Ed McDonald On Musical Meanings As Concrete And General

Edward McDonald wrote to: sys-func on 20 Nov 2023, at 09:59:

… This reflects my understanding of the nature of musical meaning as concrete but general. Musical meanings are concrete, again in my opinion but informed by a wide range of research across a number of disciplines, because they express our human embodiment: music represents a kind of semiotic transformation of our experience of our own and other people’s bodies moving through space and time. 

At the same time, musical meanings are general, because, to borrow the insight of one philosopher of music, music is like body language: when we observe someone’s body language, including their gait, posture, facial expression, and gaze, we can “read off” its meaning, but only in general terms. We can tell that someone is sad, but not why; we can pick up that someone is highly agitated, but we don’t know the circumstances that gave rise to that agitation – unless we use language to ask them about it. 

So language, in contrast to music, is more abstract, more detached from our embodied experience, but at the same time because it supplies us with a system of categories we can apply to that experience, linguistic meanings are more specific. 

So from this point of view, we can see that soundtrack / expression music – “songs with words” – and score / mood music – “songs without words” – take on, as you might expect, the general semiotic characteristics of the systems of language and music with which they are mostly closely identified in each case.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this reason for musical meanings being 'concrete' is based on a misunderstanding, since it has the (Token–Value) relation backwards. It is the movement of bodies — in playing instruments — that expresses music, not the other way around. That is, McDonald claims that musical meanings are concrete because he misconstrues them as the more concrete Token instead of the more abstract Value.

[2] To be clear, this is another instance of the logical fallacy known as Appeal to accomplishment – an assertion is deemed true or false based on the accomplishments of the proposer.

[3] To be clear, one way to understand the difference between music and body language is through the theory of experience that has naturally evolved in English. Music is the Scope of the material Process of playing, whereas body language is a behavioural Process that 'manifests states of consciousness' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 302).

[4] To be clear, this reason for musical meanings being 'general' is based on a misunderstanding, since it confuses elaboration (generality) with enhancement (cause: reason).

[5] To be clear, this is another instance of the logical fallacy known as ipse dixit, a bare assertion, since no supporting argument has been made, and the claim that the meanings of music are concrete is based on a misunderstanding; see [1].

[6] To be clear, this point has not been demonstrated; see [1] to [5] above.

David Rose Misunderstanding Axis And Realisation (Inter Alia)

David Rose replied to Brad Smith on Sysfling on 23 August 2023 at 15:47 and 16:26:

I used realisation below as the interstratal relation. Axis is the feature/structure relation in systems (which is also confusingly called realisation). Both are abstraction (token/value) relations. Axis is a one-to-one relation between a feature (value) and a structure (token). It also implies the generalisation of a system, because it is a contrast between structures that realises a contrast between features (not individual structures).

It is that coupling of generalisation with abstraction that lies at the heart of semiosis, and hence of SFS theory.

Interstratal relations are not one-to-one. Hence tone choices can be coupled with various mood choices to realise variations in appraisal, //4 don’t you know//. …

Oh sorry Brad, how rude of me.

I meant to say, //5 don't you/know//

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here again Rose misunderstands axis. Axis is a local dimension with two orders: paradigmatic and syntagmatic, whereas system is the dimension of the paradigmatic order of axis. Systems include realisation statements attached to features which specify structural realisations, but that is not 'axis'.

[2] To be clear, realisation is the relation between different levels of symbolic abstraction, and so it applies wherever that relation obtains: between system and structure, between strata, between function and form. It does not obtain between a feature and a structure, since a feature is not realised by a structure. Instead, a system (of a clause) is realised by a structure (of a clause). Importantly, a structure is not a functional element, but the relationships between such elements. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 451): 

Note that, although it is the functions that are labelled, the structure actually consists of the relationships among them.

[3] To be clear this argument rests on an invalid premiss:

Premiss: Axis is a contrast between structures that realises a contrast between features

Conclusion: Axis implies a generalisation of a system

The premiss is invalid because this is not what axis is (see [1]). Moreover, a contrast in features is not realised by a contrast in structure. For example, the contrast between the POLARITY features positive and negative is not realised by a contrast in structure, since both are realised by the element Finite in the same structural configuration, e.g. Subject^Finite^Predicator.

[4] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 618) write:

The developmental dynamic of "generalisation — abstractness — metaphor" provides the semiotic energy for the grammar, enabling it to serve as the powerhouse for construing experience in the form of scientific knowledge.

But this bears no relation to Rose's use of the terms generalisation and abstraction. For example (op. cit.: 615):

This principle of generalisation — that is, naming general classes rather than specific individuals — is what makes it possible to construct an ideation base. …

General terms are not necessarily abstract; a bird is no more abstract than a pigeon. But some words have referents that are purely abstract — words like cost and clue and habit and tend and strange; they are construing some aspect of our experience, but there is no concrete thing or process with which they can be identified.

[5] This is misleading. To be clear, in the absence of grammatical metaphor, semantics and lexicogrammar are in agreement (congruent):

• a statement (semantics) is realised by a declarative clause (lexicogrammar);
• a question (semantics) is realised by an interrogative clause (lexicogrammar);
• a command (semantics) is realised by an imperative clause (lexicogrammar);
• an elaborating sequence (semantics) is realised by an elaborating clause complex (lexicogrammar);
• a relational figure (semantics) is realised by a relational clause (lexicogrammar);
• an element (semantics) is realised by a group or phrase (lexicogrammar).

