Grammatical

Cohesion
Reference, Ellipsis, conjunctions and
substitution
 TAXONOMY

cohesion

lexical grammatical

reiteration collocation
Substitution
& reference conjunction
ellipsis
Types of Reference
 Personal
 Demonstrative
 Comparative
Reference – demonstrative
reference
 this, that, these, those, here, there, now, then
 Demonstrative references usually refer to things in
terms of their proximity to the text’s producer.
 If I say, “Look at this”, you know to look somewhere near
me. If I say, “Look at that”, you know to look somewhere
other than near me.
 It’s helpful to remember that demonstrative references
often point at (or demonstrate) where something is.
 These references are selective, as they force the user to
choose to identify something as being near or far. Using
this is more precise than that because this means “near
me”, but that means “anywhere except near me.”
 It is important not to confuse the
demonstrative that with the relative
pronoun that.
 The relative pronoun that in a sentence like

“The dog that we saw was really old” is not

pointing at anything. In this sentence that
joins “We saw a dog” and “The dog was old”
into one sentence.
 Remember that the demonstrative that

points while the relative that joins.

Demonstratives: Heads or
Modifiers?
 This and that can also be used as either
heads or modifiers.
 Heads are the main or only words of

phrases. In “Look at this” the word this is a

head.
 Modifiers are words that accompany other

words, giving more information about

heads. In “Look at this pen” the word this is
a modifier as it tells us more about which
pen to look at. (Pen is a head in “Look at
this pen.”)
 This and that are not only used to point at
physical items like pens and cars. These
demonstratives can also be used to point at
identifiable sections of text.
 If I say, “Listen to this”, the demonstrative

this refers to whatever I’m about to say.

 After I finish talking, my wife might say,

“I’ve already heard that”, where that refers

to whatever I just said.
 There are other demonstrative references.
Here and there are usually used to point at
physical locations.
 If I say, “Look over here”, you must be able

to see me to interpret where “here” is. This

is an exophoric reference as the word here
refers to the context in which I say it.
Demonstrative there and
existential there
 Don’t confuse demonstrative reference there
with the existential there, which appears in
sentences like “There’s a funny smell in this
room.” In this sentence, there is used as a
subject; it is not pointing at anything. “There’s a
funny smell in this room” means something like
“A funny smell in this room exists.”
 Similar uses of existential there appear in
sentences like “There are three reasons…”
(“Three reasons exist…”) and “There was a
game starting at 4 pm.” (“A game starting at 4
pm existed.”)
 Now and then are also demonstrative
references, but they refer to times. It’s
difficult to use now to mean anything other
than “at the present time”, but then can
mean whatever time is specified elsewhere
in the co-text or context. When my
daughter says, “Pick me up after school”,
and I say, “See you then”, I mean “See you
when I pick you up after school.”
Reference: Comparative Reference

 The items we use for comparative reference are adjectives and

adverbs. They are:
 Adjectives of identity(when the items refer to the exact same
identity): same, identical, equal.
 Adjectives of similarity: similar, such, like, additional

 Adjectives of difference: other, different, else

 Other comparative adjectives: more, less, worse, plus all

comparative adjectives (higher, lower…..)
 Adverbs of identity: identically
 Adverbs of similarity: similarly, likewise, so, such

 Adverbs of difference: differently, otherwise

Examples of comparative
references
 A similar view is not acceptable.
 We are equally enraged.
 We are of the same opinion.
 We have identical cars.
Substitution
 Substitution, like reference, is a form of cohesive
relation in that different words, phrases and clauses
are linked, joining them into a text level linguistic
unit.
 Only a few words act as substitutes. One, ones are
nominal substitutes, which means they are words
that can take the place of nouns.
 The verb do in all its forms – do, does, did, done, has
done, has been doing and so on – is the verbal
substitute, taking the place of verbs or parts of
verbs.
 The clausal substitutes so and not take the place of
clauses and parts of clauses
Nominal substitution
 “I trust that your journey from London has
been a happy one, and that you will enjoy
your stay in my beautiful land.”
 You’ll see that the nominal one substitutes

for the noun journey in this example.

