On the grammatical status of 'Colon Structures'

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to examine the grammatical status of the kind of estructure that is typically punctuated with a colon. Contrary to the traditional interpretation of this patern, which relies heavily on the nebulous notion of apposition, it is argued here that colon structures are best seen as discoursal processes. This means not only that apposition should be ruled out as a possible analysis, but also that the relationship of dependency (or indeed any other sentential relationship) is inadequate for dealing with this kind of structure. The basis for the textual interpretation is that the cohesion that characterises the units that make up colon structures cannot be adequately expressed fron whitin the sentence al all