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I've been poring over materials on Japanese (日本語) and found it common of them to contrast the language with English in saying that pronominal subjects can be —and typically are, as with 私は (Watashi ha, basically I)— dropped in Japanese, whereas with English subjects cannot be elided. A cursory evaluation, as an English speaker, of the truth of that proposition didn't raise any objections. However, upon thinking on it further, I was able to imagine many examples of common English usage where that doesn't seem true, wherein the subject is omitted.

P₁: We'd've done well to've left earlier. We'll be in this traffic for hours now.
P₂: Sorry.
vs
P₁: ”
P₂: I'm sorry.

I'm especially interested in this example since it's not a response to a question. With examples that are responses to questions, I see how a point could be made that the relationship between the question and its subject-less response is somehow anaphoric —the subject expressed by the question is projected forward the the answer so that the answer implies it. Whereas, statements that prompt "Sorry." sometimes lack, I think, an antecedent to imply an "I" in the response.

or

P₁: How've you been?.
P₂: Well.
vs
P₁: ”
P₂: I've been well.

or

P₁: Heading out; need anything?
vs
P₁: I am heading out; do you need anything?

Please share your take on any dimension of this. Thanks.

tchrist
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tjfwalker
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  • It seems a common informal use. Someone might walk into a room, look around, and say "Weird," or "Tragic," or "Spectaular," where (I guess) a sentence could be build around that one word by putting "It's" or "This is" in front. – Chaim Jul 08 '18 at 19:14
  • @Chaim, agreed. Do you know if there's a word in linguistics that describes or deals with such usage in English? – tjfwalker Jul 08 '18 at 19:16
  • What is your question? "What are your thoughts?" is not a proper question for the SE network. – tchrist Jul 08 '18 at 19:40
  • @tchrist according to? I'm a member of the community, find the question and answers to be useful, and thus consider it proper. There's a fundamental issue with needing questions to be of some-odd degree of specificity. If I knew enough about this to scope my inquiry an more narrowly that I already have, I'd basically know the answer. Additionally, my post isn't wide open; you've ignored the part that's what about "Sorry." as a complete sentence. That seem quite clear —do you think "Sorry." is a complete sentence. And, that's what I led with; it's the primary inquiry here. – tjfwalker Jul 08 '18 at 19:50
  • In addition to "conversational deletion," which is an answer to the question this was marked a duplicate of, it's also known, linguistically, as an ellipsis (not the three dots). I normally dislike Wikpedia links, but this one isn't bad, and Changing Minds also has a quick overview. – Jason Bassford Jul 08 '18 at 20:26
  • Sentences are not always mandatory. Often they just make the simple awkward. – Wayfaring Stranger Jul 09 '18 at 01:43

0 Answers0