David Kellogg On Identifying Clauses

David Kellogg wrote to sys-func on 23 Dec 2023,  at 12:24:

I am not sure if "typical" structures are the object of interest here: after all we are talking about verbal art. But even in ordinary life, I'm quite wary of making statements about "canonical" order without any corpus evidence.

For example, what about questions? Consider:

a) "What is your name?"

b) "What, after all, are names?"

You can see that in a) the order is Token Value, but the Token doesn't map onto the Subject but rather onto the Complement.

In b), which is surely much less common in life if more typical of verbal art, the order is Value-Token and the Subject does map onto the Token…

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is not true. Token does map onto Subject, and Value onto Complement. Cf. What serves as your name? The information that the clause demands is the decoding of a Token by reference to a Value.

[2] To be clear, the sequence is Value^Token because the sequence is Complement^Subject. The information that the clause demands is the encoding of a Value by reference to a Token.

. 

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 180):

In other words, ‘identifying’ clauses select for voice; they have an ‘operative’ and a ‘receptive’ variant. The difference is entirely systematic, once we recognise the structure of Token and Value: the ‘operative’ voice is the one in which the Subject is also the Token (just as, in a ‘material’ clause, the ‘operative’ is the variant in which the Subject is also the Actor. The most important difference is that the typical verb of the ‘identifying’ clauses, namely be, has no ‘passive’ form; so clauses like the villain is me and I am the ugly one do not look like ‘receptive’ clauses. But they are. This appears clearly when we substitute a different verb, one which has a ‘passive’ form, as in the villain is played by me.

David Kellogg On "Bottom-Up" Realisation

After ChRIS CLÉiRIGh wrote to sys-func on 21 December 2023 at 10:56:

The reason why Halliday would not even have meant

'wording-realized-as-meanings' or

'sounding-realized-as-wording'

is that both are self-contradictions. These are agnate with:

meaning realises wording

wording realises sounding

which are identifying clauses: Token^Process^Value.

In the first clause, the higher level of symbolic abstraction (meaning) is misconstrued as the lower level of symbolic abstraction (Token), and the lower level of symbolic abstraction (wording) is misconstrued as the higher level of symbolic abstraction (Value).

Likewise, in the second clause, the higher level of symbolic abstraction (wording) is misconstrued as the lower level of symbolic abstraction (Token), and the lower level of symbolic abstraction (sounding) is misconstrued as the higher level of symbolic abstraction (Value).

This is 'theory turned back on itself'.

 

David Kellogg replied on sys-func on 22 December 2023 at 8:55:

Chris--yes, theory turned back on itself indeed! But theory turned back on itself often produces category errors, like when you drive by a field and instead of seeing two cows you say that there are a bull, a cow, and a bovine couple.

When you say that "wording-realises-meaning" is agnate with the clause "meaning realizes wording", you can ignore the hyphen and make the clause irreversible, so that wording realizes meaning but meaning does not realize wording.

That makes it impossible for me to pursue my argument on verbal art, because my argument does depend on the relationship being reversible, and the 'bottom up" realization being dominant in and typical of literature.

But ignoring the hyphen and introducing "Token-Relational Process-Value" also means that your model is no longer neutral between speaking and hearing, as Halliday's is (Halliday remarks on the difficulty and necessity of making it so in the intro to the IFG).

Worse, you seem to be confusing two dimensions of SFL (stratification and metafunction) which are typically (and rightly) distinct--at least as distinct as the dimensions of instantiation and stratification confused in the Martin model.

As I said, I was writing about the theory--not about the way it was worded. That's why I used my own words and said "Halliday pointed out that" instead of "Halliday said". And Halliday does indeed say, in many places, that realization works both ways. I think, actually, that he chose the word "realization" for precisely this reason--it can mean both "to make real" and "to become aware" in English, although of course neither of these folk meanings captures the distinction that Halliday is really making.

This is one of many places where Halliday's terminology differs from that of Hasan--Hasan prefers "actualization" [activation] to talk about bottom up realization. For me, "realization" will do nicely.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Kellogg presents no evidence that 'theory turned back on itself often produces category errors' or that there is a category error in this case. The example of a category error he presents is not a case of theory turned back on itself and does not relate to this post.

To explain, just as linguistic theory is 'language turned back on itself' is using language to model language, 'theory turned back on itself' is using linguistic theory to model linguistic theory. In this case, it was using identifying clauses to model interstratal realisation.

[2] This misunderstands Cléirigh's post. What Cléirigh said was that Kellogg's 'wordings-realised-as-meanings' is agnate with 'meaning realises wording'. Kellogg's 'wordings-realised-as-meanings' is also agnate with 'Gielgud-played-by-Prospero'. The difference here is only in the subtype of identifying: 'realise' is 'symbol', whereas 'play' is 'role' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 269).

