There are many ways to first describe something in general terms and then say precisely what it is
HOW IDEAS CAN BE EXPRESSED BOTH GENERALLY & MORE SPECIFICALLY
Professional writers often like to mention something in general terms before restating it more precisely. There are numerous ways of doing so. Some are considered elsewhere within these pages: example-giving involves more precise restatement of only some of the general idea (see 1. Simple Example-Giving), while some forms of listing restate all of it with a list (for various posts on this, see 54. Sentence Lists 1: Incidental).
An alternative to both of these is restatement that fully equals the general idea without being a list. Here are some examples (restatements underlined):
(a) Africa has great wealth potential. It possesses enough fertile land to feed itself and other countries.
(b) The future of South America is to become very rich.
(c) There is a workable strategy for reducing traffic: road charges.
It is combinations like these that I wish to focus on in this post. I call them “identification” because they clarify which of various less general possibilities the generalization is referring to. They do not clarify the general idea with one of equal generality, as happens with definitions and naming statements (see 286. Repeating in Different Words).
In (a), the more precise restatement is in a new sentence, whereas in (b) and (c) it is not. This ability of a meaning to occupy either a single sentence or at least two is not unusual in English: it is also illustrated in this blog in posts like 33. Complex Example-Giving and 162. Writing about Classifications.
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IDENTIFICATION IN TWO SENTENCES
When the two parts of an identification are in neighbouring sentences, the identification as a whole is an example of a “relation” between the sentences (see 18. Relations Between Sentences). As with most such relations, no special language is required to show that identification is present – it is usually clear just from the kinds of ideas involved, in this case a general idea in the first sentence and a more precise equivalent in the second.
What is unusual about the relation of identification, however, is that it is not normally able to be made clearer with connectors or connector synonyms; such words – seemingly available for identification in many other languages – do not appear to exist in English. This characteristic means that many writers whose mother tongue is not English are likely to insert an incorrect connector like in fact, indeed or in particular into the second sentence (see 20. Problem Connectors). The closest equivalent to an identification connector in English is perhaps there + BE at the start of the first sentence, similar to the use in sentence (c) above (see 161. Special Uses of “There” Sentences, #2).
A common use of two-sentence identification is for describing a similarity or difference. The first sentence typically states the existence of one, and the next says what it is (see 149. Saying How Things are Similar and 216. Indicating Differences). A similar approach is possible for describing consequences and exceptions (see 32. Expressing Consequences and 215. Naming Exceptions).
In reading, a lack of experience with identifications can make them quite difficult to recognise. In the following example, what general idea in the first sentence is being expressed more precisely in the second?
(d) Gestures were a crucial stage in the development of language, but what they lack is any ‘manipulative’ element. All languages, including sign language, require the organizing and combining of sounds or signs in specific constructions.
The second sentence here identifies the exact kind of ‘manipulative’ element that the writer means (organizing and combining…). The key to recognising identifications like this without difficulty is practice – reading as widely as possible.
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IDENTIFICATION IN A SINGLE SENTENCE
Most identification seems to be of this kind. There seem to be three major ways of including a general idea and its more precise equivalent together in the same sentence: placing the verb BE between them, placing a colon between them, and placing nothing between them.
1. Linking with BE
This kind of identification may be illustrated as follows:
(e) The first Roman Emperor was Augustus Caesar.
(b) The future of South America is to become very rich.
(f) The lesson of history is that poverty breeds violence.
In sentences like this, the more general expression is the subject of BE (everything before it in these examples) and the more precise equivalent is the complement (everything after). The equivalence is an exact one: the subject does not have a narrower meaning than the complement. To give it such a meaning is to create a description or classification instead of an identification (see 162. Writing about Classifications).
The complement is mostly either noun-like or, after certain subjects, a modified verb, sometimes with to as in (b) (see 119. BE before a “to” Verb), sometimes with that as in (f) (see 153. Conjunction Uses of “that”).
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2. Linking with a Colon
This way of identifying is shown in the following examples:
(c) There is a workable strategy for reducing traffic: road charges.
(g) A promising future awaits South America: it will become very rich.
Nothing other than the colon comes between the initial general description and subsequent precise identification. Note that, as with BE, identifications are not the only kind of information that can be found after a colon: reasons are one common alternative (see 17. Colons versus Semi-Colons).
A key feature of colon identification is that the more general words before the colon must also be able to stand alone and unchanged as a complete sentence. This is not the case with BE identification as illustrated in (b), (e) and (f). A similarity to BE identifications, however, is the ability of the second, more precise part to be either a simple noun expression – road charges in (c) – or an ordinary statement, as in (g). In the latter case, the colon is the joining device allowing the new verb will become to be in the old sentence, corresponding to that after BE.
For more about sentences like (c), see 161. Special Uses of “There” Sentences, #2.
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3. Linking with Nothing
A general expression can be linked to its more precise equivalent without any special language in between:
(h) The first Roman Emperor(,) Augustus Caesar(,) reigned at the time of Christ.
(i) A Beatle, John Lennon, was killed in 1980.
(j) The Beatle John Lennon was killed in 1980.
The grammatical structure here is “apposition”, two consecutive noun expressions that each refer to the same thing (see 77. Pairing of Same-Meaning Nouns). There are various types, but the typical one expressing an identification comprises a descriptive noun phrase followed by one saying what it describes.
Sometimes in this kind of apposition, the equivalence between the two noun expressions is exact, and sometimes it is not. In (h) it is exact: the descriptive first Roman Emperor cannot refer to anyone other than the identified person Augustus Caesar. In (i) and (j), however, Beatle does not always equate exactly to the second noun John Lennon but has a wider meaning, since it can refer to any of the three other Beatles.
Exact-equivalence sentences, as illustrated by (h), sometimes have two commas around the second noun expression. These seem desirable if the reader’s familiarity with the link between the two nouns is not expected to be very strong, so that the identifying is quite similar to naming (see 206. Ways of Conveying a Name). Commas seem less likely if this familiarity is expected to be very great, making the identification more of a reminder.
With inexact equivalences, commas are compulsory if the wider-meaning first noun – Beatle in sentence (i) – has a. However, a wider-meaning first noun with the, like Beatle in (j), cannot have commas. Adding them would give the a different meaning, referring back to a previous mention of a Beatle, not forward to John Lennon. The absence of commas is similar to that with the relative pronoun who (see 34. Relative Pronouns and Commas).
Where commas are present – i.e. sometimes in sentences like (h) and always in ones like (i) – the word namely can be added before the second noun (…, namely Augustus Caesar, …). Sentences like (i) also allow specifically. Without commas, however, no extra wording can be inserted. It is not allowed even when sentences like (h) and (j) have a pair of plural noun expressions instead of two singular ones (see 309. Tricky Grammar Contrasts 5, #1). Any temptation to add such as must be resisted – using it is a common error. For a detailed explanation of the correct use of such as, see 53. “As”, “Like” and “Such As”.
Sentences like (j), where commas are not possible, do actually allow the to be dropped before the first noun expression in one special case. This is when the first noun is, like Beatle, a description of a person. Dropping the is part of an informal style typical of newspapers (see 166. Appropriacy in Professional English).
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