[6] This is potentially misleading. The phonological system of TONE realises the grammatical system of KEY.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 168):

The tones are not, however, simply additional markers attached to the realisation of mood. They realise distinct grammatical systems of their own, which are associated with the mood categories. The general name for systems that are realised by tone is KEY. The term KEY covers a number of systems …

(1) declarative clauses

unmarked statement: tone 1

reserved statement: tone 4

insistent statement: tone 5

tentative statement: tone 3

protesting statement: tone 2

(2) WH- interrogative clauses

unmarked WH- question: tone 1

tentative question: tone 2

echo question: tone 2 with tonic on WH- element

(3) yes/no interrogative clauses

unmarked yes/no question: tone 2

peremptory question: tone 1

(4) imperative clauses

command: tone 1 (unmarked in positive)

invitation: tone 3 (unmarked in negative)

request (marked polarity): tone 13, with tonic on do/don’t

plea: tone 4

[7] Note that tones 4 and 5 are not used with yes/no interrogative clauses. Since Rose's question is peremptory, it would be realised by tone 1 if spoken. 

David Rose Continuing To Misrepresent The Semantic System Of Modality

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 27/7/22 at 8:07:

Rather than a ‘semantic system of modality’, Martin & Matthiessen 1991 explain such motifs as topologies, or ‘fractal principles’ that recur across ranks and strata. They are generalisations of types of meanings that complement the typological generalisations of systems. Crucially they are not more abstract than the systems they generalise across. So does postulating a ‘semantic system of modality’ above the grammatical systems of modality, confuse abstraction with generalisation?

In any case these ‘semantic systems’ were not proposed in IFG1/2 but have been added to IFG3/4.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Martin & Matthiessen (1991) are concerned with the semantic system of modality and the diverse ways it is realised in lexicogrammar. Martin & Matthiessen (1991: 376):

With MODALISATION, POLARITY in propositions is used to bound the semantic space under consideration, with degree of usuality and probabilily defining parameters between 'it is' (yes) and 'it isn't' (no). Similarly, obligation and inclination are used as parameters grading the semantic space in proposals between 'do' and 'don't'.

[2] This is misleading. Martin & Matthiessen (1991) don't explain 'such motifs' as topologies. The paper contrasts two perspectives in modelling: the typological and topological.

[3] This is misleading. The one instance of the word 'fractal' (p376) refers only to the system of EXPANSION.

[4] This is misleading, because it is untrue. With regard to expansion, Martin & Matthiessen (1991: 375) write:

All we can do at present is posit a generalised system that we 'abstract' from the specific grammatical environments in which it is manifested.

To be clear, logically, for there to be congruent and metaphorical grammatical realisations of MODALITY, MODALITY must be a more abstract system at the level of semantics that is realised in lexicogrammar, since congruent vs metaphorical relations obtain between strata.

[5] No. The confusion here is entirely Rose's. See [4].

[6] This is still misleading, because it is still untrue. Halliday (1994: 356):

The reason this area of the semantic system is so highly elaborated metaphorically is to be found in the nature of modality itself … Modality refers to the area of meaning that lies between yes and no – the intermediate ground between positive and negative polarity.

David Rose On How Halliday's Marxism Influenced The Various Dimensions Of His Model

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 2 June 2022 at 7:01:

It would be intriguing to know just how MAKH’s Marxism influenced the various dimensions of his model, as politics prevented him from making it explicit.

For example, he often describes grammar in terms like the ‘engine’ or ‘powerhouse’ in which ‘meanings are made’. The image is of industrial production, of labour and machines. The meanings produced are then ‘exchanged’, as Kieran discusses here.

The Marxian image of an economic base of production and exchange becomes more sharply outlined in the grammar/semantics relation. H&M’s 1999 Construing Experience is a description of the ideational meanings made by the grammar. It construes semantics as an ideational superstructure emerging from the production processes of the grammar.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in the first two editions of IFG (1985, 1994), Halliday characterised the grammar in terms of computer technology: as the central processing unit of language. Halliday (1985: xxxiv-v):

In the two editions of IFG edited by Matthiessen (2004, 2014), the word 'powerhouse' was added as an elaboration of the computer technology metaphor. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 22):

Grammar is the central processing unit of language, the powerhouse where meanings are created;

[2] This misleading, because it is untrue. The image of central processing unit is simply that of computer hardware performing functions; and the image of a powerhouse is a thing or person of great energy, strength or power.

But more importantly, an image 'of industrial production, of labour, of machines' is not Marxism. Such phenomena are data that can be analysed in terms of any socio-economic ideology.

[3] Following from the previous point, the mere exchange of commodities, information or goods-&-services, is not Marxism, as demonstrated by the exchange of Christmas greetings and presents.

[4] This is misleading because it is untrue. The relation between base and superstructure in Marxian theory is one of extension (composition) at the same level of symbolic abstraction. The relation between grammar and semantics, on the other hand, is one of elaboration at different levels of symbolic abstraction. That is, base does not symbolise superstructure, but grammar does symbolise semantics.

Material Vs Semiotic Abstractions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 190ff) provide a taxonomy of simple things based on the participant roles they play in semantic figures — critically those of Senser, Sayer and Actor.

The most general distinction is between conscious and non-conscious.

Within non-conscious, the distinction is between material and semiotic.

Within material, the distinctions are animal, object, substance and abstraction.

Within semiotic, the distinctions are institution, object and abstraction.

Material abstractions — eg depth, colours — typically play the roles of Phenomenon, Carrier and Value. They have no extension in space and are unbounded, and are typically some parameter of a material quality or process.

Semiotic abstractions — eg information, truth — are typically realised by the Range of mental and verbal processes. They are unbounded semiotic substance with no material existence.

There are also intermediate categories in this taxonomy. For example:

Human collectives — eg family — are intermediate between conscious beings and institutions.

Discrete semiotic abstractions — eg thoughts and fears (mental entities) and questions and orders (speech functions) — are intermediate between semiotic objects and non-discrete semiotic abstractions.