David Rose Explaining 'Mere' By Coupling

David Rose wrote to Sysfling on 8 Sept 2024, at 11:15:

Can I suggest we think in terms of coupling? 

...first of lexical items – e.g. attitudinal mere with a target entity such as housemaid, construing a value in a field, such as a person’s occupational status. 

...secondly of lexical choices with grammatical functions. Given that attitude is expressed prosodically through structures such as nom gps – how does the choice of gram function adjust the meaning?

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'coupling' is merely Martin's term for grouping any selections.

[2] To be clear, this coupling of lexical items is merely taking a lexical perspective on APPRAISAL:

Under the [APPRECIATION] subcategory of `social value', the object, product or process is evaluated according to various social conventions. This domain is very closely tied to field in that the social valuation of one field will not be applicable or relevant in another.

[3] Trivially, 'entity' is not a type of lexical item, but a semantic category, and attitudes are interpersonal, and so enact (social relations as meaning); it is ideational systems that construe (experience as meaning).

[4] To be clear, the choice of lexical item adds different lexical (more delicate) features to a grammatical function, such as Epithet vs post-Deictic. Meaning is realised by all the lexicogrammatical features, from the most general (grammatical) to the most delicate (lexical).

David Rose On Inexplicit Realisations And Lexis

David Rose replied to Mick O'Donnell on sys-func on 21/6/22 at 12:26:

… So how do we model field elements that are not explicitly realised in a text? That is so complex that SFL has avoided trying to describe lexical items, beyond their very general relations, as ‘sets’ vs systems, as delicate grammar, and as lexical relations in discourse.

It’s long worried me, as I would like to describe how we learn to read (comprehend written texts), and that can’t be done without tackling lexis.

In this paper on reading metaphor I’ve suggested we technicalise the term connote for these kinds of relations.

Rose, D. (2021). Reading metaphor: Symbolising, connoting and abducing meanings. Linguistics and Education, 64, 100932.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, what Rose, following Martin, regards as 'field' is ideational semantics in SFL Theory. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 407):

… Martin, where"field" corresponds to what has been discussed here in terms of ideational semantic networks in the ideation base …

[2] To be clear, this is a matter of inexplicit realisations of semantic features being instantiated in a text.

[3] To be clear, this is not simply a matter of lexis. A lexical item is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate grammatical features, just as the phoneme /b/ is the synthetic realisation of the phonological features [voiced, bilabial, stop]. Modelling this phenomenon systemically entails identifying the system, with the choice of in/explicit realisation, that has been instantiated in the text (data).

[4] To be clear, lexis as most delicate grammar means that lexical items are specified by the most delicate grammatical features, and lexical sets are the paradigmatic organisation of the lexical items thus specified. 'Lexical relations in discourse', on the other hand, is the use of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations between lexical items to create textual cohesion. In Rose's source, Martin (1992), the notion of lexis as most delicate grammar is confused with lexical cohesion; evidence here.

[5] To be clear, Rose does not understand the SFL notion of 'lexical item'. See, for example:

• Misconstruing (Abridged) Grammatical Structures As Lexical Items
• Mistaking (Partial) Grammatical Units For Lexical Items

[6] To be clear, Rose does not understand the SFL notion of 'metaphor'. See, for example:

• Foreshadowing Misunderstandings Of Grammatical Metaphor
• Reducing All Grammatical Metaphor To Elemental Metaphor
• Misunderstanding Ideational Metaphor
• Misrepresenting Ideational Metaphor
• Misrepresenting Elemental Ideational Metaphor As Logical Metaphor
• Misunderstanding Ideational Metaphor

David Rose On The Realisation Of Process Type

David Rose replied to Johanna Salomonsson on Sysfling on 4 Mar 2022, at 09:58:

Two points about SFL that could help your readers…  

1. It differs from traditional grammars that gloss each word and morpheme. In SFL, process type is a clause rank system realised by relations between lower rank units, such as verbs. The whole clause is material or relational. (This is sometimes confused by labelling verbal groups as process types.)

2. Analyses are multiperspectival. In Halliday’s model, process type is a transitive perspective on a clause, and the ergative perspective is complementary.

As you show, your second examples are caused attributive relations, in which Attributor is additional Agent from ergative perspective. The complementary perspectives help to show why clauses such as Tom’s ‘We painted the wall red’ look similar in agency, but differ in process type.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is nonsense. Systemically, PROCESS TYPE is a system of the clause, and a clause consists of groups, including the verbal group, each of which is the entry condition to its systems. Structurally, the Process of a clause is realised by a verbal group.

"Relations between verbs", on the other hand, refers to relations between lexical items, each item being specified by the most delicate lexicogrammatical features. Rose's misunderstanding, therefore, is that a grammatical system is realised by a lexical set.

[2] To be clear, what Rose refers to here is the widespread practice of classifying verbal groups in terms of  PROCESS TYPE, instead of considering the function of each group in a clause. 

But, on the other hand, 'Process' is the function label of a verbal group in a clause.

[3] To be clear, the "second examples" in the discussion were:

A happy baby makes a happy mother

Your happy Glaxo baby will make you a happy mother

but only the second of these is an attributive clause with an Attributor. The first is an identifying clause, with no agency:

That is, the clause identifies a happy baby with a happy mother; it does not construe a happy baby as a member of the class a happy mother, as would an attributive clause.

This is a fact that escaped all interlocutors in this Sysfling discussion, including Jim Martin.

