Misrepresenting The Grammatical Realisation Of Discourse Semantic Conjunction

Martin (1992: 404):

CONJUNCTION was presented in Chapter 4 as the semantics of the clause complex and is oriented to activity sequences in field.  The way in which CONJUNCTION is realised however (between clause complexes, within clause complexes or within clauses) is very sensitive to mode.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously demonstrated, the system of conjunction does not model the semantics of the clause complex.  Instead, it confuses clause complex relations (logical metafunction) and cohesive conjunction (textual metafunction) and excludes several logical relations, the most important of which is projection.  This omission of projection follows from taking cohesive conjunction as the point of departure, since this system is the textual deployment of expansion.

[2] 'To be oriented' is to be positioned in a direction relative to something or someplace else.  The theoretical relation between two levels of symbolic abstraction, such as semantics and context, is realisation.

[3] The system of conjunction (Chapter 4) was not identified with regard to 'activity sequences in field' (Chapter 5).  Instead, temporal clause complex relations were said to realise the field system 'activity sequence', whose feature options were expectancy (realised by and (then) versus implication (realised by if/then).  No discourse semantic system was identified in the discussion (pp321-5).

[4] The notion of clause complex relations within clauses is a logical contradiction.  See the original critique here.

[5] In SFL theory, the realisation of the contextual system of mode in textual meaning and wording  — e.g. cohesive conjunction — varies according to register.