Unit 7 Sentence Connector (2): Pro-forms and Ellipsis
Emma (E): Hello, everyone. I am Emma Cook. Welcome to our special lecture “Modular Approach toReading”. In Unit 3, we learned that the definite article the plays a significant role as a sentence connector
in long English passages. In this unit, we will learn two other types of important sentence connectors:
pro-forms and ellipsis.
Satoshi (S)：みなさんこんにちは。奥聡です。このユニットでは、英語の長文を読む際に、とても重要なつなぎの表現を 2 種類学びます：代用表現と省略表現です。
E: Let us first look at the following Japanese example.
A: 西川先生は その人参をお食べになりましたか?
B: はい。西川先生は、それをお食べになりました。

Pro-forms and Ellipsis are Common and Natural 代用表現や省略はよく使われる自然な表現
Some of you might think that ellipsis is very informal and colloquial. However, it is completely natural evenin the formal Japanese that we do not pronounce the subject and/or the object when they are clearly
understandable from the context.
A: 西川先生は、その人参をお食べになりましたか?
B: はい。[][] お食べになりました。

Completely natural to elide anunderstandable subject/object「省略」と聞くと何か、正式ではないインフォーマルなスタイルという印象を持つかもしれませんが、日本語では、フォーマルな文体であっても、文脈から明らかな主語や目的語を省略するのは、ごく自然なことです。
Likewise, we use pronouns in English when the subject and/or the object are unambiguously recoverablefrom the context.
A: Did professor Nishikawa eat the carrot?

Pronouns can be used to replace

B: Yes, he ate it.

an understandable subject/object

英語では、文脈から明らかな主語や目的語の繰り返しを避けるために、代名詞を使うことができますね。
In other words, pro-forms and ellipsis are important sentence connectors in human languages. Therefore,
when you read English passages with long sentences, it is crucial to pay good attention to pro-forms andellipsis to understand what the author intends to convey.
書き手の意図をしっかり読み取るためには、代用表現や省略表現にしっかりと注意を向けることが重要なのです。
Bearing this in mind, let us read a story of John Doe, a student of Hokkaido University.
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[Story of John Doe (1)]
It was a busy day. You graduated from Hokkaido University today. You had a graduation ceremony
and a party afterward with your teachers and with many friends from your research project team.
Your parents and old friends were also very happy; they were all very proud that you received agraduation certificate from Hokkaido University.
You know, however, that this is not right. This is not what it should be. Yes, you know that yourgraduation certificate has a stain – an invisible stain. And you are the only person in the world whocan see the stain on your certificate.
楽しいはずの大学の卒業式。しかし、John Doe の卒業証書には、本人にしか見えない大きなシミが付いているそうです。いったいどうしたのでしょうか? 話の続きを聞いてみましょう。
[Story of John Doe (2)]You cheated.
Professors repeatedly warned not to plagiarize, but you did. It was just once when you were afreshman, and you did it almost without knowing what you were doing. You were very busy writing
three term papers, and had five other final exams ahead. So, you just copied and pasted two term
papers that your friends wrote last year for the same courses. Then you turned them in, pretendingthat you wrote the papers all by yourself.
これは大変です。1 年生の時にレポートで不正行為（コピペ）をしてしまったようです。ばれなかったのでしょうか? ズルをした成績で学部移行したのでしょうか?
[Story of John Doe (3)]
Nobody noticed. Your professors were actually very happy that you wrote good papers, and you got
an A+. With this fake “A+,” your GPA improved, and you managed to enter the department that you
had wanted to join. With this fake “A+”, you became a member of this department that you could
not have entered otherwise. Your studies at Hokkaido University afterward were all therefore
based on your fake GPA, which was in turn based on your fake “A+.”
But nobody knows.
さあ、John Doe はどうなってしまうのでしょうか?
Well, before we see the second half of the story of John Doe, let us quickly look at the use of the pro-forms
and ellipsis in this text.

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Check the Pro-forms and Ellipsis 代用表現と省略表現を確認してみよう：「訳す」のではなく「何とつながっているか」を読みといてConsider what the word they refers to in this context.
まずは、この they が何を指しているのか考えてみてください。ただ「彼ら」と日本語に置き換えるだけでは不十分ですよ。

It was a busy day. You graduated from Hokkaido University today. You had agraduation ceremony and a party afterward with your teachers and with manyfriends from your research project team. Your parents and old friends were also veryhappy; they were all very proud that you received a graduation certificate fromHokkaido University.
You know, however, that this is not right. This is not what it should be. Yes, youknow that your graduation certificate has a stain – an invisible stain. And you are
the only person in the world who can see the stain on your certificate.

Yes, it refers back to “your parents and old friends,” which is obvious and thus the author does not repeat thewhole noun phrase in full.
何を指すか明らかなので、同じ名詞句をまるまる繰り返すことはせずに they を使っているわけです。
Easy? Then, how about the two instances of this here? What do they refer to?
では、この this は何を指していますか?
The two instances of the word this here both refer back to the content of the previous paragraph.
この this は 2 つとも、直前のパラグラフの内容全体を指していますね。つまり今日は北大の卒業式で、先生、友達、両親、みなに祝ってもらっているという状況です。
Let us closely look at the next part.
What does this did represent here?
この did はここでは何を表しているでしょうか?
Professors repeatedly warned not to plagiarize, but you did. It was just once when you
were a freshman, and you did it almost without knowing what you were doing.

This is an elided form of the verb plagiarized. The dummy did is used to avoid the unnecessary repetition of
the full verb, which is obvious from the context.
ここでは、文脈から明らかな plagiarized (盗作をした)をそのまま繰り返す必要がないので、did を用いた省略形を用いているわけです。
49And, what does this them mean?
それでは、この them は何を指していますか?

