Tom Bartlett Confusing Ranks And Taking A Formal Perspective

Tom Bartlett wrote to Sysfling on 11 May at 15:23:

Introducing another problem, … what can we do with "or" coordination?

He went to the shops on Thursdays or Fridays
I want a red or blue dress

These events can by definition not be conjuncts, so would we have to say that whenever we have OR we have conjunction of whole elliptical clauses?

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, 'X or Y' is the logico-semantic relation of extension: alternation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 471).

[2] The logico-semantic relations in these instances do not obtain at clause rank, and for this reason, do not imply clause ellipsis.  In the first clause, Thursdays or Fridays is a word complex realising the Thing of a nominal group:

clause

He	went	to the shops	on Thursdays or Fridays
Actor	Process: material	Location: spatial: motion	Location: temporal: rest

prepostional phrase

on	Thursdays or Fridays
Process	Range

                             

nominal group

Thursdays or Fridays

Thing

In the second clause, red or blue is a word complex realising the Epithet of a nominal group:

clause

I	want	a red or blue dress
Senser	Process: mental	Phenomenon

nominal group

a	red or blue	dress
Deictic	Epithet	Thing

[3] This again demonstrates that Bartlett is taking a formal rather than functional perspective on the grammar — as previously noted here — since he is concerned with assigning functions to forms, rather than assigning forms to functions.