David Rose On Co-text And Content Strata

David Rose wrote on Sysfling at 13:53 on 30 May 2012:

There are two clauses in this sentence …

destroy it, will you?

man is destroyed, isn't he?

They are related grammatically by paratactic addition 'and'.

Any conditional relation is a discourse semantic inference, recoverable from the co-text, it is not there in the grammar of the clause complex. The grammar is not sufficient to interpret this (or any other).

My Comments:

This confuses co-text with levels of symbolic abstraction (stratification).

Discourse semantics, if the stratum above lexicogrammar (wording), is a higher level of symbolic abstraction (meaning).

The co-text, on the other hand, is the cohesively related text that accompanies this excerpt, and its content can be analysed at each stratum of symbolic abstraction: wording (lexicogrammar) and meaning (semantics).

It is simply not true that the meaning realised in the logical relation of the clause complex can be inferred — or is only recoverable — from the co-text: there is nothing at all in the co-text that suggests the logical meaning being incongruently worded as [extension: addition] is [enhancement: condition].

It is not that 'the grammar is not sufficient to interpret this (or any other)' but that, in SFL, all grammatical analysis involves taking a trinocular perspective, and this includes determining the meaning being realised in the wording.

Robin Fawcett On 'Would'

On 9 May 2012, on the Sysfling list, S.S. Deol wrote:

Dear All

You may comment on the use of would in the following sentence taken from an interview of a film actor:

I was doing what the script demanded and my director would scream at me saying......

To which Robin Fawcett  replied on 9 May:

A good question!  It has a simple answer, but it is one that upsets the neat patterns of system networks that we systemicists like to draw (e.g as discussed - and exemplified - in Bache, Carl, 2008.  English Tense and Aspect in Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar: A Critical Appraisal and an Alternative.  London: Equinox).  …

In a systemic functional grammar, the meaning of an item such as would  is captured by the selection expression of features that have been 'chosen' in the traversal of the system network.   In the Cardiff version of SFG the meaning of would in the key clause of your text-sentence (my director would scream at me) is expressed by the following selection expression (where 'trp' stands for 'time reference point'): 

[past trp, real, long period in past, repeated].

(Here 'repeated' stands for 'repeated regularly'.)  It has no connotations of 'will', 'willingness', 'intention' etc, as other uses of would have.  Its nearest systemic relationship is with another meaning that lies outside the canonical model of 'time', i.e. used to, in which the meaning is, in terms of its semantic features:

[past trp, real, long period in past, simple].

So we can refer to the multiply repeated event in your example by saying either 

My director would scream at me. 

or, using the closely related meaning that does not restrict the meaning to repeated events, represented here by [simple]: 

My director used to scream at me.

But the first is the more precise meaning, because it expresses both 'long period' and 'repetition'.  In contrast, with a 'stative' process such as 'living' we can only say I used to live in London and not *I would live in London,  because part of the meaning of would is that the event was repeated over a relatively long period of time.  (In contrast, we CAN say I would stay with my aunt (whenever I visited London, because 'staying' lasts for a relatively short period of time.)  So the 'aspectual type' of the process of the event interacts in complex ways with 'time meanings'.

My Comment:

The simple answer is that, in the SFL framework, this would functions interpersonally as the Modal operator of median usuality that realises the Finite element in the Mood of the clause as exchange.  The relevant system networks are on pages 135 (clause) and 349 (verbal group) of Halliday & Matthiessen (2004).

MAK Halliday At Connecting Paths 2010

MAK Halliday at Connecting Paths, Sun-Yat Sen University and City U HK, November 2010

Attributive Clause Discussion On Sys-Func & Sysfling [1]

Tom Bartlett wrote on 17 April 2012 at 17:19 on the sys-func & sysfling lists:

I would analyse "that she had decided on fur" in

She was glad that she had decided on her fur.

as a metaphenomenon rather than a projection as "glad that" construes a reaction to a presupposed event rather than the verbal or mental representation of an event. This can be shown by separating the clauses:

She decided on fur and she was glad about it.
*She decided on fur and John thinks it/so. 

This also shows that substitution is with a pronominal rather than SO. There's a complication, however, in that English (unlike e.g. Spanish) does not allow the combination of preposition and THAT + fact, so that the preposition showing the relationship between the attribute and the phenomenon only appears with simple Phenomena rather than metaphenomena:

She was glad about the decision.

She was glad about it.

She was glad (*about) that she had decided on fur.

My Comments:

(1) A Metaphenomenon is a pre-projected fact functioning as Phenomenon in a mental clause.
This is an attributive clause, not a mental clause, and so the constituent does not function as Metaphenomenon.

(2) 'glad that' is not a functional unit.  'Glad' is the Head/Epithet of a nominal group realising the Attribute; 'that' is a constituent of the embedded clause.

(3) The preposition is the minor process in a circumstance of Matter.  It does not show 'the relationship between the attribute and the phenomenon'.

(4) 'about the decision' and 'about it' are not simple Phenomena; they are circumstances of Matter.  Circumstances of Matter are agnate with the Phenomenon in mental clauses.

Register & Context 2012: Christian Matthiessen Part 1

Register & Context 2012: Christian Matthiessen Part 2

Halliday & Matthiessen On Martin's Register

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 27n):

Here the term ‘register’ thus refers to a functional variety of language. It has also been used in a related, but different way, to refer to the contextual values associated with such a functional variety (see Martin, 1992; cf Matthiessen 1993).

The Difference Between Context And Register

Context is realised by language.

Registers are types of language (that realise types of context).

