David Rose On What Counts As Grammar And What Counts As Discourse Semantics

At 09:33 on 9/5/14, Margaret Berry asked David Rose on sys-func:

how do you decide what counts as grammar and what counts as discourse semantics?

To which David Rose replied at 09:37:

What a great question! And what counts as discourse semantics or register?

and later at 12:50:

Technically, entry conditions for grammatical systems must be a grammatical rank.

Blogger Comments:

[1] It's an obvious and fundamental question, and one that should yield a ready answer, since it would have formed the basis of theorising discourse semantics as a stratum of language; yet Rose gives the impression, through his initial exclamation and ultimate inability to answer the question, of never having considered it before.

Since Martin (1992) proposes discourse semantics as a stratum above lexicogrammar on the content plane, and strata represent levels of symbolic abstraction, "what counts as discourse semantics" is linguistic content that is more symbolically abstract than "what counts as lexicogrammar".  Because the relation between strata is one of realisation, "what counts as discourse semantics" is realised by "what counts as lexicogrammar", and "what counts as lexicogrammar" realises "what counts as discourse semantics".

This means that the systems of each stratum have to be accounted for with respect to those of the other.  This includes specifying congruent lexicogrammatical realisations of discourse semantic features and distinguishing them from metaphorical realisations.

It also means that relations between grammatical units, such as clauses, need to be first specified at that level of abstraction, that is: lexicogrammar, and such relations then be related to the discourse semantic features they realise.  It is not sufficient to model the relations between clauses only at the level discourse semantics.

[2] What counts as discourse semantics or register only becomes problematic when register, a functional variety of language, is misconstrued as a stratum of context above semantics (Martin 1992), and thus, misconstrued as being more symbolically abstract than semantics (as argued elsewhere on this site).  The problem is further compounded by misconstruing context as language — Martin's register and genre — instead of as a semiotic system that is realised in language (as argued elsewhere on this site).  One potential pitfall of this latter misconstrual is that discourse analysts, in dealing with texts, run the risk of confusing field and tenor, the ideational and interpersonal dimensions of the situational context, with the ideational and interpersonal meanings of the text itself.  This confusion is one source of Rose's difficulty of distinguishing "what counts as discourse semantics" from "what counts as register".

[3] This raises the issue of entry conditions for discourse semantic systems.  It is a theoretical requirement that the entry conditions for all systems be specified.

David Rose On "Metalanguage"

At 11:44 on 8/5/14 David Rose wrote to sysfling:

One reason I think why children can readily recognise clauses from an experiential perspective, is the tacit metalanguage in their own grammar… who or what it's about, what they're doing, where, when, how. But these are not directly related to transitivity categories, which are specified by process type or ergativity. Rather they are discourse semantic elements, that Ruqaiya Hasan has referred to as 'message parts', and Jim Martin as nuclear relations. 

From this existing intuitive knowledge of children it is a simple step to consciously recognise a clause as a process involving people and things in places and times.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The elements Rose talks about — 'who or what it's about, what they're doing, where, when, how' — are not "the tacit metalanguage in their own grammar".  Metalanguage is not "in their own grammar".  Metalanguage is language about language.  In this instance, the metalanguage is Rose's language about the language of children, not the language of children.

[2] On the SFL model, these are experiential meanings, and as such, are indeed directly related to  the "transitivity categories" of the lexicogrammar; as meanings, they are of a higher stratum of symbolic abstraction, semantics, and thus related to lexicogrammar by realisation.

Shooshi Dreyfus On Circumstantial Relational Processes

Shooshi Dreyfus wrote on 5 May 2014 to sys-func:

… I can't, (for some reason to do with what feels like ignoring the grammar to make way for the semantics, though perhaps that's not quite it) come at a circumstantial relational process (perhaps only because I have never heard of one – excuse my ignorance – point to them to read about please) …

Blogger Comment:

Circumstantial relational clauses are discussed in An Introduction To Functional Grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 240-4).  Relational clauses are:

• either attributive or identifying (MODE OF RELATION), and
• either intensive, possessive or circumstantial (TYPE OF RELATION).

A system network for relational clause systems appears on page 217.

Context Vs Cotext

Halliday (2007 [1991]: 271):

Originally, the context meant the accompanying text, the wording that came before and after whatever was under attention. In the nineteenth century it was extended to things other than language, both concrete and abstract: the context of the building, the moral context of the day; but if you were talking about language, then it still referred to the surrounding words, and it was only in modern linguistics that it came to refer to the non-verbal environment in which language was used. When that had happened, it was Catford, I think, who suggested that we now needed another term to refer explicitly to the verbal environment; and he proposed the term “co-text”.

For the difference between material setting, context and co-text, click here.
For material setting vs context see here.

Context Of Situation Vs Setting

Halliday (2007 [1991]: 278):

The setting, on the other hand, is the immediate material environment. This may be a direct manifestation of the context of situation, and so be integrated into it: if the situation is one of, say, medical care, involving a doctor and one or more patients, then the setting of hospital or clinic is a relevant part of the picture. But even there the setting does not constitute the context of situation …

Martin’s Cline Of Instantiation Applied To Martin’s Stratification

Martin's stratification: 

genre, register, discourse semantics, lexicogrammar, phonology

Martin's cline of instantiation: 

system, genre/register, text type, text, reading.

