Grammatical resources for discourse relations: nominal appositions with relative clauses

Abstract

In this paper, two appositive syntactic structures containing a restrictive relative clause are compared: on the one hand, indefinite nominal appositions with the form <(un) N + relative clause>; on the other hand, definite appositions in the form (el) mismo + relative clause>. It is shown that both contribute to the thematic progression of the discourse by recovering a previously introduced nominal element which is repeated or semantically recovered, either by means of an indefinite nominal phrase or by means of a definite one containing the adjective mismo ‘same’. The restrictive relative clause provides new information about the retrieved nominal expression, which is marked as a topic. Building on the comparison of both structures, it is proposed that both constructions constitute mechanisms for establishing anaphoric relations in the text, without creating new thematic nodes.