Postscript:

Ten hours after this post was published, David Rose correctly reanalysed the clause in question as identifying. See the next post.

David Rose On The Tension Between Lexis And Grammar

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 21 Oct 2018 on 10:08 a message titled 'Whale snack?':

Headline in Sydney Morning Herald :)
Whale snack stops challenge feast or famine myth: Australian Museum

and on 24 Oct 2018 at 09:46:

... a revealing illustration of tension between lexis and grammar. To make sense of the grammar you have to know the field connoted by the lexis! So you have to read the article. What an ingenious hook :)

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/whale-snack-stops-challenge-feast-or-famine-myth-australian-museum-20181017-p50a8r.html

Blogger Comments:

[1] The instance does not illustrate tension between lexis and grammar.  A genuine example of "tension" between lexis and grammar would be the use of a lexical item like giggle as a projecting verbal Process, as in:

"You're stupid!" the child giggled.

In such cases, the lexical choice adds a behavioural feature to a verbal Process.

[2] In SFL, the way to analyse any clause is to take a trinocular approach, shunting between the grammar and the view 'from above' (the meaning being realised) and the view 'from below' (the realisation of the wording at lower ranks).  The difficulty in this clause lies in its grammatical constituency, even though there is only one possible reading, as shown here.

[3] Here Rose repeats Martin's misunderstanding of the theoretical term 'field'.  In SFL, 'field' refers to the ideational dimension of context: the culture as semiotic system; field is not a dimension of language.  When Martin and his students use the term 'field', they are usually referring to a domain, the semantic correlate of a contextual field (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 323).

This confusion is further complicated by the fact that Rose, following Martin, misunderstands field as a dimension of register, where register, a context-specific subpotential of language, is misunderstood as context, instead of language.

Evidence of Martin's (1992) misunderstandings of SFL theory can be viewed here; evidence of Martin & Rose's (2007) misunderstandings of SFL theory can be viewed here.

David Rose "In A Nutshell" [Part 2]

David Rose wrote to sysfling on 2 December 2017 at 08:39:

We can often categorise lexical items according to grammar or discourse patterns they tend to instantiate (as Michael and Christian like to do in IFG). But these categories are only one dimension of their meaning. Their more specific meanings can only be described in terms of register systems (the function of dictionary and thesaurus). So my instinct is to locate them at the level of register. This is hard to conceptualise because they only manifest as wordings, so we usually talk about them as if they are words. But the items themselves are meanings (at register level), that are realised in language as wordings. In text, they co-instantiate with grammar and discourse features to construe patterns of register. These probabilistic co-instantantions may be the basis of much linguistic description. 

in a nutshell
David

Blogger Comments:

[1] The claim here is that lexical items are categorised according to grammar or discourse patterns.  This is inconsistent with Halliday & Matthiessen (2004, 2014).  In SFL theory, lexical items are specified by bundles of the most delicate features of the systems of lexicogrammar.  The relation between a bundle of such features and a lexical item is symbolic identity: the more abstract Value (feature bundle) is realised by the less abstract Token (lexical item).

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, lexical items realise meaning.  That is, wording (lexicogrammar) is construed as a lower level of symbolic abstraction than meaning (semantics).

[3] Rose's argument can be characterised as follows:

Premiss: (reason) the more specific meanings of lexical items — as provided by dictionary and thesaurus — can only be described in terms of register systems.

Conclusion: (result) lexical items are located at the level of register.

Ignoring the theoretical misunderstandings for the moment, the argument itself is an instance of circular reasoning, in this case: the logical fallacy known as begging the question (petitio principii): providing what is essentially the conclusion of the argument as a premiss.  Moreover, the premiss itself is a bare assertion, unsupported by reasoned argument.

Turning to the theoretical misunderstandings, both the premiss and conclusion are inconsistent with the SFL architecture.  In the premiss, Rose does not recognise the stratal differentiation of a lexical item (lexicogrammar) and the meaning (semantics) that it realises.  In both the premiss and the conclusion, Rose misrepresents the SFL notion of register in terms of stratification (context vs language) and instantiation (system vs sub-system).

Stepping back a little, this is what Rose's previous three posts — in which he disingenuously described himself as "perhaps obtuse", "puzzled" and "generally puzzled" — have been leading to: his "instinct" to locate lexical items at the level of register.  Keeping in mind that, for Rose, register means "social context", which he distinguishes from language, his proposal is to locate lexical items outside language.

[4] As mentioned in a previous post, in SFL theory, 'lexical item' is one of two abstractions on the word, the other being a rank unit in the grammar.

[5] This is another bare assertion, made on the assumption that the previous circular reasoning, involving a bare assertion, has established it as true.  It contains the same theoretical confusions about lexical items and register that were identified in [3] above, with the addition of locating linguistic meaning at the level of context (characterised by Rose as 'social context', and misconstrued, following Martin (1992) as 'register').

[6] The claim here is that lexical items, at the level of social context, are realised in language as wordings.  This adds further to the previously identified theoretical inconsistencies by proposing a realisation relation between context and lexicogrammar, thereby skipping the intervening level of symbolic abstraction, semantics.

[7] The claim here is that lexical items are instantiated in text.  On Rose's model, lexical items are located in context, and as such, are not instances of language (text), but of social context, which Rose distinguishes from language.

