CLAUSE AS EXCHANGE
Text 4-3 Mood and tone combinations
4.7 Clause as Subject
of Predicator (help), Predicator plus Adjunct (keep off), optional Predicator plus Complement ([be]careful) and so on. Other are nominal groups; these could in principle be functioning either as Subject or as Complement, but it is usually impossible to decide between these two: would Fire!, for example, be ‘filled out’ as there’s a fire, or as fire’s broken out, or even the house is on fire? This is one place where it is useful to recognize a distinct structural function; a nominal group which could be either Subject or Complement in an agnate major clause is said to have the function Absolute. This is not assigned either to Mood or to Residue. The concept of ‘Absolute’ function is also relevant to headlines, labels, lists and suchlike; see Appendix 1, on the grammar of little texts.
We have seen that Vocatives can function on their own as minor clauses. At the same time, they can also function as an element of a major clause. When the Vocative functions within a major clause, it is fairly ‘loosely’ integrated: it falls outside the Mood + Residue structure.
There is one other element that occurs in major clauses but which can also function on its own in dialogue. This is a textual element — the Continuative (see Chapter 3, Section 3.4, p. 79), which is used to indicate how the clause relates to the preceding move in a dialogue:
well,oh,yes,noand so on. Such items can also function on their own in dialogue, indicating that the listener is tracking the current speaker’s contribution. This has been called
‘backchannelling’; we can extend the category of minor clauses to include instances of this.
For example:
Professor Hart: ||| Yes, || it’s not as though you have already tried for two or three months to see how this works out. |||
Mrs Finney: ||| Working. ||| No, no; || what I did do a certain amount — || I’ve done — || I did a certain amount of reading during the last few months || and I have been and I went away || to did it || to do it. ||| I went a way from home {{Professor Hart: Yes.}} || so that I wouldn’t be there {{Professor Hart: Yes.}} || and it worked very well. ||| (Text 135)
Such minor clauses include yes,mmh,aha,sure. They do not constitute a turn in their own right; rather they serve to ensure the continuity of the interaction by supporting the current speaker’s turn, as when Professor Hart says yesto indicate that he is following what Mrs Finney is saying. In face-to-face conversation, they may of course be accompanied — or even replaced — by other, ‘paralinguistic’, indicators such as nodding.
outstanding a scientist as Kepler held fast, in his De harmonice mundi (1619), to the old astrological belief in the association between interval ratios and the structure of the universe, even of human society. The same delight in a neatly arranged system can be seen in the Gradus ad Parnassum(1725) of the Austrian composer Fux, . . . (Pelican History of Music, Vol. II p. 246)
(b) Only about four out of every 10 residents ‘affected’ even know their new number, || said Kevin Read, spokesman for The Big Number, the phone industry umbrella organization. (Text 15)
(c) A system that just keeps you warm in winter isn’t a very good idea.
(d) Somehow this sort of traditional Hamlet aspect in the untraditional character he was playing didn’t seem to fit together.
(e) The people who want to play with the cards that have goods trains on have to sit here.
Apart from that in (b), which is a nominal group complex (consisting of two nominal groups in paratactic relation; see Chapter 8, Section 8.1, p. 486), each of these Subjects is a single nominal group. All of them, however, except most theorists in (a), contain some embedded material: either a prepositional phrase, or a clause, or both. Thus in (a) of music, as Kepler, in a neatly arranged system are prepositional phrases functioning as Qualifier/Postmodifier in the nominal group, and therefore form part of the Subject of the clause; similarly, the phrase for business or personal use in the first nominal group in (b).
The Postmodifier in the nominal group functioning as Subject in (c) is an embedded clause:that just keeps you warm in winter. It is a defining relative clause, as described in Chapter 6, Section 6.2.2, p. 322. This too falls within the Subject.
In (d) and (e), which are taken from spontaneous speech, the Subject nominal groups are more complex, since they contain both clauses and phrases in the Postmodifier. That in (d) has the clause he was playing embedded in the phrase in the untraditional character he was playing which in turn is embedded in the nominal group having aspectas its Head noun. In (e), which was spoken by a child of four, the clause that have goods trains on is embedded in the phrase with the cards that have goods trains onwhich is embedded in the clause who want to play with the cards that have goods trains on; the whole thing is a single Subject, with the noun peopleas Head.
