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The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series
Series editors
Chenguang ChangGuowen Huang
About the Series
The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series focuses on studies concerning the theory and application of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). As a functional theory of language, SFL was initially developed by Professor M.A.K. Halliday and his colleagues in London during the 1960s, and since then its influence has spread all over the world.
Systemic Functional Linguistics distinguishes itself as a functional theory by the emphasis placed on system in relation to structure. It has also been particu-larly concerned with modelling language in context. The theory is especially well-known for the work on discourse analysis, cohesion, genre and register, appraisal and so on, which have been taken up by scholars working in other fields.
Since Halliday’s early work on Chinese and English, systemic functional lin-guists around the world have been increasing the coverage of the description of different languages over the decades, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Danish, Finnish, Persian, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesian, Gooniyandi and others.
Systemic Functional Linguistics is also characterized as an “appliable” lin-guistics theory. It is well-known for its application in a variety of fields, includ-ing education, translation studies, computational linguistics, multimodal studies, healthcare, and scholars are exploring new areas of application.
The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series is an open series. Monographs included in this series will cover studies on language and context, functional grammar, semantic variation, discourse analysis, multimodality, register and genre analysis, educational linguistics, etc. Manuscripts are selected, based on quality and significance, in consultation with an editorial board which consists of leading linguists in the SFL field.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13311
Qingshun He · Bingjun Yang
1 3
Absolute Clauses in English from the Systemic Functional PerspectiveA Corpus-Based Study
Qingshun HeFaculty of English Language and CultureGuangdong University of Foreign StudiesGuangzhouChina
ISSN 2198-9869 ISSN 2198-9877 (electronic)The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics SeriesISBN 978-3-662-46366-6 ISBN 978-3-662-46367-3 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-46367-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015931449
Springer Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
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Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Bingjun YangSchool of Foreign LanguagesShanghai Jiao Tong UniversityShanghaiChina
v
This research could not have been completed without the help of many col-leagues and friends, among whom we are particularly grateful to Profs. Guowen Huang and Chenguang Chang at Sun Yat-sen University. Professors Kaibao Hu (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) and Binli Wen (Guangdong University of Foreign Studies) generously supported us in many ways during the writing and revising of the manuscript. Many thanks also to Rebecca Zhu, Yi Xu and Evelyn Ebina J. from Springer for their help. The research is supported by the Publication Fund of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. This research is also supported by the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University from China Ministry of Education (NCET-11-0704) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU1409102).
Bingjun Yang
Acknowledgments
vii
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1 Research Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Purpose of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.3 Organization of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 Absolute Clauses in the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.1 What Is Absolute Clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.2 Types of Absolute Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2.1 Free Adjunct Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.2.2 Nominative Absolute Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132.2.3 Augmented Absolute Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142.2.4 Differences and Similarities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3 Logical Roles of Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152.4 The Case of Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212.5 Stylistic Effects of Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242.6 Questions to Be Answered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3 Approaching Absolute Clauses from the SFL Perspective . . . . . . . . . . 313.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313.2 Functional Structure of Clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.2.1 Transitivity Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323.2.2 Mood Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333.2.3 Thematic and Information Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3 Functional Structure of Clause Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353.4 Rank Status of Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.4.1 Cline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393.4.2 Rank Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Contentsviii
3.5 Formation Requirement and Identification Criteria of Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433.5.1 Formation Requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433.5.2 Identification Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4 Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534.1 Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534.2 Research Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544.3 Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564.4 Data Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5 Relationships Realized by Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655.2 Relation Potential of Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.2.1 Relation System Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665.2.2 Relation Potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.3 Dependent Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685.3.1 Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685.3.2 Projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.4 Embedded Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 835.4.1 Classification of Non-finite Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 845.4.2 Types of Embedding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.5 Continuing Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945.6 Independence of Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.6.1 Dimensions of Independence of Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . 985.6.2 Independent Tendency of Absolute Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