[8] To be clear, in SFL theory, the relation between features co-selected across different strata is realisation.  On the model proposed by Rose, this means that lexical items (at the level of context) are realised by the realisation of discourse semantic features in lexicogrammatical features.  Here the notion of 'co-instantiation' helps to mask the fact that Rose has not accounted for the discourse semantic features that realise lexical items.

[9] To be clear, in SFL theory, the different probabilities of features being co-selected provide the quantitative means of differentiating registers — where registers are coherently construed: as sub-potentials of language.

[10] From Fawlty Towers (The Hotel Inspectors):

Mr Hutchinson: In a nutshell.
Basil Fawlty: Case, more like.

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04In a nutshell.

Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04

David Rose "In A Nutshell" [Part 1]

David Rose wrote to sysfling on 2 December 2017 at 08:39:

a different but hopefully complementary perspective. I’m interested in social context as a semiotic plane that is organised systemically and realised by language, including grammar and discourse systems. Grammar and discourse construe register (field/tenor/mode) in different ways, partly by configuring lexical items. Eg IDEATION configures items in taxonomies, figures and sequences, TRANSITIVITY in processes, participants and circumstances. Each of these contribute general types of patterns to unfolding construals of a field. Lexical items contribute more specific features of register. …

in a nutshell
David

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'context' means the culture construed as a semiotic system.  This is distinct from the material setting in which interlocutors create texts.  The context is realised by what the interlocutors say (and think).

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, taking metaredundancy into account, context is realised by the realisation of semantics (meaning) in lexicogrammar (wording).

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, language construes context — where construes means intellectually constructs — and field tenor and mode are the metafunctional systems of context.

[4]  To be clear, in SFL theory, register means a functional variety of language, and it is modelled as a  language sub-potential of the content plane (semantics and lexicogrammar).  As sub-potentials of language, different registers realise different sub-potentials of context.  Thus, context and register differ in terms of stratification (context vs language) and instantiation (potential vs sub-potential).

Rose, on the other hand, confuses register with context (field, tenor and mode), and in doing so, misconstrues language as non-language (his "social context"). 

[5] To be clear, in SFL theory, lexical items are not configured.  What are configured are functions in structures, whereas lexical items are the synthetic realisation of the most delicate lexical systems.  

[6] The experiential discourse semantic system of IDEATION is from Martin (1992).  As demonstrated in great detail here, and summarised here, it is a confusion of lexical cohesion (textual metafunction), lexis as most delicate grammar, and misapplied logical relations.

[7] This is seriously misleading.  Figures and sequences are types of phenomenon in the ideational semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48ff).  They do not appear in Martin (1992), where 'activity sequences' —misunderstood from Barthes (1977) — are modelled as field (ideational context), which Martin misconstrues as register.

[8] To be clear, the system of TRANSITIVITY does not configure lexical items "in processes, participants and circumstances".  The system of TRANSITIVITY provides the potential for construing experience as a configuration of process, participants and circumstances.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 212, 213):

…experientially, the clause construes a quantum of change as a figure, or configuration of a process, participants involved in it and any attendant circumstances. …

The system of transitivity provides the lexicogrammatical resources for construing a quantum of change in the flow of events as a figure – as a configuration of elements centred on a process.

[9] Here Rose follows Martin (1992) in misconstruing ideational semantics (the meaning construed) during logogenesis as ideational context (the field of culture construed) — which Martin further misconstrues as a dimension of register.  For Martin's misunderstandings of context see here; for Martin's misunderstandings of register, see here.

[10] There is a sense in which the wording of this is consistent with SFL theory, even if it is not the meaning that Rose has in mind (see [Part 2]).  It is consistent in the sense that registers, in the SFL use of the term, differ in terms of the probabilities of systemic features being instantiated, and given that lexical items realise bundles of the most delicate features, the probabilities of these most delicate features being instantiated are the most delicate means of specifying different registers.

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04In a nutshell.

Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04

David Rose "Generally Puzzled"

David Rose wrote to sysfling (via Gordon Tucker) on December 1, 2017 at 13:19:

Personally I like co-instantiation for integrating instantiation with stratification 

Only problem I have with Ruquaiya’s [sic] "only lexical item capable of functioning” is absence of probability. Isn’t the item/structure relation probabilistic? I’d be happy with probabilities of co-instantiation of strike (back) with either middle material or 1-Role Process. 

I’m still interested in where people locate lexical items in the architecture. Ruqaiya was trying to prove they could be delicate grammatical options. 

generally puzzled
David

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, the process of instantiation is the selection of features and the activation of realisation statements (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 45) at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation in logogenesis (the unfolding of text).  This necessarily entails the co-selection of features that are related along the dimensions of the theory, including delicacy, rank and strata.  Martin's superfluous notion of "co-instantiation" is merely an acknowledgement that features are co-selected.  In terms of semogenesis, what matters is the relations between the selected features — the place of features in the system.  For some of Martin's misunderstandings of instantiation, see here.

[2] In SFL theory, the cline of instantiation and the stratification hierarchy are distinct dimensions, organised according to different principles: class membership and symbolic identity, respectively.  As distinct dimensions, they jointly define the theoretical spaces in the following matrix:

The notion of co-instantiation "integrating instantiation with stratification" thus demonstrates a misunderstanding of these dimensions and the relation between them.

[3] This confuses the specification of a lexical item by lexical features with the probability of the instantiation of those features.

