Karl,

Could you define "ascriptive" for us?

In response to Craig's comments, I think lumping these clausal 
complements in with appositives in general misses out on the importance 
of their complement function: The fact that they spell out something 
that is already strongly implied in the meaning of the head word. This 
makes them more like direct objects of verbs and NP objects of 
prepositions than like appositives, which are often (though not always, 
admittedly), not strongly implied by the meaning of the head, and are in 
fact intended to _add_ qualities that we wouldn't assume. For instance, 
that a person would be an outstanding young scholar is newsy info that 
is an important part of the discourse (clearly a discourse move intended 
to give that info about the person), but it is not implied in the 
meaning of "person" the way "suspicion" or "doubt" implies a proposition.

I agree that there is a strong area of overlap, especially where 
restrictive appositives are concerned. Are they in fact appositives or 
complements? E.g., "Toni Morrison's novel 'Beloved' " -- is 'Beloved' a 
complement (a novel by nature has a title) or is it an appositive?
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •      Home page: 
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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