[3] This misunderstands identifying clauses. All identifying clauses are reversible. The reverse of wording realises meaning is meaning is realised by wording. In the first, the Token is Subject; in the second, Value is Subject. Moreover it is true that meaning does not realise wording, because this misconstrues Value (meaning) as Token and Token as Value (wording).

[4] To be clear, if an argument depends on 'bottom up' realisation, then the argument is invalidated by the self-contradiction that it construes. The notion of a higher stratum realising a lower stratum misconstrues the higher level of symbolic abstraction, meaning, as the lower level (Token), and the lower level of symbolic abstraction, wording, as the higher level (Value).

What is reversible is not the direction of realisation (swapping Token and Value) but the direction of coding (swapping Identified and Identifier). That is, the direction is encoding in the case of Token/Identifier and Value/Identified, and decoding in the case of Token/Identified and Value/Identifier. That is, 'wording realises meaning' can either encode meaning (Identified) by reference to wording (Identifier), or decode wording (Identified) by reference to meaning (Identifier).

[5] To be clear, this bare assertion — the logical fallacy ipse dixit — is misleading because it is untrue. Token-Process-Value simply analyses the interstatal relation 'wording realises meaning'. What could be said to differ for speaker and hearer is not the direction of realisation, but the direction of coding. For a speaker, meaning (Value) is encoded by reference to wording (Token), whereas for a hearer, wording (Token) is decoded by reference to meaning (Value). In both cases, wording is Token and meaning is Value.

[6] This is misleading because it is untrue. Cléirigh's post turned theory (identifying relations) back on itself (stratification). The former is a reconstrual of the latter. There is no confusion, because each construal is at a different level of abstraction.

[7] This is misleading. Cléirigh's post was not about Halliday's wording, but about his meaning:

The reason why Halliday would not even have meant…

Moreover, the advantage of quoting a source, instead of reporting it, is that the reader can judge whether or not the writer has understood the source.

[8] This is misleading because it misrepresents Halliday. For Halliday, realisation "works both ways" in the sense that the identifying process "works both ways". Wording realises meaning, and meaning is realised by wording; and in terms of coding, wording can serve to identify meaning, and meaning can serve to identify wording.

[9] To be clear, Halliday chose the word 'realisation' because 'realise' is an intensive identifying process of the type 'symbol' (Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 269), which is the relation between levels of symbolic abstraction, which is the relation between strata.

[10] This misleading because it is untrue. Hasan uses 'activation' for "top-down" realisation. Hasan (1995: 164):

But at the same time, the notion of realisation must include the relation of activation especially where the higher strata are concerned. Choices at the stratum of context activate choices at the stratum of semantics, which in their turn activate choices from the systems at the stratum of lexicogrammar.

Postscript: 

Unsurprisingly, Martin is one source of the self-contradiction of upside-down realisation. Martin (1992: 505):

The common ground between the two models lies in the correlation proposed between schematic structure and field, mode and tenor options; for both Martin and Hasan staging redounds with social context. Keeping in mind that realisation is not theoretically directional in systemic models, there is nothing substantive in the fact that whereas for Hasan, choices in field, mode and tenor are realised by schematic structure, for Martin schematic structure is realised through these same components of register.

Mick O'Donnell On 'That Means'

Mick Donnell replied to Emma Vale on asflanet on 16 October at 22:50:

Be careful when saying:

you could take out the 'that means' and experientially the clause means the same thing, hence my suggestion that 'that means' is redundant

Just because it does not serve an experiential function does not mean it it redundant. It serves a logical function, and removing it loses the logical connectivity of ideas.

Shooshi says that "that means" is not conjunction but rather reference, and that is true if looked at in terms of grammar. But discoursally, "that means" is one discoursal strategy to link one clause to another as a consequence. For instance, would you take the following two clauses as saying the same thing:

The northern hemisphere is tilting towards the sun,

that means that the Southern hemisphere is tilting away.

The northern hemisphere is tilting towards the sun.

Consequently, the Southern hemisphere is tilting away

For me, this is a case where a semantic relation between two processes can be mapped onto lexicogrammar in distinct ways.

And getting back to your example, the fact that "consequently" can be dropped without affecting the experiential meaning of the second clause does not mean "consequently" is redundant, just that it serves a logical not experiential function.

Blogger Comments:

 To be clear, the two clause complexes under discussion are:

When the Northern hemisphere is tilting towards the sun that means that it is summer in the Northern hemisphere.

And because the northern hemisphere is tilting towards the sun that means that the Southern hemisphere is tilting away.

[1] Importantly, the inclusion of that means that is the student's step towards mastering grammatical metaphor. See Tilting Towards Grammatical Metaphor. Removing this wording makes the clause complexes more congruent:

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The wording that means serves the experiential functions Token and Process: relational: identifying: intensive: sign. The logical relation between the clauses in each complex is marked by the conjunction of the dependent clause: when (temporal) and because (cause: reason).

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The reference is made by that, not that means.

[4] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The two wordings are not saying the same thing. The first pair of clauses (not a complex) are related by cohesive reference (that) and do not express the meaning 'consequence', whereas the second pair of clauses are related by cohesive conjunction and do express the meaning 'consequence'.