[4] In SFL theory, at the system pole of the cline of instantiation, features in systems are said to have relative probabilities of being selected (instantiated).  At the midway point on the cline of instantiation, different registers differ by the different probabilities of features being selected.  At the instance pole of the cline of instantiation, texts differ by the different frequencies of selected features.

Rose's notion of an "item/structure relation" is nonsensical, as explained in a previous post here.

[5] Translating this into SFL theory, it becomes: the co-selection probabilities of the features that specify the lexical item 'strike back' and the clause rank features 'material' (PROCESS TYPE) and 'middle' (AGENCY) from the system network of TRANSITIVITY.  Again, following from [3] above, Rose confuses the specification of a lexical item by lexical features with the probability of the co-selection of those features with grammatical features.

[6] The way to find out where lexical items are in the theoretical architecture is to both read about the theory and learn from it.  For example, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198-9) are quite helpful in this regard:

The paradigmatic strategy … is typically associated with feature networks: that is, networks made up of systems of features, such that each lexical item (as the name of a thing) realises a certain combination of these features selected from different systems within the network — a particular clustering of systemic variables. … This resource, the construal of systematically related lexico-semantic sets, illustrates well the principle of “lexis as most delicate grammar”. …

Note that it is not (usually) the lexical items themselves that figure as terms of the systems in the network.  Rather, the systems are systems of features, and the lexical items come in as the synthetic realisation of particular feature combinations.  Thus lexis (vocabulary) is part of a unified lexicogrammar; there is no need to postulate a separate “lexicon” as a pre-existing entity on which the grammar is made to operate.

[7] This is misleading, since it misrepresents the following quote from Hasan (1987: 198):

In English, the only lexical item capable of functioning as the Event in a clause with the above selection expression is 'scatter'. 

Hasan was not "trying to prove" that lexical items "could be delicate grammatical options", as demonstrated by the fact that she distinguishes between 'lexical item' and the bundle of features ('selection expression') that the lexical item realises.

John Bateman Endorsing David Rose's Misunderstandings Of SFL

John Bateman replied to David Rose on sysfling on 30 November 2017 at 21:36:

David Rose wrote:

But it's not just Gordon’s phrasing… it’s normal SF talk, as in your own “the Medium isn't implicit: it's the empire;” which, forgive me, seems to imply the role and lexical item are identical

John Bateman replied:

yup, you're absolutely right. The phrasing is certainly less than unproblematic. It is just that I have difficulty in remembering that the packaging that has to be thought around Medium, Process etc. to have them make any sense at all even could be forgotten. 

So you're right as well to point this out — although language use is always underspecified in these ways: the consequences of the underspecification will depend on audience of course, which on this list is sufficiently diverse as to advise caution I guess.

David Rose wrote:

And how can a grammatical function structure be ‘realized’ by a lexical item? Where in the theory’s architecture is that possible?

 John Bateman replied:

lots of shorthand and slippage ... but I don't think that they are particularly unresolved or unresolvable, if necessary. You raise the more interesting set of issues around relations between information organised lexically and information organised grammatically, and I don't think that particular nut is going to be solved any time soon; there has been little sign of it going away in the past. Here there is more architecture than actual solutions I think.

Blogger Comments:

[1]  As demonstrated in the previous post, Rose is far from right on this matter, since he misconstrues a nominal group the empire as a lexical item, and the phrasing is not problematic, since it encodes a theoretical Value the Medium by reference to a language Token the empire.

[2] Apparently, Bateman has "difficulty in remembering" that something "even could be forgotten".

[3] As demonstrated in the previous post, the notion of a grammatical function structure being ‘realised’ by a lexical item is nonsensical, since a lexical item is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate lexicogrammatical features, whereas a grammatical function structure is constituted by the relations between the functional elements.

[4] In SFL theory, the relation between "information" (i.e. content) "organised grammatically" and "organised lexically" is one of delicacy.  As will be seen in a later post, "the more interesting set of  issues around relations between information organised lexically and information organised grammatically" arise not only from confusing lexical items with word rank units, but also from the confusion of lexis as most delicate grammar with lexical cohesion — a theoretical confusion that first occurs in Martin's (1992) discourse semantic system of IDEATION, as critiqued in great detail here.

[5] Leaving aside the conundrum of "solving a nut" and it "going away", any problem here arises from not understanding the theory, and so any solution will necessitate getting to know the theory, especially in terms of its architecture.

David Rose "Puzzled"

David Rose replied to John Bateman on sysfling on 30 Nov 2017 at 20:33:06:

Thanks John But it's not just Gordon’s phrasing… it’s normal SF talk, as in your own “the Medium isn't implicit: it's the empire;” which, forgive me, seems to imply the role and lexical item are identical.  Is it possible our shorthand masks some unresolved slippage? Hence my question about the relation. ‘Filled’ is too syntax and vocab isn’t it? And how can a grammatical function structure be ‘realized’ by a lexical item? Where in the theory’s architecture is that possible? The problem is two distinct construals of field that come together in an instance like 'the hurricane struck the coastal area of Haiti’… lexical and grammatical

puzzled
David 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To say the Medium is the empire does not imply that 'the role and lexical item are identical' — not least because the empire is not a lexical item, but a nominal group.  In construing an element of clause structure (the Medium) and a nominal group (the empire) as higher (Value) and lower (Token) levels of abstraction, the clause is consistent with SFL theory:

the Medium	is	'the empire'
Identified Value	Process	Identifier Token

But this misses the point.  The clause construes an identifying relation between linguistic theory and language data, such that a theoretical value (the Medium) is encoded by reference to a token of language (the empire).

