David Rose Misconstruing Nominal Groups As Adverbial Groups

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 6 Feb 2024, at 22:52:

some 4,600 years ago : Time ::

about 4,600 miles away : Place

(adverbial gps)

But what’s the group structure? Maybe...

some	4,600	years	ago
b			a
Num		Thing
b	a

and then again on 7 Feb 2024, 08:25:

Is it the nom gp serving as Premodifier that makes them look like nom gps?

Here with just adverbs...

Long ago and so far away....

long	ago	and	so	far	away
Time			Place
adv gp			adv gp
b	a		b		a
adv	adv		adv	adv	adv

 

Here with nom gp as Premodifier

some	4,600	years	ago
Time
adv gp
b			a
nom gp
Num		Thing
b	a

and then again on 7 Feb 2024, at 13:59:

Interestingly IFG contains many instances with adverb ago/away as Head and nom gp as Premodifier but doesn't attempt to analyse them, even tho they are so common. Of the three types of adv gp Premodifiers listed, they realise [intensification] metaphorically (perhaps one of Whorf’s SAE cryptotypes). E.g.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, these are nominal groups and cannot be adverbial groups. As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 419-22) explain:

The adverbial group has an adverb as Head, which may or may not be accompanied by modifying elements. … Premodifiers are grammatical items like not and rather and so; there is no lexical premodification in the adverbial group. … The items serving as Premodifiers are adverbs belonging to one of three types – polarity (not), comparison (more, less; as, so) and intensification. … Postmodification is of one type only, namely comparison.

[2] To be clear, applying SFL Theory, the structure of these nominal groups is: 

[3] This is misleading because it is untrue. Applying SFL Theory, these examples are simply nominal groups: