The discourse functions of nonverbal appositives
Résumé
This paper investigates the discourse functions of non-verbal appositives: noun phrases, prepositional phrases, and adjective phrases in apposition to a preceding nominal unit. Given the many similarities between non-verbal appositives and appositive relative clauses, the discourse functions of the latter serve as a starting point for an evaluation of the discourse functions of the former. More precisely, we compare our 600-token corpus of non-verbal appositives with Loock's (2005, 2007, 2010a) taxonomy of discourse functions for appositive relative clauses. The taxonomy is then modified to accommodate the non-verbal appositives that do not fit the taxonomy. Correlations with a series of linguistic parameters are established.