[2] The notion of a grammatical structure being realised by a lexical item is nonsensical.  A lexical item is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate features of the lexicogrammatical system, whereas a grammatical structure is constituted by the relations between its functional elements. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 83-4):

The significance of any functional label lies in its relationship to the other functions with which it is structurally associated. It is the structure as a whole, the total configuration of functions, that construes, or realises, the meaning. … It is the relation among all these [functions] that constitutes the structure.

[3] This heralds a cluster of theoretical misunderstandings that Rose elaborated in a later sysfling post.  See David Rose "In A Nutshell" [Part 1] and David Rose "In A Nutshell" [Part 2].

David Rose "Being Obtuse"

David Rose wrote to sysfling on 30 Nov 2017 at 14:05:27:

Perhaps I'm being obtuse, but can I ask if, whether our perspective is transitive or ergative, when we describe items like 'strike' or 'strike back’ in terms like 1-Role Processes or 2-Role Processes (or ergative/transitive or whatever), we are actually classifying lexical items according to grammatical criteria? By the term Process do we mean a lexical item or an element in a function structure, such as Actor+Process? If the latter, then what is the relation between the function structure and the lexical item?

Blogger Comments:

[1] In describing 'strike' and 'strike back' as lexical items, instead of verbs, Rose is taking the lexical perspective on the notion of 'word' and ignoring the grammatical perspective.  As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 568-9) point out:

The folk notion of the “word” is really a conflation of two different abstractions, one lexical and one grammatical.

(i) Vocabulary (lexis): the word as lexical item, or "lexeme". This is construed as an isolate, a 'thing' that can be counted and sorted in (alphabetical) order. People "look for" words, they "put thoughts into" them, "put them into" or "take them out of another's", and nowadays they keep collections of words on their shelves or in their computers in the form of dictionaries. Specialist knowledge is thought of as a matter of terminology. The taxonomic organisation of vocabulary is less exposed: it is made explicit in Roget's Thesaurus, but is only implicit in a standard dictionary. Lexical taxonomy was the first area of language to be systematically studied by anthropologists, when they began to explore cultural knowledge as it is embodied in folk taxonomies of plants, animals, diseases and the like. 

(ii) Grammar: the word as one of the ranks in the grammatical system. This is, not surprisingly, where Western linguistic theory as we know it today began in classical times, with the study of words varying in form according to their case, number, aspect, person etc.. Word-based systems such as these do provide a way in to studying grammatical semantics: but the meanings they construe are always more complex than the categories that appear as formal variants, and grammarians have had to become aware of covert patterns.

From a grammatical perspective, 'strike' is a verb and 'strike back' is a phrasal verb, both at word rank.  As verbs, they feature as constituents of verbal groups, where they realise the functional element 'Event'; and verbal groups, in turn, feature as constituents of clauses, where they realise the functional elements 'Process', experientially, and (Finite +) Predicator, interpersonally.

[2] A lexical item is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate features of lexicogrammatical systems — just as a phoneme is the synthetic realisation of phonological features.  The relation between lexicogrammatical features and a lexical item is thus one of symbolic identity — lexical item as Token, features as Value — not class membership (attribution).

[3] The architectural dimensions of the theory provide the means of relating any regions within it.  To relate function structure to lexical item, the following path can be taken:

• from structure to system: syntagmatic axis to paradigmatic axis (related by realisation),
• within system, from most general features to most delicate (related by delicacy),
• from bundle of most delicate features to lexical item (related by realisation).

But the question itself arises from taking a lexical perspective on the word instead of the grammatical.  The grammatical question would be 'how do we get from clause structure to word?', and the answer is via the rank scale and realisation, as described in [1] above.

See a related post from 2015 David Rose On Lexical Items.

David Rose On Process Type Features

David Rose wrote to Sysfling on 12 Oct 2017 at 21:08:16:

… Fourth, as Mick points out there are consistent (but also fuzzy) relations between the grammatical categories and domains of experience denoted by certain verbs (for example). I don’t think labels like behavioural, mental and so on are semantic. Rather they denote general fields of experience, beyond language. The grammar organises these fields, while lexical items are far more variable. 

A question I’m interested in is where do these relations come from? I mean our experience is so complex, fluid and variable. It seems a miracle that the grammar organises it as neatly as it does, despite the fuzz.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands the theory.  In SFL, the process type features are theorised as both semantic and lexicogrammatical.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 503):

… we treat transitivity both within semantics (the paradigmatic and syntagmatic organisation of figures) and within lexicogrammar (the grammar of transitivity): it is a system construed within the content plane of language — both in the ideational component in the lexicogrammar and in the ideation base. This two-stratal approach to transitivity makes it possible to model the resource of grammatical metaphor and is fundamental to work on multilingual systems for generating text.

[2] On the one hand, this can be read as consistent with SFL theory, and so, as contradictory of Rose's previous statement.  On this reading, process type features, as ideational semantics do realise (Rose's 'denote') field, in the sense of 'field' as ideational context (the culture as semiotic system).  But this is not Rose's meaning here — as suggested by the contradiction — since Rose follows Martin's error in treating 'field' as a dimension of register.

On the other hand, this can be read as inconsistent with the epistemological assumptions on which SFL theory was developed.  On this reading, 'fields of experience beyond language' refers to the experience that is construed as ideational meaning.  On the SFL model, meaning is located within semiotic systems ("immanent"), rather than being transcendent of them.