On this model,

(A)

(1) genre is simultaneously more abstract than register (in terms of stratification), and a sub-potential of register (in terms of the latter stratum's instantiation) — which is logically incoherent;

(2) register is simultaneously more abstract than discourse semantics (in terms of stratification) and a sub-potential of discourse semantics (in terms of the latter stratum's instantiation) — which is logically incoherent;

(B)

(1) genre is simultaneously a stratal system and a sub-potential of itself (in terms of that stratum's instantiation) — which is logically incoherent;

(2) register is simultaneously a stratal system and a sub-potential of itself (in terms of that stratum's instantiation) — which is logically incoherent;

etc …

Register & Context 2012: Christian Matthiessen Part 2

Register & Context 2012: Christian Matthiessen Part 1

Christian Matthiessen -- Language Evolving: Notes Towards A Semiotic History Of Humanity

Process Types As "Spectrum"

System Networks Construe A Continuous Semiotic Space

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 173):

Like all system networks, this [PROCESS TYPE] network construes a continuous semiotic space.

Terms In Systems Are Fuzzy Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 174n):

Systemic terms are not Aristotelian categories. Rather they are fuzzy categories; they can be thought of as representing fuzzy sets rather than ‘crisp’ ones …

Grammatical Labels Reflect Core Category Signification

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 199):

… grammatical labels are very rarely appropriate for all instances of a category — they are chosen to reflect its central or ‘core’ signification ( … ‘prototypes’ …). These core areas are the central region for each process type … and the non-core areas lie on the borders between the different process types, shading into one another as the colours of a colour spectrum.

The Principle Of Systemic Indeterminacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 173):

The world of our experience is highly indeterminate; and this is precisely how the grammar construes it in the system of process type. Thus, one and the same text may offer alternative models of what would appear to be the same domain of experience, construing for example the domain of emotion both as a process in a ‘mental’ clause … and as a participant in a ‘relational’ one …

Process Types: Spherical Ordering

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 171-2):

There is no priority of one kind of process over another. But they are ordered; and what is important is that, in our concrete visual metaphor, they form a circle and not a line. (More accurately still … a sphere … .) That is to say, our model of experience, as interpreted through the grammatical system of transitivity, is one of regions within a continuous space; but the continuity is not between two poles, it is round in a loop.

Process Types As Continuous Regions With Core & Peripheral Areas

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 172):

The regions have core areas and these represent prototypical members of the process types; but the regions are continuous, shading into one another, and these border areas represent the fact that the process types are fuzzy categories.

Behavioural, Verbal & Existential Process Types As Categories At Boundaries

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 171):

Material, mental and relational are the main types of process in the English transitivity system. But we also find further categories at the three boundaries; not so clearly set apart, but nevertheless recognisable in the grammar as intermediate between the different pairs — sharing some features of each, and thus acquiring a character of their own.

Behavioural Processes At The Borderline

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 171):

On the borderline between ‘material’ and ‘mental’ are the behavioural processes: those that represent the outer manifestations of inner workings, the acting out of processes of consciousness and physiological states.

Verbal Processes At The Borderline

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 171):

On the borderline between ‘mental’ and ‘relational’ are the verbal processes: symbolic relationships constructed in human consciousness and enacted in the form of language, like saying and meaning …

Existential Processes At The Borderline

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 171):

And on the borderline between the ‘relational’ and the ‘material’ are the processes concerned with existence, the existential, by which phenomena of all kinds are simply recognised to ‘be’ — to exist or to happen …

Halliday & Matthiessen On Martin's Theme, Method Of Development And Field

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 407):

Thematic spaces in an ideational semantic network can be seen as a model of the systemic understanding of Theme and method of development articulated by Martin, where [Martin’s] “field” corresponds to what has been discussed here in terms of ideational semantic networks in the ideation base.

That is:

(1) Halliday & Matthiessen's thematic spaces in an ideational semantic network

is a systemic understanding of

Martin's Theme and method of development

(2) Halliday & Matthiessen's ideational semantics

corresponds to

Martin's field

Halliday & Matthiessen On Martin's Transitivity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504): 

As we have already noted, Martin, in his systemic treatment of processes in Tagalog, offers a different interpretation of nuclear transitivity: he defines it in terms of orientation, rather than configuration, and hence operates with a significantly different concept of participant function.

How To Distinguish Complement And Adjunct

(1) WHAT DOES THE TEXTBOOK SAY?

Complement

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 122-3):

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

Adjunct

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 123):

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

(2) EXAMPLES

(a) Consider the following clause:

Maureen gave David the book.

Q1. Can ‘David’ be raised to Subject?

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

Conclusion: ‘David’ is Complement.

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

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

Conclusion: ‘the book’ is Complement.

(b) Consider the following clause:

Maureen gave the book to David.

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

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

Conclusion: ‘to David’ is Adjunct.

(c) Consider the following clause:

The book was given to David by Maureen.

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

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

Conclusion: ‘to David’ is Adjunct.

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

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

Conclusion: ‘by Maureen’ is Adjunct.

Material Vs Semiotic Abstractions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 190ff) provide a taxonomy of simple things based on the participant roles they play in semantic figures — critically those of Senser, Sayer and Actor.

The most general distinction is between conscious and non-conscious.

Within non-conscious, the distinction is between material and semiotic.

