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Sluicing in an Editorial Board Transcript
[Editorial board meeting, 10:04 a.m.]
ANYA: Someone has removed the final paragraph.
JOEL: Who?
ANYA: I don't know.
MIRA: From which version?
ANYA: The one circulated last night.
LUCA: By whom?
ANYA: Again, I don't know.
The exchange lasted less than twenty seconds, but it contained the grammatical pattern that would dominate the rest of the meeting.
"Who?"
"By whom?"
Both are reduced wh-clauses. The full questions could be reconstructed as:
"Who removed the final paragraph?"
"By whom was the final paragraph removed?"
English often omits the repeated material when it can be recovered from context. In this particular construction, known as sluicing, a wh-word or wh-phrase survives while the rest of the clause is left unspoken.
The board did not set out to discuss grammar. It was meeting to decide whether a controversial investigative essay was ready for publication.