David Rose On Hjelmslev's Connotative And Denotative Semiotics

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 21 March 2022 at 1:48 pm:

The beauty of Hjelmslev’s interpretation is that ‘context’ can be described as a connotative semiotic (i.e. as systems of meanings), using the theoretical tools developed in SFL for describing language. This has enabled the description of field, tenor and mode as semiotic systems, whose options are configured (more abstractly) by selections in genre systems, and are realised by semiotic systems of language and other modalities. In Hjelmslev’s model the latter are denotative semiotics, as their expression planes are not separate semiotics (e.g. phonology in language). In contrast, connotative semiotics (e.g. genre and register) have other semiotics as their expression plane (e.g. language, image etc).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, what Hjelmslev (1969 [1943]: 114) actually says is:

In the last section, despite a considerable broadening of the perspective, we have still acted as if the unique object of linguistic theory were the denotative semiotic, by which we mean a semiotic none of whose planes is a semiotic. It still remains, through a final broadening of our horizon, to indicate that there are also semiotics whose expression plane is a semiotic — and semiotics whose content plane is a semiotic. The former we shall call connotative semiotics, the latter metasemiotics.

[2] This is misleading, because it is not true. As the quote above makes plain, it is not just context that constitutes a connotative semiotic, but both context (content plane) and language (expression plane).

[3] To be clear, this is Martin's model of context, which mistakes varieties of a denotative semiotic (register and genre) for connotative semiotics (misunderstood as context only).

[4] This misunderstands Hjelmslev's notion of a denotative semiotic. As the quote above makes plain, a denotative semiotic is a semiotic where neither the content nor expression plane is itself a semiotic (i.e. stratified into content and expression).

[5] To be clear, this confuses variety with stratification. Genre and register are varieties of language, and as such, are at the same level of symbolic abstraction as language, not a higher level that is realised by language. Because both genre and register are at the same symbolic level as language, neither conforms to Hjelmslev's notion of the content plane of a connotative semiotic.

∞

Summary of Rose's misunderstandings of Hjelmslev:

David Rose On Voice And Notional Reasoning

David Rose replied to David Banks on SYSFLING on 6 Mar 2022, 22:20:

… ‘reversible’ means operative/receptive:

[identifying] ‘a happy mother is made by a happy baby’

[attributive] ‘a mother is happy’/*’happy is a mother’ (except poetically)

‘Notional reasoning’ here means deriving grammatical categories from lexical notions. …

and to Tom Bartlett on SYSFLING on 6 Mar 2022, at 22:43:

… Features like [identifying] and [attributive] are defined in relation to each other (eg by your examples), not by dictionary-like glosses. Notional reasoning imagines such glosses.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the agnation here is in terms of thematicity, not voice. What Rose presents as the poetic 'receptive voice' agnate is actually a 'marked thematicity' agnate:

Even in assigned attributive clauses, which do admit a voice contrast, Attribute can never conflate with Subject:

[2] This misunderstands the meaning of 'notional reasoning'. In grammatical analysis, 'notional reasoning' means arguing for a analysis solely on the basis of the meanings being construed, without grounding the analysis in the lexicogrammatical systems of the wording, as exemplified by the previous two posts by David Banks. As Halliday (1985: xx) explains:

If we simply took account of differences in meaning, then any set of clauses or phrases could be analysed in all kinds of different ways; there would be no way of preferring one scheme over another. The fact that it is a 'functional' grammar means that it is based on meaning; but the fact that it is a 'grammar' means that it is an interpretation of linguistic forms. Every distinction that is recognised in the grammar — every set of options, or 'system' in systemic terms — makes some contribution to the form of the wording.

David Banks On Process Type Criteria

David Banks replied to David Rose on SYSFLING on 6 Mar 2022, at 20:40:

With all due respect:

A happy baby makes a happy mother.

You say this must be identifying, so the baby and the mother refer to the same entity - that can't be right.

It's simple present — I see no reason why a simple present cannot be material: physical actions are material whether they are habitual or not.

"'I walk on the beach every day".

And you say it's reversible: this is perhaps true in the pragmatic sense that if the mother is happy the baby probably will be too, but that's not what the clause says, and "A happy mother makes a happy baby" is not the same thing as "A happy baby makes a happy mother". What about 

"A sunny day makes a happy tourist"?

What have I missed?

