Thursday 7 May 2015

Misconstruing Embedded Things (And An Epithet) As Participants

Martin (1992: 133):
Another way in which nominal groups can expand their structural potential to realise more than one participant is through embedding in Pre-Deictic, Pre-Numerative, Pre-Epithet and Pre-Classifier positions (for the first two of these see Halliday 1985:174-175).  This can be exemplified as follows (embedded groups in bold face; see Martin 1988 for further discussion):
Pre-Deictic
the top of the mountain
Pre-Numerative
a pair of boots
Pre-Epithet
the tallest of the mountains
Pre-Classifier
that kind of gear

Blogger Comments:

[1] This again confuses the nominal group function of Thing with the generalised clause function of participant.  In these three examples, the confusion extends even to Things in embedded nominal groups serving as three types of Extended Numerative: Facet (Martin's Pe-Deictic), Aggregate (Martin's Pre-Numerative) and Variety (Martin's Pre-Classifier):

the
top
of
the
mountain
Premodifier
Head
Postmodifier
Numerative: facet
Deictic
Thing
Deictic
Thing




a
pair
of
boots
Premodifier
Head
Postmodifier
Numerative: aggregate
Thing
Deictic
Thing



that
kind
of
gear
Premodifier
Head
Postmodifier
Numerative: variety
Thing
Deictic
Thing




[2] In the remaining example, which is falsely presented as of the same type of structure as the other three, the confusion extends even further, to an Epithet/Head (Martin's Pre-Epithet) of a nominal group:

the
tallest
of
the
mountains
Premodifier
Head
Postmodifier
Deictic
Epithet
Qualifier



Deictic
Thing

For superlative Epithet as Head of a nominal group, see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 391).

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