David Rose Misconstruing 'Mere' As An Adverb Of Manner Serving As Attitudinal Epithet

After Beatriz Quiroz Olivares wrote to SYSFLING on 7 Sept 2024, 08:25:

What would be for you the function of 'mere' in the structure of a nominal group? …

But the fact that I’d sort of gone from that status position down to a mere housemaid, you know? … 

Linguists who specialise in corpus studies tend to refer to themselves, rather disingenuously, as ‘mere data-gatherers’.

Could it be an Epithet?

David Rose replied at 09:09:

I guess I’d ask what it’s doing in the nominal group (with clues from its word class and position). Isn’t it evaluating the Thing? So an attitudinal Epithet? ...realised by an adverb of manner:degree, preceding the Thing. Then how about ‘a mere three years later’ or ‘the mere mention of his name’

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, some adjectives can serve as either Epithet or post-Deictic (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 373-4), and so can evaluate as either Epithet or post-Deictic. Here Rose is ignoring the fact that CLÉiRIGh had already (heteroglossically) identified the function of mere in these instances as post-Deictic realising counter-expectancy: limiting. That is, the meaning of a mood Adjunct of intensity is here realised in a different grammatical domain: as the post-Deictic of a nominal group. The mood Adjunct agnates of the two instances are:

But the fact that I’d sort of gone from that status position down to merely a housemaid, you know? … 

Linguists who specialise in corpus studies tend to refer to themselves, rather disingenuously, merely as ‘data-gatherers’.

[2] Clearly, 'mere' is an adjective, not an adverb, and Olivares subsequently informed Rose of the fact. 

Lise Fontaine On The Distinction Between Complement And Adjunct

Lise Fontaine wrote to Sysfling on 16 August 2023 at 10:59:

Ed is making a very important point here and one that is often overlooked. I think linguistics generally has seen a lot of damage from imposed boundaries around ideas. Even a distinction between Complement and Adjunct is not always clear, especially as concerns spatial reference. There is great benefit in being open-minded about accounts and not being afraid to be wrong sometimes.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. The distinction between Complement and Adjunct is clear on theoretical criteria. Difficulty only arises when the theory is not understood.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 153, 154, 155):

A Complement is an element within the Residue that has the potential of being Subject but is not; … Any nominal group not functioning as Subject will be a Complement (with the exception of certain circumstantial Adjuncts of Extent realised by nominal groups without the preposition for, e.g. 180 miles in he sailed 180 miles north on the Company’s armed schooner); and this includes nominal groups of one type which could not function as Subject as they stand, namely those with adjective as Head …

An Adjunct is an element that has not got the potential of being Subject; … (As noted above, certain circumstantial Adjuncts of Extent may be realised by nominal groups without the preposition for; contrast he had walked for miles with he had walked four miles.)

Fontaine's difficulty arises from taking the Formalist view 'from below' (forms: nominal group vs prepositional phrase) instead of the Functionalist view 'from above' (functions: Complement vs Adjunct). That is, the view 'from below' decodes forms by reference to functions, whereas the view 'from above' encodes functions by reference to forms. In other words, the view 'from below' begins with expressions and asks what they mean, whereas the view 'from above' begins with meanings and asks how they are expressed.

[2] To be clear, here Fontaine again engages in her promotion of the culture of anti-intellectualism (see here), reframing it as open-mindedness. Being afraid of being wrong is vitally important for producing high quality work, whether in academic publications or school exams. Ethically, not being afraid of being wrong is a licence to tell lies.

David Rose On Imperative Mood And Obligation

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 12 Aug 2019 at 08:50:

Subjunctive mood is not recognised in SFL… 

Semantically, imperative mood realises obligation, obligating the Subject to act. In modern English this is normally the addressee, so that imperative mood congruently realises a command to the addressee. 

These clauses are relics of archaic systems with a non-addressee Subject, that obligate the Lord/God to act. Stepping up to the stratum of register, it was/is the role of priests to speak to God on behalf of the people, and to the people on behalf of God. Here the priest exhorts God to bless, forgive or be with the addressee, who is realised grammatically as Complement or Adjunct, whereas God is Subject. Paradoxically, the priest is exhorting God while addressing the people. Maybe that’s why such blessings sound archaic… they don’t make sense ;-)

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'subjunctive mood' is recognised in SFL theory, but in its description of English, it is a system of the verbal group, not the clause, and termed 'subjunctive mode' to distinguish it from the clause rank systems of MOOD.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 143n):

Note that the system of MOOD is a system of the clause, not of the verbal group or of the verb. Many languages also have an interpersonal system of the verb(al group) that has been referred to as ‘mood’: it involves interpersonal contrasts such as indicative/subjunctive, indicative/subjunctive/optative. To distinguish these verbal contrasts from the clausal system of MOOD, we can refer to them as contrasts in mode. The subjunctive mode tends to be restricted to the environment of bound clauses – in particular, reported clauses and conditional clauses having the sense of irrealis. In Modern English, the subjunctive mode of the verb is marginal, although there is some dialectal variation.

[2] To be clear, here Rose confuses SPEECH FUNCTION (proposal: command) with MODALITY (modulation: obligation).  In SFL, a command is specified as a demand for goods-&-services, whereas obligation is concerned with the semantic space between positive and negative POLARITY in proposals. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 177-8):

In a proposal, the meaning of the positive and negative poles is prescribing and proscribing: positive ‘do it’, negative ‘don’t do it’. Here also there are two kinds of intermediate possibility, in this case depending on the speech function, whether command or offer. (i) In a command, the intermediate points represent degrees of obligation: ‘allowed to/supposed to/required to’;

[3] For clarification, the clauses in question are:

The Lord be with you
God bless you
God forgive you your sins

[4] In SFL theory, tenor is a dimension of context, not register.  Register, on the other hand, is a sub-potential of language: a point of variation on the cline of instantiation.

