David Rose Misconstruing Nominal Groups, A Subjacency Duplex, And 'Instantiate'

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 11 Feb 2024, at 15:08:

Subjacency duplexes are dependency structures that are not recursive (not hypotactic series)

 

Proportionality first...

some days ago : some of those days long ago ::

adv gp : nom gp 

Also...

a little while ago : an example of those days a little while ago ::

adv gp : nom gp

 

Adverbial group structure is Modifier^Head 

long	ago
b	a

This is a subjacency duplex with adverb as Head. (Ago can only instantiate the Head.)

 

The Modifier can be an embedded nom gp 

[a little while]	ago
b	a
nom gp

Here [a little while] specifies how long ago.

 Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, these are nominal groups and cannot be adverbial groups (see [4]).

[2] To be clear, even if subjacency duplex were a valid type of structure, this does not satisfy its condition of not being expandable beyond a single modifier, e.g. not so very long ago. In SFL terms, this is simply an adverbial group 'with adverb as Head'. 

[3] This seriously misunderstands 'instantiate'. Instantiation is the relation between potential and instance. The relation here is between a word and its function as Head at group rank, which is realisation.

[4] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the Premodifier of an adverbial group cannot be an embedded nominal group because it is inconsistent with the characterisation of an adverbial group having no lexical premodification. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 419-20):

The adverbial group has an adverb as Head, which may or may not be accompanied by modifying elements. … Premodifiers are grammatical items like not and rather and so; there is no lexical premodification in the adverbial group. … The items serving as Premodifiers are adverbs belonging to one of three types – polarity (not), comparison (more, less; as, so) and intensification.

David Rose On Interstratal Tension And A Structure Not Covered By IFG

David Rose summed up the preceding discussion on asflanet on 11 Feb 2024, at 09:25:

Annabelle’s first question was a great illustration. It distilled a complex explanation of the earth’s origin into a process with a couple of circumstances, which made us question the simple analysis of Actor, Process, Means and Time. This interstratal tension has been a focus of SFL research in recent years, especially Jing Hao’s and Yaegan Doran’s work on science.

Annabelle’s second question then revealed that the Time circumstance had a structure that is not covered in IFG. Personally, that made me look more closely at both the example, and what Halliday had to say about its grammatical domain. Alternative suggestions by Rosemary, Chris and Annabelle made me look even harder.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Annabelle's first question was

I'm keen to hear thoughts on the analysis of this clause:

The earth formed some 4,600 years ago from a vast cloud of gas and dust.

[2] This is misleading, because it is not true. This is the structure of the clause:

Although this analysis was questioned by David Banks, it was done so on the basis of theoretical misunderstandings, as previously demonstrated here.

[3] This is misleading, because it is not true. There is no "interstratal tension" here. This is a happening figure realised by a material clause, its congruent realisation.

[4] This is misleading, because it is not true. On the principles provided in IFG, this structure is simply a nominal group:

[5] To be clear, Rose did not need to look at all, let alone more closely or even harder. Rosemary provided the IFG interpretation of the structure as a nominal group, and ChRIS provided the evidence that the structure could not possibly be an adverbial group, as Rose would maintain, on the principles provided in IFG.

Pin Wang's Argument For A Nominal Group Being Adverbial

Pin Wang wrote to asflanet on 7 Feb 2024, at 21:20:

I agree with David on this one. From above, a Qualifier serves to identify an entity, answering which Thing is being talked about.

E.g.

- Which children?

- The children [in blue hats].

But not:

- Which years?

- Some 4,600 years [ago].

So not a nominal group, but an adverbial group. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, socially, this is one member of Martin's community supporting another.

[2] To be clear, a Qualifier serves to characterise, not identify. Its function is experiential, not textual. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 382):

… the Qualifier also has the function of characterising the Thing; and again the Deictic the serves to signal that the characteristic in question is defining.

[3] To be clear, viewed 'from above', the meaning that the embedded adverbial group ago expresses is 'time: past'. In this nominal group, it characterises the Thing years as 'in the past', as opposed to 'in the future', the latter expressed by the nominal group some 4,600 years hence.