 The nominal substitute “one” is not the
same as the cardinal number one. Cardinal
numbers are used for counting: one dog,
two cats, three sheep and so on.
Substitution and reference
 Substitution is similar to reference in that one word
presupposes another word or words, but reference and
substitution are not the same. Compare the meaning of it
and one in the following two examples.
 1. “I have a red pen. Do you want it?”
 2. “I need my red pen. Do you want the blue one?”
 In sentence (1), you’ve seen that it refers to “the red pen
that I have”. The personal reference it in the second
sentence presupposes the exact same thing that was
already mentioned in the first sentence.
 In sentence (2), you’ve recognized that one in the second
sentence substitutes for pen, but we are now talking
about a different pen than the pen mentioned in the first
sentence.
Repudiation
 Substitution involves repudiation, which
means that we are still referring to the
same general class of things, but to a
different specific item in that class. In
example(1),the nominal substitute one
repudiates red with blue, so we are still
talking about pens, but a blue pen, not a
red one. The substitute one presupposes
the head pen, but repudiates the modifier
red.
Verbal substitution (do, does,
has done…..)
 Look at the sentences in 1.5, more examples
from Dracula
 “If this book should ever reach Mina before I
do, let it bring my goodbye”.
 The verbal substitute do substitutes for the
general category of reaching but repudiate
Book with I.
 “I challenge you to win the game before I do”.
 Where is the verbal substitution in this
example and what does it substitute and
repudiate??
 Do in the previous examples is a verbal
substitute. It doesn’t have any meaning
on its own, unlike the lexical verb do in “Do
your homework, please” which means
“perform” or “attempt to complete”. We can
only interpret the verbal substitute do by
looking at its co- text.
Clausal Substitution
 So, Not
 Lily: Is she going to the party?
 Ngozi: I think so. ( so = “she is going to the
party”)
 2. Lily: Is she going to the party?
 Ngozi: I think not. (not = “she is not going to the
party”)
 The clausal substitute not functions as so, except
that it changes the polarity of the clause it
substitutes for. Polarity refers to whether the verb
is positive (“It is almost time to go”) or negative
(“It isn’t time to go yet”).
 Are you free on Friday?
 If so, let’s meet at 5 p.m.
 So substitutes for the whole clause( If you

are free on Friday, let’s meet at 5 p.m.)

Ellipsis
 Like substitution, ellipsis involves the
replacement of one thing with another.
However, instead of using words as
substitutes, in ellipsis, we replace words
with nothing.
 Ellipsis can be nominal, clausal or verbal.
Nominal Ellipsis
 When you read “Mia went home and ate dinner” you know
Mia did two things: went home and ate dinner. You interpret
Mia as the subject of the verbs went and ate, even though
Mia was only mentioned once. There is nominal ellipsis, the
omission of a noun which can be found elsewhere in the co-
text. The sentence could have been written “Mia went home
and Mia ate dinner”, but it was not necessary to do so
because the subject of the second verb, ate, couldn’t be
anyone else but Mia.
 (Using Mia twice may in fact be somewhat confusing. We are
so accustomed to nominal ellipsis in sentences like this that
seeing Mia as the subject of ate may lead us to wonder if this
is a different person also named Mia.)
 Where is the nominal ellipsis in this example?
 “My brothers love sports. In fact, both love sports”.
Verbal Ellipsis
 As with substitution, there are three types of
ellipsis: nominal ellipsis, verbal ellipsis and clausal
ellipsis. It is verbal ellipsis when all or part of the
verb is omitted, but is understood from the
surrounding text.
 “He said that he’d eaten sushi before. He hadn’t,
but it seemed embarrassing to admit the truth”.
 In in example, eaten sushi before has been
omitted after “He hadn’t” in the second sentence.
This is verbal ellipsis because part of the verb had
eaten has been omitted, but the subject he
remains in the text
Clausal ellipsis
 Clausal ellipsis entails the omission of an entire clause, or
at least both the subject and the verb of the clause.
 “Over three hours the CEO talked about the company,
changes to procurement procedures and new health
regulations”.
 In in example, the CEO and talked about have been omitted
before both “changes to procurement procedures” and
“new health regulations” in the second sentence.
 This is clausal ellipsis as both the subject the CEO and the
verb talked have been omitted. This is interpreted as “Over
three hours the CEO talked about the company, (the CEO
talked about) changes to procurement procedures and (the
CEO talked about) new health regulations.
Conjunctions
 Conjunctions are used to show specific types of
connection in texts.
 Comedian Rodney Dangerfield said, “My wife and I
were happy for twenty years. Then, we met.”
 The temporal conjunction then shows that there is
a time relation between the first sentence and the
second, that is, the first one happened before the
second one.
 Dangerfield’ joke relies on the conjunction, as most
listeners would likely assume at first that he meant
he and his wife were happy together for twenty
years after they met.
The four types of
conjunctions
 The four types of conjunction and their simplest forms
are as follows:
 1.Temporal then (time relation) “I went home then I
ate dinner.” As explained above, then shows that the
two events are linked in chronological sequence.
(Don’t confuse the temporal conjunction then in this
example with the demonstrative reference then in “It
starts at 5 o’clock. I’ll see you then.” Here, then
presupposes “at 5 o’clock.”)
 2. Causal so (cause-and-effect relation) “I went home
so I could eat dinner.” Here, so shows that the first
clause “I went home…” caused the possibility
(“could”) of eating dinner.
The four types of
conjunctions
 3.Adversative but (unexpected relation) “I
went home but there was nothing for dinner.”
By using but, the author makes it explicit that
going home led to the expectation of eating
dinner, which in this case was not possible
(“nothing for dinner”).
 4. Additive and – adding relation “I went home.
And before I knew it, dinner was served.”
Additive and is sometimes confusing.
 And in the clause simply tells the reader to
take the clauses as being related, or add them.
Check the book:
A Beginner’s Guide to Discourse Analysis.
Chapter 1