6 Absolute Clauses Distributed in Three Corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1076.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1076.2 Research Based on Brown Family Corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
6.2.1 Overall Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1096.2.2 Functional Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1126.2.3 Personal Pronoun Subject and Its Case Choice . . . . . . . . . . . 1166.2.4 Built-in Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
6.3 BNC-Based Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1236.3.1 Overall Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1246.3.2 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6.4 COHA-Based Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1326.4.1 Functional Distribution of Overall Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . 1326.4.2 Historical: Overall Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Contents ix
6.4.3 Function Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1366.4.4 The Case of Personal Pronoun Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
7 Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1437.1 Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1437.2 Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1487.3 Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1517.4 Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1537.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1598.1 Main Findings of This Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1598.2 Limitations and Further Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
8.2.1 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1618.2.2 Further Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Appendix A: TreeTagger POS Tagset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Appendix B: Tables of Corpus Data Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Appendix C: Corpus Retrieving Demonstration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
xi
Abbreviations
BROWN The Brown Corpus (American English, 1961)FROWN The Freiburg-Brown Corpus (American English, 1992)CROWN The China-Brown Corpus (American English, 2009)LOB The Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus (British English, 1961)FLOB The Freiburg-Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus (British English, 1991)CLOB The China-Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus (British English, 2009)BNC The British National CorpusCOCA The Corpus of Contemporary American EnglishCOHA The Corpus of Historical American EnglishCLAWS Constituent-Likelihood Automatic Word Tagging SystemCLAWS7 The newest version of CLAWSSFL Systemic Functional LinguisticsSPOK SpokenFIC FictionMAG Popular MagazinesNEWS NewspaperACAD AcademicNF Non-fictionNA Non-academicMISC Miscellaneous
xiii
Notational Conventions
1 The initiative clause2 The continuing clauseα The dominant clauseβ The dependent clause= Elaborating+ Extending× Enhancing“ Locution‘ Idea
xv
Figures
Fig. 2.1 Core component of predicate of absolute clauses (Kortmann 1991: 10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Fig. 3.1 Traditional and functional structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Fig. 3.2 Transitivity structure of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Fig. 3.3 Mood structure of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Fig. 3.4 Thematic and information structures of absolute clauses . . . . . . . 35Fig. 3.5 The system network of clause complexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Fig. 3.6 Cline from clause to group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Fig. 4.1 Six matching corpora in Brown Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Fig. 4.2 Styles and number of texts in each corpus of Brown Family . . . . 57Fig. 5.1 Type system network of absolute clauses in traditional grammar . . . 66Fig. 5.2 Type system network of absolute clauses in SFL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67Fig. 5.3 Relation potential system of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Fig. 5.4 Extension system network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Fig. 5.5 Extension system network of non-finite clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72Fig. 5.6 Extension system network of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73Fig. 5.7 System of projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Fig. 5.8 Classification of non-finite verbs (I) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85Fig. 5.9 Classification of non-finite verbs (II) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85Fig. 5.10 Syntactic relations realized by embedded clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87Fig. 5.11 Cline of embedding depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93Fig. 5.12 Relation system of “clause + clause” structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93Fig. 5.13 Relation system of “clause + non-finite clause” structures . . . . . . 93Fig. 5.14 System of types of absolute construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Fig. 6.1 Stylistic distribution of absolute clauses (per million words) . . . . 112Fig. 6.2 Historical distribution of functions of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . 114Fig. 6.3 Historical distribution of functions of absolute clauses
in British English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115Fig. 6.4 Historical distribution of functions of absolute
clauses in American English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115Fig. 6.5 Stylistic distribution of functions of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . 116
Figuresxvi
Fig. 6.6 Stylistic distribution of personal pronoun subjects of absolute clauses (per million words) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Fig. 6.7 Stylistic distribution of the case of personal pronoun subjects of absolute clauses (per million words) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Fig. 6.8 Comparison between stylistic distributions of absolute clauses and absolute clauses with personal pronoun subject . . . . . 123
Fig. 6.9 Stylistic distribution of absolute clauses in BNC (per hundred million words) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Fig. 6.10 Comparison of stylistic distribution of absolute clauses between the Brown Family Corpora and BNC . . . . . . . . . 126