Which children? children in blue hats
Which years? years ago.

[4] To be clear, on all the evidence, this is simply a nominal group. But more to the point, it cannot be an adverbial group, because its premodification is not limited to grammatical items expressing polarity, comparison and intensification. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 419-22):

The adverbial group has an adverb as Head, which may or may not be accompanied by modifying elements. … Premodifiers are grammatical items like not and rather and so; there is no lexical premodification in the adverbial group. … The items serving as Premodifiers are adverbs belonging to one of three types – polarity (not), comparison (more, less; as, so) and intensification.

David Rose's Argument For A Nominal Group Being Adverbial

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 7 Feb 2024, at 19:20:

You can still hear MAKH’s 1985 IFG wording here (emphases his)...

6.2.2.2 Qualifier

What of the element which follows the Thing? The original example, Look at those two splendid old electric trains with pantographs, ended with the phrase with pantographs; this also is part of the nominal group, having a function we shall refer to as Qualifier.

Unlike the elements that precede the Thing, which are words (or sometimes word complexes, like two hundred, very big; see Section 6.3.2), what follows the Thing is either

a phrase or a clause.

... With only rare exceptions, all Qualifiers are rankshifted.

... Like the other, ‘ranking’ (i.e. non-embedded) elements of the nominal group, the Qualifier also has the function of characterising the Thing; and again the Deictic the serves to signal that the characteristic in question is defining.

In some 4,600 years ago, it’s not the adverb ago that is rankshifted, but the nominal group some 4,600 years. The adverb ago doesn’t ‘characterise’ or define the Thing years. Rather some 4,600 years specifies ‘how long ago’.

This is brought out by proportionalities like...

how long ago : how far away ::

very long ago : so far away ::

some 4,600 years ago : about 4,600 miles away

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, there are many common examples of Qualifiers that are not rankshifted. For example:

• the shortest distance possible
• the most ludicrous hypothesis imaginable
• the time available
• the truth unvarnished
• a people abandoned
• life everlasting
• something unexpected
• anything unusual

In any case, the adverbial group ago is rank-shifted, to the rank of word, since it serves as an element of nominal group structure.

[2] To be clear, 4,600 years is not rankshifted. The adverbial group ago serves as Qualifier in the nominal group because it characterises the Thing years as 'time: past', in contradistinction to the adverbial group hence, which would characterise the Thing years as 'time: future'.

On the other hand, unlike the constituents of a genuine adverbial group, the words 4,600 years are not adverbs of polarity, comparison or intensification that serve as premodifiers of ago. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 419-22) explain:

The adverbial group has an adverb as Head, which may or may not be accompanied by modifying elements. … Premodifiers are grammatical items like not and rather and so; there is no lexical premodification in the adverbial group. … The items serving as Premodifiers are adverbs belonging to one of three types – polarity (not), comparison (more, less; as, so) and intensification.

[3]  To be clear, the first two lines satisfy the conditions of being adverbial groups, since each features an adverb as Head premodified by adverbs of intensification. The last line, however, does not satisfy these conditions, and simply shows nominal groups with a temporal Qualifier, as previously explained. A single form, ago or away, is insufficient evidence of a common function structure. A structure is the relation among functional elements.

David Rose Misconstruing Nominal Groups As Adverbial Groups

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 6 Feb 2024, at 22:52:

some 4,600 years ago : Time ::

about 4,600 miles away : Place

(adverbial gps)

But what’s the group structure? Maybe...

some	4,600	years	ago
b			a
Num		Thing
b	a

and then again on 7 Feb 2024, 08:25:

Is it the nom gp serving as Premodifier that makes them look like nom gps?

Here with just adverbs...