The context-language relation is value-token.

The register-language relation is carrier-attribute.

Context is more abstract than language.

Registers (of language) are more specific than language (in general).

Why ‘Realisation’ Applies To Both Strata And Rank And Where The Difference Lies

The overall architecture of SFL theory can be understood in terms of theoretical constructs within the model, namely: relational processes (identifying and attributive) and logico-semantic relations (expansion and projection).

‘Realise’ is an intensive identifying process, which means that it combines ‘identifying’ with ‘elaboration’.

In the case of strata, where a lower stratum realises a higher stratum, the relation between them is thus identifying + elaboration.

The rank scale, on the other hand, is organised in terms of composition, which is a subtype of extension. ‘Realise’ is used on the rank scale to relate the function of a higher rank to the form of a lower rank (eg Process is realised by verbal group). This relation between function and form is thus also identifying + elaboration.

The similarity thus lies in elaboration + identifying being an organising principle for both stratification and the rank scale.

The difference lies in the fact that, whereas stratification involves only elaboration + identifying, the rank scale combines extension (relation between forms) with elaboration + identifying (function–form relations).

(The term ‘realisation’ is used wherever there is an intensive identifying (token-value) relation in the theory. eg between system and structure on a given stratum, between strata, between function and form in the rank scale.)

—∞—

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 4n):

The ambiguity [of ‘level’ as either stratum or rank] resides in the overlap of two grammatical relations, those of elaboration (‘be’) and of extension (‘have’) …

SFL Architecture Classified By SFL Relations

A. system networks
i. delicacy = elaboration + attributive
ii. disjunction = extension: alternative
iii. conjunction = extension: addition
iv. entry condition = enhancement: condition

B. rank scale = extension: composition

C. realisation = elaboration + identifying
1. higher stratum realised by lower stratum [stratification]
2. system realised by structure [axis]
3. function realised by form [rank scale]

D. instantiation cline = elaboration + attributive

Process Types As "Spectrum"

System Networks Construe A Continuous Semiotic Space

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 173):

Like all system networks, this [PROCESS TYPE] network construes a continuous semiotic space.

Terms In Systems Are Fuzzy Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 174n):

Systemic terms are not Aristotelian categories. Rather they are fuzzy categories; they can be thought of as representing fuzzy sets rather than ‘crisp’ ones …

Grammatical Labels Reflect Core Category Signification

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 199):

… grammatical labels are very rarely appropriate for all instances of a category — they are chosen to reflect its central or ‘core’ signification ( … ‘prototypes’ …). These core areas are the central region for each process type … and the non-core areas lie on the borders between the different process types, shading into one another as the colours of a colour spectrum.

The Principle Of Systemic Indeterminacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 173):

The world of our experience is highly indeterminate; and this is precisely how the grammar construes it in the system of process type. Thus, one and the same text may offer alternative models of what would appear to be the same domain of experience, construing for example the domain of emotion both as a process in a ‘mental’ clause … and as a participant in a ‘relational’ one …

Process Types: Spherical Ordering

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 171-2):

There is no priority of one kind of process over another. But they are ordered; and what is important is that, in our concrete visual metaphor, they form a circle and not a line. (More accurately still … a sphere … .) That is to say, our model of experience, as interpreted through the grammatical system of transitivity, is one of regions within a continuous space; but the continuity is not between two poles, it is round in a loop.

Process Types As Continuous Regions With Core & Peripheral Areas

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 172):

The regions have core areas and these represent prototypical members of the process types; but the regions are continuous, shading into one another, and these border areas represent the fact that the process types are fuzzy categories.

Behavioural, Verbal & Existential Process Types As Categories At Boundaries

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 171):

Material, mental and relational are the main types of process in the English transitivity system. But we also find further categories at the three boundaries; not so clearly set apart, but nevertheless recognisable in the grammar as intermediate between the different pairs — sharing some features of each, and thus acquiring a character of their own.

Behavioural Processes At The Borderline

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 171):

On the borderline between ‘material’ and ‘mental’ are the behavioural processes: those that represent the outer manifestations of inner workings, the acting out of processes of consciousness and physiological states.

Verbal Processes At The Borderline

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 171):

On the borderline between ‘mental’ and ‘relational’ are the verbal processes: symbolic relationships constructed in human consciousness and enacted in the form of language, like saying and meaning …

Existential Processes At The Borderline

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 171):

And on the borderline between the ‘relational’ and the ‘material’ are the processes concerned with existence, the existential, by which phenomena of all kinds are simply recognised to ‘be’ — to exist or to happen …

Theme And Mood

Theme

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 85):

(i) Initial position in the English clause is meaningful in the construction of the clause as message; specifically, it has a thematic function.

(ii) Certain textual elements that orient the clause within the discourse, rhetorically and logically, are inherently thematic.

(iii) Certain other elements, textual and interpersonal, that set up a semantic relation with what precedes, or express the speaker’s angle or intended listener, are characteristically thematic; this includes finite operators, which signal one type of question.

(iv) These inherently and characteristically thematic elements lie outside the experiential structure of the clause; they have no status as participant, circumstance or process.

(v) Until one of these latter appears, the clause lacks an anchorage in the realm of experience; and this is what completes the thematic grounding of the message.

Unmarked Theme In Declarative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 73):

In a declarative clause, the typical pattern is one in which Theme is conflated with Subject; … We shall refer to the mappaing of Theme on to Subject as the unmarked Theme of a declarative clause. The Subject is the element that is chosen as Theme unless there is good reason for choosing something else.