Within material, the distinctions are animal, object, substance and abstraction.

Within semiotic, the distinctions are institution, object and abstraction.

Material abstractions — eg depth, colours — typically play the roles of Phenomenon, Carrier and Value. They have no extension in space and are unbounded, and are typically some parameter of a material quality or process.

Semiotic abstractions — eg information, truth — are typically realised by the Range of mental and verbal processes. They are unbounded semiotic substance with no material existence.

There are also intermediate categories in this taxonomy. For example:

Human collectives — eg family — are intermediate between conscious beings and institutions.

Discrete semiotic abstractions — eg thoughts and fears (mental entities) and questions and orders (speech functions) — are intermediate between semiotic objects and non-discrete semiotic abstractions.

A Useful Way To Visualise Instantiation

1. Think of a system network, such as that of TRANSITIVITY (IFG3 p302). Think of it as coloured black.

2. Now, for example, think of a clause.

3. Now colour green all the features and realisation statements that are selected for that clause.

The term 'system' refers to the entire TRANSITIVITY network.

The term 'instance' refers to just the green bits.

The term 'instantiation as process' refers to the process of applying the colour green.

The term 'instantiation as scale' — 'the cline of instantiation' — refers to the relation between the entire system and the green bits.

The green bits are both a subpotential of the system, and the "activation" of that subpotential.

The instance is the "activated" portion of the system. The relation of the instance to the system is the relation of the "activated" portion to the system as a whole.

Two Reasons Why Halliday’s And Martin’s Models Of Stratification Cannot Be Integrated

1) They do not mean the same thing by ‘register’.

For Halliday, ‘register’ means a functional variety of language (with roots back to the Prague School and Firth).

Martin, on the other hand, equates ‘register’ with Halliday’s ‘context’, which removes the notion of register as a functional variety of language from the model. This is because a higher stratum is not a functional variety of a lower stratum; eg lexicogrammar is not a functional variety of phonology.

2) They do not mean the same thing by ‘context’.

For Halliday, ‘context’ is

• what people do with language (H&M 1999: ix),
• the ‘semiotic environment’ of language (p375),
• the “culture”, considered as a semiotic potential (p606).

Halliday’s ‘context’ is a level of abstraction that is realised by language.

Martin, on the other hand, in describing his model of stratification writes (1992: 496):

… the size of the circles also reflects the fact that the analysis tends to focus on larger units as one moves from phonology to ideology.  Thus the tendency at the level of phonology to focus on syllables and phonemes, at the level of lexicogrammar to focus on the clause, at the level of discourse semantics to focus on an exchange or "paragraph", at the level of register to focus on a stage in a transaction, at the level of genre to focus on whole texts …

As this quote makes clear, Martin’s ‘context’ refers to levels within language, since 'a stage in a transaction' and 'whole texts' are units of language.

Halliday & Matthiessen On Martin's Register

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 27n):

Here the term ‘register’ thus refers to a functional variety of language. It has also been used in a related, but different way, to refer to the contextual values associated with such a functional variety (see Martin, 1992; cf Matthiessen 1993).

Theme And Mood

Theme

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 85):

(i) Initial position in the English clause is meaningful in the construction of the clause as message; specifically, it has a thematic function.

(ii) Certain textual elements that orient the clause within the discourse, rhetorically and logically, are inherently thematic.

(iii) Certain other elements, textual and interpersonal, that set up a semantic relation with what precedes, or express the speaker’s angle or intended listener, are characteristically thematic; this includes finite operators, which signal one type of question.

(iv) These inherently and characteristically thematic elements lie outside the experiential structure of the clause; they have no status as participant, circumstance or process.

(v) Until one of these latter appears, the clause lacks an anchorage in the realm of experience; and this is what completes the thematic grounding of the message.

Unmarked Theme In Declarative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 73):

In a declarative clause, the typical pattern is one in which Theme is conflated with Subject; … We shall refer to the mappaing of Theme on to Subject as the unmarked Theme of a declarative clause. The Subject is the element that is chosen as Theme unless there is good reason for choosing something else.

Marked Themes In Declarative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 73, 74):

A Theme that is something other than the Subject, in a declarative clause, we shall refer to as a marked Theme. The most usual form of marked Theme is an adverbial group … or prepositional phrase … functioning as Adjunct in the clause. Least likely to be thematic is a Complement, which is a nominal group that is not functioning as Subject — something that could have been a Subject but is not … . Sometimes even the Complement from within a prepositional phrase functions as Theme … .

Theme In Exclamative Declarative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 74):

There is one sub-category of declarative clause that has a special thematic structure, namely the exclamative. These typically have an exclamatory WH-element as Theme … .

Theme In Polar Interrogative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 75, 76):

In a yes/no interrogative, which is a question about polarity, the element that functions as Theme is the element that embodies the expression of polarity, namely the Finite verbal operator. … but, since that is not an element in the experiential structure of the clause, the Theme extends over the following Subject as well.

Theme In WH- Interrogative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 75):

In a WH- interrogative, which is a search for a missing piece of information, the element that functions as Theme is the element that requests this information, namely the WH- element … whether Subject, Adjunct or Complement.

Theme In ‘You-&-Me’ Imperative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 76):

… here, let’s is clearly the unmarked choice of Theme.