Agnate wordings of the first pairing include:

• The northern hemisphere is tilting towards the sun; that indicates that the Southern hemisphere is tilting away.
• The northern hemisphere is tilting towards the sun; that suggests that the Southern hemisphere is tilting away.
• The northern hemisphere is tilting towards the sun; that implies that the Southern hemisphere is tilting away.

See Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 269).

[5] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The conjunctive Adjunct consequently, which does not feature in the original example under discussion, functions textually, not logically, since it marks a relation of cohesive conjunction.

∞

See also:

The Promotion Of Anti-Intellectualism In The SFL Community
Mick O'Donnell Falsely Accusing The Sys-Func Moderator Of Misogyny.

David Kellogg On Mathematical Equations [3]

David Kellogg wrote to sys-func on 28 April 2023 at 15:27:

This kind of physics does cover Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Maxwell, Newton, Galileo... The equations are mathematical — i.e. they can be read backwards and forwards, and they are exactly what Yaegan claimed: a different, non-linguistic, semiotic with its own anti-linguistic logic.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is true. In as much as an equation construes the identity of two participants, it can be 'read backwards and forwards'. However, the meanings construed in each case will be different, as demonstrated in the comments of the previous two posts.  

[2] See the comments of the previous two posts for evidence of the misunderstandings on which this conclusion is based.

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, mathematics is a field that is realised in (designed) language and (ideographic) pictorial semiotic systems. There are many reasons for interpreting mathematical equations as language rather than as a non-linguistic semiotic system. Two will be provided here.

First, mathematical equations entail a stratified content plane in which wordings realise meanings. On the SFL model, language is the only semiotic system with a stratified content plane (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 604):

This deconstrual of the content plane into two strata, referred to in the first chapter, is a unique feature of the post-infancy human semiotic…

The fact that the content plane of mathematical equations is stratified with a lexicogrammar is demonstrated by the fact that, unlike non-linguistic semiotic systems, they can be read aloud. On the SFL model, what is verbally projected is the wording level of content ('locutions').

Second, the only difference between

1. a² + b² = c², and
2. a squared plus b squared equals c squared, and
3. its spoken form

is the mode of expression. All three construe the same wording and the same meaning. If it is claimed that the first is not language, then someone hearing the spoken form (3) would have to ask whether it corresponded to non-language (1) or to language (2), and interpret it differently accordingly.

On the other hand, the claim that mathematical equations are 'a different, non-linguistic, semiotic with its own anti-linguistic logic' goes nowhere in terms of explanatory potential. In contrast, treating mathematical equations as linguistic explains the solving of an equation as the iterated elaboration of an identity relation, and the solution of an equation as the decoding of an unknown Token.

∞

In dismissing all the evidence that invalidates his view, and simply maintaining his original stance, Kellogg has deployed the invincible ignorance fallacy.

David Kellogg On Mathematical Equations [2]

David Kellogg wrote to sys-func on 25 April at 21:12:

Thanks, Chris--very insightful! I hadn't really parsed out voice and coding, as you can tell; I had them rather muddled, I'm afraid. The clarity of analysis is astonishing, and adds a lot of understanding.

However, the understanding I get from it only reinforces the distinction that Yaegan Doran made in his presentation. Halliday emphasises that relational clauses are never redundant. As you say, there is a difference between operative "equals" and receptive "equalled by", and there is likewise a difference between encoding"v= eE/m " and decoding ""eE/m = v". When my father writes:

(i.e. w = pressure = the Rayleigh formula, (integral of pressure term + integral of velocity term) in case the math doesn't come out in the mail....)

He is decoding and then decoding again. Not reversible.

But that's the old man doing physics, not math. When he does the math, the math itself really is redundant and reversible: "equals" and "is equalled by" really are completely equivalent, viewed as math. The encoding and the decoding, viewed as math and not as physics, are completely interchangeable. 

This to me suggests that Yaegan was right--that there is a qualitative difference between math as a semiotic system and language as a semiotic system. The former CAN be redundant, and that is the very essence of an equation. The latter is NEVER fully redundant, and that is the essence of a relational process.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because Halliday (1985, 1994) does not discuss relational processes in terms of redundancy. What he does say is that an identifying clause is not a tautology, and explains why this is so. Halliday (1994: 124):

In any ‘identifying’ clause, the two halves refer to the same thing; but the clause is not a tautology, so there must be some difference between them. This difference is one of form and function; or, in terms of their generalised labels in the grammar, of TOKEN and VALUE – and either can be used to identify the other.

To be clear, in the previous post, it was the introduction of the notion of asymmetry that was source of confusion, and in this post, the notion of redundancy plays that role.

