Ellipse: know this figure of speech

Figures of speech classified as construction figures have the characteristic of changing the structure of a text in favor of the expressiveness of what one wants to communicate. THE Ellipse enters this classification for precisely that reason. The alteration of the textual structure occurs when words are omitted without prejudice to sentence comprehension.

Pleonasm and anaphora, which are also pictures of words, use the exaggeration of meanings or the repetition of terms to express an idea. In pleonasm, exaggeration is the unnecessary amount of different words with the same meaning. In anaphora, there is the repetition of the same words or terms at the beginning of the same sentence and with the same meaning. While, in the ellipse, this doesn't even come close to happening.

When we omit, for example, a preposition or a pronoun, the so-called hidden subject, we use the ellipse.

However, contrary to what you might think, for there to be an ellipse, the implicit term must not have been used previously in the text.

Let's look at examples of this figure of speech.

Ellipse Examples

The examples below are the ones we use the most in our daily lives. Note that the intention is for the sentence to be understood even if some term is implied:

• “From my bedroom window, the rain refreshing the plants in the backyard”;
• “I did it because I should have done it a long time ago”;
• “In the middle of the night on the street, no other human beings”;
• “In the kitchen, pork, beef ribs and a lot of sausage. Everything for a good barbecue”;
• “We arrived at the zoo. In the trees, the monkeys. In lakes, alligators. Within the terrestrial fences, the fearsome lions”.

In the first example, the verb ver was omitted. It would be “From my bedroom window, I saw the rain refreshing the plants in the backyard”.

In the second example, only the personal pronoun “I” at the beginning of the sentence was issued. Thus, it is a hidden verb that we can determine because of the conjugation of the verb do.

From the third example, the verb “haver” was omitted. In the fourth example, there was also the omission of the same verb “haver” and also the verb “do”. In the last one, the verb “to be” was omitted three times.

Please note that in none of the examples you did not understand the sentence completely. It's all a matter of knowing how to interpret the context of the narrative and identify what is implied.

So, let's use an example of an ellipse that occurs in the song “No mais”, by Victor & Léo:

• “Hey. It was all so sudden. I just wouldn't be without you anymore. Without you, not anymore. Hey, there are things we do and say whatever. I would just tell you. Without you, not anymore. Without you I was alone without knowing. Without you, nothing unforgettable to live. Without you, not anymore. No longer";

Can you find where, in this excerpt from the song “Sensações”, by Paula Fernandes, there is an ellipse?

• “Now I'm just a wind, darkness, I've turned to dust, photography, I'm a memory of the past. Now I'm living proof that nothing in this life is forever until proven otherwise.”

Also check: Company or Company.

Ellipse X Zeugma

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