Theme In ‘You’ Imperative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 76):

… although the ‘you’ can be made explicit as a Theme … this is clearly a marked choice; the more typical form is … with the verb in thematic position. … here, therefore, it is the Predicator that is the unmarked Theme.

Theme In Negative Imperative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 77):

… the principle is the same as with yes/no interrogatives: the unmarked Theme is don’t plus the following element, either Subject or Predicator. Again there is a marked form with you, … where the Theme is don’t you. There is also a marked contrastive form of the positive, … where the Theme is do plus the Predicator … .

Predicator As Theme

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 77):

The imperative is the only type of clause in which the Predicator (the verb) is regularly found as Theme. This is not impossible in other moods … but in such clauses it is the most highly marked choice of all.

Adjunct As Theme In Imperative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 78):

Imperative clauses may have a marked Theme, as when a locative Adjunct is thematic in a clause giving directions … The adjunct part of a phrasal verb may serve as marked Theme in an imperative clause with an explicit Subject, as in Up you get! … .

System Networks

System networks are not flowcharts.

Nothing flows through the network.

A speaker does not choose how far to go in delicacy.

System networks map how features relate to each other.  The architecture of the network can be understood in terms of the logical relations set out in the theory: specifically, the three types of expansion.

elaboration: delicacy

extension: conjunction, disjunction

enhancement: entry conditions

The arrows in a system network represent the relation of condition, not temporality.
A "traversal" of the network is a specific map of logically related features.

Why ‘Realisation’ Applies To Both Strata And Rank And Where The Difference Lies

The overall architecture of SFL theory can be understood in terms of theoretical constructs within the model, namely: relational processes (identifying and attributive) and logico-semantic relations (expansion and projection).

‘Realise’ is an intensive identifying process, which means that it combines ‘identifying’ with ‘elaboration’.

In the case of strata, where a lower stratum realises a higher stratum, the relation between them is thus identifying + elaboration.

The rank scale, on the other hand, is organised in terms of composition, which is a subtype of extension. ‘Realise’ is used on the rank scale to relate the function of a higher rank to the form of a lower rank (eg Process is realised by verbal group). This relation between function and form is thus also identifying + elaboration.

The similarity thus lies in elaboration + identifying being an organising principle for both stratification and the rank scale.

The difference lies in the fact that, whereas stratification involves only elaboration + identifying, the rank scale combines extension (relation between forms) with elaboration + identifying (function–form relations).

(The term ‘realisation’ is used wherever there is an intensive identifying (token-value) relation in the theory. eg between system and structure on a given stratum, between strata, between function and form in the rank scale.)

—∞—

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 4n):

The ambiguity [of ‘level’ as either stratum or rank] resides in the overlap of two grammatical relations, those of elaboration (‘be’) and of extension (‘have’) …

Distinguishing The Instance From The System

The Difference Between Context And Register

Context is realised by language.

Registers are types of language (that realise types of context).

The context-language relation is value-token.

The register-language relation is carrier-attribute.

Context is more abstract than language.

Registers (of language) are more specific than language (in general).

Halliday & Matthiessen On Fawcett's Relational Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504): 

His abandonment of the distinction between attributive and identifying seems harder to motivate, since this cannot in fact be explained as a textual (thematic) system in the way that Fawcett proposes.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 229):

Note therefore that Identified–Identifier cannot simply be explained as Given–New in an ‘identifying’ clause; not surprisingly, since the former are experiential functions whereas the latter are textual.

Halliday & Matthiessen On Fawcett's Relational Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504): 

Fawcett incorporates into the “relational: possessive” category, processes of giving and acquiring; reduces the circumstantial to locational processes only; and includes within these, processes of going and sending. As is to be expected, this alternative analysis embodies certain generalisations that are not made in our account of figures, and ignores certain others which are.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 505):

Fawcett’s alternative model for relational processes, with its particular features such as treating ‘giving’ and ‘placing’ as agentive possessives and locatives (‘make…have’, ‘make…be at’) rather than as material dispositives, has to be understood in its total explanatory context: 

(i) in relation to its repercussions within the transitivity system, both the trinocular perspective on transitivity itself (from above, as generalisations about meaning; from roundabout, its consequences for agnateness, delicacy and the move towards lexis; from below, as regularities in the realisation) and the overall topology of content — transitivity in relation to the semantic construal of causality, agency, disposal, and so on; 

(ii) in relation to Fawcett’s architectural design, which differs from ours in having a single system–structure cycle for the two strata of semantics and lexicogrammar (his “syntax”) and then adding a further level of description that is expressed in cognitive terms.

‡

The model of Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 212) has the explanatory advantage of revealing the following consistent systemic proportionalities:

Thus static location in space [enhancement] is construed relationally …

but dynamic motion is construed materially … 

static possession [extension] is construed relationally …

but dynamic transfer of possession is construed materially …

and static quality [elaboration] is construed relationally … 

but dynamic change in quality is construed materially …

which reflects the more general contrast in the ideational semantics (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 131):

The domain outside this conscious-semiotic [sensing, saying] centre of the ideational universe is then quintessentially either active (doing) or inert (being) …

Halliday & Matthiessen On Fawcett's Extra-Linguistic Knowledge

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

It follows then … that for us [Fawcett’s (extra-linguistic)] “knowledge of the universe” is construed as meaning rather than as knowledge. This meaning is in the first instance created in language; but we have noted that meaning is created in other semiotic systems as well, both other social-semiotic systems and other semiotic systems such as perception. Our account gives language more of a central integrative rôle in the overall system. It is the one semiotic system which is able to construe meanings from semiotic systems in general.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 3):

We contend that the conception of ‘knowledge’ as something that exists independently of language, and may then be coded or made manifest in language, is illusory. All knowledge is constituted in semiotic systems, with language as the most central; and all such representations of knowledge are constructed from language in the first place.

