Discourse analysis

Textual ellipsis occurs in both speaking and writing. Words are missed out in grammatically predictable sentence positions Textual ellipsis occurs most frequently after and and but, when we leave out subjects, verbs, articles and nouns if these are already specified in the previous clause.

You ought to clean your teeth and brush your hair

Nick wanted a strawberry ice cream and Chris a chocolate

I ordered dozen created by they only brought ten

(You ought to clean your teeth and brush your hair.)

(Nick wanted a strawberry ice cream and Chris [wanted] a chocolate [ice cream].)
(1 ordered a dozen crates but they only brought ten [crates).

ADVERBIAL AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
We sometimes leave out the subject and a form of the verb be as an auxiliary verb after conjunctions such as when, while, after and before in adverbial clauses.
When matching colours, you should take both items out of the shop and compare them in natural light. (When [you are] matching colours . . .)
In defining relative clauses we sometimes leave out the relative pronoun and, again, a form of the verb be as an auxiliary'.
The police are interviewing a man seen just after the robbery. (.. . a man [who was] seen . . .)
We usually refer to these forms as 'reduced' forms of adverbial and relative clauses respectively. Although grammars don't always consider them as examples of ellipsis, for teaching it is useful to do so. Unlike situational ellipsis, which tends to make language use more informal, these are mainly a feature of formal, written English and can seem stilted in informal conversation
Activity 1 Read the dialogue and identify the context and rewrite the conversation so that there is less ellipsis and the whole conversation would be more understood by the outsider

Pete: Drink?

Sue: Larger.
Pete: Pint?
Sue: Half
Maggie: A round
Pete: About time
In grammar and rhetoric, an ellipsis is the omission of one or more words, which must be supplied by the listener or reader for the sentence to be understood. It is also the name of the punctuation mark ("...") used to show the location of missing words in a direct quote. This mark can also be used to indicate a long pause or a speech trailing off.