Ellipsis: Gapping, Stripping, VP-Ellipsis, Sluicing

Good prose leaves things out. When two clauses share material, repeating all of it sounds laboured, so every language has ways of omitting recoverable words — but languages differ sharply in which omissions they license and how the leftover pieces behave. Icelandic has a full inventory of ellipsis types, and because it is a case language, the surviving fragments wear their case and agreement like dog-tags, telling you exactly what was deleted. This page covers the four ellipsis types an advanced writer needs to control deliberately — gapping, stripping, VP-anaphora, and sluicing — and the one place where English intuitions actively mislead: Icelandic has no exact equivalent of English "do so." (For the basic coordination omissions taught earlier — shared subjects, shared verbs across og — see coordination ellipsis; for the special deletions in than-comparatives, see comparative deletion. Here we go up to the named ellipsis types.)

Gapping: deleting the verb in the second conjunct

Gapping omits the verb (and often more) in the second of two coordinated clauses, leaving its arguments stranded — the classic "X did A and Y, B" pattern. The deleted verb is recovered from the first conjunct, and crucially the stranded arguments keep exactly the case they would have had if the verb were spoken. This is the diagnostic beauty of gapping in a case language: the remnants prove what was deleted.

Look at blað and frönsku: they are in the accusative, exactly as keypti and talar would have assigned, even though those verbs are gone from the second conjunct. That is how you know gapping has applied and not something else — the remnants carry the morphological fingerprint of the deleted verb. Gapping is somewhat formal and tightly written; in casual speech speakers often just repeat the verb, but in careful prose gapping is crisp and idiomatic.

Stripping: reducing the second conjunct to one element + líka / ekki

Stripping is gapping's leaner cousin: it strips the second conjunct down to a single element plus a polarity word — most often líka "too / also" (affirmative) or ekki / heldur ekki "not / not either" (negative). Everything except the one contrasted constituent is deleted, and that constituent again keeps the case it would have had in the full clause.

That third example is the showpiece. The remnant mér is dative, not nominative — because the stripped element is the object of bjóða "invite," which assigns dative, and stripping preserves it. So a single surviving word, by its case alone, tells you whether it was a stripped subject (María, nominative) or a stripped object (mér, dative). English "but not me" gives you the bland object-form "me" regardless; Icelandic spells the role out.

VP-anaphora: Icelandic has no exact "do so"

Here is the contrast competitors never draw, and the single most useful thing on this page. English has a tidy VP-ellipsis with the auxiliary do: "María read the book, and Jón did too" — the bare did stands in for the whole verb phrase read the book. It also has the proform "do so": "María solved the problem, and Jón did so as well." Icelandic has neither in that exact form. Its verb gera "do" is a full lexical verb, not a dummy auxiliary the way English do is, so you cannot strand a bare conjugated auxiliary as VP-anaphora. Instead Icelandic reaches for one of three strategies:

• gera það "do it / do that" — gera plus the neuter proform það, the closest thing to English "do so";
• the bare relevant verb repeated, often with object shift of það;
• or a stripping/gapping reduction of the kind above, sidestepping VP-anaphora altogether.

The thing to internalise: where English deletes the verb phrase and leaves a bare auxiliary (did, has, will), Icelandic keeps a verb — usually gera — and pronominalises the predicate as það. gerði það literally "did it," not a stranded dummy. This is why a direct translation of "Jón did" into Icelandic Jón gerði with nothing after it sounds incomplete to a native ear: gera is hungry for its object, and það must feed it.

There is one genuine exception worth flagging honestly: when the shared element is an auxiliary or modal, Icelandic can strand it more readily, because the modal is finite and high — Hún getur synt, og ég get það líka "She can swim, and I can too," where get það still carries the proform. But for lexical verb phrases, gera það / repetition is the rule. Do not expect a bare-auxiliary VP-ellipsis to map across.

Sluicing: deleting everything but the wh-word in indirect questions

Sluicing deletes the entire clause after a question word, leaving just the wh-phrase to stand for a whole indirect question whose content is recoverable. Icelandic licenses this freely in indirect questions, and it is one of the most natural-sounding ellipses in the language — over-spelling it out is what marks a learner.

As with the other types, the surviving wh-word keeps the case its role demands: in ég veit ekki hverjum "I don't know to whom," the sluiced hverjum would be dative if the recovered verb assigned dative (e.g. hjálpa "help"). The fragment is a case-marked window onto the deleted clause.

Why this is hard for English speakers — in both directions

English speakers go wrong two ways. First, by under-using ellipsis: they have been taught to make every Icelandic clause complete and correctly cased, so they repeat shared verbs and objects, producing prose that is grammatical but heavy and un-idiomatic. Mature Icelandic gaps, strips, and sluices freely; learning when to leave things out is part of fluency, not a corner-cut. Second, and more insidiously, by mis-mapping VP-ellipsis: the English bare-auxiliary "did / has / will" has no Icelandic twin, so learners either strand a bare verb (*Jón gerði with nothing after it) or invent a calque. The fix is the gera það / repetition strategy — keep a verb, pronominalise the predicate as það. Get that one contrast right and your Icelandic VP-anaphora stops sounding translated.

Common Mistakes

The flagship VP-anaphora error: stranding a bare gerði as if it were the English dummy did. gera is a full verb and demands its object það.

Stripped remnants keep the case of the role they play. An object of a dative verb stays dative even when stripped down to one word.

Gapping is all-or-nothing on the verb: delete it in the second conjunct and leave the case-marked arguments, or repeat the whole verb. There is no in-between.

Not ungrammatical, but un-idiomatic: where the clause is fully recoverable, delete it and let the wh-word stand alone. Spelling it out is the under-ellipsis habit.

Key Takeaways

• Gapping deletes the verb in the second conjunct (Jón keypti bók og María blað); the stranded arguments keep their case — the receipt for the deleted verb.
• Stripping reduces the second conjunct to one element + a polarity word (líka, ekki, heldur ekki); the remnant's case reveals its role — nominative subject (María líka) vs dative object (mér ekki).
• VP-anaphora: Icelandic has no exact "do so." gera is a full verb, so you keep a verb and pronominalise the predicate as það: gera það "do so / do too." Don't strand a bare auxiliary — that is the deepest English transfer trap here.
• Sluicing deletes the clause after a wh-word in indirect questions (en ég veit ekki hver / hvað / hvenær); the surviving wh-word keeps its case (hverjum, dative).
• English speakers err both ways: under-using ellipsis (heavy, repetitive prose) and mis-mapping VP-ellipsis (bare gerði). Fluency means leaving the right things out — and using gera það where English uses bare did.