Halliday & Matthiessen On Fawcett's System–Structure Cycle

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429): 

In Fawcett’s model, there is only one system–structure cycle within the content plane: systems are interpreted as the semantics, linked through a “realisational component” to [content] form, which includes items and syntax, the latter being modelled structurally but not systemically; […] in our model there are two system-structure cycles, one in the semantics and one in the lexicogrammar. Terms in semantic systems are realised in semantic structures; and semantic systems and structures are in turn realised in lexicogrammatical ones.

… grammatical metaphor is a central reason in our account for treating axis and stratification as independent dimensions, so that we have both semantic systems and structures and lexicogrammatical systems and structures. Since we [unlike Fawcett] allow for a stratification of content systems into semantics and lexicogrammar, we are in a stronger position to construe knowledge in terms of meaning. That is, the semantics can become more powerful and extensive if the lexicogrammar includes systems.

—∞—

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 25):

The stratification of the content plane had immense significance in the evolution of the human species — it is not an exaggeration to say that it turned Homo … into Homo sapiens. It opened up the power of language and in so doing created the modern human brain.

Martin's Claim That All Strata Make Meaning

Grammatically, this is an abstract creative material clause.

All strata : Actor
make : Process: material: creative
meaning : Goal

It is consistent with the notion of 'semogenesis': the creation of meaning.

On the other hand, an attributive reading, such as 'All strata have meaning' is not consistent with either 'semogenesis' or the dimension of stratification.

Meaning is not an attribute of every stratum.

Meaning is but one stratum in the levels of symbolic abstraction.

Wording [lexicogrammar] realises meaning [semantics].

Sounding [phonology] realises the realisation of meaning [semantics] in wording [lexicogrammar].

SFL's Architecture Of Language Classified By SFL Relations

A. system networks
i. delicacy = elaboration + attributive
ii. disjunction = extension: alternative
iii. conjunction = extension: addition
iv. entry condition = enhancement: condition
v. realisation statement = elaboration + identifying

B. rank scale = extension: composition

C. realisation = elaboration + identifying
1. higher stratum realised by lower stratum [stratification]
2. system realised by structure [axis]
3. function realised by form [rank scale]

D. instantiation cline = elaboration + attributive

Nominal Groups Inside Prepositional Phrases: Indirect Participants

Q1. WHAT ARE THE EXPERIENTIAL IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FACT THAT THE COMPLEMENT OF A PREPOSITION (MINOR PREDICATOR) CAN OFTEN BE RAISED TO SUBJECT?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 296-7):

… the Complement of a preposition can often emerge to function as Subject … This pattern suggests that Complements of prepositions, despite being embedded in an element that has a circumstantial function, are still felt to be participating, even if at a distance, in the process expressed by the clause.

Q2. HOW DO WE DISTINGUISH THESE TWO TYPES OF PARTICIPATION?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 261):

We can make a contrast, then, between direct and indirect participants, using ‘indirect participant’ to refer to the status of a nominal group that is inside a prepositional phrase …

Q3. HOW DO WE DISTINGUISH INDIRECT PARTICIPANTS FROM CIRCUMSTANCES?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 278):

Wherever there is systematic alternation between a prepositional phrase and a nominal group, as in all the instances in Participant functions realised by prepositional phrases, the element in question is interpreted as a participant.

Q4. WHAT IS THE FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIRECT AND INDIRECT PARTICIPANTS?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 295-6):

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

Lexis As Most Delicate Grammar

The most delicate features on the lexicogrammatical stratum are not lexical items.  The cline of lexicogrammatical delicacy is not a scale of increasingly delicate lexical items.

Lexical items are the "output" of the network.  Each lexical item is a "bundle" of co-selected features, just as the phoneme /b/ is a bundle of the articulatory features {bilabial, voiced, stop}.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198-9):

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.

Semantics Is Not Just A Relabelling Of Lexicogrammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 26): 

Thus when we move from the lexicogrammar into the semantics, as we are doing here, we are not simply relabelling everything in a new terminological guise. We shall stress the fundamental relationship between (say) clause complex in the grammar and sequence in the semantics, precisely because the two originate as one: a theory of the logical relationships between processes.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 604)

But in modelling the semantic system we face a choice: namely, how far “above” the grammar we should try to push it. Since the decision has to be made with reference to the grammar, this is equivalent to asking how abstract the theoretical constructs are going to be. We have chosen to locate ourselves at a low point on the scale of abstraction, keeping the semantics and the grammar always within hailing distance. There were various reasons for this. First, we wanted to show the grammar at work in construing experience; since we are proposing this as an alternative to cognitive theories, with an “ideation base” rather than a “knowledge base”, we need to posit categories such that their construal in the lexicogrammar is explicit. Secondly, we wanted to present the grammar as “natural”, not arbitrary; this is an essential aspect of the evolution of language from a primary semiotic such as that of human infants. Thirdly, we wanted to explain the vast expansion of the meaning potential that takes place through grammatical metaphor; this depends on the initial congruence between grammatical and semantic categories. 

