Presenting Less Concrete Things

Martin & Rose (2007: 164):

Less concrete things such as agencies (special forces) and abstractions (price, marriage, amnesty) are identified similarly to objects:

We're moving to a special unit
After about three years with the special forces, our hell began. 

Our freedom has been bought at a very great price.
But to compute that price properly 

An extremely short marriage to someone else failed all because I married to forget
After my unsuccessful marriage, I met another policeman. 

It was on precisely this point that amnesty was refused to the police officers who applied for it for their part in the death of Steve Biko.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, all four non-specific nominal groups "reference" in the sense of ideational denotation; that is, they realise participants. None of the four include reference items whose identity is to be recovered elsewhere. The function of the three non-specific determiners is deictic, not referential.

[2] To be clear, the nominal group here is actually an extremely short marriage to someone else with to someone else serving as Qualifier.