Ellipsis and Word Order

Abstract

Ellipsis is a common phenomenon in both ancient and modern Chinese. As ellipsis is more frequently used in ancient Chinese, a detailed discussion is still warranted. It should be noted, in our discussion of ellipsis, that certain components of a sentence are omitted on the condition of understanding. In other words, omission is optional. Some sentences, such as those weather-related comments, do not have subjects, so they are not cases of ellipsis, and therefore are not included in our present discussion. The main features of ellipsis in ancient Chinese will be elaborated on as follows.