In claiming that process type features denote (realise) 'fields of experience beyond language', Rose is (a) ascribing meaning to the domain outside semiotic systems, and (b) construing this domain as more abstract meaning than the meaning of language.  See also Philosophical Realism.

[3] On the one hand, this can be read as consistent with SFL theory if 'fields' is understood as the experience that is transformed into meaning, and if 'organises' is understood as 'construes as meaning'.  But this is not Rose's meaning here.  For Rose, 'fields' refers to (transcendent) meanings outside language, and it is the rôle of the grammar to organise them.

[4] This misunderstands the relation between grammar and lexis.  In SFL, lexical items are the synthesis of features of the most delicate systems of the lexicogrammar (just as phonemes are the synthesis of phonological features).

[5] This puzzlement arises from the epistemological inconsistencies identified above in [2] and [3].  The 'relations' arise as ideational meaning, construed of experience, in the logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis of meaning potential.

Mick O'Donnell On The Number Of Process Types

 Michael O'Donnell wrote to Sysfling on 12 October 2017 at 19:20:

I think part of the problem here is the assumption that all clauses possible within the English language can be explained as belonging to one of 6 different grammatical categories: material, behavioural, mental, verbal, relational, existential. 

I do agree that the bulk of the clauses of the English language conform to basic prototypes within these categories. However, the English language has a long history, and occasionally we find examples which are structurally different from other sentences. "It matters" seems to be one of these. 

Remember, Halliday's process types are supposed to be grammatical categories, linked together not only by common semantics, but also by commonality of form. 

And I have always felt it strange that the "present tense" test has always been the primary (and often only) grammatical criterion given for classifying clauses. 

I also do not accept the criterion that "IFG says so" is a valid criteria, unless IFG contains reasoning to support the categorisation. 

Looking purely structurally, "It matters" is closer in form to:

Life evolved.
Something happened.
It appeared.
He abstained.
He apologised.
He breakfasted.
etc.

Looking through a list 2,700 verbs that cannot take a complement (intransitive verbs), they seem to fall into 2 main semantic patterns:

a) Those that explain happenings (material, no agent): evolve, happen, appear.
b) verbal activity with no verbiage nor addressee: abstain, apologise, snigger, yammer, soliloquize, snitch, compromise

...and maybe a set of (rare) items that do represent semantically a relation to another participant which can be specified via a "to" circumstance:

He mattered (to me)
It bonded (to the wall)
They conformed (to the regulations)

We could then shove such cases under relational, but then it seems our unstated but primary grammatical criteria is: All clauses can be categorised under one of the six named process types. ...even when the verbs at issue reflect substantially distinct structural patterns. That to me is the problem. We are b[e]ing too simplistic, trying to fit the language into a box which is too small for it.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here O'Donnell offers the historical depth of the English language as support for his contention that the most general types of process — motivated by the data — number more than six.

[2] As O'Donnell makes clear, his approach to process types proceeds from the perspectives of structure and form.  Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, on the other hand, as the name implies, is theorised from the perspectives of system and function.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 49):

Being a ‘functional grammar’ means that priority is given to the view ‘from above’; that is, grammar is seen as a resource for making meaning — it is a ‘semanticky’ kind of grammar. But the focus of attention is still on the grammar itself. 

Giving priority to the view ‘from above’ means that the organising principle adopted is one of system: the grammar is seen as a network of interrelated meaningful choices. In other words, the dominant axis is the paradigmatic one: the fundamental components of the grammar are sets of mutually defining contrastive features.  Explaining something consists not of stating how it is structured but in showing how it is related to other things: its pattern of systemic relationships, or agnateness (agnation).

By adopting a different perspective on the data, O'Donnell is unwittingly using a different theory to interpret the data, thereby yielding interpretations at odds with the original theory.

[3] Strictly speaking, Halliday's process types are both grammatical and semantic.  The two are in agreement (congruent) except in the case of grammatical metaphor.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 503):

… we treat transitivity both within semantics (the paradigmatic and syntagmatic organisation of figures) and within lexicogrammar (the grammar of transitivity): it is a system construed within the content plane of language — both in the ideational component in the lexicogrammar and in the ideation base. This two-stratal approach to transitivity makes it possible to model the resource of grammatical metaphor and is fundamental to work on multilingual systems for generating text.

[4] Here O'Donnell maintains his steadfast ignorance of the trinocular perspective that Halliday used in theorising the grammar; see previous posts here, here, and especially here.  The theory of process types arises from looking at the grammar (1) from above (what meanings are being realised?), (2) from roundabout (what other systemic variants are possible?), and (3) from below (how are they realised?).

[5] This is a statement about the competence of the most intrusive list members, not about the criteria used by Halliday, as set out in IFG.  For example, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 354):

[6] In citing IFG, an analyst is, of course, referring the reader to both the theoretical assumptions and the reasoning on which an analysis is based.

[7] Trivially, the clause it bonded (to the wall) is material, not relational, both on the basis of what it means (from above), and what would be the unmarked present tense (from roundabout).

[8] This risks a misunderstanding.  The six named process types are the most general categories only.  The total number of process types construed by the SFL approach is enormous, but won't be known until these most general types are elaborated into more and more delicate categories, to the point where each lexical item is specified.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198):

… we can differentiate both processes and participants into finer and finer subcategories, until we reach a degree of differentiation that is associated with the choice of words (lexical items).

