) and "transferred", the latter mostly touching on matters of reasoning. E.g.:
When you speak of the plain facts there can't be any question of argument. But I can't agree with you where the principles of logic are concerned. p align="justify"> A special variety of complex sentence with a time clause is presented by a construction in which the main predicative information is expressed in the subordinate clause, the actual meaning of temporal localisation being rendered by the principal clause of the sentence. E.g.:
Alice was resting in bed when Humphrey returned. He brought his small charge into the room and presented her to her "aunt" (DE Stevenson). p align="justify"> The context clearly shows that the genuine semantic accents in the first sentence of the cited passage is to be exposed by the reverse arrangement of subordination: it is Humphrey's actions that are relevant to the developing situation, not Alice's resting in bed:? Humphrey returned when Alice was resting in bed ...
This type of complex sentence is known in linguistics as "inversive"; what is meant by the term, is semantics taken against the syntactic structure. The construction is a helpful stylistic means of literary narration employed to mark a transition from one chain of related events to another one. p align="justify"> The second group of adverbial clauses includes clauses of manner and comparison. The common semantic basis of their functions can be defined as "qualification", since they give a qualification to the action or event rendered by the principal clause. The identification of these clauses can be achieved by applying the traditional question-transformation test of the how-type, with the corresponding variations of specifying character (for different kinds of qualification clauses). Cf.: p align="justify"> He spent the Saturday night as was his wont. ? How did he spend the Saturday night? You talk to people as if they were a group. ? How do you talk to people? I planned to give my mother a length of silk for a dress, as thick and heavy as it was possible to buy. ? How thick and heavy the length of silk was intended to be? p align="justify"> All the adverbial qualification clauses are to be divided into "factual" and "speculative", depending on the real or unreal propositional event described by them.
The discrimination between manner and comparison clauses is based on the actual comparison which may or may not be expressed by the considered clausal construction of adverbial qualification. The semantics of comparison is inherent in the subordinators as if, as though, than, which are specific introducers of comparison clauses. On the other hand, the subordinator as, both single and in the combinations as ... as, not so ... as, is unspecific in this sense, and so invites for a discrimination test to be applied in dubious cases. It should be noted that more often than not a clausally expressed manner in a complex sentence is rendered by an appositive construction introduced by phrases with the broad-meaning words way and manner. E.g.: Mr. Smith looked at me in a way that put me on the alert. p align="justify"> Herein lies one of the needed procedures of discrimination, which is to be formulated as the transformation of the tested clause into an appositive that-or which-clause: the possibility of the transformation marks the clause of manner , while the impossibility of the transformation (ie the preservation of the original as-clause) marks the clause of comparison. Cf.: p align="justify"> Mary received the guests as nicely as Aunt Emma had taught her? ... in a (very) nice way that Aunt Emma had taught her. (The test marks the clause as that of manner.) Mary received the guests as nicely as Aunt Emma would have done. ? ... in as nice a way as Aunt Emma would have done. (The test marks the clause as comparative.) p align="justify"> Clauses of comparison are subdivided into those of equality (subordinators as, as ... as, as if, as though) and those of inequality (subordinators not so ... as, than). The discontinuous introducers mark, respectively, a more intense rendering of the comparison in question. Cf.: p align="justify"> That summer he took a longer holiday than he had done for many years. For many years he hadn't taken so long a holiday as he was offered that summer. p align="justify"> With clauses of comparison it is very important to distinguish the contracted expression of predication, ie predicative zeroing, especially for cases where a clause of comparison as such is combined with a clause of time. Here predicative zeroing may lead to the rise of peculiarly fused constructions which may be wrongly understood. By way of example, let us take the sentence cited in B. Ilyish's book: Do you find Bath as agreeable as when I had the honour of making the enquiry befo...