[2] To be clear, it is true that the default direction of coding in a physics equation is decoding, but it is not true that this is not reversible. Such an equation becomes encoding when the Token is used to identify the Value, as when E is used to identify mc²:

Decoding

Encoding

[3] To be clear, in terms of meaning, equals and is equalled by are not completely equivalent. The operative voice of equals configures the participants as Token^Value, whereas the receptive voice of is equalled by, which is not used in mathematical formalisms, configures the participants as Value^Token. (The two also differ in choice of Subject and Theme.) What is consistent, irrespective of voice, is the identity of one participant (quantity) with another.

[4] To be clear, the direction of coding is distinct from the voice of an identifying clause. Operative and receptive clauses can be decoding or encoding. The direction of coding depends on which participant is used to identify the other: if the Value is used, then the clause is decoding; if the Token is used, then the clause is encoding.

To be clear, equations, whether used in mathematics or physics, can be decoding or encoding, though decoding is the default. However, it is not true that the two are equivalent in meaning, since they differ in which participant is used to identify the other. Again, what is consistent, irrespective of the direction of coding, is the identity of one participant (quantity) with another.

[5] See the above for evidence as to why this conclusion derives from multiple misunderstandings.

David Kellogg On Mathematical Equations [1]

David Kellogg wrote to sys-func on 24 April 2023 at 12:00:

I remember being vaguely dissatisfied with a presentation that Yaegon gave on this topic at University of Sydney, simply because he over-stressed the difference between mathematics and spoken language and at one or two points even argued for distinct origins in different kinds of logic. But now I see his point.

The terms "coding" and "decoding" imply asymmetry, and in fact asymmetry is the sine qua non of Halliday's understanding of relational processes. Understanding the grammar of a statement like "Tom is the tall one" (value-to-token, or encoding) or "Tom is the treasurer" (decoding) is really understanding that the sentence is NOT redundant — that the expressions are quite different when you reverse them. Encoding and decoding sentences are no more reversible than part-whole relationships, e.g. "All donkeys are animals" and "all animals are donkeys".  

But mathematical equations do not in themselves imply this asymmetry. For example, your equation could be reversed with very little or no difference in meaning,  "All donkeys are animals" is true and "all animals are donkeys" is false. But "c squared equals a squared plus b squared" is just as true and just as false as "a squared plus b squared equals c squared".

I was just discussing this with my father, who has been working on some data from the Parker Solar Probe, now entering the sun's corona. He wants to demonstrate that the heating of the solar wind  is caused (or at least could be caused) by the damping of ion acoustic waves in the solar wind. He pointed out to me that his papers are usually written in a mixture of mathematics and English. Here, for example, he is discussing how to determine the motion of a particle in an electric field. He says::

"dv/dt  = eE/m   

"So that

"v= eE/m "

Because the equations are embedded in language, they are not reversible. But the non-reversibility (that is, the fact that they are decoding relationships, with the token on the left and the value on the right) is an artefact of the language and not a logical consequence of the mathematics, just as the order of "a squared plus b squared equals c squared" is an artefact of our alphabet. 

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because Halliday (1985, 1994) does not discuss relational processes in terms of asymmetry. What Kellogg refers to as 'asymmetry' is the functional difference between the two participants of an identifying process: Token vs Value and Identified vs Identifier. In a decoding clause, the asymmetry is Token/Identified vs Value/Identifier, whereas in an encoding clause, the asymmetry is Token/Identifier vs Value/Identified.

[2] To be clear, understanding the grammar of identifying clauses is understanding the functions that each clause constituent realises: Token or Value, Identifier or Identified.

[3] To be clear, encoding and decoding are reversible, but changing the direction of coding changes the meaning that the identity construes: Value encoded by reference to Token vs Token decoded by reference to Value.

[4] To be clear, part-whole relationships are reversible, in terms of coding, when they are construed as identifying rather than attributive. For example, the sports centre comprises four buildings is decoding in contexts where four buildings identifies the sport centre, and encoding in contexts where the sport centre identifies four buildings.

[5] To be clear, attributive clauses are not reversible in terms of the direction of coding because coding is restricted to construals of identity, whereas attributive clauses construe class membership (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 145-6), not an identity. (Trivially, reversing the participants in all donkeys are animals yields animals are all donkeys.)

[6] This is misleading, because it is untrue. If the participants in the clause a squared plus b squared equals c squared are reversed, all that is preserved is the identity of a squared plus b squared and c squared. The reversal changes not only what serves as Token and Value, but what serves as Theme and Rheme and what serves as Subject and Complement. Moreover, it can also involve a reversal the direction of coding:

[7] To be clear, the equations are reversible, though the reversal changes the functional role served by each nominal group in the equation, as explained in [6].

[8] To be clear, what makes these equations decoding is the conflation of Value with Identifier, not the sequence of Token and Value. If the Token on the left is used to identify the Value on the right, these equations are encoding.

[9] To be clear, the ordering Token^Value is given by the clause being operative in voice. But this is insufficient in itself to make the clause decoding; see [8]. 

Importantly, the mathematical equation uses the operative identifying clause as its template, and solving an equation involves repeatedly elaborating the equation, while preserving the identity relation, until each unknown is construed as a Token that is decoded by a Value.