David Rose On "Lexical Meanings And Lexical Relations In Grammatical Analysis"

David Rose replied to Robert Spence's analysis of two lexically dense relational clauses on the sys-func and sysfling lists on 4 April 2017 at 13:09:

… I am also intrigued by the roles of interpreting lexical items in the grammatical analysis. For example, the first clause is interpreted as receptive circumstantial identifying, subclassified as Cause:purpose, from synonymy of ‘purpose’ with the lexical item ‘aim’ and the embedded clause ‘to (do)’ …

The primary clauses are attributive, in which each 'experimental method’ is classified as 'an isothermal process’ or 'an isochoric process’. That seems to be the function of the non-specific Deictic “an”, to indicate a class of items. …

What’s particularly intriguing to me is the extent of assumptions of lexical meanings and lexical relations in grammatical analysis. This is most apparent in Halliday’s discussion of relational processes in IFG, which I found baffling until I started recognising the lexical assumptions implicit in his categories.  Has anyone else experienced this?

Blogger Comments:

[1] These false claims proceed from a misunderstanding of the theoretical dimension of delicacy (but see also point [2] below).  The subtypes of process are located intermediate between the most general systems and the most delicate systems that specify individual lexical items.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198-9):

… we can differentiate both processes and participants into finer and finer subcategories, until we reach a degree of differentiation that is associated with the choice of words (lexical items). Note that it is not (usually) the lexical items themselves that figure as terms of the systems in the network. Rather, the systems are systems of features, and the lexical items come in as the synthetic realisation of particular feature combinations. 

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 65) provide an example of how the combination of more delicate process type features can specify lexical items:

[2] This misunderstands the reasoning behind the grammatical analysis of the clause (shown here).  The clause construes a relation of identity between an embedded clause complex of cause: purpose (to investigate the properties of air…) and a nominal group of cause: purpose (the aim of this experiment); see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 500ff) on 'nouns of expansion'.

[3] The two 'primary' clauses are embedded and identifying, not attributive (as detailed here).  Each identifies (encodes) one experimental method.  The nominal groups with the non-specific Deictic an function as Identifier Token, not Attribute.

David Rose Confusing Delicacy With Instantiation And Stratification

David Rose replied to Gordon Tucker (see the previous post below) on the Sysfling List on 15 December 2016 at 09:21:

Thanks Gordon
It’s nice to see the alternative interpretations set out so clearly. Can I suggest that the source of their incommensurability is the (unresolved) tension between grammar and lexis that runs through all of linguistics? 

In this example, functional interpretations of a ‘ditransitive’ grammatical structure [nom gp + verb gp = nom gp + nom gp] vary with the lexical items instantiating each element. 

e.g. item instantiating verb gp - she made herself a cup of tea / I gave my love a cherry 

The interpretation of functional difference here assumes some criterial relation between grammar and lexis. So do terms such as ‘light verb’, since ‘verb’ is a grammatical unit and ‘light’ denotes some kind of lexical quality. Are such terms classifying grammar or lexis? 

When an item instantiating a nom gp normally instantiates a verb gp, the tension of grammar/lexis is exposed, and theories struggle to manage it. Halliday’s solution is to propose two strata — grammar/semantics — whose relation may be ‘congruent/incongruent’. (But note the dissonance here with his notion of ‘lexis as delicate grammar’.) Chomsky’s solution is to propose two structures related as 'deep/surface’. Cardiff's solution resembles Chomsky’s, as both require all semantic difference to be handled in the grammar. So a nom gp instantiated by ‘kiss’ is no longer a participant but a ‘main verb extension’. 

Whatever the proposed solution, the problem is the grammar/lexis relation, which is at the heart of linguistics but which no linguistic theory has resolved.

Blogger Comments:

[1] For the "source of their incommensurability", see the previous post.

[2] The relation between grammar and lexis is modelled differently by different linguistic theories. The "tension" that Rose imagines arises from his multiple misunderstandings of the architecture of SFL theory, as will be demonstrated below.

[3] In SFL theory, the relation between grammar and lexis is modelled as the dimension of delicacy.

[4] The four claims that lexis "instantiates" grammar confuse instantiation with delicacy.  It's been 17 years since Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 15) clarified the distinction:

Note that it is important to keep delicacy and instantiation distinct. In early work on semantic networks, they were sometimes neutralised (cf. Woods', 1975, review). The difference is essentially that between being a type of x (delicacy) and being a token of x (instantiation). Both may be construed by intensive ascription: cf. Chapter 4, Section 4.2.3.2.

To be clear, for the most part, lexical items are said to be specified by combinations of features of the most delicate grammatical systems, in the same way that phonemes are specified by combinations of features of articulatory systems; e.g. /b/ is specified by combinations of the features [voiced, stop, bilabial].  Instantiation, on the other hand, is the perspectival cline between language as potential (system) and language as actual instance (text).

[5] This confuses stratification with delicacy.  Halliday did not stratify the content plane into grammar and semantics in order to solve the "tension" between grammar and lexis.  He modelled grammar and lexis as two ends of the same continuum, lexicogrammar, and stratified the content plane into grammar and semantics in order to account for grammatical metaphor.

[6] As these clarifications demonstrate, the only dissonance here is between SFL theory and Rose's understanding of it.

[7] The closest analogue in SFL theory to Chomsky's deep and surface structure is the cline of instantiation.  That is, Rose claims that Chomsky dealt with the lexis–grammar relation (delicacy) through instantiation (and that Halliday dealt with it through stratification).