Fig. 6.11 Tendency of with constructions to form absolute clauses of extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Fig. 6.12 The ratio of the absolute clauses of extension to with constructions (equal totality) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Fig. 6.13 Tendency of enhancing clauses to form absolute clauses of enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Fig. 6.14 Ratio of absolute clauses of enhancement to subordinators (equal totality) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Fig. 6.15 Tendency of that clauses to form absolute clauses of projection . . . 131Fig. 6.16 Ratio of absolute clauses of projection to that clauses
(equal totality) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131Fig. 6.17 Ratio of absolute clauses to linkers (equal totality) . . . . . . . . . . . . 132Fig. 6.18 Functional distributions of absolute clauses of expansion
in the three corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134Fig. 6.19 Functional distributions of absolute clauses of projection
in the three corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134Fig. 6.20 Overall historical distribution of absolute clauses
in COHA (equal totality) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136Fig. 6.21 Overall historical distribution of absolute clauses
in COHA (per hundred million words) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136Fig. 6.22 Historical distributions of functions of absolute clauses
in COHA (per hundred million words) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137Fig. 6.23 Proportions of the case distribution of absolute clauses
with personal pronoun subject in COHA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138Fig. 6.24 Functional distribution of the case of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . 139Fig. 6.25 Historical distribution of the case of absolute clauses
of enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141Fig. 6.26 Historical distribution of the case of absolute clauses of extension . . . 141Fig. 6.27 Historical distribution of the case of absolute clauses of elaboration . . . 141Fig. 7.1 Proportion of absolute clauses used independently in COHA . . . . 145Fig. 7.2 Proportion of accusatives to case-marked personal
pronoun subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148Fig. 7.3 Historical distributions of weather permitting/being…
with and without the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Figures xvii
Fig. 7.4 Historical distribution of absolute clauses with and without article in COHA (per hundred million words) . . . . . . 156
Fig. 7.5 Historical distribution of grammaticalized absolute clauses of extension (per hundred million words) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
xix
Tables
Table 2.1 Names of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Table 2.2 Logical roles of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Table 3.1 Basic types of clause complex (Halliday 1994: 220) . . . . . . . . . . 37Table 4.1 Styles and number of texts in the Brown Family Corpora . . . . . . 58Table 4.2 Number of words of the Brown Family Corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Table 4.3 COCA and BNC compared in terms of register
balance and number of words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Table 4.4 Registers, number of words, and historical distribution
in COHA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Table 6.1 Formal distribution of absolute clauses of expansion . . . . . . . . . 110Table 6.2 Formal distribution of absolute clauses of projection . . . . . . . . . 110Table 6.3 Historical and regional distribution of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . 110Table 6.4 Stylistic distribution of absolute clauses in the Brown
Family Corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111Table 6.5 Regional distribution of functions of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . 113Table 6.6 Historical distribution of functions of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . 114Table 6.7 Stylistic distribution of functions of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . 116Table 6.8 Historical distribution of personal pronoun subjects
of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117Table 6.9 Stylistic distribution of personal pronoun subjects
of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118Table 6.10 Regional distribution of the case of personal pronoun
subjects of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119Table 6.11 Regional distribution of nominative and accusative
personal pronoun subject of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119Table 6.12 Historical distribution of the case of personal pronoun
subjects of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120Table 6.13 Stylistic distribution of the case of personal pronoun
subjects of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120Table 6.14 Stylistic distribution of the case of personal pronouns
in the Brown Family Corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Tablesxx
Table 6.15 Distribution of absolute clauses in the seven styles in BNC . . . . 124Table 6.16 Stylistic distributions of with and absolute clauses of extension . . . 127Table 6.17 Stylistic distributions of subordinators and absolute
clauses of enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Table 6.18 Stylistic distributions of complementizer that
and absolute clauses of projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Table 6.19 Stylistic distributions of with and absolute clauses
of extension (per hundred million words) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128Table 6.20 Stylistic distributions of subordinators and absolute
clauses of enhancement (per hundred million words) . . . . . . . . . 128Table 6.21 Stylistic distributions of complementizer that and absolute
clauses of projection (per hundred million words) . . . . . . . . . . . 128Table 6.22 Stylistic distributions of linkers and absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . 132Table 6.23 Historical distribution of the absolute clauses in COHA . . . . . . . 133Table 6.24 Functional distribution of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134Table 6.25 Case distribution of personal pronoun subjects of absolute
clauses in COHA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138Table 6.26 Functional distribution of the case of absolute clauses . . . . . . . . 139Table 6.27 Functional distribution of the case of absolute clauses over time . . . 140Table 7.1 Absolute clauses used independently . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144Table 7.2 Absolute clauses used independently in COHA . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145Table 7.3 Case-marked personal pronoun subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148Table 7.4 Absolute clauses of enhancement in three corpora . . . . . . . . . . . 154Table 7.5 Most frequent absolute clauses of enhancement in COHA . . . . . 155