Gabriella Jenei: Referential Cohesion in Academic Writing • A descriptive and exploratory theory- and corpus-based study of the text-organizing role of reference in written academic discourse
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7. STAGE 3: IMPROVING THE ANALYTICAL TOOL: NON-COHESIVE REFERENCE TAXONOMY FOR ACADEMIC WRITING
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7.3. A taxonomy of non-cohesive reference in academic writing
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(B) SPECIFIED BY PRE- OR POST-MODIFIER:

(B) SPECIFIED BY PRE- OR POST-MODIFIER:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

The meaning of the referring item in this category (most commonly a definite article, occasionally a pronoun or a determiner) is specified by a pre- or post-modifier, or a combination of post-modifiers. Although a prepositional phrase following a noun may be its complement or an adverbial, if it is a complement, it usually specifies the reference of the referring item. In possessive constructions (B1), the definite article is almost never cohesive (e.g., the predictions below), only the definite possessor NP (the SBF) establishes a cohesive tie with its full form in sentence 4:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

If the first definite is cohesive in a construction, it is usually also indicated by a modifier. It is very rare, that the possessed refers, but it happens:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Likewise, the possessed is usually cohesive with a demonstrative pronoun:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

s. 138 The narratives were written to the lexical and syntactic level of the LowInt group.
s. 139 The French versions maintained this simple level of lexis and syntax.
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

(The examples above are based on RA10, but some sentences are slightly altered to illustrate the phenomena discussed.)

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

The meaning of a definite noun phrase can be specified by prepositional phrases (B1) other than the possessive, but it will remain non-cohesive:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

e.g., s. 63 In contrast to the clear separation between LI and typically developing children on NWR, there was significant overlap … (RA5)
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Adjectival pre-modifiers and participial adjectives as pre-modifiers (B2) function similarly to relative clauses in describing or classifying the entity denoted by the head noun (Biber et al., 1991, 97). If the noun phrase contains a pre-modifier, it is usually helpful to paraphrase it to see that it is not cohesive:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

(vii) ... the analyzed corpus ... the corpus that was analyzed
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Participial adjectives (e.g., interesting, lasting) as pre-modifiers can often be paraphrased by “a relative clause of the form ‘who/which be + verb-ing’ or ‘who/which verb(s/ed)’” (Biber et al., 1991, 68). This test shows two important things: one is that these participial adjectives are not to be confused with nominal pre-modifiers, and the other is that they have the property of being able to specify the reference of the subsequent noun phrase – as would be the case if they were presented in the form of a relative clause. For these reasons, nouns specified by a pre-modifying participial adjective are very likely to be non-cohesive.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

If the meaning of the definite noun phrase is specified within the same sentence by a relative clause (B3), then neither the definite article, nor the relative are cohesive.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

s.131 The materials that participants would read were versions of the same narratives in English and French, with most containing different sorts of anomalies.
(RA10)
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

A relative clause is “characteristically a post-modifier in a noun phrase” (Biber, et al., 1991, 195). The “relativizer” (a wh-word or that) points back to the head of the noun phrase to establish the reference of the noun phrase, instead of giving only additional information as in non-restrictive (or non-defining) relative clauses. For this reason, definite nouns followed by a restrictive relative clause will usually be non-referential. In the same way as nouns, pronouns may also refer forward to relative clauses, as in, for example: He who must not be named.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Besides the that-clauses functioning as complements, the head noun can also be followed by infinitive clauses that complete the meaning of the noun (Biber et al., 1991, 97).

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

s. 144 Due to multiple analyzes of variance and the need to control for Type I error, the alpha level selected for testing was set at .01. (RA1)

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Such infinitive clauses with possessive pronouns specify the meaning of the noun only, while retaining cohesive reference to the person/people referred to, as in:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

s. 11…their inability to accurately and fluently identify printed words… (RA1)
 
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