[10] To be clear, this is the Pythagorean equation. The letters a and b stand for the two sides that meet at a right angle, and c stands for the hypotenuse.

Mick O'Donnell On The Appraisal In A Metaphorical Clause

Michael O'Donnell wrote to the lang-eval list on 13 Jan 2023, at 01:32:

'the bright sunlight gave a false impression of warmth'

The sunlight is being metaphorically construed as a conscious communicating being. Within the metaphorical domain, the sunlight could be said to be evaluated negatively for veracity. 

Ignoring the potential animalisation, I would need to say appreciation:quality, with "false" acting as a graduating token lessening the appreciation.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is not true. The metaphorical clause construes the bright sunlight as the Token of a Value:

If the bright sunlight had been construed as 'a conscious communicating being', it would have been construed as the Sayer of a verbal process. And even unpacking the metaphor yields mental processes, not verbal processes:

when someone saw the bright sunlight, they falsely inferred that the weather was warm.

Here O'Donnell has engaged in the 'notional semantics' that he has previously denounced in others, instead of 'following the grammatical principles that Halliday established' that he has previously insisted upon; see Mick O'Donnell On Following SFL Analytical Principles.

[2] To be clear, in the metaphorical clause, the negative assessment is a feature of the Value a false impression of warmth, not the Token the bright sunlight. The negative judgement of the bright sunlight, in terms of veracity, derives from misconstruing the relational clause as verbal, with the Sayer deemed to be dishonest, for communicating a falsehood.

[3] To be clear, if the metaphor is ignored, then the congruent rendering becomes the focus of the analysis. In this case, the assessment is one of negative judgement, in terms of capacity: falsely inferred. The function of the metaphor, therefore, is to conceal this judgement, since it omits its target: someone.

[4] To be clear, the target of the negative appreciation is the impression of warmth in the metaphorical clause. However, false enacts the attitude itself, not a graduation of it. That is, false does not "lessen" the negative appreciation. From the Appraisal Theory website:

Graduation

Values by which (1) speakers graduate (raise or lower) the interpersonal impact, force or volume of their utterances, and (2) by which they graduate (blur or sharpen) the focus of their semantic categorisations.

1. (FORCE ) slightly, somewhat, very, completely
2. (FOCUS) I was feeling kind'v woozy, they effectively signed his death warrant; a true friend, pure folly

David Banks On Process Type Criteria

David Banks replied to David Rose on SYSFLING on 6 Mar 2022, at 20:40:

With all due respect:

A happy baby makes a happy mother.

You say this must be identifying, so the baby and the mother refer to the same entity - that can't be right.

It's simple present — I see no reason why a simple present cannot be material: physical actions are material whether they are habitual or not.

"'I walk on the beach every day".

And you say it's reversible: this is perhaps true in the pragmatic sense that if the mother is happy the baby probably will be too, but that's not what the clause says, and "A happy mother makes a happy baby" is not the same thing as "A happy baby makes a happy mother". What about 

"A sunny day makes a happy tourist"?

What have I missed?

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is not true. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 276):

In the ‘identifying’ mode, some thing has an identity assigned to it. What this means is that one entity is being used to identify another: ‘x is identified by a’, or ‘a serves to define the identity of x’. Structurally we label the x-element, that which is to be identified, as the Identified, and the a-element, that which serves as identity, as the Identifier.

Cf. the identifying clauses:

• Peter owns the house and 
• asbestos dust causes mesothelioma

[2] This misses the point. It is not a question of whether or not the simple present tense can be used in material clauses, but whether or not it is the marked or unmarked option. Because the simple present tense is the marked option for material clauses, but the unmarked option for relational clauses, it is one diagnostic tool for distinguishing these two process types.

[3] To be clear, the 'reversibility' is one of voice:

• A happy baby makes ('produces') a happy mother [operative]
• A happy mother is made ('produced') by a happy baby [receptive]

and it distinguishes (reversible) identifying relational clauses from (non-reversible) attributive relational clauses. 

[4] See above.

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 Banks On Process Types

After Wendy Bowcher wrote to SYSFLING on Thu, 3 Mar, 21:08:

I wonder if anyone can help out with the following:

(1) identifying what type of process 'thrive' is in the following clause. It seems to me to be Relational, but it's also kind of Material with a dash of Behavioural. :)I've given the clause within its cotext. And the clause comes from an historical advertisement.

"Your child will thrive on Glaxo when all else fails because it is a natural substitute for breast milk"

(2) And I just want to check the process type of 'make' in the following clauses - I have analysed these as Relational (attributive, intensive) ('cause to be something'), but I'm not 100% sure:

"A happy baby makes a happy mother"

"Your happy Glaxo baby will make you a happy mother"

David Banks replied to SYSFLING on Thu, 3 Mar, 21:16:

I would have no hesitation in analysing your first example (thrive) as material: it's about growing and increasing in good health, so about physical change. 

