Identifying absolute subjects: A systemic functional approach

• Absolute subjects can be either nominative or accusative.
• Absolute subjects can be used in non-finite adverbial clauses, appositive clauses, subject clauses and complement clauses.
• Absolute subjects in different types of non-finite clauses are different in independency.

The absolute subject refers to the subject of absolute nominative clauses in traditional grammar. It can be either nominative or accusative. Corpora data show that the number of nominatives has been decreasing, and that of accusatives, increasing over time. Absolute nominative clauses of appositive, attendant circumstance and clausal adjunct in traditional grammar correspond to the non-finite clauses of elaboration, extension and enhancement with subject in the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. In addition, absolute subjects can also be used in non-finite clauses of projection and embedding. The relationships between absolute subjects in different non-finite clauses and the primary clauses are different in independence. The tendency to be independent can be embodied in the dimension of the absolute subjects and that of the primary clauses. From either dimension, the tendency to be independent can form a cline. The primary clause based tendency is more in line with the characteristics of absolute subjects.