Marked Themes In Declarative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 73, 74):

A Theme that is something other than the Subject, in a declarative clause, we shall refer to as a marked Theme. The most usual form of marked Theme is an adverbial group … or prepositional phrase … functioning as Adjunct in the clause. Least likely to be thematic is a Complement, which is a nominal group that is not functioning as Subject — something that could have been a Subject but is not … . Sometimes even the Complement from within a prepositional phrase functions as Theme … .

Theme In Exclamative Declarative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 74):

There is one sub-category of declarative clause that has a special thematic structure, namely the exclamative. These typically have an exclamatory WH-element as Theme … .

Theme In Polar Interrogative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 75, 76):

In a yes/no interrogative, which is a question about polarity, the element that functions as Theme is the element that embodies the expression of polarity, namely the Finite verbal operator. … but, since that is not an element in the experiential structure of the clause, the Theme extends over the following Subject as well.

Theme In WH- Interrogative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 75):

In a WH- interrogative, which is a search for a missing piece of information, the element that functions as Theme is the element that requests this information, namely the WH- element … whether Subject, Adjunct or Complement.

Theme In ‘You-&-Me’ Imperative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 76):

… here, let’s is clearly the unmarked choice of Theme.

Theme In ‘You’ Imperative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 76):

… although the ‘you’ can be made explicit as a Theme … this is clearly a marked choice; the more typical form is … with the verb in thematic position. … here, therefore, it is the Predicator that is the unmarked Theme.

Theme In Negative Imperative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 77):

… the principle is the same as with yes/no interrogatives: the unmarked Theme is don’t plus the following element, either Subject or Predicator. Again there is a marked form with you, … where the Theme is don’t you. There is also a marked contrastive form of the positive, … where the Theme is do plus the Predicator … .

Predicator As Theme

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 77):

The imperative is the only type of clause in which the Predicator (the verb) is regularly found as Theme. This is not impossible in other moods … but in such clauses it is the most highly marked choice of all.

Adjunct As Theme In Imperative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 78):

Imperative clauses may have a marked Theme, as when a locative Adjunct is thematic in a clause giving directions … The adjunct part of a phrasal verb may serve as marked Theme in an imperative clause with an explicit Subject, as in Up you get! … .

Distinguishing The Instance From The System

Halliday & Matthiessen On Fawcett's Relational Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504): 

His abandonment of the distinction between attributive and identifying seems harder to motivate, since this cannot in fact be explained as a textual (thematic) system in the way that Fawcett proposes.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 229):

Note therefore that Identified–Identifier cannot simply be explained as Given–New in an ‘identifying’ clause; not surprisingly, since the former are experiential functions whereas the latter are textual.

Halliday & Matthiessen On Fawcett's Relational Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504): 

Fawcett incorporates into the “relational: possessive” category, processes of giving and acquiring; reduces the circumstantial to locational processes only; and includes within these, processes of going and sending. As is to be expected, this alternative analysis embodies certain generalisations that are not made in our account of figures, and ignores certain others which are.

The model of Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 212) has the explanatory advantage of revealing the following consistent systemic proportionalities:

Thus static location in space [enhancement] is construed relationally …

but dynamic motion is construed materially … 

static possession [extension] is construed relationally …

but dynamic transfer of possession is construed materially …

and static quality [elaboration] is construed relationally … 

but dynamic change in quality is construed materially …

which reflects the more general contrast in the ideational semantics (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 131):

The domain outside this conscious-semiotic [sensing, saying] centre of the ideational universe is then quintessentially either active (doing) or inert (being) …

Mick O'Donnell On Process Types [1]

In a discussion on the email list sfl_education on 23/2/12 concerning process types, Mick O'Donnell writes:

Cases where we don't really have a category: For me, we really need a 7th category for modal lexical verbs, e.g., I was required to leave (also allowed, permitted, obliged, etc.) I find it hard to say these are auxiliary verbs.

My Comments:

On Halliday's model, examples such as  I was required/allowed/permitted/obliged to leave do not involve an auxiliary in a verbal group.  Instead, these involve a hypotactic verbal group complex.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 513):

… there is a special set that only exist as causatives, where the meaning is simply that of agency: make, cause, force require, let, allow, permit, etc.  These admit of three degrees of modulation …

Mick O'Donnell On Process Types [2]

Mick O'Donnell replied on 24 February 2012 08:27:

This doesn't change my point. Halliday and Matthiessen's analysis is one analysis of these phenomena. But if we can one minute assume that it is not the case that because they say something in IFG 3, then it must be true, then we can start getting back to doing real linguistics.

As I said in my email, I believe an alternative analysis of this phenomena, where require/allow/permit, etc. are treated as full verbs, and since they have grammatical patternings very distinct to material verbs, to create a new process type for them.

My Comments:

The point has no validity because it proceeds from an inaccurate rendering of the theory in question.

For example, the verbs in these verbal groups are neither 'auxiliary' nor less than "full". In clauses such as 'I was required to leave', 'was required' is the alpha verbal group and 'to leave' is the beta verbal group.

The distinct grammatical patterns reflect the fact that these verbs of modulation introduce causation into the clause by means of a verbal group complex, adding the feature of agency to the clause as a whole.

Theory improvement proceeds from an accurate rendering of the theory in question.  The issue is accurate interpretation, not dogmatic belief.

Two Reasons Why Halliday’s And Martin’s Models Of Stratification Cannot Be Integrated

1) They do not mean the same thing by ‘register’.

For Halliday, ‘register’ means a functional variety of language (with roots back to the Prague School and Firth).

