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Grammar
Objective: Apply ellipsis in coordination, comparison, and answer sequences, and control redundancy in formal prose without losing clarity.
| Structure | Example | Element omitted |
|---|---|---|
| Coordination of predicates | Elle aime le thé, moi le café. | verb of the second clause |
| Coordination of quantities | Il a parlé une heure, elle cinq minutes. | auxiliary and participle |
| Comparison | Il court plus vite que son frère. | verb after que |
| Coordinated subjects |
Ellipsis removes the repeated verb only when the verb appears at least once. Omitting it from both clauses leaves the sentence without a predicate.
In comparative ellipsis the verb is omitted and the unstressed pronoun becomes the stressed form moi.
The verb aime is omitted because the context supplies it, so only the subject and object remain.
The verb travaille is omitted in the second clause, since the context supplies it from the first.
In comparative ellipsis the verb after que is omitted, and the pronoun takes its stressed form.
A bare comparative fragment: the verb of the clause is dropped and only the comparative phrase remains.
The verb est is omitted in the second clause, and the adjective court carries the comparison.
7 exercises · about 11 minutes
| verb of the second clause |
| Answer sequence | Je pense que oui, et lui que non. | clause after que |
| Fixed formula | Comme convenu, la réunion commence à dix heures. | verb of the fixed phrase |
Que elides to qu' before a vowel-initial pronoun, even inside an elliptical construction.
The phrase au jour d'aujourd'hui repeats the meaning already carried by aujourd'hui, so the redundant addition is removed.
The reporting verb is repeated without adding information, and redundancy control compresses the chain into a single clause.
The verb of the second clause is omitted, and the parallel structure makes the missing word easy to recover.
A bare answer fragment in which the main clause is understood and only the contrasting element survives.
The auxiliary and participle are omitted in the second clause, and only the different quantity is kept.