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predication, depending on the nature of the superordinate predicate or on
the semantic function it bears.
Assumption (b) is in fact a generalization of the claim advanced in Dik
(1997b: 421) that “the Tense operator specifications on successive clauses
are inherited from the temporal value which has been fixed for the whole
discourse unit”. In fact, successive clauses forming the same (phase of a)
text inherit not only the temporal value but all the operator values (illocu-
tionary, modal, aspectual etc.) globally fixed for this (phase of the) text.
So, the schema which represents the temporal specifications inheritance in
Dik (1997b: 421) becomes, once it has been generalized, something like
(18) :
(18) α((X). (Y). (Z)...)
where α stands for any operator value and where X, Y, Z symbolize a se-
quence of clauses.
Assumption (c) means that the inheritance process can be partial or to-
tal. In other words, the embedded parts can inherit either some operator
values only or all of them. In the former case, the embedded parts (i.e. the
clauses of a text for example) can be ultimately reduced, at the underlying
structure level, to nothing but their nuclear predications. So, the nucleus of
(a phase of) a highly homogeneous text, i.e. a text with neither deictic-
centre change nor discourse-type shift, can consist of merely the set of the
nuclear predications of its constituent clauses.
The re-examination of embedding phenomena in the light of the param-
eterized actualization of ADS allows us to approach these on a new basis.
First, it becomes possible to redefine embedding as a linkage of two dis-
course units U and U' where a part of the ADS as actualized in U' is
specified in U. To put it another way, U' is embedded in U if some values
of the ADS actualized in U' are inherited from U. This definition permits us
also to handle those cases where embedding is not expressed by any formal
marker (i.e. without a subordinator).^2 It furthermore makes it possible to
characterize coordination as a linkage of discourse units with actualization
of the same (part of) ADS. Second, it may be possible to establish a more
precise typology of embedded constructions on both quantitative and quali-
tative grounds: it becomes feasible to classify these constructions with
respect to the degree of embedding (which is calculated on the basis of the
number of the layers specified in the matrix) and to the values of the em-
bedded layers.