Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse

6.2 Results: Summative conjuncts
Conjuncts expressing summation (cf. Table 2-2) show that what follows 
serves as a summary or conclusion of the information in the preceding discourse. 
Since this semantic class of conjuncts is represented only scarcely in my data, 
reaching 0.05-0.12 tokens per 1,000 words, let me present here just one example 
of the most commonly applied summative conjunct 
to summarize
(0.05), which 
occurs in this function only in the NSC (for 
to summarize
in a different function 
than that of conjunct, cf. the first line of Example (4) above). It is worth noting 
here that it is the only conjunct realized by a non-finite infinitive clause that 

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has more than one occurrence in my data (cf. 
to conclude
in Table 2-2 and 
to be 
specific
in Table 2-3 below, each occurring only in one case).
(5) NSC, Text 9
A native English-speaker knows that herrings (being fairly ordinary fish) 
are a silver colour, and that the term red herring is an idiom unrelated 
to either the colour ‘red’ (except in an extraordinarily loose sense of red, 
if the colour of the cooked fish is intended), or the fish ‘herring’ (except 
in its historical explanation of a smoked fish being dragged over a trail 
to confuse trackers, see Goatly, 1997: 32). As ESL/EFL learners cannot 
be expected to know the historical background, this knowledge will not 
be considered relevant. Red herring is thus proved by the test to be non-
compositional. Our test can be applied only in some given context: in the 
unlikely event of red herring meaning a fish which has been painted with 
red paint, it would, of course, be compositional by our definition.
 
 To summarize, a test for compositionality is whether replacing each word 
in an MWU with its dictionary definition (in the interests of creating a 
practical system usable by teachers and students) gives the same meaning 
as the phrase in context. If it does, the MWU is compositional. If it does 
not, the MWU is non-compositional. We have already seen, however
, that 
many figurative expressions are non-compositional. It is to such non-
idiomatic but non compositional expressions that we now turn.