominal group, the verbal group has a logical structure in which the lexicalverb expresses the ‘Thing’ In the verbal group ‘Thing’ is typically an action, event or relation;but these are simply different subcategories of experiential phenomena, and in any case there isconsiderable overlap and interchange between the two

In both nominal group and verbal group, the lexical ‘Thing’ is substitutable by anempty substitution counter that always functions as Head The substitution form in the nominal

group is one(s) In the verbal group it is do, with the usual morphological scatter do, does, did,

doing, done.

The expression do so derives from pro-verb do followed by anaphoric so In many instances either do or do so can occur, with only a slight difference in meaning.

1.7.3 Clausal Substitution

Clausal substitution is a “substitution in which what is presupposed is not an element

within the clause but an entire clause The words used as substitutes are so and not ” (Halliday

and Hasan 1976:130)

Let’s consider the following example to understand more clearly:

Do you need a lift? If so, wait for me; if not, I’ll see you there.

so, the negative by not We shall consider each of these in turn

 Substitution of reported clauses:

The reported clause that is substituted by so or not is always declarative whatever themood of the presupposed clause There is no substitution for interrogative or imperative(indirect question or commands), and the clause substitutes do not occur following verbs suchas: wonder, order, and ask

Now consider successively illustrated examples below:

(1) If you’re seen them so often, of course you know what they’re like.

“I believe so” Alice replied thoughtfully.

(2) “How am I to get in?” asked Alice again, in a louder tone.

“Are you to get in at all?” said the foot man “That’s the first question, you know”.

It was, no doubt, only Alice did not like to be told so.

( Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 131)

In (1) so is substitutes for I know what they’re like

In (2) so is substitutes for that is the first question

 Substitution of conditional clauses:

Conditional clauses are frequently substituted by so and not, especially, following if but also in other forms such as assuming so, suppose not.

For example:

Everyone seems to think he’s guilty If so, no doubt, he’ll offer to resign.

In this example, so substitutes for he is guilty.

 Substitution of modalized clauses:

Finally, so and not occur as substitutes for clause expressing modality Consider thefollowing instance:

‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal’s feelings ‘I quite forgot you didn’t like cats.’

‘Not like cats!’ cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice ‘Would you like cats if you were me?’

‘Well, perhaps not,’ said Alice in a soothing tone:…

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976:134)Modality is the speaker’s assessment of the probabilities inherent in the situation In theabove examples, not is used as substitute for the first clause, indicating modality of possibility

In short, substitution is a type of grammatical cohesion in which its devices are used forabbreviating and for avoiding repetition, at the same time creates cohesion in discourse Itoperates at three levels: nominal, verbal, and clausal