ELLIPSIS AND INDIRECTNESS: THE ILLOCUTIONARY POTENTIAL OF INCOMPLETE SENTENCES

Uzbek grammars describe elliptical sentences as constructions in which one of the members has been left unexpressed [1, p. 198]. The missing element, on this account, is recoverable: the surrounding utterances, the drift of the conversation and the situation itself allow the hearer to supply what the speaker has withheld. Syntax has consequently treated ellipsis as a matter of completeness, and the standard analytical move has been to restore the absent member and thereby demonstrate that nothing has really been lost.