David Rose Misunderstanding Markedness

David Rose replied to Brad Smith on asflanet on 2 Sept 2024, at 21:21:

As you say, it’s related to instantiation, specifically the probability of instantiation... less likely choices are more marked. That gets you into knots with tone 1 imperatives here, which you say are ‘unmarked’ but are no more frequent than other tones in your data. A problem may be ambiguity of the term ‘neutral’. It can mean unmarked, but in Halliday’s key system it means neutral force, in contrast to mild, strong etc.

PS Key treats grammar/tone couplings as delicate mood choices, but another perspective is delicate speech function and appraisal choices... ‘what a command is trying to get done ‘

and on 3 Sept, at 13:27:

In contrast, marked/unmarked are used technically as feature labels in textual systems, theme and information focus. Could we perhaps avoid using these terms quasi-technically in pedagogic contexts, and reserve them for textual features? The ‘good reason’ is textual prominence.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, there is no problem here because markedness is not defined by frequency. Halliday (2005 [1991]: 68):

An unmarked term is a default condition: that which is selected unless there is good reason for selecting some other term. It is not defined by frequency, but it is likely to correspond to the more probable term in a system whose probabilities are skew.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 169) identify the different speech functions realised by imperative mood realised by different tones as follows:

command: tone 1 (unmarked in positive)
invitation: tone 3 (unmarked in negative)
request (marked polarity): tone 13, with tonic on do/don’t
plea: tone 4

The frequency of a selected tone will thus vary with the frequency of a selected speech function realised by imperative mood in a given text type, and this varies with the tenor relations of the interlocutors.

[2] This misunderstands the distinction between a feature and a classification of feature. In Halliday's system of KEY, Halliday & Greaves (2008: 208) 'neutral' is one of the features, not a classification of a feature as neutral or unmarked:

[3] This misrepresents the SFL model. To be clear, SPEECH FUNCTION (semantics) is realised by MOOD (lexicogrammar), and different features of KEY (lexicogrammar), realised by different features of TONE (phonology), differentiate the SPEECH FUNCTION of a MOOD into more delicate types. An example is the case of commands being differentiated into invitations, requests and pleas according to the tone selection, as in [1] above.

[4] To be clear, the unmarked/marked distinction is not restricted to features of textual systems, as demonstrated by the unmarked/marked distinction for the system of TONE, which realises interpersonal systems. Another interpersonal example is the unmarked choice of Subject; Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 194):

For any clause, there is one choice of Subject that is ‘unmarked’ – that is assumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary. In a giving clause (offer or statement), the unmarked Subject is ‘I’; while in a demanding clause (question or command), the unmarked Subject is ‘you’.

An experiential example is unmarked/marked distinction for present tense, which varies according to PROCESS TYPE. 

[5] This misunderstands the 'good reason' principle. To be clear, 'textual prominence' is what choosing an element as Theme or New affords, and this is the case whether the choice is unmarked or marked. The 'good reason' principle, on the other hand, is what lies behind the choice of a marked option in preference to the unmarked option.

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 Rose Misrepresenting Lexicogrammar As Discourse Semantics: Interpersonal Metafunction

At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

[see grammatical analysis here.]

David Rose wrote to sys-func and Sysfling on 18 March 2015 at 09:15, analysing the above clause complex from Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech:

Now from discourse semantics… 

4. interpersonally 

‘America’ and ‘We the People’ are modally responsible

Blogger Comments:

[1] The notion of the Subject as the modally responsible element is from the grammar, not discourse semantics.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 59):

A clause has meaning as an exchange, a transaction between speaker and listener; the Subject is the warranty of the exchange.  It is the element the speaker makes responsible for the validity of what he is saying.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 194):

Thus while a Goal readily becomes Subject … it is unusual to make a Scope element ‘modally responsible’ in this way …