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.

Printed on acid-free paper

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