Such items are not difficult to recognize and identify as Subjects. There is another type of embedded clause which does not figure among the examples above, and this is a clause functioning not as Postmodifier in the nominal group but as Head: in other words, functioning as if it constituted a nominal group on its own. Examples are:
(f) To argue with the captain was asking for trouble.
(g) Ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.
(h) That all this wealth might some day be hers had simply never occurred to her.
The analysis is shown in Figure 4-27.
C l a u s e a s S u b j e c t
Fig. 4-27 Embedded clause as Subject
Note that in this example the Complement is also an embedded clause. (This is a characteristic pattern of one type of identifying relational clause; see Chapter 5, Section 5.4.4, p. 227.)
In many instances an embedded clause functioning as Subject appears at the end of the clause in which it is embedded, with an anticipatory it occurring in the normal Subject position, as init’s no use crying over spilt milk. In such cases there will be a marked variant with the clause Subject at the beginning:crying over spilt milk is no use. Here (Figure 4-28) are some further examples (for analysis of (l), see Figure 4-22):
(j) It was fortunate for me that the captain was no naturalist.
(k) It is impossible to protect individuals against the ills of poverty, sickness and decrepitude without some recourse to the machinery of the state.
(l) Doesn’t it worry you that you might get stung?
(As we shall see in Chapter 5, clauses such as (j) and (k) are attributive relational ones, while clauses such as (l) are emotive mental ones of the ‘please’ type.) With an example such as (l), the more likely agnate form would be one in which the clause is Postmodifier to a fact noun as Head:
Doesn’t the fact that you might get stung worry you?
It is important to distinguish clausal Subjects of this kind from those occurring in Theme predication (cf. Chapter 3, Section 3.7, p. 95). Let us give three further examples of predicated Theme:
(m) It was not until fairly recently that this problem was solved.
(n) Pensioner Cecil Burns thought he had broken the slot machine; but it was not the machine he had broken — it was the bank.
to argue with the captain was asking for trouble
Subject Finite Complement
Mood Residue
nominal group: clause as Head verbal group nominal group: clause as Head
Fig. 4-28 Embedded clause Subject with anticipatory it
doesn’t it worry you that you might get stung
Finite Sub- Predicator Complement -ject
Residue Mood
1 [nominal group] =2 [nominal group]
(o) It was last year that he fell ill.
In both these examples and the (j) to (l) type above the Subject will be discontinuous, consisting of itplus the clause in final position; but the relation between the two parts of the Subject is different in the two cases. In Theme predication, the final clause is a relative clause functioning as Post-modifier to the it (where it means ‘the thing that’, ‘the time that/when’ and so on). The clause as postposed Subject, on the other hand, is a fact clause (see Chapter 5, Section 5.3, p. 197, and Chapter 7, Section 7.5.7, p. 470); and it is related to the itby apposition (paratactic elaboration: see Chapter 7, Section 7.4.1, p. 396).
As pointed out in Section 3.7, a clause with predicated Theme always has the verbbe, and has a non-predicated agnate:
it was last year that he fell ill : he fell ill last year it was the bank he had broken : he had broken the bank
A clause with postposed Subject has no such agnate form; moreover such clauses are not restricted to the verb be(cf. example (l) above). Being facts they typically occur in clauses where the proposition has an interpersonal loading; for example, a Complement expressing modality or comment (it is possible/unfortunate that . . .), or a Predicator expressing affection or cognition (it worries/puzzles me that . . .). See Chapter 5, Sections 5.3 and 5.4 for the status of these in the transitivity system.
It may be helpful to show both the thematic and the modal analysis here; see Figure 4-29.
C l a u s e a s S u b j e c t
Fig. 4-29 Subject in Theme predication
it was the bank
Theme Rheme
Subject Finite Complement
Mood Residue
it was not the machine (that) he had broken
Theme Rheme (Theme) Rheme
Theme Rheme
Finite Complement
Subject
Residue Mood
nominal group
Head Postmodifier