Ellipsis and cohesion in Italian: omission and reference

A text is more than a list of correct sentences. Cohesion («coesione») is the set of grammatical and lexical links that tie each sentence to the ones around it: words left out because the reader can restore them, pronouns and other pro-forms that point back, nouns repeated or replaced, and connectives that state the logical relation. Coherence («coerenza») is the sense those links serve: the text must hang together as a whole.

Ellipsis is the omission of material that the reader can recover from context. Italian uses it constantly, starting with the subject: «Marta è arrivata tardi. Era stanca». Anaphora is reference back to something already mentioned, through a pro-form, a short word that stands in for a longer expression, such as lo, ne, ci, questo or farlo. Both make prose economical, and both fail when the reader cannot tell what is missing or what is being pointed at.

Compare «Undici voti sono favorevoli; sette, contrari» with «Undici voti sono favorevoli; sette voti sono contrari». The first is tighter and loses nothing. One rule runs through this whole topic: omit or replace only what the reader can restore with certainty.

Ellipsis: leaving out subjects, verbs and nouns

Subject ellipsis is the default in Italian: once a referent is established, the verb ending carries it. Re-express the subject only to change referent, to contrast («Lui lavora, lei studia») or to resolve a doubt. When two people of the same grammatical gender are in play, a missing subject tends to continue the previous subject, but readers do not reliably follow that tendency: «Elisa ha telefonato a Paola mentre era in ufficio» leaves open who was at the office. Name the one you mean.

Verb ellipsis, or gapping, drops the verb from the second of two parallel clauses: «Io prendo il treno, Anna la macchina». In writing a comma often marks the gap when the remnant could be misread: «Undici voti sono a favore; sette, contro». The missing verb must be recoverable from the first clause; if the second clause needs a different verb, write it out. Noun ellipsis works after an article, demonstrative, possessive, adjective, number or di-phrase: «la mia», «quella di Anna», «la rossa», «i primi due».

English often lets an auxiliary stand for a whole verb phrase: “I do”, “So did I”, “She won’t”. Italian has no such do. It answers with sì or no, with anche or neanche plus a pronoun, or by repeating the verb: «Parli tedesco? Sì, lo parlo», «Io ho votato contro, e anche lui», «Credo di sì», «Spero di no».

• Marco ordina sempre la pizza, sua moglie il pesce. · Marco always orders pizza, his wife fish.
• Tu sei pronta? Io no. · Are you ready? I’m not.
• Viene anche Chiara? Credo di sì. · Is Chiara coming too? I think so.

Pro-forms: pointing back without repeating

Clitic pronouns are the commonest pro-forms: lo, la, li, le for objects, ne for di-phrases and quantities, ci for places and a-phrases. Neuter «lo» can stand for a whole clause or fact: «Domani c’è sciopero. Lo sapevi?». «Questo», «ciò» and «quello» do the same, with «ciò» the most formal: «Ciò dimostra che il piano funziona». «Fare», usually with lo, stands in for a verb phrase: «Volevo scriverle, ma non l’ho fatto».

Reference can also run forward. In cataphora the pro-form comes first and its content follows: «Te lo dico subito: domani non vengo». The colon announces what lo means, a common way of building attention before the key information.

Administrative prose has its own pro-forms: «il suddetto», «il medesimo», «tale», «detto» («detto documento»). They are precise but heavy, and outside legal and bureaucratic texts they sound stiff; a demonstrative («questo documento») or a clean repetition usually reads better. With two candidates, «quest’ultimo» points to the nearer noun and «il primo» to the earlier one, but only while the reader can still see both.

• Il volo è stato cancellato, ma nessuno ce l’ha comunicato. · The flight was cancelled, but nobody told us.
• Avrei dovuto chiederti scusa, e lo faccio adesso. · I should have apologised to you, and I’m doing it now.
• La domanda era semplice: chi paga? · The question was simple: who pays?

Lexical cohesion: repeating, varying and summing up

Italian school tradition discourages repetition, so writers often vary the noun: «Roma… la capitale», «il sindaco… il primo cittadino», «Dante… il poeta». In narrative and journalism this variation is expected. In technical, legal and scientific writing it is risky, because a new noun suggests a new referent. If a report defines «campione», keep saying «campione», not «gruppo» or «insieme».

One of the strongest cohesive devices is the encapsulating noun: a general noun that sums up the content of a previous sentence and turns it into the topic of the next. «Il comune ha chiuso la piscina per tre mesi. La decisione ha sollevato proteste.» The noun «decisione» wraps up the whole first sentence. Such nouns also evaluate: «la decisione», «la scelta», «il provvedimento», «la vicenda», «l’errore» and «lo scandalo» can sum up the same event with very different stances. Choose the one the facts support.

• Il ministro ha annunciato nuove tasse. La notizia ha fatto discutere per giorni. · The minister announced new taxes. The news was debated for days.
• Il campione comprende trecento famiglie ed è stato estratto a caso. · The sample includes three hundred families and was drawn at random.
• Hanno chiuso il reparto senza avvisare nessuno: una scelta difficile da spiegare. · They closed the ward without telling anyone: a choice that is hard to explain.

Connectives: stating the relation between sentences

Connectives («connettivi») make the logic between sentences explicit: addition (inoltre, per di più), contrast (però, tuttavia, invece), concession (comunque, ciononostante), cause and consequence (infatti, quindi, perciò, pertanto, di conseguenza), reformulation (cioè, ossia, in altre parole), example (ad esempio) and conclusion (insomma, in conclusione). Many can move inside the sentence, after the first element, which lightens the rhythm: «I costi, però, restano alti».

Watch the false friends. «Infatti» confirms or justifies what has just been said: «Pensavo che sarebbe piovuto, e infatti è piovuto». To correct an expectation, as English “in fact” or “actually” often does, use «in realtà», or «anzi» after a negative. «Peraltro» can mean “moreover” or “on the other hand” depending on context, and «invece» marks a contrast, never a simple addition.

A connective states a relation; it cannot create one. «Quindi» after a weak premise makes the weakness more visible, not less. When the relation is obvious, Italian often leaves it implicit, and a text in which every sentence opens with a connective sounds mechanical.

• Il ristorante è caro; il servizio, invece, è eccellente. · The restaurant is expensive; the service, on the other hand, is excellent.
• Non è un problema tecnico, anzi: il sistema funziona benissimo. · It isn’t a technical problem; quite the opposite, the system works perfectly.
• Ha studiato poco; ciononostante, ha superato l’esame. · She studied very little; nevertheless, she passed the exam.