Martin, on the other hand, equates ‘register’ with Halliday’s ‘context’, which removes the notion of register as a functional variety of language from the model. This is because a higher stratum is not a functional variety of a lower stratum; eg lexicogrammar is not a functional variety of phonology.

2) They do not mean the same thing by ‘context’.

For Halliday, ‘context’ is

• what people do with language (H&M 1999: ix),
• the ‘semiotic environment’ of language (p375),
• the “culture”, considered as a semiotic potential (p606).

Halliday’s ‘context’ is a level of abstraction that is realised by language.

Martin, on the other hand, in describing his model of stratification writes (1992: 496):

… the size of the circles also reflects the fact that the analysis tends to focus on larger units as one moves from phonology to ideology.  Thus the tendency at the level of phonology to focus on syllables and phonemes, at the level of lexicogrammar to focus on the clause, at the level of discourse semantics to focus on an exchange or "paragraph", at the level of register to focus on a stage in a transaction, at the level of genre to focus on whole texts …

As this quote makes clear, Martin’s ‘context’ refers to levels within language, since 'a stage in a transaction' and 'whole texts' are units of language.

Register Vs Text Type

'Register' and 'text type' occupy the same point on the cline of instantiation.
Looking from the system pole, it is 'register'.
Looking from the instance pole, it is 'text type'.

The Claim: "All Strata Make Meaning"

Grammatically, this is an abstract creative material clause.

All strata : Actor
make : Process: material: creative
meaning : Goal

It is consistent with the notion of 'semogenesis': the creation of meaning.

On the other hand, an attributive reading, such as 'All strata have meaning' is not consistent with either 'semogenesis' or the dimension of stratification.

Meaning is not an attribute of every stratum.

Meaning is but one stratum in the levels of symbolic abstraction.

Wording [lexicogrammar] realises meaning [semantics].

Sounding [phonology] realises the realisation of meaning [semantics] in wording [lexicogrammar].

Halliday & Matthiessen On Fawcett's System–Structure Cycle

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429): 

In Fawcett’s model, there is only one system–structure cycle within the content plane: systems are interpreted as the semantics, linked through a “realisational component” to [content] form, which includes items and syntax, the latter being modelled structurally but not systemically; […] in our model there are two system-structure cycles, one in the semantics and one in the lexicogrammar. Terms in semantic systems are realised in semantic structures; and semantic systems and structures are in turn realised in lexicogrammatical ones.

… grammatical metaphor is a central reason in our account for treating axis and stratification as independent dimensions, so that we have both semantic systems and structures and lexicogrammatical systems and structures. Since we [unlike Fawcett] allow for a stratification of content systems into semantics and lexicogrammar, we are in a stronger position to construe knowledge in terms of meaning. That is, the semantics can become more powerful and extensive if the lexicogrammar includes systems.

—∞—

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 25):

The stratification of the content plane had immense significance in the evolution of the human species — it is not an exaggeration to say that it turned Homo … into Homo sapiens. It opened up the power of language and in so doing created the modern human brain.

Why an instance is 'a token of a type'

The organising principle of the cline of instantiation is attribution (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 14-5, 145).

Attribution is concerned with class membership.
Attribution + elaboration includes type–subtype relations.

But, the most delicate subtype has just a single member.
The relation between a category and its single member is identification.
The category and the member uniquely identify each other.
The member is the Token that realises the category Value.
An instance is the Token that realises the most delicate category Value.

This is the distinction between instance and subtype.

A Useful Way To Visualise Instantiation

1. Think of a system network, such as that of TRANSITIVITY (IFG3 p302). Think of it as coloured black.

2. Now, for example, think of a clause.

3. Now colour green all the features and realisation statements that are selected for that clause.

The term 'system' refers to the entire TRANSITIVITY network.

The term 'instance' refers to just the green bits.

The term 'instantiation as process' refers to the process of applying the colour green.

The term 'instantiation as scale' — 'the cline of instantiation' — refers to the relation between the entire system and the green bits.

The green bits are both a subpotential of the system, and the "activation" of that subpotential.

The instance is the "activated" portion of the system. The relation of the instance to the system is the relation of the "activated" portion to the system as a whole.

System Networks

System networks are not flowcharts.

Nothing flows through the network.

A speaker does not choose how far to go in delicacy.

System networks map how features relate to each other.  The architecture of the network can be understood in terms of the logical relations set out in the theory: specifically, the three types of expansion.

elaboration: delicacy

extension: conjunction, disjunction

enhancement: entry conditions

The arrows in a system network represent the relation of condition, not temporality.
A "traversal" of the network is a specific map of logically related features.

Semantics Is Not Just A Relabelling Of Lexicogrammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 26): 

Thus when we move from the lexicogrammar into the semantics, as we are doing here, we are not simply relabelling everything in a new terminological guise. We shall stress the fundamental relationship between (say) clause complex in the grammar and sequence in the semantics, precisely because the two originate as one: a theory of the logical relationships between processes.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 604)

But in modelling the semantic system we face a choice: namely, how far “above” the grammar we should try to push it. Since the decision has to be made with reference to the grammar, this is equivalent to asking how abstract the theoretical constructs are going to be. We have chosen to locate ourselves at a low point on the scale of abstraction, keeping the semantics and the grammar always within hailing distance. There were various reasons for this. First, we wanted to show the grammar at work in construing experience; since we are proposing this as an alternative to cognitive theories, with an “ideation base” rather than a “knowledge base”, we need to posit categories such that their construal in the lexicogrammar is explicit. Secondly, we wanted to present the grammar as “natural”, not arbitrary; this is an essential aspect of the evolution of language from a primary semiotic such as that of human infants. Thirdly, we wanted to explain the vast expansion of the meaning potential that takes place through grammatical metaphor; this depends on the initial congruence between grammatical and semantic categories. 

