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. 

David Rose On Homophoric Reference, Contact And Instantiation

David Rose wrote to SYSFLING on 24 Jun 2024, at 19:35:

Homophoric reference is characteristic of contraction, instantiating close contact, discussed in English Text, eg from p531... 

... 

Leaving homophoric ‘the’ unsaid instantiates even closer contact.

and again at 21:27:

This little quote from Working with Discourse Ch 9 encapsulates it...

Contraction refers to the amount of work it takes to exchange meanings, and the idea that the better you know someone the less explicitness it takes... Technically speaking, the less information a homophoric reference contains, the tighter the community it constructs and the more people it excludes.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the instance under discussion is:

in the scene where the couple realise they are being stalked by the iconic masked killers, they get into the car trying to escape and the guy says:

[1] To be clear, if the speaker had said the car won't start, the reference would be exophoric to the car they are sitting in, not homophoric (self-specifying). But he could also have used other Deictics, such as our or my, which do not serve as reference items.

[2] To be clear, the proposed relation here would be realisation, not instantiation, since this is concerned with the relation between context and language. Instantiation is the relation between potential and instance.

[3] Rose's claim here is that the reason why the Deictic could be omitted in this instance is because of the amount of contact between the interlocutors, husband and wife. This suggests that if the speaker's addressee, sitting beside him in the car, had been a hitchhiker he had just met, and he had said simply car won't start, the addressee would need to have the referent clarified, with something like which car?

David Rose Endorsing Martin's Misunderstandings

David Rose replied to Beatriz Quiroz on Sysfling on 9 Sept 2023 at 18:50:

ET explains...

Blogger Comments:

From Mistaking Numeratives And Epithets For Reference Items at English Text: System And Structure:

Martin (1992: 113): 

For selective Deictics the basic distinction has to do with selection on the basis of order, as realised through ordinative Numeratives and selection on the basis of quality, as realised through superlative Epithets.  Order is realised through ordinal numerals (first, second, third, etc.) or position in time and space (e.g. next, last, final, ultimate, penultimate etc.).  Quality is realised through superlative adjectives, where these are not simply attitudinal; note that in He made the dumbest moves the superlative morphology is not phoric if the dumbest moves simply means 'some very dumb moves worth exclaiming about'.  The opposition between order and quality is illustrated in [3:35]:

[3:35]          Which one will we take?

ORDER            — The next one/the last one/the penultimate one etc.

QUALITY         — The biggest one/the flattest one/the reddest one etc.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This continues the mistaking of nominal group deixis (interpersonal metafunction realised structurally) for reference (textual metafunction realised non-structurally), and the rebranding of the grammatical misunderstanding as discourse semantics.

[2] This continues the mistaking of the construal of experience as participants realised by nominal groups (experiential metafunction) with the cohesive resource of reference (textual metafunction), and the rebranding of the grammatical misunderstanding as discourse semantics.

[3] The claim here is that order is realised by position in time and space.  On the one hand, this presents a definition as an interstratal relation; on the other hand, it reverses the levels of abstraction in the definition such that the Token ('order') is realised by the Value ('position in time and space').

[4] To be clear, in SFL theory, all of these function as ordinative Numerative; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 375).

[5] Note that 'superlative' means expressing the highest or very high degree of a quality, and that, in SFL theory, superlatives do not function as reference items, since they do not present an identity as recoverable.

David Rose Misunderstanding Delicacy And Instantiation

David Rose replied to Beatriz Quiroz on Sysfling on 9 Sept 2023 at 18:50:

The more delicate a system, the more instantial it is, so the more it couples features from multiple systems, eg DEIXIS and IDENTIFICATION

The IFG discussion of DEIXIS is interesting as it shifts back and forth between LG and DS

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading because it is untrue. It is the whole system, along the dimension of delicacy, that is located on the cline of instantiation from potential to subpotential/instance type to instance. Clearly, the more delicate system of attributive and identifying process types, for example, is not more "instantial" than the system that includes material and mental process types. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 219).

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 327):

Instantiation is the relation between the system and the instance. When we shift attention along this scale, we are moving between the potential that is embodied in any stratum and the deployment of that potential in instances on the same stratum (between the climate and the weather, to use the analogy from our illustration below). Again, this move can be made at any degree of delicacy. 