And I would have analysed your second example (make) as material too: it's causal, concerned with making the mother better, so again to do with physical change.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] Transitivity analyses of these clauses are provided here.

[2] To be clear, 'physical change' is not an exclusive feature of material processes, as demonstrated by the attributive clause the baby turned into a pig. Halliday (1994: 120):

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 159-165) provide a helpful discussion on material doing and relational being as complementary perspectives on change; (op. cit.: 161):

Beatriz Quiroz Misunderstanding Halliday On Thematic Equatives

 

Beatriz Quiroz wrote to SYSFLING on 22 Nov 2021, at 01:58:

Just a follow-up: 

I couldn't find any grammatical argumentation for specifically treating the nominalised clause in thematic equatives as Value in IFG (across editions), nor in Deploying functional grammar (Martin, Matthiessen and Painter, 2010). What I did find is Davidse (1992)'s claim, based on Halliday (1967b), that all thematic equatives are encoding identifying clauses (as opposed to decoding ones). If one goes back to Halliday (1967b, p. 230), on the other hand, he says the nominalised bit (in English) is always the Identified in an Identifier/Identified structure; he then assimilates (tentatively) encoding clauses to 'true' identifying with Token + Value structure, ergo 'the nominalisation [in such clauses] is always the Value'. Would from this follow that the nominalised clause 'is always' the Value in identifying clauses?. To begin with, "[w]hether the coding option, if admitted, is present in all equatives is very questionable." (Halliday, 1967b, p. 229). So not sacred word.

Anyhow, further below Halliday adds:

'The tentative conclusion would be that the 'identifying' option is a way of representing any clause as an encoding equative, with the nominalisation representing the function complex 'value' and 'identified'; a decoding equative, even if it has a nominalisation as the identified element, not being regarded as identifying since it has no non-identifying (non-equative) equivalent- or only one that is thematically incongruous... Alternatively, decoding equatives of this type could still be regarded as identifying but with identification as the unmarked option' (p. 231)."*

So even if we admit the coding option for ALL identifying clauses, not necessarily the nominalised bit in all equatives is the Value (in English). BUT even if we COULD say the value is 'always' the nominalised clause in (English) identifying clauses, does it follow we can extend such generalisation across languages?

As far as I know, nothing close to Halliday's (1967a, 1967b, 1968) and Davidse's (1991, 1992) fine-grained and reactance-based argumentation has been provided on this topic for languages other than English. In fact, the distinction between thematic equatives and predicated Themes, which is in turn based on the distinction between clefts/pseudoclefts, is rather problematic beyond English. As extensive descriptive literature in Spanish has shown, the 'cleft/pseudocleft' distinction emerged from the description of the English clause, and does not apply in the same way to Spanish. This has not been closely studied from a SFL perspective, yet (again, as far as I know).

The point of all of this is: can we just assume everything that is said in IFG, without any further argumentation, should be follow obediently? What is the nature of our enquiry, then? Is it restricted to applying (or even forcing!) ready-made analyses to texts? Not that there's anything inherently wrong with application, if it's helpful. It's just I thought we could always do more, including challenging received knowledge when evidence suggests we should probably revise our generalisations. Even the generalisations available in English descriptions.

Beatriz

*If we follow Davidse's own argumentation closely, Identifier/Identified and Token/Value are treated as independent variables (in English), and the different combinations lead to the encoding/decoding distinction.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the nominalised clause in thematic equatives serves as the Qualifier of a nominal group:

Quiroz clearly mistakes what we can notice for a clause; cf. what can we notice:

[2] To be clear, in an encoding identifying clause, Value conflates with Identified, whereas in a decoding identifying clause, Value conflates with Identifier. So the claim here is that in all thematic equative clauses, Value conflates with Identified.

[3] The adversative conjunctive Adjunct on the other hand is misleading here, because this claim is consistent with the previous claim, since the nominalisation serves as Value, which conflates with Identified.

[4] To be clear, what follows (tautologically) from the claim 'the nominalisation [in such clauses] is always the Value' is the claim that the nominalisation (not nominalised clause) is always the Value in thematic equative identifying clauses (not all identifying clauses).

[5] To be clear, the 'coding option' is the choice between encoding and decoding. Halliday's point, back in 1967, was that it is questionable as to whether decoding is an option in thematic equative identifying clauses. That is, Halliday thought, back then, that all thematic equative identifying clauses are necessarily encoding.

[6] This is a non-sequitur. It would seem that Quiroz is under the false impression that she has found inconsistencies in the quotes she has tendered, but failed to understand. More importantly, it commits the logical fallacy of attacking a straw man by misrepresenting Halliday's theorising as religious dogma ("sacred word").

[7] This is a false inference. In a thematic equative clause, the nominalisation serves as Value regardless of whether the direction of coding is encoding or decoding. In the case, of encoding, the nominalisation serves as Value/Identified, and in the case of decoding, it serves as Value/Identifier.