But in any case, it is not really possible to produce a more abstract model of semantics until the less abstract model has been developed first. One has to be able to renew connection with the grammar. 

David Rose On Beyond the Clause (Complex)

David Rose wrote at 11:07 on 2/3/14 to sysfling:

Beyond the clause (complex) is the text. Here is a relevant quote from Ch 1 of Working with Discourse: meaning beyond the clause…

Blogger Comments:

[1] Beyond the clause (complex) is the cotext at the level of wording (lexicogrammar).

In terms of stratification, the clause is the uppermost rank unit in stratum of wording (lexicogrammar) — and the clause complex is an expansion of that unit — whereas text is the uppermost 'unit' in the stratum of meaning (semantics).   In terms of instantiation, text is an instance of the system, and so can be viewed at the level of meaning (semantics), wording (lexicogrammar) and sounding (phonology).

[2] Meaning 'beyond the clause' is the meaning (semantic stratum) that is realised on the grammatical stratum as the textual systems of cohesion: CONJUNCTION, REFERENCE, SUBSTITUTION & ELLIPSIS and LEXICAL COHESION.  See Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 524-85).

Halliday & Matthiessen On Knowledge, Language And Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 3):

We contend that the conception of 'knowledge' as something that exists independently of language, and may then be coded or made manifest in language, is illusory.  All knowledge is constituted in semiotic systems, with language as the most central; and all such representations of knowledge are constructed from language in the first place.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

It follows then … that for us [Fawcett's extralinguistic] “knowledge of the universe” is construed as meaning rather than as knowledge. This meaning is in the first instance created in language; but we have noted that meaning is created in other semiotic systems as well, both other social-semiotic systems and other semiotic systems such as perception. Our account gives language more of a central integrative rôle in the overall system. It is the one semiotic system which is able to construe meanings from semiotic systems in general.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 602):

Language is not a second–order code through which meanings created in some higher–order realm of existence are mysteriously made manifest and brought to light.  To borrow the conceit that Firth was fond of caricaturing, there are no “naked ideas” lurking in the background waiting to be clothed.  It is language that creates meaning, in the sense that meaning has for us as human beings (which is the only sense of it that we can know).

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 603):

… our interpretation of meaning is immanent, so that meaning is inside language, not some separate, higher domain of human experience.

See also Cognition: The Mental Map Is A Semiotic Map

David Rose On "Semantics As A Mirror Image Of The Grammar"

David Rose posted (apparently unsuccessfully) to sys-func at 11:30 on 18/2/14 and then (successfully) to sysfling at 15:41 on 19/2/14:

My point is that this is a description of the meanings made in the grammar. A point you are making (I think) is that relations between meanings in grammar and meanings in discourse are not one-to-one, but many-to-many. You see the semantic stratum as organising grammatical choices, to realise higher level meanings. This is quite different from the model I have been questioning, in which semantics is held to be a mirror image of the grammar. But it is not so far from the theory of discourse semantics.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Ideationally, the lexicogrammar construes experience as meaning, where 'construe' means “construct semiotically, transform into meaning” (Halliday 2008: 2); and in terms of stratification, the lexicogrammar realises meaning.

[2] In the SFL model that challenges Rose, semantics isn't "held to be a mirror image of the grammar".  In congruent realisations, sequences are realised by clause complexes, figures by clauses, and elements by groups/phrases, for example.  But in the case of grammatical metaphor, the realisation relations can vary considerably, as when a semantic figure is realised, not as a ranking clause, but as participant in the function structure of a clause, or as the Qualifier of a nominal group that realises a participant; and so on.  Some helpful quotes from the ideational perspective:

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 26):

Thus when we move from the lexicogrammar into the semantics, as we are doing here, we are not simply relabelling everything in a new terminological guise. We shall stress the fundamental relationship between (say) clause complex in the grammar and sequence in the semantics, precisely because the two originate as one: a theory of the logical relationships between processes.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 237):

Of course, what we are recognising here as two distinct constructions, the semantic and the grammatical, never had or could have had any existence the one prior to the other; they are our analytic representation of the overall semioticising of experience — how experience is construed into meaning. If the congruent form had been the only form of construal, we would probably not have needed to think of semantics and grammar as two separate strata: they would be merely two facets of the content plane, interpreted on the one hand as function and on the other as form. 

David Rose On Form/Content Dualism [Revised]

David Rose wrote at 15:41 on 19/2/14 to sysfling:

Apologies if this is reposted. My last 3 posts in this string were received by individuals but apparently blocked from "sys-func (oz)".

...

This makes it clear that Halliday saw formalism as the dominant tradition in linguistics from its beginnings. His inversion is an historic step towards abandoning the form/content dualism altogether. 

I think this further step will take longer, because the container metaphor, from which the form/content dualism derives, is so deeply enmeshed in modern thinking. Matthiessen 1993 explores the 'long tradition of regarding language as a vehicle, container or wrapper of thoughts which arise in the individual’s mind.' 

SFL has abandoned the container model of language, but the form/content dualism it produced persists, re-construed as strata of 'wording' and 'meaning'.

