LINGUISTIC MEANS AND COMPENSATION MECHANISM OF ELLIPSIS OF SIMPLE VERBAL PREDICATE IN THE TEXT OF SOPHOCLES’ TRAGEDY “OEDIPUS AT COLONUS”

Abstract

The article highlights linguistic means and the compensation mechanism of ellipsis of simple verbal predicate in the text of Sophocles’ tragedy «Oedipus at Colonus». The grammatical forms of the omitted predicates are determined, among which the forms of the first and second person singular of the present tense and the aorist dominate. It was found that in most cases, verbs denoting action, in particular movement, intellectual and speech activity, are subject to elimination. It is established that elliptical predicates are mostly reconstructed on the basis of their use in the previous context. On the basis of different types of syntactic connections, the compensatory means of elliptical units were identified. It was proved that the subordinate adverbial connection (79%), especially word control (69%), when the emphasis shifts to direct and indirect objects as a result of ellipsis, is decisive for distinguishing the compensatory units expressed mostly by syntactic units-constructions.. It is proposed to interpret the mechanism of compensation as a set of expedient steps aimed at determining of the elliptical unit, its syntactic valency, which, through subordinate adverbial or predicative syntactic connections, determines the identification of the required compensatory unit from the linguistic situation of dialogical communication, from the context or construction of the sentence. By not using simple predicates and shifting the logical emphasis to other members of the sentence, the author draws attention to the depiction of religious rites, specifies the actors and family ties between them, substantiates the reasons for their actions, deeds or state, elucidates their movements, ways of perceiving the surrounding reality, shows their emotions, emphasizing the information that is more important for the content.