[8] To be clear, this is an hypothesis to be tested empirically by analysing data.

[9] See Theme Identification vs Theme Predication.

[10] To be clear, IFG illustrates SFL Theory by applying it in a description of English. There is no claim that descriptions of other languages will conform with its description of English. That is, Quiroz is again attacking a straw man. Importantly, SFL Theory is a scientific theory, and as such, warrants continuous hypothesis-testing on language data.

[11] To be clear, this is Halliday's model, not Davidse's argumentation, as Davidse would readily admit. See, for example, Halliday (1985: 112-28).

∞

For those unfamiliar with the political games that are played out in the SFL community, this and the previous post by Quiroz constitute an attempt by one of Jim Martin's faction to critique Halliday's analysis of thematic equative clauses, and to use the critique to cast doubt on the credibility of IFG as a whole — which she misrepresents as dogma to be obeyed. However, as Quiroz has demonstrated, she does not realise that her clause actually does conform to Halliday's analysis, and does not realise that the quotes that she tendered as inconsistent are, in fact, consistent both with each other and with Halliday's analysis.

Beatriz Quiroz On Value In Thematic Equatives

Beatriz Quiroz wrote to SYSFLING on 20 Nov 2021, at 02:28:

Could any one explain why 'nominalised' clauses in thematic equatives should be analysed always as Value, as Halliday an Matthiessen (2014) say on p. 285? Is there any lexicogrammatical pattern substantiating such analysis? Somewhere in the SFL literature?

and then on 21 Nov 2021, at 10:58:

I'll give you a full translation of the original example in Spanish:

"What we can notice when we follow this path is a clear evolutionary tendency towards centralisation".

The original example in Spanish appears in a pedagogic text in high-chool Biology. It's the last clause, serving as a hiperNew in a paragraph that explains the different characteristics of nervous systems in various species, going from intertebrates to vertebrates, scaffolding (without saying it until the very end) 'the tendency towards centralisation' as we move from simpler to more complex nervous systems. The paragraph itself is the macroTheme in a section on the nervous systems in the animal kingdom.

We've been discussing a simplified version of this example off list with Tom Barlett, trying to use 'represent' and 'exemplify as an agnate verb, with rather weird results! So here it goes:

"What we can notice when we follow this path is (represented by/exemplified by) a clear evolutionary tendency towards centralisation", and therefore "A clear evolutionary tendency towards centralisation represents/exemplifies what we can notice when we follow this path" (!?)

Apart from the fact the agnations sound weird to me both in English and in Spanish, semantically (I mean, in the wider context of the whole paragraph and within the text), I think the previous clauses in the paragraph are the ones serving as examples of 'a clear evolutionary tendency towards centralisation', rather than the other way around. But perhaps the 'what we can notice ...' clause makes the difference?

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the lexicogrammatical pattern that substantiates the analysis is that, in every instance of a thematic equative clause, it is always the Value participant — rather than the Token — that is realised by the nominalisation. That is, the question is poorly conceived. See also here.

[2] To be clear, this instance conforms to the claim (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 285) that 

in a thematic equative, the nominalisation is always the Value. 

That is, what we can notice is expressed by a clear evolutionary tendency towards centralisation — not what we can notice expresses a clear evolutionary tendency towards centralisation.

Significantly, Quiroz did not provide any alternative analysis of her own.

[3] To be clear, other clauses in the co-text are irrelevant to the question of whether the nominalisation serves as Value or Token in the identifying clause. The clause relates these two participants, and nothing else.

[4] To be clear, any perceived semantic "weirdness" here can be attributed to the very technical grammatical metaphor in the Token participant, combined with the fact that Quiroz and Bartlett have not distinguished the nested dependent clause when we follow this path from the dominant thematic equative clause what we can notice is a clear evolutionary tendency towards centralisation.

John Bateman Failing To Understand Tom Bartlett On The Origins Of Language

John Bateman replied to Tom Bartlett on SYSFLING on 6 Jul 2021 at 16:53:

OK, Tom, I'll bite! ... was extremely confused by your post actually...

What is the vervet monkey, for example. doing with its call - making an instinctive noise or saying something? If its call says danger - to those who are conditioned to recognise this - at what point does this move from an identifying relation to a verbal process?

.... isn't this confusing a description of grammar (for some subset of human languages) with a metalanguage for talking about semiotics? 

Or is the use of 'identifying', 'verbal' stand-ins for indexical and symbolic? (or something else?). …

And at what point in our linguistic evolution and development (phyologenesis and ontogenesis) do semiotic noises as minor clauses (including holisms) develop the systemic regularities that index mood?

Similarly here: "semiotic noises as minor clauses"? 'minor clause' is a grammatical (systemic) feature (of a language)... why should there be a 'point' that indicates that a grammatical system is indexing speech functions... And 'semiotic noises' (you mean materiality shaped as a realisation of the forms of a semiotic system?) can only be 'minor clauses' when the said semiotic system include an alternation with 'minor clause' as one of the alternatives...