You were very busy writing three term papers, and had five other final exams ahead.
So, you just copied and pasted two term papers that your friends wrote last year forthe same courses. Then you turned them in, pretending that you wrote the papers allby yourself.

（「彼ら」?ではないよ）

英語が苦手な人の特徴として、them と聞いたらすぐ自動的に「彼ら」と頭の中で訳してしまうことがあるようです。
Do not try to interpret this them as referring to some “people” in the context.
それではだめですね。
これは「コピペをして書いてしまった 2 つの期末レポート」のことですね。文脈から読み取ることできます。
You can infer from the context what them means here. That is, “the term papers you wrote by copying andpasting.”
Let us go on to the next part. Now, what does this otherwise mean here? Try to consider the connection withthe context.
さて、この otherwise はここではどのような意味ですか?

Nobody noticed. Your professors were actually very happy that you wrote good papers,
and you got an A+. With this fake “A+,” your GPA improved, and you managed toenter the department that you had wanted to join. With this fake “A+”, you became amember of this department that you could not have entered otherwise.

Again do not just translate the word using your dictionary.
辞書を見て、その訳語「そうでなけば」とただ訳しただけでは、分かったことにはなりませんね。
Consider what the word means in this specific context.
Here, it means “if you didn’t cheat and use the fake A+”.
ここでは、「不正行為をし、それで得た偽の A+の成績を使わなければ」という意味になりますね。
Well, as we have seen so far, in order to understand the author’s message accurately, it is important toconsider the connecting functions of the pro-forms and ellipsis employed in the given context.

50Comparison of Japanese and English 省略の方法、日本語と英語の興味深い違い
Let us now look at some interesting differences between Japanese and English.
[Scene 1]
Satoshi: 西川先生はお酒が好きですか?
Jang-san: はい。先生はお酒が お好きです。[省略 OK]
Emma: You can drop the subject and the object in Japanese.
[Scene 2]
Emma: Does Professor Nishikawa like sake?
Jang-san: Yes, the professor likes sake. [このような省略は不可]Satoshi: 英語では、文脈から明らかな場合であっても通常は、主語や目的語を省略できません。
[Scene 3]
Emma: Will Professor Nishikawa drink beer?
Jang-san: Yes, he will drink beer.

[ 動詞句削除 OK]

Satoshi: 英語では、文脈から明らかな場合、動詞句を削除することができます。
[Scene 4]
Satoshi: 西川先生はビールを飲みますか?
Jang-san: はい、先生はビールを飲み ます [このような動詞句削除は不可]
Emma: In Japanese, you cannot drop the verb phrase.
As we have just seen, both Japanese and English have ellipsis, but specific ways of deleting elements aredifferent among the languages.
英語も日本語も、文脈から明らかな要素を削除することは可能なのですが、どの部分を削除できるかは言語によって文法的に異なっています。
You have to be very careful of this difference when you read, write, and speak English. OK?

What ultimately happened to John Doe? ジョン・ドー君の結末は?
Now, let us read the second half of the story of John Doe.
[Story of John Doe (4)]You got a good job at a big famous company which highly valued the graduation thesis that you
wrote while you were at your department, which, however, you joined by cheating. Hence, your life
from now on will be based on your graduation certificate with the invisible stain, which means thatall your life is going to be based on ….
51さあ大変です。1 年生の時の不正行為がばれないまま、偽の成績で学部に進み、学位をとり、就職まで決まりました。John Doe の残りの人生も、全て、偽りの成績から始まっていることになってしまいます。
[Story of John Doe (5 and last)]
No, no!
You wake up in your bed sweating badly. You find yourself in your student dorm room. It was reallyjust a bad dream. You realize that you are still a freshman at Hokkaido University and that thedeadline for the term papers is still three days away. You are so relieved. Yes, you are not going tocheat, you are not going to copy and paste other people’s papers, and you are not going to ruin yourlife. The exam period is tough, but you really want to lead a fair, happy, and honorable life.

Wrap Up まとめ[Emma is connecting blocks of sentences using a big stick of glue. She finishes connecting them, looking
really satisfied][Suddenly notices the camera is running]Oh, how was the lesson today?
We have learned that pro-forms and ellipsis are very important sentence connectors. So if you pay close
attention to these connectors when you read English paragraphs, you can understand the reasonable
connections among sentences and thus surely capture what the author intends to convey.
The sentence connectors are necessary glue.
Satoshi: And they give you useful clues to comprehend English texts.
Emma: OK? That’s all for today. Good luck, keep working hard, and see you next time.

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝Tips from Center for Language Learning 外国語教育センターからのメッセージ(8)代用表現：「訳語」を超えて省略や代用表現に注意を向けることの大切さが理解してもらえたかと思います。そのような表現は、代名詞や指示代名詞だけではなく、次のようなものもあります。
therefore: 英和辞典には「それゆえに」と訳語が書いてあるかもしれませんが、「訳」よりも重要なことは、使われている文脈で「それゆえ」の「それ」とは具体的に何を指しているのかをきちんと確認し、理解することです。
likewise: 英和辞典には「それと同じように」とあるでしょう。そして、リーディングで出てきたときは、「それ」とは何か、つまりここでは「何と何が同じだ」と言っているのかを具体的に確認することが重要です。

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最後に、otherwise にはいくつかの使い方があります。次の例で、それぞれ前の文とどのようにつながるのかを考えてみてください。
(1)

Put on your coat and gloves, otherwise you’ll catch a cold.

(2)

You believe this plan works, but John thinks otherwise.

(3)Your report is a bit too long, but otherwise it is almost perfect.

ヒント：(1) if the situation were different (i.e., if you didn’t put on your coat and gloves)(2) in a different way(3) apart from that53