A practical english grammar - Vyssaja skola 1978
Utterances that are less than grammatical sentences
Sound symbols
Connected speech contains many single words and groups of words that are less than a full sentence, formally speaking, but are nonetheless quite intelligible and normal in the flow of conversation. Some sentence fragments have conventional meaning: “Thanks.” “Pardon?” (“What did you say?”) Others merely signal attention, sympathy, surprise: “Oh!” “I see.” “Heavens!” “Well.” There is little need to discuss them, since understanding them is more a matter of vocabulary than grammar. Some fragments play for time in a conversation, filling in a pause until the speaker is ready to continue.
There is an important device in casual speech, whereby all weak- stressed elements at the beginning of utterances can be omitted. This gives rise to such sentences as these:
(I’ll) See you later.
(Have you) Got a match?
(I) Haven’t got time.
(Have you) Had lunch yet?
(Do you) Like my new hat?
(I) Can’t say.
Statements that use a preceding utterance as a frame. If you were listening to a conversation on a telephone, you might hear the person at your end say:
Home.
In a little while.
John.
In form, these are not statements and are in themselves almost meaningless. But, in fact, they are statements, deriving their completeness from questions just put by the other speaker.
Where is Dick now? Home. (= Dick is at home now.)
When is he coming? In a little while. (= He’s coming in a little while.)
Who’s coming with him? John. (= John is coming with him.)
All languages have such devices, of course. In the fast interchange of talk between one person and another, elements that do not need to be repeated are simply omitted.