Long ago and so far away....

long	ago	and	so	far	away
Time			Place
adv gp			adv gp
b	a		b		a
adv	adv		adv	adv	adv

 

Here with nom gp as Premodifier

some	4,600	years	ago
Time
adv gp
b			a
nom gp
Num		Thing
b	a

and then again on 7 Feb 2024, at 13:59:

Interestingly IFG contains many instances with adverb ago/away as Head and nom gp as Premodifier but doesn't attempt to analyse them, even tho they are so common. Of the three types of adv gp Premodifiers listed, they realise [intensification] metaphorically (perhaps one of Whorf’s SAE cryptotypes). E.g.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, these are nominal groups and cannot be adverbial groups. As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 419-22) explain:

The adverbial group has an adverb as Head, which may or may not be accompanied by modifying elements. … Premodifiers are grammatical items like not and rather and so; there is no lexical premodification in the adverbial group. … The items serving as Premodifiers are adverbs belonging to one of three types – polarity (not), comparison (more, less; as, so) and intensification. … Postmodification is of one type only, namely comparison.

[2] To be clear, applying SFL Theory, the structure of these nominal groups is: 

[3] This is misleading because it is untrue. Applying SFL Theory, these examples are simply nominal groups:

David Banks On Effected/Affected

 After Annabelle Lukin wrote asflanet on 5 Feb 2024 at 11:56:

I'm keen to hear thoughts on the analysis of this clause:

The earth formed some 4,600 years ago from a vast cloud of gas and dust.

David Banks replied on asflanet on 5 Feb 2024, at 19:41:

If "formed" is a creative process, and "the earth" is what is created, it can't exist before the process takes place. So it can't be the actor of that process. My memory tells me that somewhere (but I haven't got a refrerence to hand) Halliday talks about an "effected" - the participant created by a process (as opposed to an "affected" - the participant altered by a process). To avoid any confusion, with my (non-anglophone) students I used to use the term "result". I would suggest that "the earth" is effected/result.

Blogger Comments:

[1] See the clause analysis here.

[2] To be clear, in terms of ergativity, The Earth is the Medium of the Process formed, which, in an intransitive clause is the Actor.

[3] To be clear, the affectum/effectum distinction applies to transitive clauses, not intransitive clauses. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 148):

The subtypes that have been generally recognised in grammar are (1) intransitive/transitive; (2) within intransitive, action/event; and (3) within transitive, effectum/affectum. … The third is the distinction between a Goal that 'exists' prior to the doing of the deed (affectum: Mary threw the ball) and one that is brought into existence by the doing (effectum: Jack built a house). We shall use this distinction, referred to as dispositive/creative, to explain figures of doing in terms of their outcome in other figures.

[4] To be clear, this only creates confusion, since "effected" applies only to transitive clauses, and 'result' is a type of Cause circumstance, not a participant.

On the other hand, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 149) classify subtypes of figures of doing according to outcome:

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.

David Kellogg On Viewers Of Cave Paintings Not Requiring Language

David Kellogg wrote to sys-func on 5 Dec 2023, at 00:17:

Implicit in Halliday's last two sentences is either:

a) Prelinguistic infants are not engaged in human semiosis, or.

b) Language exists from birth.

It seems to me that both of these are clearly false.

Instead of Mondrian, consider the attached cave painting. Imagine that the floor of the cave preserves the footprints of the artists who made this mural.

1. The involuntary meaning of the footprints of the artists who made the mural. This seems no different from the meaning that deer tracks convey to a non-human predator. 

2. The intentional meaning of the picture of the herdsmen (hunters?) recording their labor. This seems very different, as it invites (because its intention is to allow) the viewer to "reverse engineer" the story, for amusement or profit. 

3. The strategically placed hand print done in red ochre. This too seems different again: although it resembles 1) in form and 2) in intension, it probably signals authorship and in that sense has a textual as well as an interpersonal function.

None of these seem to me to require the Hallidayan assumption that the viewer possesses language. All of them merely require the Vygotskyan assumption that the object (or "objective") can be inferred from the remains of the object-oriented action.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the last two sentences in the quote (Halliday 2003: 4) were:

All that needs to be said in the present context is that other human semiotics are dependent on the premise that their users also have language. Language is a prerequisite; but there is no need to insist that language can mean it all.

[2] To be clear, neither of these propositions are implicit in the quote, since Halliday's 'present context' is a discussion of human 'post-infancy' semiotic systems.

[3] This is true, as demonstrated by Halliday's extensive work on human protolanguage.

