First, sorry, folks, about the double posting—I got myself a new email program! Craig, You are right that the distinction between identifying and describing is sometimes blurred. Often we identify by describing. I guess that’s why, if we are going to make use of the two terms—limiting (or identifying) and descriptive—it helps to define them the way I mentioned, by whether they can be made comparative and superlative. An interesting aside about prepositional phrases is that most of them do not describe at all. Telling me that the birthday present is in the drawer, or under the table, or on the shelf merely tells me its position, as the word “preposition” implies. But if you tell me about the birthday present with the silver ribbon, you have really described (and identified) it. “With” and “without” are about the only ones that really describe things. As for your question about Christensen, he had a whole essay in Notes Toward A New Rhetoric called “Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Modifiers Again.” Here are three relevant excerpts: “The problem of restrictive-nonrestrictive goes beyond adjective clauses; the principle applies to all adjectival modifiers, to apposi-tives, and to some adverbial modifiers, at least to final adverbial clauses.” “The best way to frame the problem is to ask, why do we set off nonrestrictive modifiers?” “The purpose of all nonrestrictive punctuation [is] to head off unwanted im-plications. Conversely, when the modifier is restrictive, the sentence makes one statement and implies its oppo-site; and what it implies is just as important as what it states.” To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/