Any natural language text can be exhaustively divide into “clause” and “extra-clausal constituents”. By “clauses” I mean the main and subordinate clauses of traditional grammar. “Extra-clausal constituents” are constituents which are neither clauses nor parts of clauses. In a construction such as: (1) ‘Well John, I believe that your time is up The constituents “well” (an “Initiator”) and “John” (an “Address” or “Vocative”) are extra-clausal constituents; “I believe that your time is up” is a main clause; and “that your time is up” is a subordinate clause.
- Dik (1989), a pag.45