But in any case, it is not really possible to produce a more abstract model of semantics until the less abstract model has been developed first. One has to be able to renew connection with the grammar. 

Material Vs Semiotic Abstractions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 190ff) provide a taxonomy of simple things based on the participant roles they play in semantic figures — critically those of Senser, Sayer and Actor.

The most general distinction is between conscious and non-conscious.

Within non-conscious, the distinction is between material and semiotic.

Within material, the distinctions are animal, object, substance and abstraction.

Within semiotic, the distinctions are institution, object and abstraction.

Material abstractions — eg depth, colours — typically play the roles of Phenomenon, Carrier and Value. They have no extension in space and are unbounded, and are typically some parameter of a material quality or process.

Semiotic abstractions — eg information, truth — are typically realised by the Range of mental and verbal processes. They are unbounded semiotic substance with no material existence.

There are also intermediate categories in this taxonomy. For example:

Human collectives — eg family — are intermediate between conscious beings and institutions.

Discrete semiotic abstractions — eg thoughts and fears (mental entities) and questions and orders (speech functions) — are intermediate between semiotic objects and and non-discrete semiotic abstractions.

How To Distinguish Complement And Adjunct

(1) WHAT DOES THE TEXTBOOK SAY?

Complement

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 122-3):

A Complement is an element within the Residue that has the potential of being Subject but is not; in other words, it is an element that has the potential for being given the interpersonally elevated status of modal responsibility — something that can be the nub of the argument.

Adjunct

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 123):

An Adjunct is an element that has not got the potential of being Subject; that is, it cannot be elevated to the interpersonal status of modal responsibility.

(2) EXAMPLES

(a) Consider the following clause:

Maureen gave David the book.

Q1. Can ‘David’ be raised to Subject?

A. Yes, as follows: David was given the book by Maureen.

Conclusion: ‘David’ is Complement.

Q2. Can ‘the book’ be raised to Subject?

A. Yes, as follows: The book was given to David by Maureen.

Conclusion: ‘the book’ is Complement.

(b) Consider the following clause:

Maureen gave the book to David.

Q1. Can ‘to David’ be raised to Subject?

A. No. *To David was given the book by Maureen.

Conclusion: ‘to David’ is Adjunct.

(c) Consider the following clause:

The book was given to David by Maureen.

Q1. Can ‘to David’ be raised to Subject?

A. No. *To David was given the book by Maureen.

Conclusion: ‘to David’ is Adjunct.

Q2. Can ‘by Maureen’ be raised to Subject?

A. No. *By Maureen gave the book to David.

Conclusion: ‘by Maureen’ is Adjunct.

Nominal Groups Inside Prepositional Phrases: Indirect Participants

Q1. WHAT ARE THE EXPERIENTIAL IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FACT THAT THE COMPLEMENT OF A PREPOSITION (MINOR PREDICATOR) CAN OFTEN BE RAISED TO SUBJECT?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 296-7):

… the Complement of a preposition can often emerge to function as Subject … This pattern suggests that Complements of prepositions, despite being embedded in an element that has a circumstantial function, are still felt to be participating, even if at a distance, in the process expressed by the clause.

Q2. HOW DO WE DISTINGUISH THESE TWO TYPES OF PARTICIPATION?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 261):

We can make a contrast, then, between direct and indirect participants, using ‘indirect participant’ to refer to the status of a nominal group that is inside a prepositional phrase …

Q3. HOW DO WE DISTINGUISH INDIRECT PARTICIPANTS FROM CIRCUMSTANCES?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 278):

Wherever there is systematic alternation between a prepositional phrase and a nominal group, as in all the instances in Participant functions realised by prepositional phrases, the element in question is interpreted as a participant.

Q4. WHAT IS THE FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIRECT AND INDIRECT PARTICIPANTS?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 295-6):

… the choice of ‘plus or minus preposition’ with Agent, Beneficiary and Range … serves a textual function. … The principle is as follows. If a participant other than the Medium is in a place of prominence in the message, it tends to take a preposition (ie to be construed as ‘indirect’ participant); otherwise it does not. Prominence in the message means functioning either (i) as marked Theme (ie Theme but not Subject) or (ii) as ‘late news’ — that is, occurring after some other participant, or circumstance, that already follows the Process. In other words, prominence comes from occurring either earlier or later than expected in the clause; and it is this that is being reinforced by the presence of the preposition. The preposition has become a signal of special status in the message.

Lexis As Most Delicate Grammar

The most delicate features on the lexicogrammatical stratum are not lexical items.  The cline of lexicogrammatical delicacy is not a scale of increasingly delicate lexical items.

Lexical items are the "output" of the network.  Each lexical item is a "bundle" of co-selected features, just as the phoneme /b/ is a bundle of the articulatory features {bilabial, voiced, stop}.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198):

The paradigmatic strategy … is typically associated with feature networks: that is, networks made up of systems of features, such that each lexical item (as the name of a thing) realises a certain combination of these features selected from different systems within the network — a particular clustering of systemic variables. … This resource, the construal of systematically related lexico-semantic sets, illustrates well the principle of “lexis as most delicate grammar”.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198-9):

Note that it is not (usually) the lexical items themselves that figure as terms of the systems in the network.  Rather, the systems are systems of features, and the lexical items come in as the synthetic realisation of particular feature combinations.  Thus lexis (vocabulary) is part of a unified lexicogrammar; there is no need to postulate a separate “lexicon” as a pre-existing entity on which the grammar is made to operate.

