Sunday 10 May 2015

Another Reference Chain Of Non-Participant And Participant

Martin (1992: 137-8):
Similarly, the nominal groups realising Circumstances of Extent, or filling Pre-Deictic, Pre-Numerative, Pre-Epithet or Pre-Classifier positions may be taken up as participants in a discourse, although the textual motivation for selecting a nominal group realisation may not have been to introduce a new participant in the first place.  This is illustrated with respect to Pre-Numeratives in [3:75].
[3:75] I got two jars of mulberry jam.
           — Let's see them / I hate it.

Blogger Comments:

Here again Martin violates his own model in its own terms by proposing a reference chain between a non-participant (pre-Numerative: two jars) and a participant (them).

To be clear, in SFL theory, the reference item them makes anaphoric personal co-reference to the referent two jars of mulberry jam (just as the reference item it makes anaphoric personal co-reference to the referent mulberry jam).

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