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MICHEL LE GUERN: Ellipsis in French Rhetoric from 1675 to 1765. French rhetoric in the classical age is divided into two main trends: traditional rhetoric, which goes back to Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and sometimes St Augustine;. innovative rhetoric, based on the philosophical study of language, mainly exemplified by the oratorian priest Bernard Lamy. Ellipsis is one of the points on which the two trends differ. The word ellipsis itself hardly occurs in the rhetorical treatises that stem from the traditional school. This lack of interest is quite understandable in a type of rhetoric oriented towards abundance, repetitive emphasis and amplification. For Bernard Lamy, on the other hand, ellipsis is bath a figure of grammar and a figure of rhetoric, in a conception of language where figures are the linguistic expression of passion. Only in 1765, with Crevier, did the traditional trend integrate Lamy's views into its approach ta ellipsis.

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