Realisation

Choices at higher strata do not determine choices at lower strata.
Function does not determine form.
Paradigm does not determine syntagm.

Choices at higher strata do not precede choices at lower strata.

Function does not precede form.

Paradigm does not precede syntagm.

Strata are different levels of symbolic abstraction.

Function and form are different levels of symbolic abstraction.

Paradigm and syntagm are different levels of symbolic abstraction.

The relation between these different levels of symbolic abstraction is 'intensive identifying', not 'circumstantial identifying' (ie neither 'causal' nor 'temporal').

Context: Situation Vs Setting

Halliday (2007 [1991]: 278):

The setting, on the other hand, is the immediate material environment. This may be a direct manifestation of the context of situation, and so be integrated into it: if the situation is one of, say, medical care, involving a doctor and one or more patients, then the setting of hospital or clinic is a relevant part of the picture. But even there the setting does not constitute the context of situation …

Context Vs Cotext

Halliday (2007 [1991]: 271):

Originally, the context meant the accompanying text, the wording that came before and after whatever was under attention. In the nineteenth century it was extended to things other than language, both concrete and abstract: the context of the building, the moral context of the day; but if you were talking about language, then it still referred to the surrounding words, and it was only in modern linguistics that it came to refer to the non-verbal environment in which language was used. When that had happened, it was Catford, I think, who suggested that we now needed another term to refer explicitly to the verbal environment; and he proposed the term “co-text”.

Types Of Theoretical Misunderstanding

Misunderstandings of SFL theory include the following two types:

(1) Misunderstanding the terminology of the theory

(2) Misunderstanding the architecture of the theory

A complex variant of the second type is the practice of blending two distinct dimensions of the theory while purporting to be concerned with only one of them.

Halliday & Matthiessen On Fawcett's Extra-Linguistic Knowledge

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

It follows then … that for us [Fawcett’s (extra-linguistic)] “knowledge of the universe” is construed as meaning rather than as knowledge. This meaning is in the first instance created in language; but we have noted that meaning is created in other semiotic systems as well, both other social-semiotic systems and other semiotic systems such as perception. Our account gives language more of a central integrative rôle in the overall system. It is the one semiotic system which is able to construe meanings from semiotic systems in general.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 3):

We contend that the conception of ‘knowledge’ as something that exists independently of language, and may then be coded or made manifest in language, is illusory. All knowledge is constituted in semiotic systems, with language as the most central; and all such representations of knowledge are constructed from language in the first place.

David Rose On Instantiation

On 15 January 2012 at 08:31, David Rose wrote on Sysfling:

It seems to me that when reasoning about grammar, what's implicitly left to intuition is the lexical relations of the words that instantiate the grammatical categories we are interested in.

My Comments:


Words do not instantiate grammatical categories.

If words — in this sense: lexical items — are the synthetic realisations of particular lexicogrammatical features (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 198-9), then they extend right along the cline of instantiation, from the general system, to the different probabilities of different registers, to different actualised texts (instances).

Sysfling Discussion (Initially) Of Circumstance Type*

On 12 January 2012 14:16 Tom Bartlett wrote:

in I gave John the book, John could be analysed (pace IFG3:190) as the Medium (he is changed by receiving the book, which is relegated to Range) and can thus be made Subject (passivisation is an ergative function, conflating Medium with Subject, not a transitive one, see IFG3:302): John was given the book. i.e. this last is not the passive of "I gave the book to John". I've always felt unhappy about John being analysed as Recipient (on semantic grounds) in both these clauses despite the LG differences, and this analysis suggests an alternative. I'm aware that this is more unorthodox than my other analyses, but it does seem consistent with the concept of Medium. One last point, the idea that the passive is used to grant Medium status would seem to be backed up by: I saw Jack yesterday. (I am Medium, the locus of the process; my state of knowledge has changed).  Tom was seen by various passers-by. (Tom is reconstrued as Medium rather than Range (IFG3:291) as having his whereabouts known has altered his status);

My Comments:

(1) If the Medium refers to the entity through which the process unfolds, then none of this analysis is consistent with the concept of Medium.  For example, the locus of a process is not the entity through which a process unfolds;  the locus of a process is circumstantial: its spatio-temporal location.

(2) 'The contrast between ‘operative’ and ‘receptive’ is a contrast in voice open to ‘transitive’ clauses' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 181-2).  'Note that 'transitivity' is the name for the whole system, including both the 'transitive' model and the 'ergative' one.  'Ergativity is thus not the name of a system, but of a property of the system of transitivity' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 281).


* See http://thethoughtoccurs.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/sample-circumstance-analysis/

David Rose On Realisation

In a discussion on the email list sfl_education on 7/12/11, David Rose writes:

For me the issue is not meaning vs structure, since these are really two faces of the same phenomenon. 

Rather the issue is the pedagogic sequence from instance to system and vice versa. 

Since meanings and the structures that realise them only occur in texts, our approach starts with whole texts, in which learners encounter instances and gradually accumulate systems. 

Using a simple technique of guided repetition we can teach beginning learners to read and say a short text within an hour, and then use this as basis for focusing on particular features. As they acquire fragments of systems these can be used to illuminate new instances and so on.

