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There wasn't much light, only a glimmer of the moon.

In this sentence, is the highlighted part an example of ellipsis? Could we expand this to the following sentence?

There wasn't much light, as there was only a glimmer of the moon.

In English, we don't talk like robots, so it's not uncommon to encounter such constructions. However, these types of sentences always confuse me when I try to break them down in terms of grammar.

Consider these other examples:

He hated spirits, especially vodka.

The company had expanded its operations to overseas territories, namely Japan and the US.

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  • Is a 'focusing parenthetical' an established part of grammar? I would be interested to read more about this.
    – MJ Ada
    Commented Jan 18, 2022 at 15:44
  • No. 'Parenthetical' is, of course. I'd read Jose Carillo's and Mark Nichol's articles on the different uses of parentheticals. Note that the 'additional information' insert may be rephrasing, explaining, correcting slightly, adding detail (expanding), emphasising ....
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jan 18, 2022 at 16:24
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    ellipsis means leaving something out, in speech. Neither of those are ellipses, strictu sensu.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jan 18, 2022 at 17:09
  • The ellipsis suggested within the question is not a full discussion of the sentence. The glimmer is not the reason for low light, it is given as a contrast to there being low light. The comments do not deal with this. I therefore vote to leave open for further answer and discussion.
    – Anton
    Commented Jan 24, 2022 at 14:29

2 Answers 2

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This is an ellipsis, but the expanded sentence is not the one you give. The expanded sentence is

There wasn't much light, [there was] only the glimmer of the moon.

For your other examples, you would expand them as:

He hated spirits, [he] especially [hated] vodka.

and

The company had expanded its operations to overseas territories, namely [it had expanded its operations to] Japan and the US.

In English, you generally expand ellipses with elements that are already in the sentence. In your first example, adding the as in

[as there was] only the glimmer of the moon,

is incorrect, as there wasn't an "as" already in the sentence, even though the meaning of both expansions is essentially the same.

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  • I like this answer. Would you therefore say that this is a merging of two sentences? A means of providing conciseness? Any repetitive information has been removed and replaced with a comma.
    – MJ Ada
    Commented Feb 12, 2022 at 16:12
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    I'd say it's a way of providing conciseness and avoiding awkward repetition.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Feb 12, 2022 at 18:46
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Ellipsis is not a term much used in modern syntax or grammar. It's not nearly specific enough, since it refers only to something being "left out" of the sentence, without specifying what it was, where it was, how big it was, or why it got left out. Linguists don't use it because it's handwaving, using a general term for a lot of different phenomena.

There are dozens of rules that could be (and often are) called "ellipses", but modern syntax requires specifics of each deletion type and the conditions it obtains under. For instance, the absence of you in

  • Get out of here!

can be called "ellipsis", but it's an ellipsis that (a) only occurs in imperatives and (b) only occurs with second-person subjects. It's not just any old ellipsis; it has constraints. They all do.

There's Conversational Deletion, which produces

  • Ever been to Miami?
  • Not exactly what I was hoping for.

under certain circumstances. Under other circumstances, Whiz- Deletion omits a Wh- word (or that) subject, and its following be auxiliary from a relative clause, converting, for instance,

  • the man who was standing there to the man standing there, and
  • the book that is on the landing to the book on the landing.

Or there is rule-based deletion of individual function words like to-deletion that is obligatory with modal auxiliaries and sense verbs

  • *They may/should/can/must to arrive at 5, but They may/should/can/must arrive at 5.
  • *I saw/heard/felt him to slam the door, but I saw/heard/felt him slam the door.

or the for that often occurs along with to in infinitives

  • For him to say such a thing is surprising.
  • They didn't expect (for) him to say such a thing

... and so on. You can find lots more in this list of English transformational rules.

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  • Thank you for this informative breakdown. Could I ask how you would analyse the sentences in my question? If we are avoiding the concept of ellipsis, I assume there is a more adequate explanation. After all, these are quite common in written work.
    – MJ Ada
    Commented Feb 12, 2022 at 23:29
  • @MJAda Those are various rules, mostly conjunction reductions purging repeated material in parallel clauses.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Aug 26, 2022 at 18:15

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