I have just started learning Spanish and in my reference book I saw a conversation that went like this:
Yo un poco cansado ¿y ustedes?
Yo muy bien.
I would think that you had to say: "Estoy poco cansado", and "estoy muy bien". Is there something here I've missed? Don't you need a verb?
ESPAÑOL - (English follows)
El verbo, como el sujeto, puede ser omitido en ciertas situaciones, sobre todo al responder a otra frase.
En tu ejemplo:
¿Cómo estás [tú]? - How are you?
[Yo] [estoy] un poco cansado. ¿Y ustedes? - [I] [am] a bit sleepy. ¿And you (plural)?
ENGLISH
The verb, like the subject, may be omitted in certain situations, especially when responding to another sentence.
In your example:
¿Cómo estás [tú]? - How are you?
[Yo] [estoy] un poco cansado. ¿Y ustedes? - [I] [am] a bit sleepy. ¿And you (plural)?
I live in Spain and often hear this sort of statement. It's similar to the English,
How are you?
Me? Tired
You hear things like,
¿Que quieres tomar?
Yo una caña
As a rule of thumb, in Spanish you only use the subject when (at least) one of these happens:
In your example it looks like you have a combination of both.
In the Spanish language you can omit the verb in these constructions simply because it allows for faster, less "redundant" exchanges. It's not unlike English: --"Hey, how are you doing?" --"Good; how about you?" --"Alright."
I think that in those examples there's a comma missing. It's called elliptic comma (I guess, as it's "coma elíptica") in Spanish. http://www.gramaticas.net/2012/05/ejemplos-de-coma-eliptica.html
When you hear it spoken, there's a short pause, sort of equivalent to the one indicated by the question mark in English as @Andy said
There was a punctuation error. Which it is crucial for understanding the semantics in the context that wants to be expressed:
One subject does not want to talk. The other answering subject (whether old or young) seems all right.
One subject is distracted and does not want to talk. The other answering subject (whether old or young) seems all right.
One subject is surprised that the other person is asking but does not want to talk. The other answering subject (whether old or young) seems all right.
First subject is distracted and surprised of the second subject's question but does not want to talk. The second subject answers with a surprise too and depending of the expressions/ relations it may be inferred a sarcasm of the second subject.
To summarize, you may write with or without 'yo' and replace it for 'estoy'. However, punctuation is a key factor to express even the mood of a subject. There are many other punctuation ways that I did not mention.
NOTE: You made a mistake with the sentence structure and I quote:
INSTEAD,
OR,
OR
