Bob Hodge On Understanding What Grammar Is

Bob Hodge wrote to sys-func on 8 Jul 2024, at 17:50:

Thanks for this great intervention, which raises so many important issues about the architectures of SFL, as proposed by Halliday and can be hypothesised now.

Two points:

1. I don't think Halliday had entirely settled views on grammar in his social phase. 'Grammaticality' seems to have a multimodal scope, yet 'grammar' often is restricted to verbal language. I'm not sure how much that difference should be insisted on.
2. Whatever it is, it seems to be something that comes in late in the evolutionary process. A kind of emergent structure. If it is something which comes in earlier, then it should be different in some key respects from what we understand as grammar drawing on adult language.

Whatever we come to think of it, I suggest that all linguists, SFL included, should be less sure that we understand what grammar is

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Halliday was quite definite on grammar, in the SFL sense, being restricted to language, a decade after his retirement (Halliday 1996; Halliday & Matthiessen 1999). Moreover, it is the only interpretation that is consistent with his theory, given his definition of grammar.

[2] Cf. Halliday (2002[1996]: 388):

We could locate grammatico-semantic systems within the framework of an evolutionary typology of systems, as in Figure 1. In this frame, semiotic systems appear as systems of a fourth order of complexity, in that they are at once physical and biological and social and semiotic. Within semiotic systems, those with a grammar in them are more complex than those without.

[3] To be clear, SFL Theory is formulated in the tradition of the 'immanent' orientation to meaning. This means that its epistemological stance is that meaning does not transcend semiotic systems — a position that is supported by the experimental findings of Quantum Physics. This means that the meaning of 'grammar' — "what grammar is" — does not transcend semiotic systems. This means that "what grammar is" is a construal of a semiotic system, such as a linguistic theory. This means that each linguistic theory determines for itself "what grammar is". This, in turn, depends on the assumptions on which the theory is based. The validity of a theory and its assumptions are a separate matter.

It is the theory which decides what we can observe.

— Albert Einstein