Monday 3 August 2015

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

Martin (1992: 231):
[4:165] CONJUNCTION Ben will run
                                 even if I have to drag him there. 
            CONTINUITY    Ben beat Lindley.
                                 He even beat Carl.

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, this is not conjunction, a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction, but a structural relation of the logical metafunction.  The logico-semantic relation in the clause complex is concessive condition and marked by even if.

[2] The function of even here is interpersonal: a mood Adjunct of intensity (counterexpectancy: exceeding), and so it does not mark a continuity relation with the previous message.

He
even
beat
Carl
Subject
mood Adjunct: intensity
Finite
Predicator
Complement
Mood
Residue