Blogger Comments:

[0] Rose's messages to sys-func were not "blocked" — there is no filter in place on messages sent from subscribed addresses, and the list manager (muggins) received no "bounced message" alerts from the system software.  No-one is keener than the list manager to see Rose's messages, since he is the most prolific contributor of misconstruals of theory to this blog.

[1] To be clear, there is no form/content dualism to abandon, because form contrasts with function, and content contrasts with expression. Moreover, form is a feature of both content (lexicogrammar) and expression (phonology), and at each level, form is modelled as a rank scale.

[2] To be clear, since there is no form/content dualism, it is not derived from the 'container metaphor'. 

[3] By 'container metaphor', Rose may mean Reddy's conduit metaphor:

It operates whenever people speak or write as if they "insert" their mental contents (feelings, meanings, thoughts, concepts, etc.) into "containers" (words, phrases, sentences, etc.) whose contents are then "extracted" by listeners and readers. Thus, language is viewed as a "conduit" conveying mental content between people.

[4] To be clear, SFL Theory has never embraced the container model of language, and so has not abandoned it. This would be a trivial point, were it not for the fact that Rose is setting up this "abandonment" as a precedent for a second abandonment.

[5] This is very misleading, because it is very untrue, since the strata of wording (lexicogrammar) and meaning (semantics) are not a construal of form/content dualism, not least because the notion of 'form/content dualism' is a serious misunderstanding on Rose's part, as explained above ([1]).

More specifically, both wording and meaning constitute content, modelled as a content plane, and wording is grammatical form, modelled as a rank scale, interpreted in terms of its function of realising meaning, as exemplified by a verbal group (form) being interpreted as realising a process (function).

Halliday (1994: xvii, xx):

Halliday (2008: 180):

Thus the lexicogrammar — linguistic form — dimensionalises semantic space; and the grammatical system network theorises this process.

David Rose On Relations As Meaning

David Rose 22:37 17/2/14 to sys-func:

My view is the elaborate relational theory of meaning that has been developed in SFL, building on Saussure, Firth, Malinowski, Hjelmslev etc. One type of relation is valeur between features in systems, another is between these features and their structural realisations, another between these realisations and instantiations in text, another between unfolding structures in texts. These sets of relations are cycled through relations between functions and classes at each rank, and each stratum of language and social context. Meaning can't be taken out of these relations and defined as in a dictionary, the relations are the meanings.

Blogger Comments:

[1] A less confusing way to put this is: the valeur of a feature in a system is its relations to other features; the set of oppositions it contrasts with.  It is the feature that carries valeur.  The advantage of using the term 'valeur' is that it pinpoints a precise definition that would be obscured by the general term 'meaning'.  It also avoids the confusion that would arise in speaking of the "meaning" of a phonological feature such as [stop] or [velar].

[2] The relation between systems and structures is not "meaning", it is realisation: a relation between different levels of abstraction; e.g. the relation between syllable systems and syllable structures is not "meaning", it is the realisational relation between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes.

[3] To the extent to which this is coherent, the relation between 'structural realisations' and 'instantiations in text' is not "meaning", it is realisation as in [2]: i.e. the relation between  the paradigmatic — (instance of) the system — and syntagmatic axes.

[4] As [1,2,3] demonstrate, Rose's view is not that which has developed in SFL, just a misconstrual of it that fosters confusion.

David Rose On Meaning

At 13:17 on 17/2/14 David Rose to sys-func:

My point was similar, that 'the SFL model of grammar differs sharply from the traditional (formal) model of syntax' (which you've usefully discussed). To elaborate slightly, meaning is not simply a token/value relation between strata of 'wording' and 'meaning', but is construed through multiple relations of abstraction and generality within and between each stratum.

A model of lg content plane stratified into 'wording' and 'meaning' seems to me intermediate, both theoretically and historically, between the bricks-&-mortar model and the (post-60s) SFL model. It resembles Hjelmslev's 'content substance/content form' duality.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Rose's partial construal of meaning as "a token/value relation" between strata of 'wording' and 'meaning' is logically incoherent.  Compare: X is a relation between Y and X.

[2] The stratification of the content plane into wording and meaning is the "(post-60s) SFL model" — see Halliday (1985, 1994) and Halliday & Matthiessen (1999, 2004) — so it is logically incoherent to construe it as intermediate between itself and another model.  Compare: Z is intermediate between Y and Z.

David Rose On All Strata As Meaning

David Rose at 22:57 on 15/2/14 wrote to sys-func:

The SFL model is more elaborate, and further from the folk model... within each stratum, meaning is construed in relations between 1) systemic potentials and their structural instantiations, 2) functions and classes at each rank, and 3) unfolding structures (e.g. Subject^Finite). Within the grammar, clause rank functions like Actor, Process, Location are realised by classes of groups and phrases, and group rank functions like Deictic, Epithet, Thing are realised by classes of words, etc. The function labels denote types of meanings, whose valeur is mapped in relation to other functions, as systems at each rank. 

So the SFL model of grammar differs sharply from the traditional (formal) model of syntax, in that grammar is modelled as intrinsically meaningful. There seems a contradiction between this elaborate relational theory of meaning in SFL, and the synonymous term 'semantic' applied to just one stratum. 

