Do Temporal Adjuncts Function as External Adjuncts in a Noun Phrase, or Is This Another Grammatical Construct?

Question

In certain pieces often written by journalists and others in the publishing profession, I have come across phrases like the one below (my own example):

Tinker Hatfield, today a legend of the Nike design team, put all his efforts into redesigning the iconic Jordan sneaker.

What I'm interested in is the temporal adjunct 'today,' which is used alongside a noun phrase acting as a supplement anchored by 'Tinker Hatfield.'

I am familiar with the term 'external adjunct,' which I read about in Oxford Modern English Grammar, and I would be tempted to place 'today' into this category, as it seems to fall within the scope of the noun phrase. However, the book mentions external adjuncts in the context of focus words, such as 'only.'

How would you categorise this adjunct? If you can provide a citation from CGEL, I am particularly inclined to accept your answer, since this is the most comprehensive analysis of grammar I am aware of.

Answer 1

1. Tinker Hatfield, today a legend of the Nike design team, put all his efforts into redesigning the iconic Jordan sneaker.

There is not enough, syntactically, for me to be certain about this, but I suspect that the section in bold in (1) is a verbless clause functioning as an Adjunct, more specifically, a Supplement within the larger clause.

This would be part of the relevant discussion from CGEL (p. 1359—1360):

My intuition is that the pronoun today cannot function as a peripheral Modifier in a noun phrase in initial position:

2. *Today accidents will have repercussions for years to come

It can, however, post-modify nouns:

3. Accidents today will have repercussions for years to come.

It is this fact, comparable to the situation with regard to [28i] in CGEL, which makes me think that this is a small clause, rather than an NP functioning as an ascriptive modifier.

With the clause expanded, this might read:

4. Tinker Hadfield--who today is a legend of the Nike design team--put all his efforts into redesigning the iconic Jordan sneaker.

or

5. Tinker Hadfield--today he's a legend of the Nike design team--put all his efforts into redesigning the iconic Jordan sneaker.

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^{Below is the text from the CGEL excerpts, in case it's useful.
(f) Verbless clause
[28] i The tourists, most of them foreigners, had been hoarded onto a cattle truck.
ii The defendants sat in the dock, their heads in their hands.
iii The only household chore men excelled at was - drumroll please - taking out the rubbish.
In [i] the supplement is comparable in function to a relative clause: compare who were most of them foreigners (or most of whom were foreigners). If the supplement consisted of foreigners on its own, it would be an ascriptive NP, like those in [22]; most of them, however, does not function as a modifier in NP structure, so most of them foreigners must be analysed as a reduced clause - one which could not stand alone as a sentence. The supplement in [28ii] could likewise not stand alone, but differs in its internal structure in that their heads is subject. An equivalent integrated construction would have a modifier with the form of with + verbless clause: with their heads in their hands.}

Answer 2

I think this may support Araucaria's verbless clause analysis.

A similar example from Quirk's CGEL (page 1015)

As it is, we could regard it as a verbless clause functioning as an adverbial. Indeed, many instances of partial apposition with noun phrases (c/ 17.66)could be equally regarded as verbless clauses, eg:

Judge Clement Turpin, now a federal appeals court judge, is being considered for appointment to the US Supreme Court. (italics mine)

[Possible expansion: Judge Clement Turpin, who now is a federal appeals court judge, is being considered for appointment to the US Supreme Court.]