I've only seen that animal in a zoo, never in the wild.

Hi, Raymond,

@raymondaliasapollyon posted:

How does the boldfaced part relate to the rest of the sentence, in grammatical terms?

I've only seen that animal in a zoo, never in the wild.

I see this as a case of ellipsis, where "never / in the wild" are new adverbials in a juxtaposed coordinate clause whose other components have been omitted to avoid repetition:

- I've only seen that animal in a zoo, [I have] never [seen that animal] in the wild.

Note: The second coordinate clause disambiguates the first one, which could otherwise have been interpreted as: I've only seen that animal in a zoo, not others (with "only" applying to "that animal," not to "in a zoo" as in the sentence you asked about).

Thank you, Gustavo. Does the following work, with "I"ve seen that animal" omitted?

I've seen that animal in a zoo, [I've seen that animal] in the wild as well.

You'd need to add "and": ..., and in the wild, as well.

@Gustavo, Co-Moderator posted:

You'd need to add "and": ..., and in the wild, as well.

Thank you. The question then is why the OP sentence doesn't need a conjunction after the reduction, whereas the second example needs "and."

Hi, Ray—The hypothesis that you and Gustavo are exploring is intriguing. I'd like to venture an alternative. Perhaps we're seeing constituent negation of the prepositional phrase, the "not" combining with "ever" to form "never":

(1) I've only seen that animal in a zoo, not in the wild.
(2) I've only seen that animal in a zoo, not ever in the wild.
(3) I've only seen that animal in a zoo, never in the wild.

That is more convincing, David. "Not" does not require "and" after the comma.