Wednesday 28 March 2018

Distinguishing ‘Attributive’ Clauses From ‘Identifying’ Clauses: Lexical Verb

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 268, 269):
The lexical verb in the verbal group realising the [attributive] Process is one of the ‘ascriptive’ classes: see Table 5-14. If the Attribute is realised by a nominal group with a common noun as Head without a pre-modifying adjective, it is usually expressed as if it was a circumstance (with a preposition following the verb, as indicated in the table; for example: he grew old but he grew into a man); Attributes with noun Head are rare with the verbs keep, go and get, where they would be highly ambiguous.