Abstract
There have been numerous studies on relative clauses from different perspectives, but to my knowledge the book under review is the first that makes a corpus-based study of appositive relative clauses (henceforth ARCs) in discourse. Loock uses concepts like given/new information and heterogeneity of intended addressee’s states of knowledge and adopts discourse pragmatics and information-packaging theory as his theoretical basis.
The book consists of three main parts, each with two chapters. Part I reviews previous studies on ARCs and their definitions, and presents their typical and atypical structures. Part II studies the discourse functions of ARCs. Part III examines the motivations underlying speakers’ use of ARCs and the constraints that govern speakers’ choice of ARCs instead of other allostructures. The main argument of the book is that speakers’ choice between ARCs and other allostructures is not random. They are not interchangeable in context and their use is governed by several morphological, syntactic and semantic-pragmatic constraints.
The study in this book helps us to understand clearly the advantages of using corpora in discourse studies. In order to provide a positive definition of ARCs, Loock conducts a corpus study of written and spoken contemporary English and investigates different registers such as fiction, press, scientific texts and spoken English. Traditional reference and pedagogical grammars often use artificially constructed examples, but this corpus-based study relies on attested data and each statement is supported by convincing examples from the corpora. Statistical results ensure the validity of the conclusions drawn from the analysis and they invalidate some of the generalizations made by other studies based on constructed examples.
Different from previous studies, the book focuses on the functions of ARCs in discourse and addresses atypical cases that have not been studied previously. Loock classifies atypical ARCs into gap-filled structures and gapless structures and argues for the legitimacy of these atypical structures as ARCs, stating that their recurrence suggests that they are not a random phenomenon in many languages in the world or in dialectal English. In addition, Loock uses the new concept of allostructure to refer to the competing structures of ARCs that fulfil similar or related discourse functions and have the same informational content, such as independent clauses, sentential parentheticals, nominal appositives, adverbials and premodifiers.
Many new findings are presented based on the statistical results from a detailed comparison of spoken and written corpora. We are shown that sentential relatives, relative pronouns and subjectivity ARCs are much more frequent in speech than in writing. Different from written ARCs, most spoken ARCs are final in their syntactic position. In terms of given/new information, the antecedents and ARCs that convey new information for the hearer are more frequent in speech than in writing. The study also indicates that a certain affinity exists between independent clauses and foregrounded information, and that intonation can serve a crucial information-packaging function.
What is more important, the book identifies the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic constraints that govern speakers’ choice of ARCs in discourse. They include difficulty in retrieving the antecedent, the speaker’s intention to insert information, the influence of register and style, the degree of familiarity between antecedent and information content in the ARC and so on. Discussion of the constraints that govern speakers’ choice between ARCs and other allostructures is scattered in each chapter. It could usefully have been summarized in one section of the book.
Loock classifies the discourse functions of ARCs into three main categories: continuative ARCs, relevance ARCs and subjectivity ARCs. Although the theoretical basis of such a classification is not clearly presented, we can still find interesting facts about the use and functions of ARCs in discourse. To Loock, relevance/subjectivity ARCs convey background information. The difference between a continuative ARC and an independent clause is the explicitness of a chronological and/or causal link between the event in the main clause and the event in the relative clause. The choice between an ARC and an independent sentence with a preposed element is governed by the existence of a preposed open proposition. The use of ARCs instead of adverbials is to put two propositions into perspective in an implicit way. The use of ARCs is also related to register, style, co-text and context. A spontaneous, informal register prefers to use sentential parentheticals instead of ARCs and in spoken English the intonation contour of the independent clause provides the same information as is provided by an ARC.
To sum up, the book establishes a link between syntax and discourse, between syntactic form and contextual meaning, and between the discourse functions and the prosodic realization of ARCs. A variety of languages is involved in the study, dealing with not only ARCs in English, but also in other languages such as French, Spanish, German, Persian, Arabic, Chinese and Middle Egyptian. The study has both theoretical and practical value. Theoretically, the book enhances our understanding of the functioning of ARCs in discourse. Practically, the findings of the study can help the reader to know when and how ARCs can be used. This book is suitable for scholars and students who are interested in the study of syntactical structures in discourse, especially the relation between form and function, and those who want to use language more efficiently. This well-organized book presents us with a new picture of the use of ARCs in different registers and styles and in both written and spoken modes.