The ability of Iraqi university learners of English to recover elliptical elements in coordinative structures

Abstract

Actually, ellipsis is a syntactic linguistic phenomenon that exists in all languages. In ellipting part of a sentence, a speaker/a writer gives a chance to the reader/listener to retrieve it from the linguistic context, otherwise ambiguity may result. The Iraqi university learners of English (henceforth IULE) face difficulty in recovering elliptical structures as the problems in recovering elliptical structures extend from mother tongue influence to the target language. The present study attempts to shed light on the concept of recoverability of elliptical structures in English. It pinpoints essential matters associated with this process such as the nature of ellipsis, the reasons or motivations behind ellipting elements in various grammatical constructions and the ambiguity arising out of it. People apply ellipsis, where they find repeated elements unnecessary or boring, to achieve a more appropriate economy of statement, besides reducing length and complexity. So, this study presents and describes coordination ellipsis in English to assess the performance of a number of fifty (N=50) fourth-year Iraqi university learners of English (IULE), namely students of Anbar University, in recovering various elliptical structures. It will also be of great pedagogical value. A twenty-sentence "Production Test" is the procedure used to collect data which is later analyzed according to "A Grammar of Contemporary English" which is a descriptive but not prescriptive model. The results showed that IULE encounter difficulties in recovering phrasal ellipsis more than in clausal one.