Ellipsis

[Lone]

Dear Alan,

I'm very sorry but the problem of Ellipsis was still lingering on my mind. I wish you could explain the topic further.

The sentence troubling me is: She remained silent, for her heart was heavy and her spirits low.

In the above sentence, there is an omitted verb were. So, the full sentence should be She remained silent, for her heart was heavy and her spirits were low.

However, is it grammatically incorrect to omit the verb were ? I am very puzzled as I think only duplicated elements can be deleted whereas the two copulas in the above sentence (was and were) are different.

Please help as I am very confused!

Grateful if you could help me!

[Alan]

There is no rule absolutely limiting ellipsis to reduplicated words.

As I believe I explained previously, ellipsis can take account of variations in number, allowing 'were' to be implicitly understood even if 'was' was used, or vice-versa.