My Comments:

In SFL, meaning and structure are not "really two faces of the same phenomenon", and structures do not realise meanings.  Rather:

(1) Meaning is a stratum in the hierarchy of symbolic abstraction.  What realises meaning is wording, not structure.

(2) Structure, on the other hand, contrasts with system.  The distinction here is axial: between the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes, respectively.  What structure realises is system, not meaning.

That is: 

meaning is realised in wording (stratification)

system is realised in structure (axis)

so:

stratification:

system on the stratum of meaning is realised in system on the stratum of wording

structure on the stratum of meaning is realised in structure on the stratum of wording

axis:

system on the stratum of meaning is realised in structure on the stratum of meaning

system on the stratum of wording is realised in structure on the stratum of wording

Sysfling Discussion Of Chomsky

On 18 November 2011 at 02:10 Tom Bartlett wrote:

Despite its determination not to discuss "the mind", SFL draws on much social psychology and if we view the mind as the socialised brain there should be no problem with referring to the mind in SFL. Without the mind we can't understand genres or codes - yes, they're social constructs, but where are they stored? Saying "in the collectivity" just dodges the bullet. It wasn't for nothing that Vygotsky talked of "The Mind in Society".

I think that in refusing to talk of the mind SFL is partly responsible for ceding the field of psycholinguistics to the Chomskian dualist/innatist paradim, despite having a viable alternative.

My Comment:

Here are some examples of SFL discussing the mind.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 565):

… we are offering the ideation base as a conceptual alternative [to] the mind, knowledge, cognition … the concerns of cognitive science.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 590):

The spatial metaphor of the commonsense model is taken over by cognitive science. It serves as the sources of processes in their model of the mind — processes of storing, searching, retrieving etc within figures of doing & happening and processes of being located at/in within figures of being & having. That is, processes of sensing are reified, and processes of doing & happening and of being & having take their place. The spatial metaphor also opens up the way for modelling the mind along computational lines: human memory can be modelled on computer memory.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 594):

… the object of study of cognitive [science] is constructed by ideational metaphor, as reified sensing (perceiving, thinking) or as the names of sensing (the mind, mental phenomena).

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 595):

Since it is not taken over as theory, the fundamental insights of the folk theory are ignored: figures of “Sensers sensing (that …)” are re-construed through grammatical metaphor as participants. In particular, the domain of sensing is reified as the “mind”, so that instead of somebody perceiving things happening, or somebody thinking that the moon was a balloon, the model of cognitive science has perception, vision, cognition, learning, memory …

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 595-6): 

Since figures of sensing are reified as participants, they can themselves be construed in participant rôles. Here another feature of the folk model is taken over: its spatial metaphor is retained and further elaborated. Thus the mind is construed as a space where the metaphorical participants of sensing are involved in processes of doing & happening and of being & having: thoughts, concepts, memories, images are stored located, retrieved, activated and so on.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 599):

In a way … material reinterpretation [psychology] and ‘unconsciousness’ [psychoanalysis] are opposites: the first reconstrues sensing in terms that are more readily observable by scientific method (ie method other than introspection), while the other introduces a factor that is even less readily observable than conscious sensing: unconscious motivation. But they share the characteristic that they construct the ‘mind’ as remote from our everyday experience with sensing. At the same time the ‘scientific’ models of the mind fail to extend consciousness in the way it is extended by the grammar of English.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 599, 600):

There are, in fact, two complementary perspectives embodied in the semantic and grammatical systems of English; and together they point towards an alternative interpretation both of ‘information’ as constructed in cognitive science and of the individualised ‘mind’ that is its object of study. … [These are] the construal of processes other than the mental (saying and symbolising), and that of meaning as enacting as well as meaning as construing.

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 603):

… the concept of ‘mind’ should be brought into close relation with other phenomena — biological, social, or semiotic. … But once this has been done, the mind itself tends to disappear; it is no longer necessary as a construct sui generis. Instead of experience being construed by the mind, in the form of knowledge, we can say that experience is construed by the grammar; to ‘know’ something is to have transformed some portion of experience into meaning. To adopt this perspective is to theorise “cognitive processes” in terms of semiotic, social and biological systems; and thus to see them as a natural concomitant of the processes of evolution.

Sys-Func Discussion Of Theme Analysis [1]

On the sys-func discussion list, at 21:37 on 11 October 2011, Van Tran sought help in analysing the thematic structure of the following:

One year after they got married, they found ....

Tom Bartlett replied at 23:52 11 October 2011:

As an alternative analysis to Mick's (O'Donnell's analysis of one year [[after they got married]] as a nominal group realising Theme), you could have "one year" as modifying the conjunction "after".

Tom's reasoning at this stage:

This might appear a bit unusual, but from a fucntional [sic] perspective I think it looks like that is what is happening.

Mick O'Donnell then replied:

I'd buy that. Makes sense.

My Comments:

(1) On Halliday's theoretical model, this is not "what is happening".

Premodifiers in conjunction groups, as in their sister adverbial groups, are grammatical items — adverbs of polarity, comparison or intensification, such as even, just, not, only) not lexical items like (one) year [Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 356, 358].

(2) On Halliday's theoretical model, one year [[after they got married]] is a nominal group realising a circumstance of Location: time.  The function structure of the nominal group is as follows:

one Numerative

year Thing

[[after they got married]] Qualifier (realised by a rank-shifted clause).

