您好，我想问的事下面句子的后半部分 the first sign of ... 和前半部分到底是什么关系：

1. 定语？ the first sign of .. 相当于 which is the first sign of ...,  但是单个名词作定语修饰整个句子语法正确吗？

2. 同位语？ the first sign ...是整个句子的同位语， 但是这和平常的同位语大不一样啊， 通常是从句时某个名词的同位语 如  There is a sign that ... 

China pledged on Monday to reform its laojiao system, the first sign of long-awaited progress after a senior official had promised to modify the controversial re-education-through-labor system

关于这个问题，我们查阅了有关资料，现根据自己的理解答复如下：

一、既可以理解为同位语，也可以理解为定语

著名英语语法学家Randolph Quirk等人合著的《英语语法大全》在第17.65节认为：Indeed, some grammarians have included nonrestrictive relative clauses among appositives.（确实，有些语法学家把非限制性关系分句归类到同位语之中），该书给出的相关例句是：

Anna, my best friend, was here last night. [1]

Anna, who is my best friend, was here last night. [2]

该书认为：The noun phrase my best friend in [l] may be considered to be a reduction of the relative clause in [2]（例[1]中的名词短语my best friend可以看作是例[2]中关系分句的缩简）。

由此可见，在有些语法学家眼中，某些同位语其实就是定语从句的简化。所以上面问题中的句子也可改写为：China pledged on Monday to reform its laojiao system, which was the first sign of long-awaited progress after a senior official had promised to modify the controversial re-education-through-labor system

二、狭义上看，可理解为定语

《英语语法大全》在指出“有些语法学家把非限制性关系分句归类到同位语之中”的同时又提出了自己的观点：However, in this grammar we make a distinction between a noun phrase with its relative clause and apposition, the latter being primarily a relation between two noun phrases.（然而在这部语法书里，我们把带有关系分句的名词性短语与带有同位语的名词性短语区分开来，后者主要是两个名词短语之间的一种关系）。

《英语语法大全》认为：Grammarians vary in the freedom with which they apply the term “apposition” even in the quite specific sense adopted here. Some have restricted it more narrowly to cases where the following conditions are met（语法学家使用“同位语”这一术语时，观点很不一致，甚至对这里充分具体阐述的含义，看法不一致。有些语法学家把它限制在符合以下条件的、比较狭窄的范围内）：

(i) Each of the appositives can be separately omittetl without affecting the acceptability of the sentence.（一对同位成分中的任何一个可以省略而不影响句子的可接受性）

(ii) Each fulfils the same syntactic function in the resultant sentences.（每个同位成分在省略掉另一个同位成分的句子中具有相同的句法功能）

(iii) It can be assumed that there is no diffence between the original sentence and either of the resultant sentences in extralinguistic reference.（可以认为，在原句和省略掉任何一个同位成分的句子之间，没有不同的超语言所指对象）

对于以上条件，《英语语法大全》给出的实例是：

A neighbour, Fred Brick, is on the telephone. [1]

A neighbour is on the telephone. [la]

Fred Brick is on the telephone. [1b]

该书认为：例[1]的同位关系符合上述三个条件：

(i) 省略掉任何一个成分成分的句子（例[1a]和例[1b]）是可以接受的。

(ii) 两个名词短语都是句子中的主语。

(iii) 由于Fred Brick 和A neighbour在例[1]中是互指的，我们可以认为各自省略一个同位成分的两句句子的所指对象是相同的。

按照以上在“比较狭窄的范围内”对同位语的理解，前面问题中的the first sign of ... 不能视为同位语，因为它并不符合以上三条件。

[1] [2] 下一页