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Is the ellipsis of "it is" in the following sentence acceptable/preferred?

Once [it is] put in the context of philosophy of language, the problem X can be recast as follows.

Such ellipse after once seems to be more popular than when full verb comes after it. Source

Sasan
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    How are you eliminating false positives like 'I once put in 20 hours shovelling snow with only two short breaks'? // Google searches for "Once [it is] put in the context" seem to support your hypothesis. Either sounds fine (in your example) to my ears. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 31 '17 at 11:52
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    If you remove "it is", once can potentially be read in the sense of 'although it was once'. The present tense in it is avoids that reading. – Lawrence Jul 31 '17 at 12:21
  • @EdwinAshworth Would like to know your view on the other comment by Lawrence. – Sasan Jul 31 '17 at 16:25
  • @Sasan In other examples, quite possibly (though the verb-forms usually disambiguate). Here, it's an extremely unlikely reading. You'd really need two sentences to juxtapose two statements connected so loosely. ???'Once a Boy Scout, he gets tired rather quickly.' Grammatical, but I'd say unacceptable. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 31 '17 at 16:32
  • @EdwinAshworth Would like to know your view on this question as well: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/403952/the-right-verb-for-when-we-want-others-trust-for-a-longer-time/403961#403961 – Sasan Aug 03 '17 at 10:10
  • Your sentence will be clearer if you drop the "Once". – Spencer Aug 30 '18 at 22:54

2 Answers2

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"Once" is a subordinating conjunction here in the sense "when" or " as soon as". Like any other adverbial conjunction "once" can also locate the action of the main clause in the time frame being subservient but lending meaning to the main clause. ' Once ' may precede an adverbial clause or phrase.

Without "it is" the first part of the sentence is a reduced adverbial clause, a phrase. All 0/-ed/-en forms with out tense conjugation are passively adjectival. You're at liberty to use the reduced clause or its unabridged form. It's a matter of preference, nothing more to it.

Barid Baran Acharya
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Once can also be used as a synonym of when. In addition to that, you can also use "on" or "upon" if you want to use fewer words in your sentence. So, instead of saying;

When the box was opened, it caught fire.

You can say;

Upon being opened, the box caught fire.

Mehmet Yüce
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