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is not true. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 276):

In the ‘identifying’ mode, some thing has an identity assigned to it. What this means is that one entity is being used to identify another: ‘x is identified by a’, or ‘a serves to define the identity of x’. Structurally we label the x-element, that which is to be identified, as the Identified, and the a-element, that which serves as identity, as the Identifier.

Cf. the identifying clauses:

• Peter owns the house and 
• asbestos dust causes mesothelioma

[2] This misses the point. It is not a question of whether or not the simple present tense can be used in material clauses, but whether or not it is the marked or unmarked option. Because the simple present tense is the marked option for material clauses, but the unmarked option for relational clauses, it is one diagnostic tool for distinguishing these two process types.

[3] To be clear, the 'reversibility' is one of voice:

• A happy baby makes ('produces') a happy mother [operative]
• A happy mother is made ('produced') by a happy baby [receptive]

and it distinguishes (reversible) identifying relational clauses from (non-reversible) attributive relational clauses. 

[4] See above.

Shooshi Dreyfus On Circumstantial Meaning

Shooshi Dreyfus wrote to SYSFLING on 6 Mar 2022, 16:00:

Right, so here’s where I’d like to push us to think beyond clause constituents and up to circumstantial meaning, which can be realised a cross a range of grammatical structures. For example:

On the table (circumstance location place) there is a book

The book on the table (Qualifier) is mine

The book is on the table (Participant in relational clause – not going to argue about which)

How does one explain how this meaning can move around like this? By thinking of it as more than a clausal constituent. 

H&M and JRM point to this in different places but Jing Hao I have a paper on this if anyone is interested. 

It makes SO much more sense to think like this (sorry if that’s notional Jim) and helps students NOT make the errors of analysing beta enhancing clauses (eg when the book was on the table, I spilt my tea on it) and Qualifiers etc as Circumstances.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Halliday does far more than merely "point" to this — it is his model. Circumstantiation constitutes one domain of manifestation of the transphenomenal fractal types of expansion and projection — transphenomenal because they operate across various categories of phenomena, and fractal because they are organising principles across different scales; see, for example, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 268).

That is, the meanings that are realised as circumstances are also realised across a range of other grammatical domains, as outlined by Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 670-3), who exemplify this for 'cause' as follows:

[2] To be clear, this type of variation can be explained by the fact that a prepositional phrase that realises the meaning 'spatial location' can serve as a circumstance or circumstantial participant of a clause, or be rankshifted to serve as the Qualifier of a nominal group.

[3] To be clear, these types of student errors reflect an inability to analyse formal constituency, since:

• mistaking a β clause for a circumstance is mistaking a clause for a prepositional phrase, and
• mistaking a Qualifier for a circumstance is mistaking a rankshifted prepositional phrase for a ranking one.

David Rose On Ideational Metaphor

David Rose wrote to Johanna Salomonsson on SYSFLING on 6 Mar 2022, at 09:52:

My apologies, I missed this example, "A happy baby makes a happy mother" 

This can only be identifying, as it is simple present (so not material) and reversible (so not attributive). 

It seems odd because of the ‘cause-in-the-clause’ logical metaphor (‘if a baby is happy, then a mother is happy’). The identifying grammatical meaning is in tension with a consequential discourse semantic meaning. 

A fuller account would ask the function of the metaphor in the discourse sequence. The consequential meaning is a link in a chain of reasoning. The identifying meaning is non-negotiable. It reads like a wise old proverb. 

The sequence as a whole realises the ‘grounds’ for a proposal at register level...

Grounds...

Your child will thrive on Glaxo

when all else fails

because it is a natural substitute for breast milk

(now we all know) A happy baby makes a happy mother

(so) Your happy Glaxo baby will make you a happy mother

Conclusion...

(You should buy Glaxo)

(Another point for your readers – realisation between strata)

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. To be clear, Rose didn't "miss" the example, he misanalysed it as an assigned attributive clause, as his own words make plain:

your second examples are caused attributive relations, in which Attributor is additional Agent from ergative perspective

[2] This misunderstands the grammatical metaphor. This instance is not a contrast between 'identifying grammatical meaning' and 'consequential semantic meaning', not least because both the identifying relation and the cause-conditional relation feature on both strata. 

Grammatically the cause-conditional relation is construed metaphorically as a Process of an identifying clause, instead of congruently as a relator of clauses in a clause complex.

