Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

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539 Glossary for any unfamiliar terms

From utterance to discourse | 193

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Headers may also occur in interrogative clauses:

Your sister, is she coming too?

That new motorway they were building, is it open yet?

Headers can occur with a (normally stressed) there subject pro-form:

Now 

Rio de Janeiro, there’s a fabulous city.

Headers and clause elements   

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Headers commonly refer to the subject, object, object complement or

prepositional complement in a following clause:

Owen, he’s my favourite nephew.

Joe, I’ve never seen him at a single football match this season. 

[talking about a local character’s nickname]

‘The Great Maurice’, they used to always call him that, didn’t they?

Anita, you should at least feel sorry for her.

The preposition is not included in the header:

They booked the hotel for Pamela but, 

Dave, they left it to him to find a room

for himself.

(They booked the hotel for Pamela but, to Dave, they left it to him to find a

room for himself.)

Headers often function like titles or headlines in narratives or in jokes:

The time we were living in Hong Kong, I suppose we were a lot wealthier then …

[story continues]

The = sign indicates an utterance which is cut short

A: Well, the time I nearly crashed the car, I was driving late one night=

B: You’d forgotten to turn your lights on=

A: Yes, and I just didn’t see the car in front.