A Corpus-based Systemic Functional Approach To Absolute Clauses In English

The absolute clause is a special syntactical structure in English. The discussion of absolute clauses in traditional grammar concerns the form, function, case, diachronic distribution and stylistic characteristics. Traditionally, it is believed that absolute clauses are nonfinite clauses with explicit subjects, implying temporal, conditional, causal, concessive or circumstantial relationships, that apart from a few stereotyped phrases, absolute clauses are formal and infrequent in English and are gradually decreasing in number, and that the subjects of absolute clauses are zero case nouns or nominative pronouns. The classifications of function types of absolute clauses are to some extent subjective, and the boundaries between different functions vague. As for case, actual language use shows there are many absolute clauses with accusative pronouns as subjects. Discussions on the diachronic and stylistic distributions in traditional grammar also contain many strong subjective conclusions. These problems show that absolute clauses are given sufficient consideration by traditional grammarians on the one hand, and on the other hand, many deficiencies occur to traditional grammar descriptions.Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is meaning-centered. It considers language as a meaning system, and focuses on the realization of meaning at the lexico-grammatical stratum. The object of SFL research is language in use, and it supports corpus-based approaches. In recent years, functional syntactical research has been drawing increasing attention of systemic functional linguists, and many syntactic structures in traditional grammar have been discussed in the framework of SFL. However, the traditional syntactic structure of absolute clauses has not been touched by SFL researchers. There is no such a term as absolute clauses in SFL. except that in the discussion of logico-semantic relations realized by nonfinite clauses, it is pointed out that nonfinite clauses may have their own subjects. In this situation, it is necessary to carry out a corpus-based SFL study of absolute clauses.This research is corpus-based and the data are collected from such corpora as the Brown Family Corpora (Brown. Frown, Crown, LOB, FLOB and CLOB), BNC (British National Corpus), COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and COHA (Corpus of Historical American English). With the data collected from these corpora, we investigated into the function types of absolute clauses and their diachronic, stylistic and case distributions.Functions of absolute clauses in traditional grammar can be classified into two general relations:accompanying and subordinating. However, in actual language use, absolute clauses carry a third relation:explaining, which does not function as adverbial adjunct. However, this type of absolute clauses has not been explained in traditional grammar. In SFL, the relationships between clauses in a clause complex include two dimensions:interdependency and logico-semantic relation. The former consists of two relations, i.e. parataxis and hypotaxis, and the latter, expansion and projection. The three types of function of absolute clauses, i.e., explaining, accompanying and subordinating in traditional grammar correspond to the three subordinating expansions, i.e., elaboration, extension and enhancement, in SFL. In interdependency relations, absolute clauses are nonfinite clauses, hence only realizing hypotactic but not paratactic relationships. However, in logico-semantic relations, since nonfinite clauses can realize both expansion and projection, absolute clauses also have the potential to realize projection. According to double transitivity analyses, the hypotactic relationships in clause complexes can also be embedding relationships. Absolute clauses realizing expansion also realize circumstances, and those realizing projection realize participants. The projected clauses are the syntactic complement of the projecting verbs. Since the projected complement clauses can form into absolute clauses, the subject clauses can also form into absolute clauses.In addition to hypotactic clauses in clause complexes, independently used clauses can also form into absolute clauses, elaborating, extending or enhancing the preceding or following clauses. However, these relationships are textually cohesive, rather than structural. Independently used clauses tend to be paratactic, and since absolute clauses can be used independently, they also have the potential to realize paratactic relationships. There are two factors determining the formation of paratactic relationships:the primary clauses and the secondary clauses can not be transposed; the secondary clauses can be used independently. Some absolute clauses fulfilling the two requirements can realize paratactic relationships. Therefore, absolute clauses have the same meaning potential as finite clauses. According to the identification criteria of absolute clauses we proposed, absolute clauses can realize both hypotactic and paratactic relationships, both expansion (i.e., elaboration, extension and enhancement) and projection (i.e., fact and act). Absolute clause can be used as adjunct realizing Circumstance, subject and complement realizing Participant, and appositive realizing embedding relationships.Therefore, absolute clauses can be syntactically classified into four types:absolute adjunct clauses, absolute appositive clauses, absolute complement clauses and absolute subject clauses. These types of absolute clauses are different in independence. The independence of absolute clauses can be distinguished from two dimensions:absolute clauses and primary clauses. From the dimension of absolute clauses, absolute adjunct clauses and absolute subject clauses are the most independent, while from the dimension of primary clauses, absolute adjunct clauses and absolute appositive clauses are the least constrained by primary clauses, hence the most independent. Absolute adjunct clauses realize extension and enhancement, and absolute appositive clauses realize elaboration. The three relationships correspond respectively to accompanying, subordinating and explaining relationships in traditional grammar.Applying corpus retrieval tools and analysis softwares such as TreeTagger2.0, AntConc3.2.4w and UAM CorpusTool2.8.12, we extracted12153absolute clauses from the Brown Corpora, BNC and COHA, among which there are1732realizing elaboration,6875extension,1298enhancement, and2187independent instances.The results show that research based on the Brown corpora does not demonstrate diachronic changes. It is mainly because of the small scale of the corpora, totaling6millions of words, and the short span of time (less than50years). The COHA corpus based research of the extending and enhancing absolute clauses shows that, during a span of200years of language evolution, the number of absolute clauses has not been decreasing, but been increasing, especially the extending type. The number of enhancing type of absolute clauses has been gradually decreasing, but it does not show any tendency of disappearing. In fact, the data of the nearly50years in the Brown Corpora show that diachronic distribution of the enhancing type tends to be stable because of the grammaticalization of absolute clauses in the process of language evolution. In this process, some absolute clauses of the enhancing type have been grammaticalized into stereotyped phrases, realizing certain logico-semantic relations.Research based on the Brown Corpora and BNC shows that the difference of stylistic distribution of absolute clauses is quite significant. Absolute clauses are rarely used in both informal spoken texts and formal academic texts. This is clearly inconsistent with the view of traditional grammarians. Absolute clauses appear mainly in Fiction, but Fiction is not formal in style. Therefore, this difference is not relevant to the degree of formality although the stylistic distributions of absolute clauses are different. The reason why absolute clauses are mainly used in Fiction is that there are more narrations and descriptions in Fiction, and absolute clauses are characterized to realize these functions.Research based on the Brown Corpora on case of the pronoun subjects of absolute clauses shows that in the49case-marked absolute clauses with pronoun subjects, there are28nominative personal pronouns and21accusative personal pronouns. The case distributions are also different in style. There are more nominative personal pronouns than accusative personal pronouns in general. However, after being changed into standardized frequency, nominative personal pronouns are relatively less than accusative personal pronouns. The difference of the two is the most significant in General Prose, and least in Fiction. It is only in Press that there are more nominative personal pronouns than accusative personal pronouns, and there are more nominative personal pronouns in Press than in Fiction. Personal pronouns are rarely used in Learned texts, and the absolute clauses with personal pronoun subjects are ever rarer. The results show that, when absolute clauses require personal pronoun subjects, people tend to choose accusative rather than nominative personal pronouns.