To be clear, Rose has confused the systemic scale of delicacy with both the hierarchy of stratification and the cline of instantiation.

See Rose's previous confusion of delicacy with stratification here.

David Rose Analysing A Text "We Don't Understand"

Responding to a post by Jim Donohue, David Rose wrote to sysfling on 2 July 2016 at 09:47:

Fantastic effort to combine grammar and discourse, to analyse genre and field. Critical focus is on lexical, conjunction and reference items, for which answer 1 is great text to analyse. You could go a little further and simplify. Here with lexical items in yellow and conjunction, reference, appraisal items in blue.

S1. A system call is a request made by a process to the operating system in order to perform tasks only the operating system can complete. 

Retrieving a file from a disk, or retrieving/displaying inputs/outputs, are examples of this

nuclear relations, activity sequence and conjunction - what’s going on
line 1 defines system call as type of request from process to operating system
line 2 explains what operating system does then (in order to, only)
line 3 exemplifies types of tasks requested by system call (examples of this)

(nuclear relations are lexical relations within clauses, configured by grammar)

taxonomic relations - why it makes sense
line 1 system call is a type of call, call and request are synonyms, process is technical part of computing field,
lines 1-2 operating and perform tasks are synonymous, operating system is repeated, complete is part of task
lines 2-3 retrieving/displaying are types of task, file/disk/inputs/outputs are parts of operating system

Blogger Comments:

[1] The "fantastic effort" that Rose applauds misconstrues these two clauses of a student's exam answer as attributive rather than identifying.  See clause analysis here.

As the clause analysis shows — but which Rose's discourse semantic analysis doesn't — in the first clause, the student decodes a system call and, in the second clause, the student then encodes examples of this.

[2] To be clear, in Martin's discourse semantics:

• 'nuclear relations' are expansion relations — mostly misapplied — between experiential elements of clause and group structure;
• 'activity sequence' is misconstrued as an aspect of field, not discourse semantics;
• 'conjunction' is the logical system of discourse semantics — which confuses structural (logical) deployments of expansion with cohesive (textual) deployments;
• 'what's going on' could be either field ('activity sequence') or genre ('social process').

[3] This is only part of the definition, as the grammatical analysis makes clear.  Rose's analysis makes no use of any of the discourse semantic resources: nuclear relations, activity sequence or conjunction.

[4] This part of the definition construes purpose, not time.  Here Rose has applied the discourse semantic resource of conjunction to an embedded clause complex, but misidentified the expansion relation.

[5] As the clause analysis shows, this clause encodes examples of a system call.  In the absence of a clause analysis, Rose misconstrues the meaning realised by the clause, as evinced by his "tasks requested by a system call"; cf. 'a system call is a request made by a process…'.  Again, Rose's analysis makes no use of any of the discourse semantic resources: nuclear relations, activity sequence or conjunction.

[6] Martin's nuclear relations (1992: 309-21) are not lexical relations, but (misapplied) expansion relations between elements of the experiential function structure of clauses (Process, Medium, Range, circumstance), nominal groups (Thing, Classifier, Epithet, Qualifier) and verbal groups (Event, Particle, Quality).  Rose has used none of these relations in his analysis.

[7] As demonstrated here, Martin's experiential discourse semantic system, termed ideation, is a confusion of lexical cohesion (textual metafunction), lexis as most delicate grammar and expansion relations between elements of function structures (logical metafuction).  The taxonomic relations Rose refers to here is the 'lexical cohesion' component.  That is, these relations help to make the text cohesive.

[8] This is not a taxonomic relation in the text — despite the use of 'part' to suggest meronymy.

[9] The suggestion here is that there is a meronymic relation between 'complete' (part) and 'task' (whole).  This can be examined through the lens of expansion relations.  If 'complete' is regarded as a phase of a process, then the type of expansion is elaboration (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 569ff), whereas a meronymic relation is one of extension (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 89).  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 91) provide a different argument:

We can certainly recognise that processes have phases — 'begin to do, keep doing, stop doing'; but it is not immediately clear that these form a process meronymy analogous to the parts of a participant. Although we might reconstrue he began to dance metaphorically as the beginning of his dance on the model of 'the beginning of the book', this is a metaphorical reification of the process 'dance' and we have to be cautious in interpreting the implications for the congruent process 'dance'. If we probe a little further, we can see that process phase is concerned with the occurrence of a process in time — its temporal unfolding: 'begin to do' means 'begin to be actualised (to occur) as doing in time'. In contrast, participant meronymy is not tied to the existence of a participant in referential space.

Conclusion:

Despite claiming to provide a discourse semantic analysis of these clauses, Rose makes no use of the system of nuclear relations (discourse semantic ideation) or activity sequences (Martin's register: field), and the one use he makes of discourse semantic conjunction, he gets wrong.  Further, in his use of Martin's lexical relations (discourse semantic ideation) — a relabelling of Halliday's lexical cohesion — he misrepresents meronymic relations.  Moreover, there was no analysis of appraisal, genre or field.

Most importantly, the fact that the student provided two identifying clauses, with the first decoding a technical term, and the second encoding examples, was not recognised.

Given all of the above, it is fair to say that the aim of the exercise was not pedagogy.

FYI:

In computing, a system call is the programmatic way in which a computer program requests a service from the kernel of the operating system it is executed on.