Abstract This paper studies referential accessibility marking in predicative and specificational clauses, in particular the ones in which the roles of ‘description’ and ‘variable’ are realised by an indefinite NP (e.g. He is a baker vs. One of his talents is pastry). While the indefinite NP in the two clause types has been studied in detail, little is known about how the other two roles – of ‘describee’ and ‘value’ – are typically realised. This study, therefore, examines the choice of referring expressions for the items filling these roles, as an index of their retrievability and degree of accessibility. The analysis is based on 750 corpus examples from spoken and written British English. Moreover, since specificational clauses allow for the value to be either complement or subject, this study also provides insight into what may motivate the choice for one pattern or the other. Significant differences were found between describees and values, as well as between value-subjects and value-complements. These findings are interpreted as indicative of different discourse functions of the three constructions. While predicative clauses typically elaborate familiar information, specificational clauses serve a broader discourse-organising function: starting a new discourse-topic, pivoting from one topic to another, or summarising prior propositions as concluding a topic.

中文翻译：

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指称可达性作为谓语和说明性从句的语篇功能的指标

摘要 本文研究了谓语和说明性从句中的指称可访问性标记，特别是那些通过不定 NP 实现“描述”和“变量”的作用（例如，他是面包师 vs. 他的天赋之一是糕点） . 虽然已经详细研究了这两种从句类型中的不定 NP，但对于其他两个角色——“被描述者”和“价值”——通常是如何实现的却知之甚少。因此，本研究检查了对填补这些角色的项目的引用表达的选择，作为其可检索性和可访问性程度的指标。该分析基于来自口语和书面英国英语的 750 个语料库示例。此外，由于规范条款允许值是补语或主语，这项研究还提供了对可能促使选择一种模式或另一种模式的洞察力。被描述者与价值之间、价值主体与价值互补之间存在显着差异。这些发现被解释为表明这三种结构的不同话语功能。谓语从句通常阐述熟悉的信息，而说明性从句具有更广泛的话语组织功能：开始一个新的话语主题，从一个主题转向另一个主题，或将先前的命题总结为一个主题的结论。这些发现被解释为表明这三种结构的不同话语功能。谓语从句通常阐述熟悉的信息，而说明性从句具有更广泛的话语组织功能：开始一个新的话语主题，从一个主题转向另一个主题，或将先前的命题总结为一个主题的结论。这些发现被解释为表明这三种结构的不同话语功能。谓语从句通常阐述熟悉的信息，而说明性从句具有更广泛的话语组织功能：开始一个新的话语主题，从一个主题转向另一个主题，或将先前的命题总结为一个主题的结论。