(3) The utter ludicrousness of regarding preceding lexical words as Premodifiers within a conjunction group can be seen in the following, with the supposed conjunction group highlighted in green:

One excruciatingly painful and somewhat hazardous, and not to say chaotic year after they got married …

Sys-Func Discussion Of Theme Analysis [2]

Lise Fontaine replied at 18:12 on 12 October 2011:

I agree with Tom's view.  There are many examples related to this:

after they got married

right after they got married

one year after they got married

10 years after the got married

and there are other prepositions which follow similar patterns.  In IFG terms this ('one year after') constitutes a prepositional group within a prepositional phrase.

My Comments:

(1) Lise says she agrees with Tom's view, even though Tom mistakenly analyses one year after as a conjunction group, while she mistakenly analyses it as a preposition group.

(2) In IFG terms:

after they got married is a clause initiated by the (unmodified) conjunction group after

right after they got married is a clause initiated by the (premodified) conjunction group right after

one year [[after they got married]] is a nominal group with an embedded clause as Qualifier

10 years [[after they got married]] is a nominal group with an embedded clause as Qualifier
and
those twenty unforgettable though nightmarish years [[after they got married]] is a nominal group with an embedded clause as Qualifier

Sys-Func Discussion Of Theme Analysis [3]

Lise Fontaine continued at 18:52 on 13 October 2011:

Dear Chris and all sysflingers,

I'm just leaving for a conference so my reply won't be as detailed as I would like. I should say though that I wasn't suggesting I was representing the views of IFG in my reply, only that I agreed with Tom's analysis.

My comments:

Lise says "I wasn't suggesting I was representing the views of IFG in my reply", but in that reply she had written "In IFG terms this ('one year after') constitutes a prepositional group within a prepositional phrase".

Sys-Func Discussion Of Theme Analysis [4]

In response to the IFG-consistent analysis provided by Ernest Akerejola, Tom Bartlett replied at 18:19 on 13 October 2011:

I think that your analysis is posssible, but I still prefer the analysis with "one year" as modifying "before".

Tom's Reasoning:

(1) Compare "three times before they were married they went on holiday together", which means that each time individually was before they got married. In this case "before they got married" is a modifier in the ngp with "time" [sic] as head. 

(2) In "Three years before they got married" this is not the case, there is only one occasion. We are told something happened before they got married and additionally how long before. 

(3) However, in the seemingly similar sentence "The year before they got married they bought a house together" I would analyse "before they got married" as an embedded clause within the noun group "the year before they got married". Something happened in a particular year which is defined as being the one before their wedding.

My Comments:

Tom's analyses in (1) and (3) are consistent with Halliday's analysis.  That is:

three times [[before they were married]]

the year [[before they got married]]

However, his claim that three years before they got married is not the same grammatically, ie

three years [[before they got married]]

is not consistent with Halliday's analysis.

More significantly, the argumentation that Tom uses to support his different analysis is entirely spurious.  There is no grammatical reasoning involved.  Instead, the grammatical difference is said to turn on the distinction between:

"each time individually was before they got married" and

"something happened in a particular year which is defined as being the one before their wedding"

versus:

"something happened before they got married and additionally how long before".

Sys-Func Discussion Of Theme Analysis [5]

Tom Bartlett continues in his response to Ernest Akerejola:

I would analyse "exactly one year after they got married" as [[exactly[one year]] after they got married], with "exactly" modifying the noun "one year" and the whole the ngp "exactly one year" modifying the conjunction "before".

My Comments:

(1) one year is not a noun; it is part of the nominal group; the Numerative of the nominal group is exactly one; the logical structure of the Numerative is b^a —ie exactly modifies one (not one year).

(2) The IFG analysis is exactly one year [[after they got married]], for reasons given previously. So:

exactly one: Numerative

year: Thing

[[after they got married]]: Qualifier

1. David Rose On Stratification & Metaredundancy

David Rose firstly writes in response to my comments on Jim Martin On Stratification:

contextual strata are metaredundant on the redundant relation between discourse semantics and lexicogrammar... hence relating clause meanings directly to context skips a layer of metaredundancy

My Comments:

(1) clause meanings

The meanings of clauses are semantic not lexicogrammatical. Hence relating clause meanings directly to context does not skip a stratum.

(2) layer of metaredundancy

Strata are not layers of metaredundancy. Metaredundancy is a redundancy on a redundancy. Semantics is metaredundant on the redundant relation between lexicogrammar and phonology. Semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology are not "layers of metaredundancy".

2. David Rose On Realisation

David Rose secondly writes in response to my comments on Jim Martin on Stratification:

clause meanings are realised by system-structure relations cycling through grammatical ranks i.e. meanings are realised by relations between elements of structures in texts, instantiating relations between features in systems, at each rank within phonology, grammar and discourse... (no need to do it twice)

My Comments:

(1) clause meanings are realised by system-structure relations; meanings are realised by relations between elements of structures

This confuses the distinction between stratification and axis. In terms of stratification, meanings (semantics) are realised by wordings (lexicogrammar) — whatever the axis (paradigmatic or syntagmatic). In terms of axis, (paradigmatic) systems are realised by (syntagmatic) structures — whatever the stratum.

(2) meanings are realised by relations between elements of structures in texts

'In texts' refers only to the instance pole of the cline of instantiation. The realisation of meaning (semantics) in wording (lexicogrammar) applies to the whole cline, not just the instance. Hence: "stuck in the instance".

3. David Rose On Instantiation

David Rose thirdly writes in response to my comments on Jim Martin on Stratification:

discourse semantic systems are the potential for co-textualising grammatical meanings, instantiated as discourse semantic structures in text

My Comment:

Instantiation is the relation of the system to the instance (of the system). The relation between system and structure — and between semantics and lexicogrammar — is realisation.