Semantically, the clause both congruently realises an identifying figure of being and incongruently realises a sequence of figures in a cause-conditional relation. See Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 243, 244, 272, 278, 283) on ideational metaphor as a 'junctional' construct.

[3] To be clear, Rose has here invented an imaginary text. The original query (here) presented three separate instances, with no suggestion that they formed a continuous text:

Your child will thrive on Glaxo when all else fails because it is a natural substitute for breast milk

A happy baby makes a happy mother

Your happy Glaxo baby will make you a happy mother

[4] This is misleading, because it is not true. The presence of a Mood element in this declarative clause opens it up for negotiation:

A happy baby makes a happy mother

— Yes, it does.

— No, it doesn't.

[5] To be clear, as explained elsewhere, Rose follows Martin in misunderstanding register as a stratum of context rather than a sub-potential of language. In Martin's model, functional varieties of language are not considered language, which is analogous to functional varieties of dog — cattle dog, sheep dog — not being regarded as dogs.

David Rose On The Realisation Of Process Type

David Rose replied to Johanna Salomonsson on Sysfling on 4 Mar 2022, at 09:58:

Two points about SFL that could help your readers…  

1. It differs from traditional grammars that gloss each word and morpheme. In SFL, process type is a clause rank system realised by relations between lower rank units, such as verbs. The whole clause is material or relational. (This is sometimes confused by labelling verbal groups as process types.)

2. Analyses are multiperspectival. In Halliday’s model, process type is a transitive perspective on a clause, and the ergative perspective is complementary.

As you show, your second examples are caused attributive relations, in which Attributor is additional Agent from ergative perspective. The complementary perspectives help to show why clauses such as Tom’s ‘We painted the wall red’ look similar in agency, but differ in process type.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is nonsense. Systemically, PROCESS TYPE is a system of the clause, and a clause consists of groups, including the verbal group, each of which is the entry condition to its systems. Structurally, the Process of a clause is realised by a verbal group.

"Relations between verbs", on the other hand, refers to relations between lexical items, each item being specified by the most delicate lexicogrammatical features. Rose's misunderstanding, therefore, is that a grammatical system is realised by a lexical set.

[2] To be clear, what Rose refers to here is the widespread practice of classifying verbal groups in terms of  PROCESS TYPE, instead of considering the function of each group in a clause. 

But, on the other hand, 'Process' is the function label of a verbal group in a clause.

[3] To be clear, the "second examples" in the discussion were:

A happy baby makes a happy mother

Your happy Glaxo baby will make you a happy mother

but only the second of these is an attributive clause with an Attributor. The first is an identifying clause, with no agency:

That is, the clause identifies a happy baby with a happy mother; it does not construe a happy baby as a member of the class a happy mother, as would an attributive clause.

This is a fact that escaped all interlocutors in this Sysfling discussion, including Jim Martin.

Postscript:

Ten hours after this post was published, David Rose correctly reanalysed the clause in question as identifying. See the next post.

David Banks On Process Types

After Wendy Bowcher wrote to SYSFLING on Thu, 3 Mar, 21:08:

I wonder if anyone can help out with the following:

(1) identifying what type of process 'thrive' is in the following clause. It seems to me to be Relational, but it's also kind of Material with a dash of Behavioural. :)I've given the clause within its cotext. And the clause comes from an historical advertisement.

"Your child will thrive on Glaxo when all else fails because it is a natural substitute for breast milk"

(2) And I just want to check the process type of 'make' in the following clauses - I have analysed these as Relational (attributive, intensive) ('cause to be something'), but I'm not 100% sure:

"A happy baby makes a happy mother"

"Your happy Glaxo baby will make you a happy mother"

David Banks replied to SYSFLING on Thu, 3 Mar, 21:16:

I would have no hesitation in analysing your first example (thrive) as material: it's about growing and increasing in good health, so about physical change. 

And I would have analysed your second example (make) as material too: it's causal, concerned with making the mother better, so again to do with physical change.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] Transitivity analyses of these clauses are provided here.

[2] To be clear, 'physical change' is not an exclusive feature of material processes, as demonstrated by the attributive clause the baby turned into a pig. Halliday (1994: 120):

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 159-165) provide a helpful discussion on material doing and relational being as complementary perspectives on change; (op. cit.: 161):