Misrepresenting Realisation And Preselection

Martin (1992: 390):

Within grammar, the problem of mapping different systems onto each other is handled by realisation.  Structures deriving from different metafunctional components are conflated and preselect options from constituent ranks until lexicogrammatical options are exhausted.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is untrue. Conflation is not realisation. The relation between the different metafunctional systems on the lexicogrammatical stratum is not one of realisation.  Realisation is the relation between different levels of symbolic abstraction, as between strata, between function and form and between system and structure.  The metafunctional systems on the lexicogrammatical stratum are of the same level of symbolic abstraction.  The metafunctions on the lexicogrammatical stratum are different perspectives on the same phenomenon: wording.

[2] This is untrue.  Structures do not preselect options.  The selection of a feature of a paradigmatic system can preselect a feature of a system on a lower stratum (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 378-9), and, across axes, paradigmatic specifications can select syntagmatic specifications (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 94).  The latter has been renamed 'eco-functional selection' (ibid.).