Not sure about necessity of ranks, since lowest lg ranks have only next stratum to operate in. Morphemes and phonemes aren’t configurations, are they? Protolg is not ranked, which may relate to Jim’s qu about materiality. Which reminds me of his 2010 intro in Making Meaning Matter, which contrasted two interpretations of axis and strata in protolg...First is Xian following MAKH... “The content-expression organisation of protolanguage is thus simultaneously stratal and axial… The dimensions of stratification and axis are not independently variable at this stage: the content stratum is organised paradigmatically, while the expression stratum is an inventory of indivisible postural or gestural syntagms.” [Matthiessen 2007: 516]Second is JRM... “As systemicists interested in genesis, should we be proposing a major component of our cartography (i.e. a rank, a metafunction or a stratum) in the absence of a distinctive system of valeur?” [Martin 2010]Here’s MAKH [2004/2012] on Nigel @ 15 months reinterpreted by me as axis and strata...
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[1] Clearly, if this were true, it would be an argument against the necessity of rank in language (morpheme, phoneme). To be clear, rank is one way to model formal constituency, so the lowest rank, by definition, has no constituents. But a syntagm of lowest rank units realises the structural configuration of the higher rank: a syntagm of morphemes realises word structure; a syntagm of phonemes realises syllable structure. Moreover, as a rank unit of lexicogrammar, a morpheme does not "operate in" phonology, since lexicogrammar and phonology are different levels of symbolic abstraction.
[2] To be clear, the reason why rank does not apply to protolanguage is semiotic, not material. Protolanguage has no formal constituency, and so it has nothing to model as a rank scale.
[3] To be clear, Martin's model of protolanguage posits structure where there is none. A structure is the relationships between functional elements, but there is no configuration of functions in protolanguage. Each realisation is an individual and indivisible sound or gesture.
[4] Strictly speaking, these are not syntagms, since a syntagm is a sequence of classes, and the expression stratum of protolanguage involves no sequencing.
[5] To be clear, Martin has himself violated his own principle by proposing "a major component of our cartography", structure, "in the absence of a distinctive system of valeur" that specifies structural configurations.
[6] To be clear, Rose's reinterpretation of Halliday (2004/2012)
- proposes structure where Halliday says there is none,
- misrepresents expression (an:a, dada) as content, and
- mistakes the resonance feature 'nasal' for a type of (oral) closure.
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