In terms of the architecture of SFL theory, Martin's notion of register as a stratum of context is inconsistent with the notion of register, the notion of stratum, and the notion of context.  As functional varieties of language, registers are language, not context; as functional varieties, registers are sub-potentials, not a stratal system.  For evidence of Martin's misunderstandings of register, see here; for evidence of Martin's misunderstandings of context, see here.

[5] Trivially, the addressee you serves only as Complement in these clauses, specifically of the Predicators bless and forgive and of the minor Predicator with.

[6] For a deployment of SFL theory that demonstrates how and why such well-wishings do make sense, see the analysis here.

Robin Fawcett On Complement Vs Adjunct

Robin Fawcett wrote to the sysfling list at 11:11 on 16/11/15:

• It’s been read by everyone  

• Ivy handed the vase to Peter.

My position (like that of a good many other SFL scholars) was (and is) that the referents of the nominal groups within these are Participant Roles rather than Circumstantial Roles (since they are explicitly ‘predicted’ by the Process), and that the underlined portions should therefore, in a functional analysis, be treated as Complements rather than Adjuncts. 

… for me the formal evidence of the presence of a preposition was weaker than the functional evidence that if Peter in Peter was handed the vase by Ivy is a PR, Peter in Ivy handed the vase to Peter is a PR too, this being evidence for treating to Peter as a Complement.) 

My point is not to try to persuade you that I was right…

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, where meaning is immanent rather than transcendent, participants such as Senser and Actor are not referents of nominal groups, but functions of nominal groups at clause rank.

[2] In SFL theory, nominal groups within prepositional phrases are designated as indirect participants (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004: 261).  No-one who understands SFL theory would argue that these nominal groups serve as circumstances.

[3] The underlined portions are not nominal groups; they are prepositional phrases.  (Fawcett's argument about the function of nominal groups is here used to justify a claim about the function of prepositional phrases.)  The nominal groups within the prepositional phrases do function as Complements, but at group/phrase rank, not clause rank.  Each serves as Complement of its minor Predicator.

by	everyone
minor Predicator	Complement

to	Peter
minor Predicator	Complement

Fawcett assumes, without providing any supporting argument, that an experiential participant should be treated as interpersonal Complement and that an experiential circumstance should be treated as interpersonal Adjunct.  However, the criteria for determining interpersonal Complement and Adjunct are not experiential but interpersonal.  Halliday and Matthiessen (2004: 122-3):

A Complement is an element within the Residue that has the potential of being Subject but is not; in other words, it is an element that has the potential for being given the interpersonally elevated status of modal responsibility — something that can be the nub of the argument. …

An Adjunct is an element that has not got the potential of being Subject; that is, it cannot be elevated to the interpersonal status of modal responsibility.

In Fawcett's examples, neither by everyone nor to Peter has the potential of being Subject, and so both are Adjuncts, not Complements.  What does have the potential of being Subject is the Complement within each of these prepositional phrases: everyone and Peter.

The motivation for realising Agent, Beneficiary or Range as a prepositional phrase is textual.  Halliday and Matthiessen (2004: 295-6):

… the choice of ‘plus or minus preposition’ with Agent, Beneficiary and Range … serves a textual function. … The principle is as follows. If a participant other than the Medium is in a place of prominence in the message, it tends to take a preposition (i.e. to be construed as ‘indirect’ participant); otherwise it does not. Prominence in the message means functioning either (i) as marked Theme (i.e. Theme but not Subject) or (ii) as ‘late news’ — that is, occurring after some other participant, or circumstance, that already follows the Process. In other words, prominence comes from occurring either earlier or later than expected in the clause; and it is this that is being reinforced by the presence of the preposition. The preposition has become a signal of special status in the message.

See clause transitivity and mood analyses here.

See also previous argumentation here.

See further on indirect participants here.

[4] Fawcett posted this on the sysfling list after the person he was arguing with had died and could no longer put his case.  As this post demonstrates, it was the man who can no longer defend himself that better understood SFL theory and the reasoning behind its categories.

How To Distinguish Complement And Adjunct

(1) WHAT DOES THE TEXTBOOK SAY?

Complement

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 122-3):

A Complement is an element within the Residue that has the potential of being Subject but is not; in other words, it is an element that has the potential for being given the interpersonally elevated status of modal responsibility — something that can be the nub of the argument.

Adjunct

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 123):

An Adjunct is an element that has not got the potential of being Subject; that is, it cannot be elevated to the interpersonal status of modal responsibility.

(2) EXAMPLES

(a) Consider the following clause:

Maureen gave David the book.

Q1. Can ‘David’ be raised to Subject?

A. Yes, as follows: David was given the book by Maureen.

Conclusion: ‘David’ is Complement.

Q2. Can ‘the book’ be raised to Subject?

A. Yes, as follows: The book was given to David by Maureen.

Conclusion: ‘the book’ is Complement.

(b) Consider the following clause:

Maureen gave the book to David.

Q1. Can ‘to David’ be raised to Subject?

A. No. *To David was given the book by Maureen.

Conclusion: ‘to David’ is Adjunct.

(c) Consider the following clause:

The book was given to David by Maureen.

Q1. Can ‘to David’ be raised to Subject?

A. No. *To David was given the book by Maureen.

Conclusion: ‘to David’ is Adjunct.

Q2. Can ‘by Maureen’ be raised to Subject?

A. No. *By Maureen gave the book to David.

Conclusion: ‘by Maureen’ is Adjunct.