Delicacy is the relation between the most general features and the most specific. When we shift attention from, say, 'recreation' to 'hockey' at the level (stratum) of context, or from 'syllable' to long open nasal syllable' to /pã:/ in phonology, we are moving in delicacy. Again, we can do this at any point along the instantiation scale.

[2] This is misleading because it is untrue. The number of co-selected ("coupled") features from different systems does not increase down the cline of instantiation. What is true is that the co-selection of features differs at points of variation along the cline of instantiation. That is, registers (subpotentials) differ from one another in which features are co-selected; texts (instances) differ from one another in which features are co-selected.

[3] To be clear, DEIXIS is a system of the nominal group, whereas IDENTIFICATION is Martin's misunderstanding of REFERENCE — Halliday & Hasan's system of grammatical cohesion — relocated to his stratum of discourse semantics and rebranded as his own system. Evidence here.

[4] This is misleading because it is untrue. Unsurprisingly, the discussion of DEIXIS in IFG is only concerned with Halliday's lexicogrammar, not Martin's discourse semantics. This deception is merely an attempt to legitimate Martin's model by incorporating it into Halliday's exposition of the grammar.

Beatriz Quiroz On The Nominal Group System Of Deixis

Beatriz Enriqueta Quiroz Olivares replied to David Rose on SYSFLING on 9 Sept 2023 at 11:29:

So you say in IFG4 [selective] and [non-selective] may not be LG choices? And that they are instead be comparable to ET [non-directed] and [directed] respectively? It does make sense, but I wonder... Because Table 6-3 in the same section of IFG4 shows non-specific determiners and that table does include [selective] and [non-selective] for [non-specific: partial] - something that is inconsistent with the system network shown on p. 366.

And on 10 Sept 2023 at 00:12: 

And yes, the kind of DS semantic discussion in IFG on determiners is something that most non-SFL grammarians at this point take into account when looking at determiners, at least in Spanish.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this does not make sense, since features in lexicogrammatical systems, like those of the nominal group are, by definition, are lexicogrammatical, not semantic.

[2] This is misleading, because it is not true. There is no inconsistency, since Table 6-3 merely provides features that specify non-specific DEIXIS and which are not provided for that system in Figure 6-2. The feature 'selective' just means there are more delicate selections to be made, and so can appear anywhere in a network where such a distinction needs to be made.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 366, 368):

[3] To be clear, there is no discourse semantic discussion in IFG on determiners or on anything else, because IFG, as the name suggests, is an introduction to Halliday's functional grammar, not an introduction to Martin's discourse semantics.

David Rose Misconstruing Discourse Semantic Systems As More Delicate Grammatical Systems

David Rose replied to Beatriz Enriqueta Quiroz Olivares on Sysfling on 9/9/23 at 9:32:

Which brings us to IFG Fig.6-2 The nominal group system network: determination

 

Deixis articulates lexicogrammar with discourse semantics, but I’m not sure this network distinguishes LG and DS criteria. The personal/demonstrative and determinative/interrogative systems are clearly LG, but more delicate systems are DS - interactant/non-interactant and selective/non-selective (ET’s directed/undirected).

That may explain its fuzziness of selective/non-selective criteria (system not named)?

How to represent more clearly??

PS In Australian lgs, personal Deictics precede Thing and demonstrative Deictics follow Thing. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this metaphor is theoretical nonsense. DEIXIS is a lexicogrammatical system of the nominal group; lexicogrammar and semantics are different levels of symbolic abstraction.

[2] To be clear, this is theoretical nonsense. A grammatical network does not "distinguish discourse semantic criteria" because it models grammatical potential, not semantic potential.

[3] To be clear, this is theoretical nonsense. The more delicate systems of a grammatical systems are, unsurprisingly, grammatical, not semantic, since semantic systems are on the semantic stratum, not the grammatical stratum.

[4] To be clear, the feature 'selective' merely provides the entry condition for more delicate selections, in number and proximity, whereas the feature 'non-selective' does not.

[5] To be clear, this claim is contradicted by Rose's previously posted analysis of his own data, where the demonstrative nani 'this' precedes the Thing daluk 'woman':