Is the sentence "His voice was serious and his manner solemn." grammatically correct? I've seen 'be' dropped in some sentences like this one.
4 Answers
This is a proper example of a "stripping ellipsis." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis_(linguistics)#Stripping
Yes, it's correct. The verb "was" is implicitly carried over to the second clause.
Yes! the verb "was" is implicit in the second clause.
answered Jun 15, 2014 at 16:50
Yes; as others have noted, the verb is implied in the second sentence. The same structure is sometimes achieved using a semicolon:
His voice was serious; his manner, solemn.
This works for other verbs than to be as well:
They seemed to be a different species, and he looked at them and they at him with distrust and hostility. (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment)
