Canonical and Non-Canonical

Clauses
 We can describe the structure of clauses most
economically if we distinguish between the most
basic and elementary kinds of clause, which we
call canonical clauses,

 The idea is that we can present the analysis more

clearly if we begin with canonical clauses,
describing them directly, and then deal in turn
with the various kinds of non-canonical clause,
describing these indirectly, in terms of how they
differ from canonical clauses.
 Canonical and Non-Canonical Clauses
 Difference between canonical (a) and non-
canonical (b) clause
Canonical Non-Canonical
i a . She has read your b. She hasn't read
article. your article.
ii a. Sue is coming for b. Is Sue coming for
dinner. dinner?
iii a.    They knew the victim. b. She said that they
knew the victim.
Iv a.    He missed the train. b.   Either he missed
the train or it is late.
properties of canonical clauses:
•They are declarative; interrogatives are non-canonical, as are the
other clause types: imperatives (e.g. Please stand up) and
exclamatives (What a fool I've been).

•They are positive; negatives are non-canonical.

•They are main clauses; subordinate clauses as the underlined

clause in “She said that they knew the victim” are non-canonical.

•They are non-coordinate; the two underlined clauses in “Either he

missed the train or it is late.” are coordinated and hence each of
them is non-canonical.

•They are active; passive clauses like “The article was written” are non-
canonical.
properties of canonical clauses:
canonical clauses package the information
in the grammatically most basic way. Thus,
I have now read most of the texts
is canonical but Most of them (the texts) I
have now read is not.
S + Aux + Adv + V + Obj  Canonical
Obj + S + Aux + Adv + V  Non-Canonical
Canonical clauses always preserve the
S +V + Object order
properties of canonical clauses:
Canonical Non-Canonical
iii a.    They knew the victim. b. She said that they
knew the victim.
(a) In all the examples the non-canonical clauses differ
in their structure from canonical clauses, but this is not
always so. In [iii b] the subordinate clause is introduced
by that but we could omit this, giving She said they
knew the victim, where the underlined clause is identical
with [iii a]; nevertheless it is still subordinate and hence
non-canonical. It is subordinate by virtue of being
Complement of the verb said, but the subordination
happens not to be marked in the internal grammatical
structure of the clause itself.
 properties of canonical clauses:
Canonical Non-Canonical
v a.    The secretary took b.   The key was taken
the key.   by the secretary.

(b) A clause is non-canonical if it lacks at least one of the

mentioned properties. That is, being:
positive, declarative, main clause, non-coordinate, active

It may of course lack more than one of them. Thus

Wasn't the key taken by the secretary? has three non-
canonical properties: it is negative, interrogative and
passive.
 Exercise:
Tell whether the following clauses are canonical or non-
canonical:
A – My family came for Christmas. C
B - This is the house that I bought. NC - coordination
C- Emma plays the piano very well. C
D – Jesus! How brilliant she is! NC - Exclamative
E – Sue isn’t happy with her performance. NC - Negative
F- What a shame you couldn’t do it!NC - Exclamative
G- Mike, do it as soon as possible. NC - Imperative
H – There’s no money in my wallet. C