您好，我想問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關系：

1. 定語？ the first sign of .. 相當于 which is the first sign of ...,  但是單個名詞作定語修飾整個句子語法正確嗎？

2. 同位語？ the first sign ...是整個句子的同位語， 但是這和平常的同位語大不一樣啊， 通常是從句時某個名詞的同位語 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

關于這個問題，我們查閱了有關資料，現根據自己的理解答復如下：

一、既可以理解為同位語，也可以理解為定語

著名英語語法學家Randolph Quirk等人合著的《英語語法大全》在第17.65節認為：Indeed, some grammarians have included nonrestrictive relative clauses among appositives.（確實，有些語法學家把非限制性關系分句歸類到同位語之中），該書給出的相關例句是：

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

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

該書認為：The noun phrase my best friend in [l] may be considered to be a reduction of the relative clause in [2]（例[1]中的名詞短語my best friend可以看作是例[2]中關系分句的縮簡）。

由此可見，在有些語法學家眼中，某些同位語其實就是定語從句的簡化。所以上面問題中的句子也可改寫為：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、狹義上看，可理解為定語

《英語語法大全》在指出“有些語法學家把非限制性關系分句歸類到同位語之中”的同時又提出了自己的觀點：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.（然而在這部語法書里，我們把帶有關系分句的名詞性短語與帶有同位語的名詞性短語區分開來，后者主要是兩個名詞短語之間的一種關系）。

《英語語法大全》認為：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（語法學家使用“同位語”這一術語時，觀點很不一致，甚至對這里充分具體闡述的含義，看法不一致。有些語法學家把它限制在符合以下條件的、比較狹窄的范圍內）：

(i) Each of the appositives can be separately omittetl without affecting the acceptability of the sentence.（一對同位成分中的任何一個可以省略而不影響句子的可接受性）

(ii) Each fulfils the same syntactic function in the resultant sentences.（每個同位成分在省略掉另一個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.（可以認為，在原句和省略掉任何一個同位成分的句子之間，沒有不同的超語言所指對象）

對于以上條件，《英語語法大全》給出的實例是：

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

A neighbour is on the telephone. [la]

Fred Brick is on the telephone. [1b]

該書認為：例[1]的同位關系符合上述三個條件：

(i) 省略掉任何一個成分成分的句子（例[1a]和例[1b]）是可以接受的。

(ii) 兩個名詞短語都是句子中的主語。

(iii) 由于Fred Brick 和A neighbour在例[1]中是互指的，我們可以認為各自省略一個同位成分的兩句句子的所指對象是相同的。

按照以上在“比較狹窄的范圍內”對同位語的理解，前面問題中的the first sign of ... 不能視為同位語，因為它并不符合以上三條件。

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