[4] To be clear, the observation of deer tracks by a non-human predator is, according to Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, simply perceptual categorisation on value. No linguistic meaning is involved. The observation of footprints by humans is the construal of experience as the first-order meaning of language.

[5] To be clear, according to comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell, cave paintings are expressions of mythic symbolism, and mythic symbolism is the use of (lexical) metaphor to adapt consciousness to its physical and social environments, which requires that the participants had language — as does the fact that the painting is, at most, only about 13,000 years old.

[6] To be clear, the cave painting is to be found in The Cave Of Hands, in Argentina, and since, according to comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell, such sites were used for male initiation rites in hunter-gatherer societies, the great number of hand images in this cave might be taken to suggest that they identify the initiates in those rituals. Again, this demonstrates that the participants had language.

[7] As the above demonstrates, this is the exact opposite of what is true. All three require that the human participants had language, and the dating of the cave art provides corroborating evidence.

Ed McDonald On What SFL Should Be Working Towards

Edward McDonald wrote to sys-func on 27 Nov 2023, at 10:05:

So if I think we always need to look outside language in order to understand language … equally I think we need to look outside SFL in order to understand what we are doing within SFL. 

The days of the grand all-encompassing theory, the Theory of Everything which I note the physicists are still struggling towards, for me are well over, even if you put aside the historical accident that it was a man deeply UNinterested in language as she languages, i.e. Old Noam, who was responsible for the best known of such theories in our current academic ecology. 

How can one theory be social, cognitive, pure, applied, etc etc all at the same time? It seems to me that it would be far more helpful — not to mention more feasible — for (at least) two complementary theories that start out from completely different premises to somehow manage to meet in the middle, and that this is what those of us working within SFL should be working towards creating a space for, a space that needs to be both practical and intellectual, both ideational and interpersonal. …

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, on the assumption of 'immanence', which informs SFL, there can be no final theory, because there is no meaning beyond semiotic systems that theories can finally equal. Instead, theories are evolving semiotic systems, and the open-ended process of evolution entails that there is no final state of such a system.

[2] To be clear, a theory of everything in physics would unify the General Theory of Relativity (modelling gravity) with Quantum Theory (modelling the other three forces). See Quantum Gravity Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics.

[3] To be clear, these are not components of an 'all-encompassing' theory. 'Social' and 'cognitive' are different priorities in theorising, though not mutually exclusive, whereas 'pure' and 'applied' is the distinction between theorising and applying a theory to practical purposes.

[4] To be clear, after dismissing the pursuit of a theory of everything, as exemplified by physicists, here McDonald advocates that SFL should do precisely the sort of thing that physicists are trying to do: make two complementary theories, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, meet in the middle in a theory of quantum gravity.

Ed McDonald On The Interpersonal Motivation Of Model Selection

Edward McDonald wrote to sys-func on 27 Nov 2023, at 10:05:

In this regard, members of this and other lists may have noticed that I seem to talk about my own experience a lot. But I hope they will also have noticed that I do so not to stress the particularity of my experience but rather its representativeness. I don't think my own experiences are special: I just think we're all far more affected by our own experience in the process of developing our academic thinking than we often like to admit. For example, in observing and reflecting on how people take up and adapt ideas of all kinds, including theories of language, I have become convinced that, whatever may be the purposes for which such ideas end up being used, the reasons for which they're taken up are far more likely to be interpersonal than ideational: because people you admire hold them, or because they're held by a group you want to join, or because they're being used for a practical/political/ideological project with which you're aligned.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this is indeed a very serious problem within the SFL community, given that SFL theory, as created by Halliday, is a scientific theory; see What Lies Beneath.

See also, from The Evolution Of Models on The Life Of Meaning:

Controlling Variation: Institutions As Model Reproduction Nurseries

Acting On Each Other: Modulation And Modalisation

Metafunctional Consistency And Selection

Ideational Consistency As Overtly Influencing The Probability Of Selection

Interpersonal And Textual Consistency As Covertly Influencing The Probability Of Selection

Social Immunological Systems

Communities As Bodies Organised By Shared Construals, Values And Attentions

Semiosis As Social Immunological Process