Exploring occurrences of verb phrase ellipsis in journalistic discourse and in a sample of modern American fiction

Abstract

Verb Phrase Ellipsis (VPE) is a prevailing syntactic phenomenon, yet only a few studies have focused on its occurrences and most of these have been concerned with only a single genre. This study compares two genres: journalistic discourse and modern American fiction, in a sample size of approximately 260,000 words, in terms of their uses of VPE. On the assumption that there is such a thing as differential typological and ontological resources of syntax, these two genres are expected to be constituted by sufficiently distinct syntactic resources. VPE was found to occur three times more frequently in modern American fiction than in journalistic discourse. This suggests that VPE in modern American fiction is driven by such factors as the heightening of emotion, engaging readers and challenging readers’ minds. However, VPE is less common in journalistic discourse, the ellipsis being considered bad form for journalists. Nonetheless, this marginal use can still also elicit emotional responses from readers and be used as a deterrent to face-threatening behavior.