Friday 31 July 2015

Misconstruing A Mood Adjunct (Temporality) As A Continuity Item [1]

Martin (1992: 230):
[4:162] CONJUNCTION Ben is here.
                                 Still I wonder if Flo is coming. 
            CONTINUITY    Ben has left.
                                 But Flo is still here.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The function of still is ambiguous here.  It is conjunctive only if its meaning is similar to 'yet':
Ben is here.  Yet I wonder if Flo is coming.
still ('yet')
I
wonder
conjunctive Adjunct
Subject
Finite
Predicator

Mood
Residue

However, if the clause is a textual agnate of:
Ben is here. I still wonder if Flo is coming.
I
still
wonder
Subject
mood Adjunct: temporality
Finite
Predicator
Mood
Residue

then still is functioning as a mood Adjunct of temporality (see Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 128), and does not mark a relation of conjunction with the previous message.

still
I
wonder
mood Adjunct: temporality
Subject
Finite
Predicator
Mood
Residue


[2] The function of still here is interpersonal: a mood Adjunct of temporality, and so it does not mark a logical (for Martin) relation of continuity.

but
Flo
is
still
here

Subject
Finite
mood Adjunct: temporality
circumstantial Adjunct

Mood
Residue