Detached predicatives
These are units headed by a noun, an adjective or a participle. They are closely tied to the subject but, instead of occupying a position after the verb, they are fronted, and have the status of supplementives, with an adjunctive function:
A Saxon princess, she was born at Exning near Newmarket around AD 630, the daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles.
These fronted phrases are common in such genres as fiction, history, advertising and tourism, where they provide an economical means of packing information around a main topic entity, without holding up the narrative.
N.B. When thematic, they are retrospective, linking up with the immediately preceding text. When they are placed after the subject, they add extra details about the topic entity as in the daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles.