I suspect what is confusing me throughout is the conflation of specific grammatical terminology with intendedly general semiotic vocabulary without explicit marking in your text. So you mean whatever it is that the interpersonal semantics of 'minor clauses' is taken to be as what the 'semiotic noise' might be doing with respect to the semiotic system at issue? …

I guess this is all why they banned discussion of the origins of language way back :-) They were probably on to something ...

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the confusion here is entirely Bateman's, as he rightly acknowledges. On the one hand, a semiotic theory is not a metalanguage unless the semiotic system being theorised is language. A metalanguage is language turned back on itself, not language turned onto some other semiotic system. So Bateman's "metalanguage for talking about semiotics" is actually the use of language to theorise semiotics.

On the other hand, using metalanguage to theorise semiotics is precisely what Bartlett was trying to do.  Moreover, in this he was following the example set by this blogger, most obviously on Informing Thoughts. 

Importantly, just as language can be used to theorise any domain of experience, so too, obviously, can metalanguage. One advantage of using SFL metalanguage to theorise phenomena is that its architecture is explicitly defined, and inconsistencies in theorising can be identified and dismissed on the basis of reasoned evidence.

[2] Clearly not, since 'identifying' is the relation of symbolic abstraction and projection ('verbal') the relation between different orders of experience, whereas by 'indexical' and 'symbolic', Bateman means the distinction in Peircean semiotic theory, whose fundamental assumptions are incompatible with the social semiotic model of SFL Theory.

[3] See the previous post Tom Bartlett On The Origins Of Language.

[4] On the other hand, as Thomas Babington Macaulay said:

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

and as Niels Bohr said:

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

David Rose On "The Attributive Nucleus"

David Rose reacted to David Banks on sysfling on 25 September 2018 at 08:19:

The answer lies in their orbital (nucleus/margin/periphery) structuring. David Banks semantically re-interpeted the attributive nucleus (us + into this/ us + out) as a ‘result’ of the attributing agency (I got/gonna get), which is marginal (IFG pp350, 211, Martin 1996, Working with Discourse §3.3). 

Agency in English grammar is potentially recursive…

they made me get us into this

But 'us + into this’ remains the attributive nucleus (Medium/Carrier + Range/Attribute) … 

It's intriguing to see the intricacies of meaning made by the grammar itself.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the answer to a transitivity question depends on the ability to understand and apply transitivity theory.  The 'orbital structuring' Rose refers to is Martin's misunderstanding of Halliday's clause nuclearity, rebranded and relocated to Martin's ill-conceived discourse semantic stratum.

• For the misunderstandings of clause nuclearity in Martin (1992), see the relevant posts in the critique of Chapter 5 here.
• For the misunderstandings of clause nuclearity in Martin & Rose (2007), see the relevant posts in the critique of Chapter 3 here.
• For some of the reasons why Martin's discourse semantic stratum is ill-conceived, see Why The Argument For A 'Discourse' Semantic Stratum Is Invalid.

[2] See the previous post for the theoretical misunderstanding that invalidates Banks' analysis.

[3] To be clear, Banks' clause analysis was presented as grammatical, not semantic.

[4] On the one hand, this is deeply misleading, since it falsely implies that Rose's statement is consistent with Halliday ± Matthiessen (1985, 1994, 2004, 2014), and thereby endorsed by them.  On the other hand, it is a poor bluff, since neither of the cited pages — in any edition — says anything at all about clause nuclearity.

[5] To be clear, the discussion of nuclear relations in Working With Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007) is §3.4.  The concern of §3.3 is taxonomic relations, which is Halliday & Hasan's lexical cohesion misunderstood, rebranded and relocated by Martin from textual lexicogrammar to experiential discourse semantics.

[6] To be clear, according to Martin (1992: 319) and Martin & Rose (2007: 95), it is Range: entity that is said to be within the nucleus.  The prepositional phrase into this, interpreted as a circumstantial Attribute, does not function as Range: entity.  Circumstances, on the other hand, are said (ibid.) to be located at the periphery.

For the original, theoretically consistent model of clause nuclearity, see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 348):

[7] To be clear, making meaning is semogenesis, and it involves all strata.   In SFL theory, grammar (wording) realises meaning (semantics).  This confusion between semogenesis and stratification derives from Martin (1992); see for example:

• Confusing Semogenesis And Stratification
• Confusing Semogenesis With Levels Of Symbolic Abstraction
• Confusing Semogenesis With Stratification

On the other hand, in SFL theory, the grammar not only realises meaning, it construes (intellectually constructs) it.  That is, it is the grammar that makes possible the sorts of meanings that language can make.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 603-4):

The central meaning-making resource in language — its "content plane" — is stratified into two systems: that of lexicogrammar, and that of semantics. The semantic system is the 'outer' layer, the interface where experience is transformed into meaning. The 'inner' layer is the grammar, which masterminds the way this transformation takes place.