Mick O'Donnell On Non-Defining Relative Clauses [2]

On 18/9/13, Mick O'Donnell remarked about the linked post to previous post:

Except in this paraphrase, "A British nursery rhyme" is not a relative clause.

Paraphrasing is dangerous, two sentences can express the same ideational meanings but differ in grammatical form.

Blogger Comments:

 [1] The term 'relative clause' is from traditional grammar.  On the SFL model, ranking clauses like which is a British nursery rhyme are dependent elaborating finite clauses.  Such finite clauses have their non-finite agnates (counterparts), in this case being a British nursery rhyme as in:

• The house that Jack built, being a British nursery rhyme, is a cumulative tale.

As Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 403) point out for the non-finite agnates, 'when the non-defining clause is an 'intensive relational' one, the Process may be left implicit', as in:

• The house that Jack built, a British nursery rhyme, is a cumulative tale.

As Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 404) further point out, 'with non-finite elaborating hypotactic nexuses, there is a special construction where the dependent precedes the dominant', as in:

• A British nursery rhyme, the house that Jack built is a cumulative tale.

As they explain (ibid), 'these elaborating clauses are always 'intensive attributive relational' ones where the Process is implicit and the Attribute is typically the only explicit element of the clause', as in the example given above.  So the following two clause nexuses are agnates of each other — both are hypotactic elaborating clause nexuses, differing in textual prominence (and in finiteness in the dependent clause):

• The house that Jack built, which is a British nursery rhyme, is a cumulative tale.
• A British nursery rhyme, the house that Jack built is a cumulative tale.

[2] O'Donnell's use of the word 'paraphrase' suggests that he doesn't understand the important rôle that agnation plays in reasoning about grammar.