As far as I can make out, we think not only in wordings and soundings (as you, Bill, Brad and Phil have suggested), but in discourse (as you imply here). I'd never argue that the content plane of lg is not stratified, but that each of these strata contributes a distinct layer of meanings to the whole.

Blogger Comments:

[1]  Here Rose makes his usual error of mistaking semogenesis (making meaning) for stratification (meaning as a level of symbolic abstraction), and ascribing 'meaning' to all strata — thereby nullifying the theoretical function of stratification.  Clearly, when Rose uses the wording 'meaning', he is expressing the meaning 'language'.  This can be demonstrated by paraphrasing his last clause as: each of these strata contributes a distinct layer of language to the whole — where his wording 'distinct layer' has the meaning 'level of symbolic abstraction'.  (Note that 'distinct layer' invites a misconstrual of 'stratum', as on the geological model.)

[2]  Rose again mistakes the relation between system and structure as instantiation instead of realisation.  The difference between instantiation and realisation can be characterised by the two kinds of relational process: instantiation is an attributive relation, whereas realisation is an identifying relation (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 14-5, 145).  Where realisation is a relation between a lower level of abstraction (Token) and a higher level (Value), instantiation is a class membership relation between a specimen (Carrier) and a species (Attribute); between a token and a type.  Clearly, a structure is not a specimen of 'system'; a structure is not a member of the class 'system'.

Halliday On Wording As 'Twice Cooked' Content

Halliday (1992: 23-5): 

The result [of the "explosion" into language] is a semiotic of a new kind: a stratified, tristratal system in which meaning is 'twice cooked', thus incorporating a stratum of 'pure' content form. It is natural to represent this, as I have usually done myself, as 'meaning realised by wording, which is in turn realised by sound'. But it is also rather seriously misleading. If we follow Lemke's lead, interpreting language as a dynamic open system, we can arrive at a theoretically more accurate and more powerful account. Here the key concept is Lemke's principle of metaredundancy. 

Consider a minimal semiotic system, such as a protolanguage — a system that is made up of simple signs. This is based on the principle of redundancy. When we say that contents p, q, r are "realised" respectively by expressions a, b, c, what this means is that there is a redundancy relation between them: given meaning p, we can predict sound or gesture a, and given sound or gesture a we can predict meaning p. This relationship is symmetrical; "redounds with" is equivalent both to "realises" and to "is realised by".

Let us now expand this into a non-minimal semiotic, one that is tri- rather than bi-stratal. The expressions a, b, c now realise WORDINGS l, m, n, while the wordings l, m, n realise MEANINGS p, q, r. In terms of redundancy, however, these are not two separate dyadic relationships. Rather, there is a METAredundancy such that p, q, r redounds not with l, m, n but with the redundancy of l, m, n with a, b, c; thus:

l, m, n ( a, b, c                                    p, q, r ( (l, m, n ( a, b, c)

Why has it to be like this? Because there is not, in fact, a chain of dyadic relationships running through the system. (If there was, we would not need the extra stratum.) It is not the case, in other words, that p ( l and l ( a.   p, q, r is realised by l, m, n; but the system at l, m, n is sorted out again for realisation by a, b, c, so that what p, q, r is actually realised by is the realisation of l, m, n by a, b, c.  This is the fundamental distinction between redundancy and causality. If realisation was a causal relation, then it would chain: l is caused by a and p is caused by l - it would make no sense to say "p is caused by the causing of l by a". But realisation is not a causal relation; it is a redundancy relation, so that p redounds with the redundancy of l with a. To put it in more familiar terms, it is not that (i) meaning is realised by wording and wording is realised by sound, but that (ii) meaning is realised by the realisation of wording in sound.

We can of course reverse the direction, and say that sounding realises the realisation of meaning in wording:

p, q, r ( l, m, n                                    (p, q, r ( l, m, n) ( a, b, c

For the purpose of phonological theory this is in fact the appropriate perspective, But for the purposes of construing the 'higher' levels, with language as connotative semiotic realising other semiotic systems of the culture, we need the first perspective. Thus when we extend 'upwards' to the context of situation, we can say that the context of situation s, t, u redounds with the redundancy of the discourse semantics p, q, r with the redundancy of the lexicogrammar l, m, n with the phonology a, b, c. Thus:

s, t , u ( (p, q, r, ( (l, m, n ( a, b, c))

Once the original protolinguistic redundancy has been transformed into metaredundancy in this way, the relation becomes an iterative one and so opens up the possibilities for construing, not only the context of situation, but also higher levels such as Hasan’s symbolic articulation and theme in verbal art, or Martin's strata of genre and ideology.

The metaredundancy notion thus formalises the stratal principle in semogenesis. What makes meaning indefinitely extendable is the evolutionary change from protolanguage to language — whereby instead of a simple plane with two interfaces to the material (the phenomenal), we have constructed a semiotic SPACE, a three-dimensional (potentially n-dimensional) system in which there is a purely symbolic mode of being between these two interfaces. It is this that we call grammar, or more explicitly lexicogrammar. Without this semiotic space, situated in the transduction from one purely symbolic mode to another, and hence not constrained by the need to interface directly with the phenomenal, we could not have a metafunctional organisation in the grammar, and we could not have the phenomenon of grammatical metaphor.

The metaredundancy theory explains the 'stratal' organisation of language, and the semiotic principle of realisation. It explains them synoptically: by treating realisation as a relation.